A location scout may start the day searching for a historic estate and end it looking for a downtown street that can double for another city. Tomorrow’s list might include a college campus, a government office, a stretch of coastline and a suburban home. Every script brings a different set of needs.
For film and television productions, Westchester County’s mix of versatile filming locations, manageable travel distances and qualified production facilities (QPFs) can make it easier to find—and move between—the many settings a story requires. With much of the County located within the NYC film zone, productions can access that variety while remaining within an established production footprint.
Here are 10 of the many looks filmmakers can find across Westchester.
1. Historic & Period Filming Locations
Westchester County offers historic filming locations representing a wide range of architectural periods and styles. Grand estates, historic mansions, country clubs and preserved institutional buildings provide productions with period interiors, architecture and landscapes.
For HBO’s “The Gilded Age,” both interiors and portions of the grounds at Lyndhurst, in Tarrytown, have played prominent roles.
The Hudson River Museum in Yonkers offers a different kind of versatility: its contemporary museum architecture sits alongside Glenview, a historic Gilded Age home. Apple TV+’s “Severance” used the property to create Lumon Industries’ Perpetuity Wing, demonstrating how dramatically different looks can exist at the same location.
2. Urban & Downtown Filming Locations
Westchester County’s location inventory includes distinctly urban settings. The County’s larger municipalities, including Mount Vernon, New Rochelle, White Plains and Yonkers, offer high-rises, offices, plazas, garages, civic architecture and busy commercial streets. Across these communities, older architecture sits alongside contemporary development.
White Plains locations, for example, stand in frequently for settings in New York City, Boston, and Washington, D.C. For productions that need street activity, office towers or a metropolitan backdrop, Westchester offers a range of urban environments without leaving the County.
3. Government, Civic & Institutional Filming Locations
Westchester’s government, civic and institutional buildings can provide productions with a variety of municipal, legal, medical and office settings—and sometimes become something else entirely.
The Michaelian Office Building in White Plains has been used to create municipal, legal and federal government settings for productions including “Succession” (HBO), “FBI” (CBS) and “City on a Hill” (Showtime).
For “Disclosure Day,” Greenburgh Public Library was transformed into a fictional hospital. With production design, signage and picture vehicles, the contemporary library provided the setting the story required without filming inside an operating medical facility.
4. College Campuses & Academic Filming Locations
Westchester’s college campuses can provide multiple filming looks—and production support—within a single property.
Purchase College, Pace University, Iona University, SUNY Westchester Community College and other campuses combine academic buildings, residences, performance spaces, athletic facilities, laboratories, roadways and landscaped grounds, along with space that can support parking, trailers and base camp operations.
And they don’t have to play colleges. A clearing at Purchase College became a Vietnam-era Army base for Steven Spielberg’s feature film “The Post,” while its Performing Arts Center supplied a concert setting for “Marry Me.” SUNY Westchester Community College offers another kind of contrast, pairing the historic Hartford Hall with the contemporary Gateway Center on the same campus.
5. Waterfront & Coastal Filming Locations
Westchester County offers two distinct waterfront environments: the Hudson River along its western edge and Long Island Sound to the southeast. Along the Sound Shore, productions can find beaches, harbors, marshland and waterfront parks, while Hudson River communities offer broad river views and landscapes shaped by the Palisades.
Glen Island Park in New Rochelle combines shoreline, lawns and historic architecture, while Manursing Island in Rye provided the upscale coastal setting needed to stand in for a Montauk beach club in “No Hard Feelings.” On the other side of the County, Amazon’s “Modern Love” took advantage of Hudson River views for filming.
6. Residential Filming Locations, Estates & Private Clubs
The variety of Westchester County’s housing stock is another draw for film and television productions. Filmmakers can find everything from familiar suburban homes and neighborhood streets to historic residences, grand estates and architecturally distinctive properties.
In Pleasantville’s Usonia community, the mid-century modern Bier House became the home of Devon and Ricken in Apple TV+’s “Severance.” For “The Goldfinch,” a Rye home became the foundation for a setting meant to be on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, with the production constructing what it needed—including an elevator—inside the property.
The C.V. Rich Mansion in White Plains offers another kind of flexibility. For FX’s “Feud: Capote vs. The Swans,” its historic interiors, courtyard and grounds helped create a Jamaican vacation setting, demonstrating how an accommodating property can be adapted to meet very different creative needs.
7. Rural, Green & Natural Filming Locations
Westchester County’s farms, parks, gardens, wooded areas and open landscapes give productions access to rural and natural settings within relatively short distances of its urban centers.
Sundial Farm in Ossining was among the Westchester locations selected for Netflix’s “The Diplomat,” while the waterfalls and rugged landscape of Croton Gorge Park provide a dramatic backdrop.
8. Filming Locations That Can Double for Somewhere Else
Here’s where Westchester’s versatility gets especially interesting: sometimes the County doesn’t play New York at all.
Westchester filming locations have doubled for destinations across the United States and around the world. Playland in Rye helped create a scene set in 1950s Cairo for “Marty Supreme,” with production design and visual effects completing the transformation. Yonkers’ Untermyer Gardens created a formal, European landscape for Apple TV+’s “The Crowded Room.”
Westchester County Airport doubled for airports and tarmacs in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Virginia and New Jersey in HBO’s “Succession.” Glen Island Bridge in New Rochelle has stood in for St. Petersburg, Russia, in CBS’s “Person of Interest,” while the former Pace campus in Briarcliff helped create the Canadian border for “The Instigators.”
9. “Main Street USA” Filming Locations
Westchester’s downtowns, village centers and neighborhood commercial districts offer productions restaurants, storefronts, offices, train stations and streetscapes that can create familiar, lived-in settings.
In Apple TV+’s “Your Friends & Neighbors,” Westchester gets to play itself, with restaurants and local businesses helping create the recognizable downtown and neighborhood settings at the center of the series.
Other productions have used those familiar environments to create fictional communities. For “The Girl on the Train” (Universal Pictures), train stations and commercial areas across several Westchester communities came together to create the fictional “Ardsley-on-Hudson.” For Netflix’s “The Irishman,” a rest stop at V.E. Macy Park was reimagined as a 1950s Stuckey’s/Texaco service area.
10. Studios & Qualified Production Facilities
Westchester County’s studios and stages complement its on-location filming options with soundstages and customizable production spaces.
The County’s facilities include 8 qualified production facilities and range from large-scale soundstages to smaller facilities offering green screens and cycloramas, customizable interiors, production offices, prep kitchens and other production support. Great Point Studios in Yonkers provides significant stage and production infrastructure, while other facilities serve productions ranging from film and television to commercials and specialized shoots.
Together, these facilities give productions the ability to combine practical locations with controlled studio environments without leaving the region.
Looking for your next location? Explore Westchester County’s film locations and production resources, or connect with Westchester County Tourism & Film to find the right setting for your production.