Why The Motel From The Umbrella Academy Looks So Familiar
Over the course of its daring first season, Netflix's compelling series The Umbrella Academy boldly re-imagined what superhero stories could be, frequently eschewing grandiose genre tropes in favor of smaller-scale drama. Based on an award-winning graphic novel by Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá, The Umbrella Academy finds an estranged family of supers reconnecting after the death of their "adoptive" father — a billionaire industrialist who assembled them to become a crime-fighting team. This super powered group, though, no longer works or plays well together; as such, The Umbrella Academy become a sort of anti-X-Men.
Set in an unnamed, neo-gothic metropolis, season one of The Umbrella Academy brought our would-be heroes back together just in time to face an apocalyptic event that will leave humanity in utter shambles. You'll just have to watch the series if you want to know if said apocalypse is averted, and as you binge the first season, you'll probably recognize a few familiar faces among the cast of The Umbrella Academy. If you live in the Toronto area, though (where the show is shot), you're bound to recognize a couple of local landmarks as well.
A few eagle-eyed Redditors have pointed out a very specific landmark that's quite visible in The Umbrella Academy's inaugural season: a certain little hotel that's a character of its own in the hit Pop TV comedy Schitt's Creek. That series tells the story of a wealthy family reduced to near-poverty after their business manager dupes them out of a fortune. As they seek to rebuild their lives, the family relocates to the nowhere town of Schitt's Creek, which they'd actually purchased as a joke years earlier. There, they take up residence in the run-down Rosebud Motel to try to start anew.
The motel from The Umbrella Academy and Schitt's Creek is a tourist attraction
Yes, Schitt's Creek's Rosebud is the exact same motel-slash-set that The Umbrella Academy's doughnut-loving assassin Hazel (Cameron Britton) and his new lady love Agnes (Sheila McCarthy) seek refuge in when Hazel decides to leave his cold-blooded killing days in the past. Of course, those same Redditors were also quick to point out that the famed lodge is in tip-top shape for its high profile appearance on The Umbrella Academy (in stark contrast to its more ramshackle look on Schitt's Creek).
Those Redditors are not the only ones who noticed the Rosebud's appearance on the show, with Schitt's Creek co-creator Dan Levy actually responding to a Twitter fan who picked up on the motel's cameo in episode of The Umbrella Academy. When asked if it was, indeed, the Rosebud that Hazel and Agnes stop off at, Levy Tweeted back, "YES!" He then admonished the new occupants to "GET OFF MY LAWN, THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY!" adding further that the Schitt's Creek crew had actually hand painted all the colored bricks adoring the front of the motel.
As it happens, the Rosebud Motel (located about an hour North of Toronto) has become a bit of cultural landmark in the Canadian landscape, even serving as a tourist destination for avid fans of the show. If you count yourself among those fans and are hot to get yourself a Rosebud selfie next time you're in the Toronto area, the motel has even earned itself a spot on Google Maps, though you'll need to search "Schitt's Creek Motel" to find it.
There's another familiar landmark in The Umbrella Academy as well
The Rosebud Motel is actually not the first location Team Netflix recycled in the first season of The Umbrella Academy. The other landmark location even turns up the very same episode that the Rosebud makes its appearance: it's the Hargreeves' cabin in the woods where Vanya (Ellen Page) and Leonard (John Magaro) try to hone the confused woman's newfound powers. Some savvy viewers were quick to key on that location, as it had recently made an appearance in another Netflix original, the Mads Mikkelsen-starring thriller Polar. It's actually the very same cabin that serves as home to Vanessa Hudgens' character (with the cabin's Toronto location standing in for Montana in the movie).
This cabin has featured prominently in several small screen works over the years. It first appeared in a season 3 episode of the brilliant, cancelled-too-soon NBC horror-drama Hannibal, and turned up a couple of years later on a season 1 episode Hulu's Emmy-winning drama series The Handmaid's Tale — which probably means that the owners of said cabin are making an absolute killing by leasing out that gorgeous wrap-around porch when they're not occupying it themselves.