'Blood' work: digging up a mansion's mystery

Set designers have long transformed the house to make believable -- and almost unrecognizable -- environments for everyone from Austin Powers to Spider-Man to the Big Lebowski. Look close enough and you'll recognize the intricate carved-oak balustrade in the entry, the black and white marble in the hall, rich wood paneling and 18-foot-tall leaded-glass windows that offer sweeping views of the city below.

But it was the history of the home and its intrigue that inspired the team behind "There Will Be Blood," Fisk says.

"It permeates the air," he says. "You get ideas you wouldn't normally get if you were working on a cold stage."

As Day-Lewis worked in this storied location, his character became more finely focused.

"We wanted to reinforce [Daniel's] performance visually and help solidify the character," set decorator Jim Erickson says. To make Plainview's imposing study look lived in, Erickson says, "we kept adding things." They brought in a Victorian settee for Plainview to camp out on and a pot for him to urinate in. The costume designer gave him a pair of holey shoes. In the end, these details tell us, the successful oil baron hadn't left his prospector days far behind.

Another scene, in which Plainview sets up a hallway as a shooting range for target practice, was entirely sparked by the space itself -- and vividly reveals the state of Plainview's declining mental health.

Although inspiring, a historically important home can also be limiting.

"The Beverly Hills parks guards are real protective of the property," Fisk says. "You can't make structural changes that can't be restored." And you can't paint over carved wood or nail anything into the walls. Fisk went to great lengths to show the guard that the paint used to make "hundreds of hits" on the wood and other surfaces during the target-practice scene was easily removed.

"The last thing you want to do is damage these places that are already very fragile," Erickson says. And when you're restoring a historic room, you want to make sure you get it right. This responsibility weighed on the team as it worked on the decrepit bowling alley.

The crew could have constructed a bowling alley on a set -- one with expandable walls, a removable ceiling and plenty of room for a large crew and lots of equipment. But, Lupi says, Thomas Anderson wanted a real location. Lupi went to the city of Beverly Hills and pitched an idea: We'll renovate the bowling alley in exchange for a discount on Greystone's rental fee for filming. The city agreed.