LITTLE ROCK WILL REMAIN IN LIMELIGHT

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, January 23, 1993                   TAG: 9301230222
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
LITTLE ROCK WILL REMAIN IN LIMELIGHT
Just because the Clintons have left Arkansas doesn't mean that Little Rock will fade from view. Even if the new First Family doesn't have time to watch television, millions of other Americans will be tuning in.
Three Little Rock houses, including the governor's mansion, are regularly seen on two hit series produced by Harry Thomason and Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, Clinton pals and co-chairs of the Inaugural Committee. Thomason is a native Arkansan, and the West Coast-based couple owns a house in Little Rock.
One of the residences in the klieg lights is the 1883 Wilson-Mehaffey house. The white frame house with a huge front porch is Burt Reynolds' place on "Evening Shade," a situation comedy set in a small Arkansas town of the same name. According to Steve Roth, Bloodworth-Thomason's assistant, only the exterior was shot in Little Rock. The interior was filmed in a Burbank studio.
For good reason, says Townsend Wolfe, director of the Arkansas Arts Center and the owner of the house. "The inside of my house looks nothing like it does on `Evening Shade,' " Wolfe says. "I've got 14-foot ceilings, loads of books and lots of modern art including a nice Louise Nevelson sculpture." The character Reynolds plays - coach Wood Newton - keeps a duck lithograph over the mantel and a jukebox on the porch.
Loyal followers of another sitcom, "Designing Women," may be surprised to learn that the Italianate Victorian house that has set the scene since 1986 is located in Little Rock, not Atlanta.
Just eight blocks northeast of the Wilson-Mehaffey house, Villa Marre (pronounced Marie) portrays the headquarters of Sugarbaker & Associates, the decorating firm featured in the series. The house, now restored, was built in 1881 by a saloonkeeper. Its real-life High Victorian decor, right down to the lace curtains and stenciled walls, would not have fit the Sugarbaker image any better than Wolfe's would have suited Coach Newton's.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB