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Then, she says, We fell in love right away.
She was 16, he was 17.
They were together the rest of his life.
They got married, had kids, and eventually, the kids had kids.
He did so well that he was able to buy the paper company.
They were middle-aged, comfortable, and financially secure.
It was time to upgrade.
Where I came from, that was like a mansion, she says.
Three decades later, the house would enchant another pair of New Yorkers moving up in the world.
The houses were too much, said Samson Jacobson, the movies location manager.
They were these knockoff Italian mini-mansions.
Just really, really tacky.
This was not the vibe the Safdies had in mind for Howard.
Howards world was theSharper Imagecatalogue, Jacobson explained.
Luckily, Rose did not make many changes to her 80s dream house.
I keep it in great shape, she said.
Everything is taken care of.
After Marvin died in 2005, she kept living there in the summers.
(She spends winters in Florida.)
When youve had a wonderful husband, youre not interested in anything else.
Rose wasnt exactly a film buff, but it sounded like a good idea.
No matter how much you have, its never enough.
She was old-school, Regan recalled.
Rose didnt just send an email, she also wrote a letter.
Regan showed up, took some photos, and added the house to her listings.
They had some bites from productions, but for a while, nothing ever came of it.
In this business, youre the bridesmaid more often than youre the bride, Regan says.
And she was the bridesmaid a lot of times.
Its supposed to represent cozy upper-middle-class domesticity, but still retain that essential Howard Ratner ambiance.
When she showed him Roses home, he thought,This is the one.
Her living room was this big open space with sharp right angles, Jacobson says.
The shapes are very much Trapper Keeper shapes spheres, curved rectangles as opposed to hard corners.
They reserve the hard corners for triangular angles.
Besides its perfectly preserved period design, the house itself turned out to be an uncut gem.
In locations as in characters, the Safdies love places that vibrate on their own specific wavelength.
She found the crew very accommodating.
They fixed some water problems she was having, and left it spotless after they were done.
She even got to meet the cast.
Adam Sandler, the way hes in movies, hes the same way in public, she says.
He would sing, tell jokes.
He has a mother the same age as me in Florida.
The two young boys, theyre so sweet.
Theyre both very nice, too.
I got their backgrounds: One has a child, and the other one doesnt.
The people that work for them tell me theyre very good directors.
The crew was charmed in return.
Rose couldnt have been sweeter, and it couldnt have been easier to deal with her, Jacobson says.
Sometimes she was even a little too helpful.
Often during filming, Rose would see a cut-up lemon on the kitchen counter.
Finally, a crew member intervened.
They talked to me: Are you throwing the lemon in the garbage?
They said, yo, dont do that.
Were using it for the movie.
She says shell probably check it out once it hits Netflix.
In other words, she says, you’re able to make it in America.
