Taylor Swift, Succession, And Citizen Kane All Used The Same Long Island Hotel To Portray Excess

In the second season of HBO's deliciously nasty satire "Succession," the patriarch of the powerful Roy family, Logan (Brian Cox), forces some of his subordinates to submit to him during a deeply humiliating "game" he dubs "Boar on the Floor." I won't get into the weeds of the "rules" of "Boar on the Floor" here, such as they are, but it's too bad for the guys allowing Logan to dominate them that they have to do that instead of enjoying their glorious location.

The location for "Hunting," this particular episode of "Succession," is a mansion in New York's Long Island called the Oheka Castle, and it's actually been a backdrop for a ton of pop culture properties. ("Oheka" is take on the name of the property's original owner Otto Hermann Kahn.) According to a piece about the manse in Architectural Digest, because Oheka was around during the 1920s, it served as inspiration for F. Scott Fitzgerald as he wrote about luxurious bayside homes in "The Great Gatsby," and according to the castle's own website, it's served as a filming location for many, many projects. 

Now a hotel and wedding venue, Oheka has allowed everything from "The Americans" to "Gossip Girl," and it also notes that it played an important role in "Citizen Kane." As the site reads, "In 1941, Oheka Castle appeared as Xanadu in the opening montage of the classic film 'Citizen Kane' starring Orson Welles." Actually, if you're a fan of pop music, you're definitely familiar with Oheka Castle ... because it showed up in a huge Taylor Swift music video.

Any Swiftie worth their salt knows that, during the original "1989" era in 2014, Taylor Swift used the Oheka Castle as the setting for the blockbuster album's second single, "Blank Space." The song itself is a fun twist on Swift's public image at the time — specifically in regards to her dating life as people decided she was seeing and "discarding" too many men, despite the fact that she, if I may editorialize, was dating pretty normally for a twenty-something — and chronicles the rise and fall of a relationship. After seeing her boyfriend texting someone else on the grounds of the castle, she goes delightfully crazy and burns the guy's clothes, wrecks his car, and just generally represents the "difficult woman" trope, complete with runny mascara and a knife for good measure. (This doesn't officially count as one of Swift's acting roles, but it's definitely better than her turn in, say, "The Giver.")

After the third season of the sadly-canceled comedy "Girls5Eva" aired in the spring of 2024, comedienne Cat Cohen, who appeared in that season as spoiled trophy wife and overgrown teenager Taffy England, told Vulture that they also filmed at Oheka Castle. Cohen, however, referred to it differently: "And we filmed it at the Taylor Swift 'Blank Space' mansion," Cohen said at the end of an unrelated answer. When pressed by interviewer Anne Victoria Clark — who asked about the mansion's massive staircase — she seemed to confirm that it was, saying, "Yes. Yes. It's like this huge, I guess it's a part-hotel-type thing. I'm not sure what it's used for. I think a lot of weddings and stuff, but it's in Long Island. It's gorgeous. And I'm obviously a huge Swiftie, so I was thrilled." For whatever reason, "Girls5Eva" isn't listed on Oheka's website as a project that filmed there, but Cohen is definitely describing it accurately, so I'll take her word for it!

This mansion, beloved by Logan Roy and Taylor Swift alike, is available for weddings, hotel stays, and events. If you want to hold a movie and TV marathon featuring the Oheka Castle, check out "Citizen Kane," the "Blank Space" music video, "Succession," and a whole host of other projects.