Matawan's landmark 'Blue House' is site of Emma Roberts movie shoot
MATAWAN - It’s been said by more than a few passersby that the infamous “Blue House” on Matawan’s Main Street looks like something out of a horror movie.
Now, the crumbling Victorian mansion actually will be in a movie — although not necessarily a scary one.
A film crew took over the 149-year-old, 3,700-square-foot landmark Monday to shoot a scene for “Space Cadet,” a romantic comedy starring Emma Roberts. Vacant since at least 2007, the house sprang to life for one day after the production company, Hollywood-based Stampede Ventures, gained permission to shoot there from homeowner Andrew Scibor.
“They loved the house,” Scibor told the Asbury Park Press. “I welcomed them, and I welcome all movie productions to the home in the future because Matawan Borough and local businesses benefit from it. Matawan is a unique town with a lot of potential for movies.”
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Roberts, who starred in the TV series “American Horror Story” and is known for her work in the thriller genre, takes on a different kind of role in "Space Cadet." According to Deadline.com, Roberts portrays “Florida party girl Rex, who turns out to be the only hope for the NASA space program, after a fluke puts her in training with other candidates who may have better resumes, but don’t have her smarts, heart and moxie.”
The movie, which will be distributed by Prime Video, began production last month. No release date has been announced.
“The filming has something to do with it being a haunted house,” said Kurtis Roinestad, a Matawan Historical Society board member. “They even had a prop van out there advertising ghost tours. People called me, thinking we were doing some tours there. The house has that haunted look, so it’s certainly the perfect place for a scene like that.”
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The "Blue House" is formally known as the Ryer House, after the man who built it in 1873, onetime Matawan mayor David Ryer. For decades it was owned and immaculately maintained by Dr. Michael Ambrosio, who ran a family medicine practice in town before he retired in 1997. With seven bedrooms, three bathrooms, a covered porch that stretches the width of the house, a separate two-car garage on a half-acre of land, plus a curbside carriage stone and the powder-blue paint that dates back at least 100 years, it became a leading landmark in a municipality that boasts more than 300 century-old houses.
“It’s one of the best examples of the French Second Empire Victorian Houses along the East Coast,” Matawan historian Al Savolaine said in 2019. “It was such a beautiful house for years and years.”
The house fell into disrepair after Ambrosio died in 2000. Scibor, who runs a landscaping company and lives elsewhere in Matawan, bought it for $450,000 in 2007. It has continued to fall apart since then as debates about its future unfolded. After a failed bid to turn the dwelling into office space, Scibor’s proposal to convert the interior into eight studio apartments while restoring the exterior to its original Victorian splendor was approved by borough officials in 2019.
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“Things are moving along,” Scibor said. “COVID did slow the process down and backed things up. The permits/paperwork is moving slowly, and is taking a lot more time than expected with the construction office at Aberdeen Township (Matawan and Aberdeen have consolidated their construction departments). The plan is still to convert the home to apartments, and to fully restore the exterior of the home to its former beauty.”
Roinestad is skeptical that it will come to fruition.
“COVID might account for some of the delay, but that doesn’t account for him owning the house for 16 years and not getting any further with it,” he said. “I don’t want to see it go, but it looks like there’s nothing but a corpse left.”
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Jerry Carino is community columnist for the Asbury Park Press, focusing on the Jersey Shore’s interesting people, inspiring stories and pressing issues. Contact him at jcarino@gannettnj.com.
This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Emma Roberts movie Space Cadet films at Matawan NJ 'Blue House'
