As it turns out, Guadagnino had his eye on the palatial estate for some time. "I had known that house for many years; I even dreamed of buying that house, he told Architectural Digest . He immediately thought of it when scouting locations for the film. "Once I realised that I couldn't afford it and didn't really want it for my life, I knew where I was going to set the action of the film—this place with faded, aristocratic charm, that a professor and his wife might have inherited but can't quite keep up."