<P> In May 2011, Taissa Farmiga and Evan Peters were the last lead actors to be cast, portraying Violet Harmon and Tate Langdon, respectively . Farmiga said that she loved Violet "immediately" and that "she had spunk to her, she had attitude ." Murphy has described Tate as the "true monster" of the series, adding, "To Evan's great credit and the credit of the writers, I think Evan's done an amazingly difficult job making a monster sympathetic ." </P> <P> The pilot episode was shot on location in a house in Country Club Park, Los Angeles, California, which serves as the haunted house and crime scene in the series . Designed and built in 1902 by Alfred Rosenheim, the president of the American Institute of Architects' Los Angeles chapter, the Tudor or Collegiate Gothic - style single family home was previously used as a convent . An adjoining chapel was removed from exterior shots using CGI . </P> <P> The series is filmed on sets that are an exact replica of the house . Details such as Louis Comfort Tiffany stained glass windows, and hammered bronze light fixtures, were re-created to preserve the look of the house . The house became available for rent on Airbnb for six months, beginning February 2016, before being unlisted . </P> <P> Due to a "very aggressive" production schedule and the series' pilot shoot having to wait for co-creators Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk's other show, Glee, to wrap its second season production, it was announced that the show's first - season finale, the thirteenth episode, would be thirty minutes shorter than planned . Finally, the thirteenth episode was dropped and they made the twelfth episode 10 minutes longer (52 minutes). The finale aired on December 21, 2011 . </P>

Where was american horror story season 1 filmed