Where Was “East of Eden ”Filmed? All About the Netflix Adaptation’s Real-Life Locations

Emily BlackwoodMon, October 5, 2026 at 6:40 PM UTC

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Florence Pugh as Cathy Ames in episode 103 of ‘East of Eden’Credit: Kirsty Griffin/Netflix -

East of Eden was set in Salinas Valley, Calif.

However, Netflix shot its miniseries adaptation in New Zealand due to modern development and budget constraints

Star Florence Pugh considered moving to New Zealand after filming, praising its culture and respect for the land

East of Edenis a California story, but the Netflix adaptation was filmed more than 6,000 miles away from the Golden State.

Based on John Steinbeck’s 1952 novel, the miniseries follows a multigenerational farming family as they grapple with love and betrayal in early 20th-century Salinas Valley.

The author, who grew up in the region, wrote in letters later compiled in Journal of a Novel that he wanted to preserve the era because it was “the story of my country and the story of me,” per Tudum.

But when it came time to depict Steinbeck’s California for television, production had to look elsewhere. “The actual Salinas Valley doesn’t look the way that it did anymore,” creator and showrunner Zoe Kazan told Tudum in October 2026.

So, where was East of Eden filmed? Here’s everything to know about the real-life shooting locations, including why production didn’t take place in California.

East of Eden was filmed across New Zealand

Joseph Zada as Cal Trask and Zoe Phillips as Abra Bacon in ‘East of Eden’Credit: Courtesy of Netflix

Netflix’s adaptation was shot across New Zealand, specifically its South Island.

Production designer Grant Major told Condé Nast Travellerin October 2026 that the area has been used for projects set in a similar era like The Power of the Dog because it’s “got mountains and snow and lakes and rivers and all that sort of stuff.”

In addition to the undisrupted landscape they needed to recreate Salinas Valley, the island country also contained “a tremendous amount of Victorian architecture,” according to Kazan.

“Not to get too nerdy about the history of New Zealand, but there was a big influx of money because of a gold rush in the Victorian era in New Zealand,” she told Tudum. “So there were many more locations available to us than there would’ve been easily in one place in the States.”

Budget constraints kept East of Eden from filming in California

Not only had the Salinas Valley become too developed to recreate its early 20th-century look, but budget constraints also pushed production elsewhere.

Kazan told Vanity Fair that she would have loved to film in her native state — “I felt as if I had been birthed from the soil like a California poppy,” she said in her August 2026 interview — but “budget realities” made shooting there impractical.

Production ultimately began in October 2024.

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Oamaru’s historic district doubled for Salinas

Christopher Abbott as Adam Trask and Florence Pugh as Cathy Ames in ‘East of Eden’Credit: Kirsty Griffin/Netflix

Scenes set in the town of Salinas, including Cathy Ames (Florence Pugh) and Adam Trask’s (Christopher Abbott) arrival in California, were filmed in the small Otago town of Oamaru.

“It has a historic quarter that is miraculously preserved,” Major recalled to Condé Nast Traveller. “It used to be a commercial centre with docks, exporting stuff around the world, and the buildings are from the late 1800s, they’re all made of limestone.”

Though the production designer acknowledged that the limestone architecture wasn’t historically accurate to Salinas, where buildings would have largely been made of brick and wood, the location was otherwise an ideal stand-in.

“It had everything we were looking for, really,” he said. “Other than the brothels.”

Those were recreated on sets in Auckland on New Zealand’s North Island, while parts of the brothel’s exterior and grand parlor were filmed at what Major described as a deteriorating “big, old mansion.”

The Hawkdun Range foothills provided the setting for the Trask farm

Major told Condé Nast Traveller that scenes on the Trask family’s Salinas Valley farm were filmed in the foothills of the Hawkdun Range, in the South Island’s Otago region.

The location offered the dry, expansive landscape the production needed, with no modern elements requiring removal with special effects.

It also had waist-high grass that the cast and crew had to “wade through” to reach the farmhouse.

However, production did have to build the Trask family’s home from scratch.

Kazan told Tudum that Major added details meant to make the newly constructed set feel generations old, from fake bird droppings beneath the rafters to faded patches on the walls where family photos might once have hung.

Pugh considered moving to New Zealand after filming

Florence Pugh as Cathy Ames in ‘East of Eden’Credit: Geoffrey Short/Netflix

Filming in New Zealand marked the first time Pugh had been to the country. She told Tudum that she loved it so much, she briefly considered staying for good.

“I’d never been to New Zealand, but always wanted to go,” the actress said in an October 2026 interview. “The culture is amazing. The respect to ancestry and to the land is something that I just want to take forward into my life every day. I actually was even considering, ‘How do I actually move here?’ ”

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