Practical Magic: Coupeville to San Juan Island

Practical Magic opens three centuries before the Owens sisters, with Maria Owens surviving an attempted execution for witchcraft, banished to an offshore island and casting the spell that becomes the family curse. The prologue was shot on the western shore of San Juan Island near Kanaka Bay, looking across Haro Strait. In the story, that spell dooms any man an Owens woman loves. The bay lies in the San Juan Islands of northwestern Washington.

Location precision: The prologue was shot on the western shore near Kanaka Bay; the pin marks the bay itself.

The film stages its farmers market on what was then an empty lot at the corner of Grace and Front, with real produce from nearby farms and seafood donated by Penn Cove Shellfish. The market returns several times among the small-town scenes shot in this Victorian-era port on Penn Cove. The Penn Cove Gallery now stands on the corner, inside Coupeville's historic district in the Ebey's Landing National Historical Reserve.

Visitor guidance: The gallery is at the corner of Grace and Front streets; the rest of downtown Coupeville is a short walk along Front Street.

Toby's Tavern was dressed as the Catch and Fry, with a large two-storey facade built over its front for the film. The shopfront turns up in several town scenes, and the tavern was also where Aidan Quinn charmed locals between takes. The extra facade is gone, but the building has been Toby's Tavern since 1938 and still stands at 8 Front Street.

Visitor guidance: Toby's Tavern is a working pub at 8 Front Street NW, near the wharf.

Sally Owens runs Verbena Botanicals from this Front Street storefront, and the film used the 1871 Sedge Building for both interior and exterior shots. The shop carries the opening of Sally's botanical store and her encounters with a possible new love, and the camera returns to it late in the film. The Sedge Building still stands at 4 NW Front Street, at the corner of Main; the white paint is long gone, though most of Coupeville's storefronts have reverted to their original colours.

Visitor guidance: The Sedge Building is at 4 NW Front Street, at the corner of Main Street; it is part of the town's Practical Magic walking tour.

Gillian Owens meets Jimmy Angelov at a pool party in Los Angeles, the beginning of the relationship that eventually drags Sally into danger. The scene was filmed north of Los Angeles at 10014 Amanita Avenue in Tujunga, in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, a neighbourhood also used for E.T. Jimmy is the abusive partner whose disappearance brings Gary Hallet to town, and the address is a private house, so there is nothing to visit.

Sally drives north to collect Gillian, and Jimmy Angelov takes both sisters hostage in his car. They stop beside the Puget Sound Refinery, where Sally puts belladonna into Jimmy's tequila to knock him unconscious and inadvertently kills him. The refinery on March Point near Anacortes was built by Texaco in 1957 and is one of the largest employers in Skagit County. It remains a working industrial site.

State investigator Gary Hallet arrives from Tucson, Arizona, looking for Jimmy Angelov and rents a room in town. The film used 13 Front Street NW, now the Madrona Blossom gift store, as his lodgings, a short walk from Sally's store and the wharf. Gary turns out to be the impossible man from Sally's childhood love spell, and he and Sally walk past a Front Street barber shop during their uneasy courtship.

Visitor guidance: Madrona Blossom is a gift shop at 13 Front Street NW.

Late in the film Sally runs from the waterfront up the hill toward the Owens house, and the historic Coupeville wharf appears as she starts the climb. The wharf reaches into Penn Cove at the end of Front Street, below the row of storefronts that stood in for the film's island. It is a public pier in the historic district, and the view back takes in the same waterfront Sally leaves behind.

Visitor guidance: The wharf is at the west end of Front Street, a short walk from the shops.

The Owens house, the heart of the film, was a shell built for the shoot on a bluff on the west side of San Juan Island, overlooking Haro Strait near San Juan County Park. Its interiors were filmed on soundstages in Los Angeles, and the shell was torn down immediately after filming; only the view remains. The final Halloween scene, with local extras in costume, was shot here, and the townsfolk on screen witness the family's annual flight from the roof.

Location precision: The house was a temporary shell on a bluff near San Juan County Park; the pin marks the park.

Visitor guidance: San Juan County Park is on the west side of San Juan Island; the house site was on a bluff near the park, with no structure left.