After the “Discussing the Design” panel, held June 6 on the Cannery Pier Hotel & Spa deck, the Ear had a chance to ask a few questions of the man in charge of the Goonie house restoration (including adding a staircase), production designer James Pearse Connelly.

Question 1: What was the biggest challenge with restoring the house for you, as a designer? 

Answer: “The biggest challenge was the pressure to get it right, and still make it look good. There was a point where I was starting to over-fixate on too many details, and I wasn’t seeing a bigger picture.”

Question 2: During the restoration, what surprised you the most, and why?

Answer: It’s actually not the restoration; it’s Goonies Weekend (and the fan base) that surprised me the most …

Question 3: How many times have you seen “The Goonies” movie?

Answer: “I grew up with ‘The Goonies’ movie. It was always on VHS. It was always on cable. And, I played the video game on Nintendo. But then in college, there were three movies that I put on in the background overnight when I was drafting for set design classes.

‘The Goonies’ was one of them … I knew the words in the movie, and I didn’t have to watch it. I could just listen to it, and just get in my head and draw.”

Question 4: In the process of the redesign restoration, were there any hidden discoveries? As in “if these walls could talk” kind of things.

Answer: “There were very, very many … News on that later, on specifically what, but I will say that when we, for instance, pulled back a wall or a piece of trim, we saw original pieces.”

Re: “News on that later” … Stay tuned.