Where Is Matt James's Bachelor Season Filming?
Matt James's Season of The Bachelor Has Begun Filming in Southwestern Pennsylvania
Clare Crawley's season of The Bachelorette is finally underway, and after a long hiatus with nothing but The Bachelor: Listen to Your Heart to hold us over, Bachelor Nation is already itching for more. We've been freshly introduced to all of Clare's bachelors, and in case you haven't heard yet, there's one who's missing from the original lineup — Matt James. Matt James's love story is about to take an exciting turn, because season 25 just began filming, and James (who we first met as Tyler Cameron's best friend) is making Bachelor history as the first Black lead in The Bachelor franchise. Scheduled to premiere in early 2021, season 25's main filming location has been secured by ABC through late November, and it's in Farmington, PA.
While seasons of The Bachelor and The Bachelorette usually start off in the mansion in Agoura Hills, CA, before they're taken across the world to as many travel destinations as there are rose ceremonies, for the upcoming seasons in the foreseeable future, filming will be taking place in a single location due to the pandemic. For James, that quarantine bubble is Nemacolin Woodlands Resort. Though James won't be jet-setting across the world with his bachelorettes this season, Nemacolin Woodlands Resort is two thousand acres of paradise in Pennsylvania — a prime location to find love, let alone to quarantine for three months.
This isn't the first time the luxury resort has made an appearance on The Bachelor. If you've been watching since Jojo Fletcher's season of The Bachelorette in 2016, you might recognise Nemacolin Woodlands Resort from the episode in which Bad Chad got eliminated on his two-on-one date. More recently, the resort has also been visited by Bachelor alums Peter Weber, Kelley Flanagan, and Jason Tartick, all of whom have been busy promoting it on their Instagram Stories in anticipation of season 25.
Nemacolin Woodlands Resort isn't just fancy hotel rooms and outdoor pools. You can expect the same thrilling group dates and romantic one-on-ones for James's season, because Nemacolin Woodlands Resort has an entire golf course, private safari experiences, 15 restaurants, a spa, a Jeep off-road driving academy, and even a wedding venue — how convenient.
Considering the success of Bachelorette Crawley's quarantine bubble in Palm Springs, CA, franchise host Chris Harrison is confident in the success of James's. "I think our show is a little bit more conducive to creating a bubble, creating a quarantine and being able to shoot this way," he told Parade. "It worked amazingly well and I think what it did was give us a blueprint that we can then take and apply to Matt James' season of The Bachelor and safely move forward, and know that without any trepidation or concern that we're all good." According to Harrison, there's very little that could go wrong — well, except for any relationship drama, because this is The Bachelor, after all.
But what about the Bachelor Mansion? If you're impressed by Villa de la Vina in Agoura Hills, you'll be even more impressed by Chateau Lafayette, the mansion at Nemacolin Woodlands Resort that's modelled after the famed Ritz in Paris, France. Villa de la Vina, which has served as the Bachelor Mansion since 2007, is a private home, so it's pretty cool that fans will eventually be able to stay in the season 25 filming location — at least once rooms become available in late November, when filming at Nemacolin Woodlands Resort comes to a close. In the meantime, you can live vicariously through Clare Crawley — if her season is anything to go by, resort life is the perfect setting for love.
