STAMFORD -- One day in January 2008, unsuspecting Stamford resident Rich Mead came to the Shippan home he and his siblings own to find a note on the door from Radar Films. The note said the company was interested in using the Westcott Road residence as the main location for a new Robert De Niro film.

Mead phoned his sister Marikay Mead-Willson, the "brains behind the operation," and within days, the production company was in their backyard taking photos and measuring the sizes of the sprawling front windows that take up much of the one-level home.

"It all happened so quickly," Mead-Willson said last month. "Before we knew it, they were in our house turning it upside-down and inside out."

The ranch, which has been in the Mead family since 1957, appears as the set of the family home in the holiday film "Everybody's Fine," directed by Kirk Jones and starring De Niro, Drew Barrymore and Kate Beckinsale. In the movie, which opened Friday, a widower (De Niro) wants the holidays to be perfect for him and his grown children, who have all moved away, but encounters difficulties as he tries reuniting with each of them.

Mead-Willson said she agreed to allow filming in the home after she read the script and saw some similarities between the fictional family and her own.

"My siblings and I grew up in this house just like the children in the movie," she said. "I like to think that the director chose the house for good karma."

Filming with the

actors began in the home around May 2008 and lasted through the month. Before that, in March and April, the film's effects crew was seen transforming Westcott Road into a winter wonderland for holiday shots of the neighborhood.

Mead-Willson, her husband, Bill Willson, and her brother were all shocked by the transformation of their home. The immaculate white walls were painted over, and the cream-colored carpet was removed, in favor of ivy-printed wallpaper and blue carpet. Mostly new furniture was brought in; only select pieces from the Meads' own decor, such as an armchair and lamp, were used.

In addition, the production company installed a $6,000 shed and a $15,000 garden in the backyard. After filming wrapped, director Jones offered the shed to Mead-Willson, but she said she declined because set designers had aged it about 20 years. The new garden, however, remains.

"It's not your house, it's their set," Mead-Willson said. "It is fun, but it can become very stressful watching them take your house apart and then put it back together."

Willson estimated that, at the height of filming, nearly 125 people were on set, pacing through every corner of the house.

"They would run from the bedroom to the back room to the kitchen," he said. "Most of the filming took place in the living room and back room, where they were able to make use of our windows."

Rich Mead, who was living in the home at the time, had been displaced for about two weeks. He was paid about $60 a day for basic living expenses. For the use of the house throughout filming, the Mead family was paid $1,000 per day.

Mead said he did not mind being forced to temporarily relocate and looked forward to seeing rooms and other physical reminders of his daily life incorporated into the film.

"There's a bathroom scene in the film with De Niro," Mead said. "He's just in there, shaving in the same room I do, and they're filming in the same tub I use."

Toward the end of filming for "Everybody's Fine," Mead-Willson had the opportunity to meet De Niro, who she said was friendly. She admires his acting, she said, but she told him she did not appreciate his character's taste in decorating.

With the house restored to its original decor, the Meads welcomed friends, family and neighbors into their home last month for a small party before attending a sneak preview of the film at the Avon Theatre. Mead-Willson invited the director to attend the party and film, but he was unable to make it.

"Jones wrote me an e-mail saying he wished he could be here," Mead-Willson said as she pointed to a poster with promotional photos. "It says, 'I hope you enjoy the film, your house is the star, love and best to you all, Kirk.' My house really was the star."