Blue Murder Motel Filming Locations

“Blue Murder Motel” gives retirement a rather poor success rate. Vanessa “Vinny” Coleman and her husband Peter “Cole” Coleman leave their careers as Australian police detectives behind and move across the Tasman Sea to run a small seaside motel in New Zealand. They have barely settled into their new life when a guest is found dead in Unit 3, and the couple’s supposedly peaceful second act starts looking suspiciously like their first. Created by Kate McDermott and Steven Zanoski, the TVNZ mystery uses the fictional coastal community of Mowai Bay as its home, but viewers can visit much of that world in real life.

The first season was filmed around Orewa on Auckland’s Hibiscus Coast, with the real Edgewater Motel providing the show’s most important location. Orewa Beach and Orewa Beach Holiday Park also appear prominently, while production extended across the greater Auckland area. Unlike many mystery series that build their central property on a soundstage, “Blue Murder Motel” found a functioning beachfront motel and built the fictional town around it.

Edgewater Motel Became the Blue Motel

The fictional Blue Motel is the real Edgewater Motel at 387 Hibiscus Coast Highway, Orewa. IMDb identifies the property directly, while co-creator Kate McDermott has confirmed that it was the production’s “hero location.”

The Edgewater is a real beachfront motel with direct access to Orewa Beach. Its low-rise accommodation blocks, grass courtyard and slightly retro coastal appearance already possessed much of the visual character McDermott and Zanoski wanted. The production therefore did not need to turn a modern luxury hotel into something pretending to be an old Kiwi motor lodge. The real property supplied the basic architecture, while signage and production dressing transformed it into Vinny and Cole’s 13-room Blue Motel.

There is also a personal reason the location fits the series so naturally. McDermott told WIFT New Zealand that her grandparents once owned a 1950s bach next door to the Edgewater. Her childhood summers were spent in Orewa, and those memories influenced the sunny, nostalgic coastal atmosphere she wanted for the show. The writers had originally imagined somewhere around the Coromandel Peninsula, but finding the Edgewater brought the production back to the exact place that had inspired part of the mood in the first place.

The motel remains an operating business. Its own website lists the address as 387 Hibiscus Coast Highway and advertises both beachfront and courtyard rooms, meaning fans can stay at the actual building seen throughout the series rather than merely photograph an exterior set.

Orewa Beach Creates Mowai Bay

The broad sandy shoreline behind the motel is Orewa Beach, another confirmed filming location. The beach runs directly behind the Edgewater property, which allows the motel and coastline to appear naturally connected rather than being assembled from locations miles apart. Local reporting confirms that the beach features repeatedly throughout the series.

That geographical continuity matters more than it might seem. Mowai Bay is supposed to be a small community where people keep running into one another, gossip travels quickly and the local police officer knows practically everybody. Using a real motel, beach and nearby holiday properties within the same compact coastal town lets the series maintain that feeling without constantly relying on establishing shots to convince viewers that separate locations belong together.

Orewa also provides the sunny holiday atmosphere that deliberately clashes with the show’s murder count. McDermott wanted a crime series filled with beaches, summer nostalgia, jandals and a relaxed rock-and-roll mood rather than another permanently grey detective drama. The irony is that the first season was actually photographed during New Zealand’s colder months.

Orewa Beach Holiday Park Became Shady Vista

One of the best examples of the production expanding beyond the Blue Motel appears in Episode 3, “Home Is Where You Park It.” The fictional Shady Vista Holiday Park was filmed at Orewa Beach Holiday Park, 265 Hibiscus Coast Highway.

The episode moves the murder away from Vinny and Cole’s own property and into a campground filled with holidaymakers, caravans and family disputes. Using a genuine beachside holiday park gives the episode a different environment without taking the audience out of Mowai Bay. Orewa’s official visitor directory confirms that the real park sits at 265 Hibiscus Coast Highway, only a short distance from Edgewater Motel.

That proximity is useful for production as well as storytelling. A television crew can move actors, lighting equipment and vehicles between the motel, beach and holiday park without losing significant shooting time. On screen, those same locations make Mowai Bay feel like a compact community rather than a collection of disconnected New Zealand landscapes.

The Orewa Surf Club Also Helped the Production

McDermott has also singled out the local surf club as one of the Orewa organizations that supported the shoot. The Orewa Surf Life Saving Club is based at 275 Hibiscus Coast Highway, close to both the holiday park and the Edgewater Motel.

Public material does not provide a reliable scene-by-scene breakdown confirming exactly which finished sequences were filmed inside the clubhouse, so it should not be treated in the same category as the clearly documented motel and holiday park. What is confirmed is that the surf club was part of the local production relationship and that surf-club surroundings appear naturally within the fictional seaside town.

The geography makes sense. The motel, holiday park, surf club and beach are all clustered along the same section of Hibiscus Coast Highway, giving the show a remarkably concentrated real-world production footprint.

Was Blue Murder Motel Filmed Elsewhere in Auckland?

Yes, but Orewa is the identifiable center of the series. The official production announcement described “Blue Murder Motel” as being shot around greater Auckland, while local reporting makes clear that locations throughout Orewa carry most of the show’s distinctive visual identity.

No comprehensive public address list has been released for every pub, shop, private residence or street appearing across the eight episodes. It would therefore be unreliable to attach businesses to individual scenes based solely on exterior similarities. What can be established with confidence is that the production moved beyond the motel when each weekly mystery required a fresh environment, while continuing to use the Hibiscus Coast as the basis for Mowai Bay.

The fictional town itself does not exist. Mowai Bay is described as being somewhere near Auckland, and Orewa provides the real coastal community underneath it.

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When Was Blue Murder Motel Filmed?

Filming began in August 2025 and continued for roughly 12 weeks. McDermott confirmed that the writers started work in January 2025 and that cameras began rolling in August. By October 9, the production was still officially described as filming around greater Auckland.

That schedule created one of the production’s more amusing challenges. The series looks like a warm New Zealand summer, but Banas, Tucker and the crew were actually working through cold winter conditions while trying to sell sunshine and holiday relaxation. McDermott recalled the crew battling freezing wind during the lengthy location shoot.

It paid off because the setting never feels manufactured. The Edgewater Motel, Orewa Beach and the neighboring holiday park already belong to the same coastal landscape. “Blue Murder Motel” simply adds Vinny, Cole and an implausibly enthusiastic supply of corpses.