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Fairvale was a town in California located along a highway. The town was home to the Bates Motel and adjacent Bates house.

Behind the scenes[]

According to the Producer in the Making of Psycho (1997) Fairvale was “supposed to be located in Central California. We always felt it was somewhere up near Tulare, CA somewhere up in that area” at the time the new Freeway 99 was moved from the old Highway 99 supporting that the Bates Motel had been built on the old highway. In the movie, when Marion is initially pulled over, the sign in the background says “next town Bakersfield” which only further supports that she was heading north on Interstate 5 and continued north on freeway 99 towards Tulare when the two major arteries split.

In the novel, Fairvale is in an unspecified midwestern state. Sam tells Lila how the sheriff is in Fairvale because its also the county seat. When Milton Arbogast calls Sam and Lila the first time before going to the Bates Motel, he mentions he is in Parnassus which Sam notes is at the very edge of the county.

Locations[]

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