Q. What is it supposed to be on the show? A. A small country store.    Q. Where is it supposed to be on the show? A.  Somewhere in upstate New York, not far from Iron Lake.   Q. When did we see it on the show? A. We see it first in Episode 1, of Season 1.   Dexter, having recovered from a near-fatal gunshot, makes a hasty exit from the Seneca Nation Clinic in Iron Lake after a tense reunion with Angel Batista.    But because he's still wearing his hospital robe, he needs to get a change of clothes. So once he's on the road (in a stolen truck), he stops at the first small store he can find: a rustic-looking one with a sign outside reading “Cedar Pines Clothing Store”.  (I assume that Cedar Pines is supposed to be a town adjacent to Iron Lake.)   We see him pull into the parking lot, and then rip the hospital band off his wrist, before entering the store.   He emerges from the store wearing a new set of clothes, and carrying a new pair of leather gloves, which he quickly pulls on.   The scene then cuts to a shot of him driving on the road again, passing a sign that reads “New York City - 70 miles.”.    Q. What is it actually in real life? A. A park building. .   Q. Where can I find it in real life? A. This scene was filmed In Eleanor Stroud Park, which is at 429 Valentine Ave., in Piermont, New York.   What passes for the Cedar Pines Clothing Store is actually just a very small park building, only about 20 feet wide. (I wouldn't be surprised if it was once a small residential home.)    Set dressing amounted to putting up the sign in front reading “Cedar Pines Clothing Store”, and putting a few items out on the front porch along with a SALE sign.    Piermont is a small village in upstate New York, on the border with Sparkhill, NY, where they filmed the scene of Angel talking to Teddy in an Iron Lake diner.  In fact, the park is within easy walking distance of that diner, and they no doubt shot both the diner scene and the country store scene while they were.in the area .( They probably didn't want to travel this far more than once. )   In fact, this park is often referred to by locals as the Sparkhill Ice Skating Rink, because it's main feature is a pond that freezes over in the winter and makes for great ice skating and fond Christmas memories.  ( Sparkill, Piermont, and Nyack villages are part of the city of Orangetown,  NY. And since Dexter shot scenes in all three of those villages, they obviously found the city a good spot film on location. )   And despite the road signs saying that New York City is 70 miles away, Sparkill and Piermont are actually only 25 miles north of Manhattan.    Here is a Google StreetView of that park building: Here is an aerial photo of the location.  And here is a map link.

Q. How the heck did you figure out where it was?

A. This was a roundabout discovery. 

While keeping my eye on posts about where Dexter: Resurrection was filming In New York, I came across a few photos of the crew sitting in front of a church. At the time, I assumed they were probably filming at the church.  
 

It looked like a rural area, and since I knew that they had traveled all the way north to Sparkill, NY to film at a local café, I had a hunch that they probably opted for a church very near that café, so they could film both scenes during one trip .

So I started googling for churches in or near Sparkill. It took me a long time, but I finally identified the church as Christ Episcopal Church in Sparkill.
 
But as I was looking at the photos, I noticed something I hadn’t noticed before: The chairs set out for the director and other crew weren’t facing the church. They were facing away from the church, as if what they were filming was across the street.

So I positioned Google StreetView to get the exact same view of the church as they had in that photo, and then simply rotated it 180° to see what was across the street. All I saw was a park, with a tiny building in it and a pond.

I had been looking without success for the hospital where Dexter wakes up, and at first I hoped they might have used the small park building as that clinic. But when I took a closer look, I saw that it didn’t match what was shown of the clinic in the advance trailer for Resurrection.
 
A bit later, I found a fan's short video of them filming at that same location, and I recognized the same park. Google Maps listed it as Eleanor Stroud Park.

@landergrimes ?????? #michaelchall #dexterresurection #dexter #showtime #behindthescenes #tonightsthenight ? original sound - landergrimes

I took an even closer look at the video, freeze-framed it, and blew it up, When I did, I noticed they had put a sign on that small park building reading “Cedar Pines”. 

 

 
That told me it wasn’t supposed to be in Iron Lake, even though the nearby Sparkill café was supposed to be there.
 
So my guess was that it would probably be somewhere Dexter stopped on the road between Iron Lake and New York City.
 
And I was right.

When  the series aired, I kept an eye out for both the church and the park, and although the church never made an appearance, that park building showed up in the very first episode, right after Dexter eluded Angel at the hospital and stole a truck.

.

By Episode - By Category - By Geographical Location
Clickable Map of All Dexter Locations - Go To Main Menu

 

The "Dexter" screenshots from the show and all related characters & elements are trademarks of and © Showtime & Paramount
All other photos & text are Copyright ©-2025-Gary Wayne and may not be used without written permission.

Return to Seeing-Stars.com