Where Was Netflix’s ‘The Waterfront’ Filmed? Everything to Know About the North Carolina-Based Show

Netflix’s Outer Banks made viewers fall in love with southern coastal towns. Now, there’s a new North Carolina-based show on the streaming platform — The Waterfront. The series follows the prominent and dysfunctional Buckley family, who find themselves caught up in the dangerous world of the drug business as they attempt to keep their fishing empire afloat.

The Waterfront takes place in Havenport, North Carolina, featuring gorgeous seaside views throughout all eight episodes. The series had many fans wondering if Havenport is real.

Keep scrolling for everything to know about where The Waterfront was filmed.

Is Havenport, North Carolina, a Real Place?

Havenport, North Carolina, is entirely fictional. However, it was filmed in some very real North Carolina towns.

Where Was ‘The Waterfront’ Filmed?

Both Southport and Wilmington, North Carolina, stand in for Havenport. Several buildings and landmarks in these towns were used as locations in The Waterfront, according to The News & Observer.

For example, the show’s Carter County Courthouse was actually a U.S. post office in Wilmington, while Buckley Crab Shack was really Fishy Fishy Cafe in Southport. Wilmington’s William E. Poole Designs stood in for Havenport Hardware, and the city’s Chamber of Commerce acted as Havenport’s emergency room.

Other real-life locations include Southport’s Morningstar Marinas, Wilmington’s Suites on Market, Wilmington’s The Basics and The Cotton Exchange, Southport’s International Longshoremen’s Local 1838 and the Southport Community Building and Wilmington’s Thalian Hall.

Series creator Kevin Williamson was raised in North Carolina and has set many projects in the area.

“I love North Carolina,” he told Tudum. “I would shoot everything here if I could.”

Williamson, who is known for writing the screenplays for 1996’s Scream and 1997’s I Know What You Did Last Summer and creating Dawson’s Creek, said that The Waterfront is “an escalation of other stuff I’ve done. It’s me looking back on my life growing up. It’s reflection, it’s nostalgic, it’s a little bit of a memory piece.”

‘The Waterfront’ Is Based on a True Story

Though the Buckley family and the town of Havenport are not real, Williamson revealed that they were inspired by his own family history. Much like Buckley patriarch Harlan Buckley (Holt McCallany), Williamson’s father, Wade Williamson, “got tempted to do some things that weren’t so legal and got him in some trouble.”

“My dad was a very, very good man. He was a fisherman,” Williamson explained.

Unfortunately, as fishing began to die down in the region in the 1980s, Williamson’s father, who died in 2020, struggled to make ends meet.

“So someone came along and said, ‘If you do this one thing, you can make all this money.’ And it was hard to say no,” Williamson explained, revealing that his father agreed to run drugs on his fishing trawler. “He got caught, he served his time, he got out, and I graduated.”

Williamson’s father was arrested in the ‘80s for his role in a drug smuggling ring that used fishing boats to transport millions of dollars worth of drugs along the North Carolina coast. He was charged with conspiracy to traffic marijuana in excess of 20,000 pounds.

The Waterfront is now streaming on Netflix.