• "It's not just an office of just one place. They are building a community for everyone to be together. In this day in age, I think it's really special. It's the same kind of community-based idea. I really don't find it that dissimilar in a strange sort of way; it just happens to be the nice version," Hindle laughs.
• "Personally seeing young people walk around and talk about architecture, being wowed by architecture, by interior design, by art, I don't think there is a better compliment and some of that is just by going to the space," he adds.

When Ralph Zucker agreed to let Apple TV+ film "Severance" in Bell Works, a mixed-use development in Holmdel, New Jersey, he had no idea what journey he and the property were about to embark on.

Zucker, President and CEO of Inspired by Somerset Development, and his firm bought the former AT&T research center in 2013 for $27 million and spent $273 million and over 10 years renovating the property.

Zucker turned the building from what he calls "a shell devoid of humanity" into a "metroburb" — a large-scale mixed-use building that offers everything you can typically find in a metropolis, but in the suburbs.

"It was perfect. It was like it just hit me," Zucker tells CNBC Make It. "From that moment, it took me five years to sell that vision. We went from being insane to being geniuses."

What was Bell Labs?

The Bell Labs Holmdel Complex first opened in the 1960s and was originally designed by the famous Finnish-American architect and industrial designer Eero Saarinen. As an AT&T research site, it was home to thousands of scientists, several of whom won Nobel Prizes for their discoveries.

However, in the 1980s, AT&T was restructured, and the use of the complex was drastically reduced. By 2006, Alcatel-Lucent, the building's owner at the time, was considering demolishing the property. It led to an outcry from the community.

It was right around that time that Zucker first saw the building and the potential to transform the space into a "metroburb."

In September 2013, Inspired closed on the property and got to work transforming Bell Labs into Bell Works, collaborating with design firms Alexander Gorlin Architects and npz studio+ to revitalize the building.

Zucker and his team's vision was to pay homage to the original building's design. For example, they restored the atrium where "Severance" fans see Kier Eagan's head etched into the wall.

"We kept the concrete exposed where they had it exposed, so we paid homage to the structure itself," Zucker says. "It's like you're literally walking in through a looking glass like 'Alice in Wonderland.' It's just a big cube sitting in the middle of nowhere."

In 2015, the building began bringing in new tenants, which now includes companies like Cisco, Nvidia and Guardian Life. Today, Bell Works is 98% leased.

The building also has restaurants, offices, stores and even a library.

'Severance' comes to Bell Works

Zucker was first approached by a location scout to film "Severance," which is now Apple TV+'s most-watched TV show.

The developer had no idea that the director of photography, Jessica Lee Gagné, director and executive producer Ben Stiller, and production designer Jeremy Hindle believed Bell Works to be their dream location for Lumon Industries, the fictional biotech company at the center of the series.

"We looked at it, and obviously, our heads exploded. It was cathartic and meant to be," Hindle tells CNBC Make It. "When you see a place you just keep going until you manifest it. I would never have imagined not shooting there. When you know it's such a winner you never give it up. The building is stunning and it just matched perfectly with where we wanted to go underground."

Since "Severance" first premiered in 2022, Bell Works has seen many fans come out to the building to film videos for social media or just enjoy the space.

Though most of the show is filmed on sound stages, the stairs, parking lot, hallways, lobby and atrium at Bell Works are all prominently featured.

Now that "Severance" is in season two, viewers have seen the Lumon building become a main character. Keanu Reeves even voices it in an uncredited role.

"What I love about Bell Labs is that it is similar to the show in some ways. Originally, Bell Labs was building a community of all these amazing engineers and technicians to live and raise their families. They shared everything, and that was so beautiful and interesting. Lumon is sort of the same but they just took the wrong path," Hindle says.

Zucker was amazed to see what Bell Works looked like when he saw the show for the first time.

"Watching Bell Works come to life in 'Severance' was a thrill. The transformation of Bell Works back into what it was beforehand, a space devoid of life, devoid of humanity, and the juxtaposition of that to what Bell Works really is... It was just mind-blowing," he says.

"You want to pinch yourself. Bell Works is the antithesis of what Lumon set out to do. Lumon's solution to get their employees to focus was to sever you and our solution is to embrace life," Zucker adds.

"There's no innies and outies here and to me, watching it [on the show] and seeing it play out, knowing that we hopefully have a much better solution to this conundrum, was the biggest thrill."

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