 The scenes in the cupola of the Lutheran Theological Seminary with  Buford and his staff were mostly filmed on ground level. It was  actually serving as a gazebo in a nearby residents yard when it was  spotted by the films set design/props department. They rented it,  adjusted it to a nearly identical carbon copy of the real cupola  (which still sits atop the real Lutheran Theological Seminary) and  returned it to the family upon completion of filming.