The “7th Heaven” House

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Got a challenge a few months back from a man named Glenn who wanted me to locate the house used as the Camden residence on the Aaron Spelling television series 7th Heaven.   Unfortunately, though, this challenge proved to be rather difficult as there are quite a few conflicting rumors about the home’s location floating around online.  The general consensus on most of the fan sites, though, was that the house only ever existed on a studio backlot somewhere in Hollywood.  And, even though I didn’t really believe that to be the case, I am embarrassed to admit that I gave up on finding the home’s location rather quickly after reading that.  Sorry, Glenn!   But last week, I decided to enlist the help of fellow stalkers Mike, from MovieShotsLA, Chas, and Owen and, sure enough, it wasn’t long before Chas had called me back with an address!!!!!  YAY!  Funny side note – after Chas gave me the 7th Heaven  house address, I immediately texted both Owen and Mike to let them know that their searches could be called off.  Well, ironically enough, Mike’s phone wasn’t working that day, so what did he do, but go out and rent EVERY SINGLE DVD of the series that he could find!  I’m not kidding!  The next day he called me and said “I’m going to watch every single hour ever made of this show if I have to, but we are going to find that house!”  LOL LOL LOL  I felt sooooooo bad as poor Mike was not only stuck with a hefty Blockbuster bill, but also a few hundred hours of cheesy television that he had no desire whatsoever to watch.

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Even though I’ve never seen a single episode of 7th Heaven, I was still extremely excited to be stalking the Camden house!  Sadly, though, the home has changed quite a bit in recent years as you can see in the above screen capture and photograph.  In fact, the house looks so different from how it appeared on the series that when I first saw it in person I wasn’t sure I was at the right place.  LOL   Just a few of the alterations made to the home include a change in paint color from white to baby blue, the installation of a white picket fence around the exterior of the property . . .

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 . . . and the addition of quite a bit of thick foliage, which makes the home hardly visible at all from the street, as you can see in the above photograph.   And while the Camden house is very cute in person, truth be told, I think it looked a whole lot better on the show.  🙂

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Chas was able to track down this house by contacting a former 7th Heaven  crew member who just happened to remember its exact location.  The guy also gave Chas a brief history of the filming of the Camden home, finally allowing us to put those pesky location rumors to rest.  The real story of the Camden house is as follows – For the pilot episode of the series, which was filmed in 1996, a house in Altadena that Mike and I have always refered to as the “Rubio House” served as the Camden residence.  I’ve blogged about the Rubio House once before as it has appeared in COUNTLESS productions, including The Mentalist, NCIS, Bye Bye Love, and Can’t Hardly Wait,  among numerous others.  Anyway, for whatever reason, once the series got picked up, producers decided to ditch the Rubio house and use a Santa Monica residence instead.  For the next six seasons, that Santa Monica house was used for all exterior filming and establishing shots.  But, sometime during the sixth season, the owners of the house got a bit tired of the constant filming on their property and put an end to it.  How one can become tired of filming taking place on their property is BEYOND me, but to each their own, I guess.  😉  Once the house was off limits for filming, the production crew built a very basic replica of it, consisting of only one exterior wall and a fake front yard, on the studio back lot.  From then on all filming of the Camden house took place there.  So, that explains how all of those different location rumors about the house got started!  🙂  

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Big THANK YOU to Chas for finding this location and finally solving the mystery of the 7th Heaven  house!  🙂 

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: The 7th Heaven  house is located at 527 Alta Avenue in Santa Monica.  Courteney Cox’s former home is located just up the street at 606 Alta Avenue.  The house used as the Camden residence in the 7th Heaven  pilot can be found at 1090 Rubio Street in Altadena.

24 Replies to “The “7th Heaven” House”

  1. I love the TV show 7th Heaven. The house looks so much different now. I wonder if the inside of the house still looks the same or if it looks different.

    1. I lived in that house at 527 Alta Avenue as a child. There is a picture of it in the Santa Monica Public library taken in 1951 the year my parents sold it (the library identifier number is A331). The house was owned by my father Earl E. McEvoy (a motion picture director who worked for MGM at the time) and my mother (Miriam Rafferty McEvoy). I went back to see the house a few years ago, and it has been torn down and replaced with a very different style of house.

  2. I’m never going to be able to look at that house the same anymore, so disappointed 🙁 I would still buy it naively thinking it is exactly the same on the inside as it is on the show lol

  3. that’s great! I grew up a block west of this house and used to walk by it on my way to and from school. One time I went with my uncle to get ice cream from Pavilions and they were filming a scene on the porch. The crew stopped our car and asked us to wait for about 30 inconvenient minutes while they got a wide shot of the scene. i too thought it was much prettier before the gate and new paint. It used to belong to Dr. Baloh and his wife (until the divorce…)

  4. if I ever lived in a house which was in a tv show or fo a tv show I wouldn’t change a thing about it.
    it looks better in the series its nicer looking

  5. This house looks better in the series rather than in real life and i cant they dont film in the inside of the house i really like this house! Its does kinda change you mind a littile though once you see it in these pictures.

  6. Good work, although if you had watched the series, you would know they actually gave the address in the show. In the episode when Lucy passed her driver’s test, she didn’t like the photo, and the license had the address printed right on it. 😉

  7. I want the layout, the blueprints, of that house. I don’t care where it is. I want to build one just like it!

    1. I so totally want the floor plans of the 7th heaven house…my husband is going to build it one day for us. Does anyone know where I can get the floor plans?

  8. They did use the home for all but the scenes that take place in the backyard and garage area.That was at the WB Studio Ranch.The house they built after they stopped using the home was on the same backlot street as the Bewitched home,among others.From what I was told,Santa Monica filming fees increased and that scared away production companies.

  9. OMG……WOW! Looks MUCH better in the series than now. Sorry to say but very true. Im still putting it on the list for Dec. though!!!!!!

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