Arthur Abbott’s House from “The Holiday”

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Another location from the 2006 movie The Holiday that I set out to track down last week for my Christmas-themed stalking posts was the large Mediterranean-style abode where Arthur Abbott (aka The Misfits’ Eli Wallach) lived.  Thanks to the flick’s production notes, I knew that the property was located somewhere in Brentwood and that it “reflected the glamour of old Hollywood”.  So I spent quite a few fruitless hours searching aerial views of the area before coming up completely empty-handed.  Enter Mike, from MovieShotsLA, who so graciously offered up his stalking services and spent almost the entire day scouring Brentwood streets looking for the house.  And I am very happy to report that he did, indeed, find the place – without the help of a crew member or knowledge of an address number to guide him.  Whoo-hoo!  Thank you, Mike!  So, I, of course, ran right out to stalk the residence this past weekend.

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Amazingly enough, while we were stalking the place, not only was the front gate standing open, affording us a small peek at where filming of The Holiday had taken place, but two different super-nice neighbors also happened to walk by and informed us that the property has belonged to comedienne Phyllis Diller for over forty years now!  How incredibly cool is that?  And, in an ironic twist, fellow stalker E.J., of The Movieland Directory website, wrote to me yesterday morning after seeing my post on Miles’ house from The Holiday to let me know that he was fairly certain he knew where Arthur’s abode was located – he thought it might just be Phyllis Diller’s residence in Brentwood.  As it turns out, E.J. has a good friend who formerly lived near Phyllis and when E.J. watched The Holiday for the first time over five years ago, he recognized the home immediately.  As I responded in my email to him yesterday, “Where the heck were you last week when we were looking for the place???”  LOL

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In real life, Arthur Abbott’s home, which was originally built in 1914, boasts 8 bedrooms, 5 baths, 9,266 square feet of living space, and a 1.23-acre plot of land.

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And, as you can see in the above aerial view, it also features an incredibly cool central courtyard that I am undeniably in love with!

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In The Holiday, Iris Simpkins (aka Kate Winslet) befriends Arthur Abbott, the elderly man who lives next door to the house where Iris is spending a two-week Christmas vacation thanks to a home swap with Amanda Woods (aka Cameron Diaz).  (I blogged about Amanda’s residence way back in June of 2010.)  As Iris soon discovers, Arthur is an accomplished Hollywood screenwriter and he winds up changing her life and infusing her with “gumption”, a trait that she had somehow lost along the way.

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The neighbors that we spoke with also informed us that filming at the property took about three weeks to complete, which leads me to believe that the real life interior was used in the production.

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for finding this location!  Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Arthur Abbott’s house from The Holiday is located at 163 South Rockingham Avenue in Brentwood.

10 Replies to “Arthur Abbott’s House from “The Holiday””

  1. Unfortunately the house does not exist anymore. It was torn down around 2014 for another house to be built ironically by the RT Abbott construction company.

  2. I stumbled on this movie by accident from amazon prime and fell in love with it. Being a hopeless romantic always on the lookout for love. I have watched this movie every night since.

  3. Wow. I was looking around for Wallace Neff’s home and found this post and went to look for the other houses. When I hit Virtual Globetrotting to find Phyllis Diller’s home (Arthur’s) it show where it is torn down. Sad

  4. I love this! I had went to her house to buy art about a year before she passed away. Today I’m watching the Holiday and I’m thinking I KNOW that is Phylis Diller’s house. The inside you can find on the internet but the room where he had his Oscar in the film is a room she used all the time. I am not certain of the white living room as that doesnt track in my mind. But the entrance, the exterior and the large dark wood room was Ms Diller’s. A VERY special home. She had a RED kitchen. The appliances were either original when the home was built including an old fridge that was awesome or red appliances from the 1970s. I’ll be cool and not describe the rest of it but it truly is a really neat home thanks for posting this years ago and drop me a note!

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