Libraries are very much on my brain as of late. It’s all thanks to Matilda and the post I wrote about the Wormwood home last week. While scanning through the 1996 film making screen captures, I became awestruck by the incredible book repository where young Matilda (Sara Magdalin) regularly hung out. Though countless websites claim that Pasadena’s Central Library at 285 East Walnut Street was utilized in the movie, I spent enough time there in my 10+ years of living in Crown City to immediately know that wasn’t true. Further digging led me to discover that the cavernous space where Matilda devoured books was actually the Doheny Memorial Library on the USC campus. (A post on that site will be coming soon.) Looking into the location reminded me of a similarly beautiful athenaeum I stalked back in February 2012 with Mike the Fanboy, but had failed to blog about – The Ella Strong Denison Library, which appeared briefly in Beaches. So I decided it was finally time to amend the situation.
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The Ella Strong Denison Library, named for Ella Strong Denison, the wife of a wealthy Denver physician who donated funds to numerous universities for the purpose of building libraries, opened its doors on the Scripps College campus in 1931.
Designed by architect Gordon Kaufmann (who also created the Royal Laundry Complex, La Quinta Resort & Club, Santa Anita Park, and Greystone Mansion), the building, which houses special collections, features intricately chiseled front doors, hand-carved wood detailing, and a massive stained glass window depicting Gutenberg encircled by literary motifs.
Oh, and card catalogs the stuff dreams are made of.
The grounds surrounding the place are also quite spectacular.
Along with serving as a quiet place to study, the library plays an integral role in the beginning and end of each Scripps undergrad’s college career. As the school’s website notes,“The key moment in the Matriculation Ceremony occurs in the first few days of Orientation, when incoming students process through the intricately carved Ella Strong Denison Library East Door. This door remains locked on all other days of the year save Commencement, when graduating seniors exit through this same door, signifying the beginning of Commencement Exercises, and the end of their educational journey at Scripps.”
In Beaches, the Denison Library is where Hillary Whitney Essex (Barbara Hershey) researches her illness shortly after being diagnosed.
The handsome space looks much the same today as it did onscreen thirty years ago.
As you can see below, the venue translates beautifully to the screen.
As such, I was certain it had appeared in numerous productions. I was unable to dig up any other movies or television shows featuring it, though.
I’m only now coming to realize that the vast majority of Beaches was shot in the Los Angeles area, despite largely being set in New York and San Francisco. I’ve written about a few of the movie’s SoCal locales previously including Hillary’s beach house at the Crystal Cove Historic District, Hillary’s supposed Atherton-area mansion (you can read a second post on that spot here), and Jewel’s Catch One, which portrayed both an SF nightclub and an NYC lounge. While scanning through Beaches in preparation for last April’s post about the latter (which is best known for its appearance as The Blue Banana in Pretty Woman), I discovered that the flick also did some filming at the now defunct Ambassador Hotel. The famed lodging portrayed Marlboro Blenheim, the ritzy Atlantic City resort where young Hillary (Marcie Leeds) took CC Bloom (Mayim Bialik) for a chocolate soda at the beginning of the movie. I recognized the wood-framed doorways, red floral carpeting and lobby fountain immediately upon viewing the scene. (The Ambassador was also utilized significantly in Pretty Woman as the interior of The Regent Beverly Wilshire, as I wrote about in this post.)
The Los Angeles Equestrian Center made an appearance in Beaches, as well, as young Hillary’s Bay Area riding club. (For those keeping track, that’s three locales the film shares with Pretty Woman, which I guess shouldn’t come as a surprise being that both were directed by Garry Marshall.)
I am also fairly certain that Southwestern Bag Company at 635 Mateo Street in downtown Los Angeles, aka the police station from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, portrayed the New York ACLU office where Hillary worked in the movie, but not enough of the space was shown for me to be absolutely certain.
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Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: The Ella Strong Denison Library, from Beaches, is located in Scripps College’s Kauffman Wing at 1090 North Columbia Avenue in Claremont. Harwood Court residence hall, aka Eastland School from The Facts of Life, can be found just a few blocks away on the Pomona College campus at 170 East Bonita Avenue.