Lindsay

August 10, 2020August 10, 2020

Ace and Avis Amberg’s House from “Hollywood”

There’s something about filming at a real place instead of a set that lends authenticity to a production, especially a period piece. As Jon Favreau said on the subject, “I came up through independent film, where you’re usually shooting on location. I hate when it looks like you shot on a set instead of on location.” Director Ryan Murphy must ascribe to the same filmmaking style as he chose to lens much of Hollywood at real spots. Doing so gave the Netflix miniseries a richness that otherwise would have been lacking. From Golden Tip Gasoline to the Deco Building to Henry Willson’s (Jim Parsons) office, the show truly brought Old Hollywood to Technicolor life, despite being shot in 2020. Nowhere was this more apparent than at the stately mansion belonging to Ace Studios head Ace Amberg (Rob Reiner), his wife, Avis (Patti LuPone), and their daughter, Claire Wood (Samara Weaving).

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The handsome estate, which sits on a tree-lined street in Windsor Square, was designed in 1921 by architect Frank Meline, who also gave us the Ruskin Art Club, aka Chief Irving’s (Lance Reddick) residence from the Amazon series Bosch.

Though it looks considerable in size from the street, it is actually much larger than the sprawling exterior would have you believe.

The massive pad boasts 6 bedrooms, 4 baths, an incredible 7,310 square feet (!), a marble entry canopied by a 2-story skylight, multiple fireplaces, painted ceilings, stained glass pieces, a detached 2-car garage, a pool, a 0.41-acre lot, and what a 1991 real estate listing described as a “Sistine Chapel-like ballroom.” You can check out some early photographs of the interior here.

In 1923, original owner Jefferson L. Byrne sold the property to prominent developer/theatre magnate Joseph Toplitzky. He promptly hired Morgan, Walls & Clements (who were behind the aforementioned Deco Building, also featured in Hollywood) to do some renovations, including adding a bath and enclosing a porch. Toplitzky commissioned the firm once again in 1927, this time to add a bedroom, bathroom, and dressing room to the home.

The exterior of the mansion is actually only featured once on Hollywood and very briefly at that. In the episode titled “Meg,” Avis and Claire wake up to a burning cross in their front yard, put there in protest of the controversial movie Ace Studios is producing.

Outside of the opulently-framed front door, we don’t get a very good look at the place. So how did I find it, you ask? Thanks to a page on OnLocationVacations detailing a January 14th, 2020 shoot for Hollywood at 415 South Windsor Boulevard, which I came across while researching the show’s various locales. One look at the address on Google Street View told me it was the Amberg residence.

The exterior may have been neglected a bit onscreen, but the breathtaking interior appeared numerous times throughout the limited series’ 7-episode run. I was stunned at the intricacy of it all. Every inch of the place seemed prettier than the last. They just don’t make houses like that anymore!

Shooting inside the palatial estate must have transported LuPone and her costars straight back to the 1940s, the period in which Hollywood was set. Being on location, in general, inspired the actress, whose Avis character was loosely based upon Irene Selznick, daughter of MGM co-founder Louis B. Mayer. In a move highly unconventional for the time, Irene separated from her husband, Selznick International Pictures head David O. Selznick, in 1945 and relocated to New York, where she went on to become a successful theatre producer. She even gave Marlon Brando his big break in A Streetcar Named Desire! Irene, like Avis, was a definite trailblazer. As part of her research, LuPone read Selznick’s 1983 autobiography, A Private View, which served to further immerse her in the world of historic Tinseltown. As she told Entertainment Weekly, “I became obsessed with Old Hollywood having read that book. Every time we were someplace, I’m looking around for what is left. And we were shooting at Paramount one day and the driver took us from Paramount back to our studio and I passed the Hollywood Dream apartments and just the idea of people’s lives . . . Now when I look at the old movies and I see the girls that are, you know, sort of the t*ts and a** in the background, what was their life? Was their life what we’ve heard their life was? Or, you know, was it legitimate? I mean, I’m still blown away!” Oh yes, the magic of Hollywood can definitely do that to you!

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Amberg residence from Hollywood is located at 415 South Windsor Boulevard in Windsor Square. Judge Crawford’s (Bob Gunton) house from Fracture is two doors down at 435 South Windsor.

August 7, 2020August 6, 2020

“The Last Black Man in San Francisco” House

Pre-COVID and before my dad’s many complications following his February surgery, I was planning a surprise trip for the Grim Cheaper’s March birthday. Even though it involved a flight, I was over-the-moon excited about it. Our travels obviously had to be postponed and, considering the current climate, who knows when we will be able to embark upon the short getaway. In light of my and so many others’ vacation delays, I figured a virtual trip was in order! So I enlisted my BFF Nat, who lives in the Bay Area, to do some stalking on my behalf. Though I consider all locations immensely important to a production (duh!), the residence I sent her to stalk is the centerpiece of The Last Black Man in San Francisco. Without the spectacular house at the heart of the feature, there is no story. So, obviously, one look at the trailer, and I was all in! The 2019 drama tells the tale of Jimmie Fails (played by the actor of the same name), an SF native obsessed with restoring his childhood home, a towering Victorian that his grandfather built by hand in 1946. The only problem? His family no longer owns the place. But that doesn’t stop him from painting the eaves, weeding the yard, and, in a bold move, secretly moving in. The movie couldn’t be more up my alley if it tried! Before watching even a single frame, I did some research on the property that figures so prominently in it and sent Nat right out to stalk it.

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Known as the John Coop House in real life, the stunning Queen Anne Victorian was designed by German-born architect Henry Geilfuss for mill owner John Coop in 1889. Coop did much of the carpentry himself and, upon its completion, utilized the ornate residence as a showpiece of his work.

Said to be at 959 Golden Gate Avenue in San Francisco’s Fillmore District in the movie, the home actually stands at 959 South Van Ness Avenue in the Mission.

The massive property, easily the grande dame of the neighborhood, boasts 6 bedrooms, 3 baths, a whopping 5,240 square feet, a carved staircase, wainscoting throughout, a wood-paneled library (with a secret chamber concealed behind a bookshelf!), a formal parlor, ceiling frescoes and friezes, stained glass windows, a tiled fireplace, a turret capped by a “witch’s hat,” and a 0.10-acre lot (which is actually pretty spacious for San Francisco).

Though the house is striking both onscreen and off, The Last Black Man in San Francisco, sadly, left me wanting. On paper, the narrative (loosely based upon Jimmie Fails’ real life) couldn’t be more compelling, but it moved slowly (almost painfully at times), bounced around in too many directions, and as a whole felt lacking. That’s not to say there aren’t good points. I fell in love with the main characters, Jimmie and his BFF, Montgomery Allen (Jonathan Majors) – serious #friendshipgoals there! Cinematically, it is one of the most beautiful films I’ve ever seen and, having grown up in the Bay Area, I can say paints a very accurate portrait of life in the city (especially that bus stop scene!). And hey, I’m willing to forgive all being that the house is not just a character in it, but the character! Location manager Daniel Lee certainly had his work cut out for him in finding the ideal residence to ground the movie – a painstaking process that, per Curbed, took several years. It was worth the elbow grease, though, because Lee hit the nail on the head with the John Coop House! I don’t know how one could look at the image below, with the pad showcased in widescreen glory, and not be smitten! Of scouting for the location, director Joe Talbot said, “We wanted to find a place that would hopefully make the audience feel those things Jimmie is feeling. It sounds silly to say this, but we needed the house to feel like a character, to feel developed, to go through its own arc.” Talbot obviously doesn’t read my blog – if he did, he’d know that’s not a silly sentiment at all!

Interestingly, in the first two shots we get of the dwelling, there are discrepancies. Though the images are shown within minutes of each other and are supposed to represent the same day, some changes occur from one to the next. As you can see in the first shot (the top screen capture below), the residence to the direct left of the John Coop House has a light green roof and the pad two doors to the right is painted yellow. In the second shot, though (lower cap below), the property to the left has a dark green roof and the one two doors down is now black. Talbot did express to Curbed that the rapidly shifting nature of the city posed some problems for the shoot. The article states, “Changes to approved and permitted filming locations happened so quickly—sometimes from one day to the next—that they created continuity challenges and compromised the film’s cinematography.” I am guessing this is one of those instances. I’m shocked it wasn’t noticed – and corrected – in post-production, though.

The odd triangle-topped garage door ornamentation, which was (thankfully) covered in foliage for much of the shoot and only unveiled at the end of the movie after Jimmie’s childhood home has supposedly been renovated, is unsightly, to say the least. Per the San Francisco Daily Photo blog, the Coop House originally boasted a single garage that was enlarged (to its aesthetic detriment) in 1998. You can see a photo of it prior to the augmentation here.

The film certainly showcases the rest of the Coop House in spectacular fashion.

And the interior is even more magical than the exterior!

It is so ornate and enchanting, in fact, that I thought it could only be the stuff of a production designer’s imagination – a production designer with a hefty budget, no less. I was thrilled to discover that was not the case. Incredibly, the ornate detailing captured so beautifully onscreen is authentic to the residence! As stated in Curbed, “Everything you see in the film—the hardwood floors and the intricate period molding, yes, but also the secret room behind a bookshelf, the built-in organ, the attic big enough to host the play-within-the-film, even the sauna—is actually in that damn house.” An architectural survey of the property conducted in 1975 sums the place up perfectly, noting it “has one of the most outrageous interiors – ornament is heaped upon ornament.” You can check out some fabulous photos of the inside of the Coop House here.

In a case of art imitating life, for decades the pad has been owned by a man whose life has been shaped by it. Retired chemist Jim Tyler was first introduced to the Victorian in the early 1960s when he attended a party there. Wholly transfixed, he acquired the place just a short time after, trading his own house for the then-stark property, which did not even have heating at the time. He was forced to sell it within two short years and moved away from San Francisco, but, like Jimmie, the home always remained close to his heart. When Tyler returned to the city in 1970, the house happened to be for sale and he liquidated all he had to re-purchase it. A man after my own heart, he has spent the last five decades assiduously restoring and enhancing it, as well as researching and documenting its history. The John Coop House is certainly the love of Tyler’s life, as it was onscreen in Jimmie’s – and his adoration for it shows clear as day to anyone who passes by.

Big THANK YOU to my friend Nat for stalking this location for me!

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The John Coop House, aka Jimmie’s childhood home from The Last Black Man in San Francisco, is located at 959 South Van Ness Avenue in the Mission District.

August 5, 2020August 4, 2020

Jill’s Doctor’s Office from “Picket Fences”

Hindsight being 20/20, I really should have studied architecture in college. Expertise in that area would have served me well, not only in my hunts for various locations, but in writing about them, as well. I can’t tell you how many times a day I scour the internet and/or pester my friend/guest poster extraordinaire Michael, who does have a background in the subject, for help in identifying design terminology. (I remember “crenelated” being a particularly tough find while writing this post.) Needless to say, I’ve still got a lot to learn. Case in point – up until just recently I would have considered the property above to be Victorian in style. But it’s actually American Foursquare, which, per Curbed, is defined by a rectangular base, wide front porch, and lack of exterior and interior ornamentation. The latter characteristic is a “direct response to the heavy woodwork of the Victorian era,” so that shows you what I know! Style misidentification aside, I was thrilled to learn about the residence, which fellow stalker Brad recently identified as the office where Dr. Jill Brock (Kathy Baker) treated the zany townspeople of Rome, Wisconsin on fave show Picket Fences. Known as the Tillapaugh House in real life, it has quite an interesting history!

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Built in 1906 for New York transplant Gilbert Tillapaugh and his wife, Elizabeth, the stately property originally stood a couple blocks northwest of its current location at 129 South Primrose Avenue in Monrovia. It was moved – yes, picked up and moved! – in 1978 to make way for a new apartment complex. In looking at the photos of the home at its initial Primrose Ave. location here and here, namely the large drainage grates in the sidewalk visible on either side of it, as compared to current Street View imagery, I believe the dwelling was formerly situated in the spot where the white box is below.

In 1951, the Tillapaugh House wound up in the hands of the American Red Cross, who utilized it as the headquarters of their Monrovia chapter. It was amidst the group’s long tenure there that the property was relocated to 200 East Lime Avenue. You can check out some photos of it in the process of being set up at its new location here and here.

After more than four decades of occupation, the Red Cross moved out in 1995. Four years later, the Tillapaugh House was acquired by the Monrovia Redevelopment Agency and continued to be used as offices. The historic residence was then, sadly – and almost unbelievably – relegated to storage space when the State of California suspended such agencies in 2012. Without a proper use for it, the city eventually put the property on the market in 2016. At the time, it lacked a shower or bathtub and only featured a single half-bath on the lower level. Talk about a fixer-upper!

Some buyers with foresight snatched the place up and did a complete revamp, transforming it back to its original state as a single-family home. Today, the sightly pad, which is a City of Monrovia Historic Landmark, boasts 3 bedrooms, 3 baths (2 with standalone tubs!), a den, 2,331 square feet of living space, countless original details, a tiled fireplace, hardwood flooring throughout, chair and rail moldings, a 0.18-acre lot, and a detached 1-car garage.

You can check out some interior photos of it here.

The exterior of the Tillapaugh House appeared regularly on Picket Fences.

Despite a major change in color scheme and the addition of some foliage, the property still looks much the same today as it did on television screens in the mid-90s (minus the snow, of course).

Not only was the home utilized in establishing shots of Jill’s office on the series, but some on-location filming took place there as well, in episodes such as “Rights of Passage” . . .

. . . and “Sugar & Spice.”

Only the exterior of the Tillapaugh House was featured on Picket Fences. Beginning with the pilot episode, all interior scenes involving Jill’s quaint and homey office were shot on a studio-built set.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Brad for finding this location! Smile

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine, and Discover Los Angeles.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Tillapaugh House, aka Jill’s office from Picket Fences, is located at 200 East Lime Avenue in Monrovia. The Brock residence from the show is just about a mile away at 211 Highland Place.

August 3, 2020August 3, 2020

The “One Day at a Time” Apartment Building

I am kind of a savant when it comes to old television theme songs. Mention any show from the ‘70s, ‘80s or ‘90s and I can sing the opening instantly! A Warner Bros. Studio tour guide discovered my superpower once on a trip through the lot and tried his darndest to stump me, to no avail. Growing Pains, Perfect Strangers, Full House, Cheers, Punky Brewster – I knew them all! One he failed to quiz me on, but that I would have been able to belt out all the same was “This Is It,” the catchy opening to One Day at a Time. (Just reading those words puts the chorus right into your head, doesn’t it? Just me?) Even though the series, which aired on CBS from 1975 to 1984, was before my time, I watched it in syndication every day when I got home from grade school. So ingrained in my childhood memories is the show that I can practically smell the steam from my regular afternoon Cup O’Noodles snack every time I catch an episode now. So when my friend Owen informed me that he had found the apartment building where divorced single mom Ann Romano (Bonnie Franklin) lived with her two teenage daughters, Barbara (Valerie Bertinelli) and Julie Cooper (Mackenzie Phillips) – and regularly avoided the amorous advances of handyman Schneider (Pat Harrington Jr.) – on the pivotal series, I had to give it a stalk!

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As was typical of television shows of the era, the apartment building was not shown in establishing shots, but solely in the series’ opening credits, which you can watch here.

Said to be at 1344 Hartford Drive in Indianapolis, Owen located Ann, Julie and Barbara’s complex at 656 South Ridgeley Drive in Los Angeles’ Mid-Wilshire neighborhood. The hunt was a bit of a circuitous one. Of the endeavor, he told me, “My first hunch all along was that the building would be close to where the studio was located or in or around Koreatown, since I saw quite a few apartment buildings that looked similar when doing Google Images searches. Two studio locations were listed on IMDb, so I started looking within a mile or so radius of each, figuring maybe they didn’t venture far from ‘home’ to film the scene. I came up with nada, but while researching the show a bit further I learned that it was originally taped at an address not listed on IMDb and moved shortly after its premiere. Well, with this new address (7800 Beverly Blvd.) in hand, I resumed the search, using 3D satellite views on Google Maps. I checked mostly north of the address and was about to call it quits, but then I was looking southeast of the address and noticed a few apartment buildings that shared characteristics (specifically the arched windows and the partial brick/partial non-brick façade) so I decided to keep at it. I eventually spotted a possibility on Ridgeley, so I went to street view and — after a bit of hesitation — came to the conclusion that I had lucked into finding the right place, less than 1.5 miles from the studio. I wasn’t 100 percent certain at first, but when I saw the third and fourth floors on street view, I thought — to borrow the opening line from a certain ‘70s theme song — this is it.” See, I’m not the only one who knows their theme songs!

Despite the passage of more than four decades, the building still looks much as it did on the show, though a portion of the second-floor brickwork has since been stuccoed over. It is unclear when the change was made, as it pre-dates street view imagery. Schneider must have worked overtime on that job!

The March 1937 Los Angeles Times notification below, which denotes the building as the “Wilshire Ridgeley Apartments,” shows the pre-altered façade, as it appeared on the series.

The handsome 4-story, 32-unit building was erected in 1929.

Only its exterior was featured on One Day at a Time. The interior of apartment #402, was, of course, just a set – built first at CBS Television City, as Owen mentioned, then Metromedia Square (now Helen Bernstein High School), and finally at Universal Studios. Not only did Schneider get around, but so did the show!

One Day at a Time co-creator Allan Mannings told the Indianapolis Star that he chose to set the series there because the city is “large enough to be meaningful, but not so large as to be overwhelming and not so small as to be overlooked.” A quick look at area apartment buildings via Google Images told me the location managers did a fine job selecting the Ridgeley Drive structure as it does very much have a Railroad City feel thanks to its brick façade and arched windows. (In an interesting side-note, Mannings created the series with his wife, the previously married and divorced Whitney Blake, who loosely based the storyline upon her own experiences as a working single mom. She originally hoped her daughter could play Ann, but the pitch got stuck in years of development turnaround and, when One Day at a Time was finally produced, the lead, of course, went to Bonnie Franklin. Don’t you worry about Blake’s daughter, though. Meredith Baxter fared just fine, going on to star as Elyse Keaton on Family Ties, one of the most famous screen moms of all time! And yeah, I know the words to that theme song, too!)

The supposed Logansport home Ann, Barbara and Julie are shown moving away from at the beginning of the One Day at a Time credits is also in Los Angeles. It can be found at 4954 Willow Crest Avenue in North Hollywood, looking much like it did when the segment was shot 45 years ago, as the Google Street View imagery below attests to. (Thanks to Chas, from It’s Filmed There, for the info!)

Though I don’t remember it being so in my childhood viewings, the show was considered groundbreaking. The year it debuted, one newspaper critic, William E. Sarmento, showed his scathing disdain for it by opining, “One Day at a Time is about a newly-divorced mother and her two teenage daughters. It is painfully apparent that at CBS the traditional family is all but extinct except on The Waltons. In fact, I was wondering if enough of us wrote in, maybe the mother on One Day at a Time might not be introduced to Richard Castellano on Joe and Sons. He’s a widower with two sons, and, who knows, together they might make their own hour-long weekly series. The message on CBS seems to be that marriage leads either to an early death or divorce. Maybe they’re right, but I think it would be nice to be reassured every once in a while that the whole country is not going to hell via CBS’s thinking.” Yikes. Audiences didn’t share the same sentiment, though, as One Day at a Time went on to enjoy a nine-year run, turning its four stars into household names and this stalker into a young fan.

Big THANK YOU to my friend Owen for finding this location!

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine, and Discover Los Angeles.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The One Day at a Time apartment building is located at 656 South Ridgeley Drive in Los Angeles’ Mid-Wilshire neighborhood

July 31, 2020July 31, 2020

Rock and Archie’s New Apartment from “Hollywood”

Ryan Murphy’s latest streaming foray, Hollywood, may be getting some serious side-eye from critics (as evidenced here and here), but I’ve got nothing but love for it! Sure the Netflix miniseries is campy, idealistic, and not entirely factual despite depicting some real-life characters and circumstances. But it is also fun, upbeat, and joyous – not to mention delivered at a time when audiences most need all of the above! And boy, does it showcase some fabulous Los Angeles locales! One spot that immediately caught my eye was the apartment screenwriter Archie Coleman (Jeremy Pope) secured for his actor love, Rock Hudson (Jake Picking), in episode six, “Meg.”

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It is there that Archie, down on one knee, professes his love to Rock and presents him with a key to their new place, a fabulous two-story apartment complete with a gorgeous stone fireplace, carved ceiling beams, retro sconces, and a towering wrought iron staircase. Though the dreamy space only appeared in one brief segment, it sure made an impression! Thankfully, it was a snap to track down!

At the top of the scene, Rock is shown making his way through the building’s lush central courtyard. One look at the French Normandy-style architecture and abundance of foliage, and I knew the locale was most likely in or near Park La Brea, a neighborhood in L.A.’s Miracle Mile District abundant with similar complexes. So I used Street View to poke around the area and wound up locating Archie and Rock’s new place at 6412 West Olympic Boulevard in Carthay, just a few blocks south of where I thought I would.

The 8-unit building was originally constructed in 1934, so its fits the late ‘40s-era setting of Hollywood perfectly, though its architecture really is timeless.

God is in the details, as they say, and this spot is chock full of them!

From the stucco work to the wrought iron grating to the door and window framing, the design is sublime.

I was especially taken with the boy and girl silhouette portraits that decorate the two turrets on either end of the building.

It is the complex’s northwesternmost unit, which can just barely be seen in my photo below, that stands in for Archie and Rock’s new home on Hollywood.

Addressed with a “3” in the episode, the door (which was swapped out for the shoot) is actually marked “6418 1/2” in real life.

Though pretty enough to have been a set, for inside shots the production utilized the unit’s actual interior! You can check out some listing photos of it taken by Apartment Equities LLC here.

The space couldn’t be more Old Hollywood if it tried, so it is easy to see how it wound up on the show. I was smitten with every last bit of the ambiance featured in the scene – the candles, the single lit lamp, the staircase, the ceiling beams, the ornate fireplace, and the warm wooden floors. Talk about romantic!

The interior reminds me quite a bit of the apartment where Emily Friehl (Amanda Peet) lived in A Lot Like Love, one of my favorite spaces in the entire history of moviedom, which likely explains why I was so drawn to it.

Pretty much every unit in the building is spectacular in real life, as you can see in the various MLS photos below. That front door, amirite! Sadly, per apartments.com, there are currently no vacancies, otherwise I might be tempted to pack my bags and leave the desert!

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine, and Discover Los Angeles.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Archie and Rock’s new apartment complex from the “Meg” episode of Hollywood is located at 6412-6418 West Olympic Boulevard in Los Angeles’ Carthay neighborhood.

July 29, 2020August 3, 2020

The Brock House from “Picket Fences”

I was recently asked how I come up with new material to write about. My answer? I am a huge consumer of content! All content – movies, television shows, magazines, books, blogs, websites, podcasts, documentaries, etc. etc. etc. I eat them all up! (In fact, I was tipped off to two Haunted Hollywood locations via old newspaper articles while doing research for this very post!) Many times, too, inspiration comes from fellow stalkers. Case in point – a longtime reader named Brad recently messaged to ask if I had ever done any stalking of the David E. Kelley series Picket Fences, which ran on CBS from 1992 to 1996. The quirky family drama/small-town police procedural, largely shot in Monrovia, was one of my favorite shows back in the day, but somehow I hadn’t thought about it in years! I had actually stalked the main house from the series when I first moved to Los Angeles in 2000, years before I had a blog. It was so long ago, though, that I no longer had the address listed in any of my files. Brad was kind enough to provide it to me, along with a few others, which I was thrilled to run out and stalk. I was even more thrilled to discover shortly thereafter that Season 1 is currently available for streaming on Amazon Prime and promptly settled in for a watch. Despite being almost three decades old, Picket Fences really holds up! I’m enjoying it just as much today as I did when I was a teen. And being so familiar with the L.A. area this time around has made revisiting the show even more of a joy! You can expect quite a few PF locations to be popping up here in the coming weeks. And what better spot to kick things off with than the supposed Rome, Wisconsin home where Sherriff Jimmy Brock (Tom Skerritt) lived with his wife, Dr. Jill Brock (Kathy Baker), and their three children, Kimberly (Holly Marie Combs), Matthew (Justin Shenkarow) and Zachary (Adam Wylie), on the whimsical series.

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In real life, the handsome 1924 Colonial sits on a leafy street just north of Old Town Monrovia. The 4-bedroom, 2-bath, 2,844-square-foot property last sold in 1971, which is a lucky break for us stalkers as the lack of changeover has resulted in very few alterations to the exterior. Outside of two large trees which have since been removed from the front yard, the place is a virtual time capsule from the Picket Fences days!

In an atypical move for a television show, no location changes were made by the network once Picket Fences got picked up by CBS. The Brock house remained the same from the pilot through the end of the series, as did the police station, Jill’s office, and the town courthouse – all of which I will be reporting on soon, don’t you worry!

Not only did the property appear regularly in establishing shots of the Brock residence, but some on-location filming took place there as well, including in the Season 1 episode titled “Thanksgiving” (pictured below).

The pad actually seems a bit of an odd choice to portray the main house on the show considering there’s not a picket fence in sight (then or now), as many readers have pointed out. You’d think at the very least the production crew would have temporarily installed one on the various shoot days that took place there.

Though I have not been able to track down any interior photos of the dwelling, I am fairly certain it was never utilized on Picket Fences, not even in the pilot. From the outset, the Brock house appears to have been nothing more than a set built inside of a soundstage, first at Santa Clarita Studios and then Ren-Mar Studios Hollywood (now Red Studios Hollywood).

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Brad for reminding me about this location!

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine, and Discover Los Angeles.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Brock residence from Picket Fences is located at 211 Highland Place in Monrovia.

July 27, 2020July 27, 2020

The “Blossom” House

The Blossom house has been found! I can’t tell you how long I’ve been wanting to write that sentence! Fans of the show are likely looking at the photo above, though, thinking ‘That doesn’t look anything like the Blossom house.’ And they’re right. Sadly, the pad has been remodeled past recognition. So how the heck did I identify it as the home where spunky teen Blossom Russo (Mayim Bialik) lived with her father, Nick (Ted Wass), and brothers, Joey (Joey Lawrence) and Anthony (Michael Stoyanov), on the popular NBC series, which ran from 1991 to 1995? I have fellow stalker Chris (whom you may remember from the posts here, here and here) to thank for that. Somehow, with no address number or background clues to guide him, he was able to pinpoint the property above, located at 3941 Ethel Avenue in Studio City, as the Russo residence with about 99% certainty! I then enlisted my friend Michael (guest-poster extraordinaire) to join the endeavor and we were able to eradicate the remaining 1% doubt. Read on for the story behind our hunt.

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I began my search for the Russo residence a good three years ago. Along the way, I brought some fellow stalkers in on the quest, but none of us were successful. Our failure wasn’t all that surprising considering Blossom aired almost three decades prior and the only clue we really had to go on was the fact that the home was situated on a street with no sidewalk or curb. Then in mid-May, after Chris identified the Victorian from Hangin’ with Mr. Cooper, I asked if he might help in the pursuit and he was all too happy to do so! It was not long after that he wrote back with the 3941 Ethel address! Flabbergasted, I inquired how in the heck he had IDed it so quickly. He explained, “I found the Blossom house just by browsing around Studio City on Street View and making a list of potential streets/houses, with the intention of then looking at them in more depth later on using the historic aerials on Google Earth. I found a lot of roads in Studio City seemed to have no sidewalks, so I always thought it was the most likely place. Eventually, I came to Ethel Avenue and spotted this house, however initially it was more the background, lack of sidewalk and white fence that looked similar rather than the house itself, so I made a note of it and carried on. I then went into the next street, Mary Ellen Avenue, and it was this street that made me convinced I was in the right area as many of the houses had similar features – in particular, 3942 Mary Ellen Avenue, which had the same style fence, same shaped pathway and lantern as the Blossom house. For a while, I was convinced that it was somewhere on this road, but after being unable to match any of the houses, I went back to Ethel Avenue. Immediately after doing so, I noticed the roof of the house next door to 3941 had a similar shape to the one next door to the Blossom house and from that point on, started to notice more and more features that matched.” The neighboring roofline Chris mentioned is denoted with fuchsia arrows below. As you can see, its unique shape, as well as the placement and style of the chimney are direct matches to what appeared on Blossom.

Chris went on to explain, “I then learned that 3941 had been renovated in 1996 and after looking at building permits for the property, I found a sketch of the original house that also matched the shape of the Blossom house.” Chris was kind enough to outline the shape of the original dwelling in red on the drawing, which paints a pretty clear matching picture. As you’ll notice, the placement of the bay window, wings that jut out on either side, and indented front door outlined in the sketch all mirror those of the Russo residence.

He also noted that 3941 boasts a hedgerow and spider plants along the right side of the driveway, both of which were evident in Blossom establishing shots.

I was in awe at Chris’ findings! Talk about some elite-level detective work! Everything I saw gave me a strong feeling that he had correctly identified the right place. But you know me – I like to be 100% certain in my reporting. So I brought in Michael, who uncovered a slew of additional matching details. His email to me included the aerial below. As he noted, “The clincher for me is in looking at the blurry Historic Aerial from 1980 you can make out some important features that all match up with Blossom: uniquely angled front walk, bay window sticking out, two tiny dormers, and left roofline that stops short where it turns into a hipped roof.” It was all compelling evidence, but seeing that angled walkway gave me chills! I knew we most likely had the right spot! But still, we pressed on.

Michael furthered, “Also, on the Blossom cap there are crawlspace vents along the foundation of the house. You can more easily make out one of them on the right corner, and there’s another one slightly visible behind the shrubs centered with the window. The Blossom siding stopped even with the landing of the front entry. The current siding goes one slat lower (overlapping the vents). If you draw a line across them from the front landing, the vents are located in the right spots and at the right level.” Michael even provided the fabulous graphic below to illustrate the point.

As if that wasn’t enough, Michael zeroed in on the front yard, as well. He said, “The yard seems to slope down to the right. In the Blossom cap, taller plantings seem to be covering higher foundation on the right side of the house, compared to the left side. This is also true for the Ethel Ave location.” And he noted, “On the Blossom cap taken from the left of the house, you can see the corner of something boxy to the right of the gable on the right side of the house. I think this might be the brick chimney of the right-side neighbor.” Though that chimney is blocked from view a bit by 3941’s new roofline and portico, it is still partially visible looking much like what appeared onscreen.

Here’s a closer view.

I also spotted a trench running along the street in front of the Russo residence, an element that exists in front of 3941 Ethel, as well.

That 1% doubt still lingered in my mind, though. I know, I know. I can be relentless! But, thankfully, certainty soon hit. A couple of weeks later, a fellow stalker posted some screen captures of the Russo house from a Blossom DVD in a Facebook group. The imagery was much clearer than what was being streamed on Amazon Prime, so I promptly ordered a DVD set for myself and waited not-so-patiently for it to arrive. As soon as it did, I got my clarity! In the commentary featured on the pilot episode, Blossom creator Don Reo announced that the Russo residence was located in Studio City in real life. And in the shot below, the house number is pretty clear (even more so when watching on a TV). It definitely looks like “3941” to me!

The clearer caps also led Michael to notice the double-hung window situated on the right side of the Blossom house. He said, “There’s a window in that exact spot in your present-day photos. Also behind the trees past the gate on the caps you can sort of make out a straight vertical line. I think that’s a second window—which is also still in that location.”

But what really clinched things for me was the establishing shot below in which I spotted a stacked stone fence post attached to the property to the left of the Russo pad. Google Street View imagery shows that very post next to 3941 (denoted with fuchsia arrows in both pictures below), though it is not visible in any of my photos due to foliage that now stands in front of it. Not only that, but I saw that the edge of the neighboring house in the Blossom cap was covered in the same stacked stone. That is also true of the property next to 3941 (denoted with blue arrows below)! And there’s more! I also noticed a white fence attached to the left side of the Blossom house. 3941 has that same white fence (marked by purple arrows below)! All of this adds up to tell me that 3941 Ethel Avenue is, indeed, the Russo residence from Blossom! Eureka! Thank you, Chris and Michael!

The timing of the 1996 remodel also adds up being that Blossom went off the air in ‘95. Seems like the owners, who purchased the place in 1987, waited until the series ended before altering the house, which makes sense. They likely didn’t want to risk losing out on any possible filming revenue. Per the building permits, the remodel included a “2,130-square-foot addition” that added on a second level, expanded the first story, and included a new “irregular-shaped porte-cochère.” All of that gibes with the differences we see of the house as it appeared on Blossom compared to how it looks now. Post remodel, the dwelling, which was originally built in 1948, boasts 5 bedrooms, 5 baths, and 5,057 square feet. The decades-old renovation, completed so shortly after the show went off the air and long before internet-sleuthing was a thing, explains why the Russo home has not been identified until now.

Only the exterior of 3941 Ethel Avenue appeared on the series. The interior of the Russo pad was just a set built on a soundstage, first at Ren-Mar Studios Hollywood (now Red Studios Hollywood), then Sunset Gower Studios, then Fox Television Center (now Helen Bernstein High School). The production moved around quite a bit during its five-year tenure on the air.

As Michael pointed out, the Russos’ kitchen has a very Golden Girls feel. He said, “After looking through a few episodes trying to find establishing shots, it was funny how obvious it was that they used the same production designer as The Golden Girls. A cheesecake certainly wouldn’t have seemed out of place in that kitchen.” Certainly not, Michael!

The property in its original state was utterly charming – in my “opinionation,” at least! It really is sad, not just for us stalkers but in general, that it has been altered so.

So there you have it, the sad saga of the Blossom house and the long quest to track it down!

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Chris for finding this location and to fellow stalker Michael for helping with the verification process.

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine, and Discover Los Angeles.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Russo residence from Blossom is located at 3941 Ethel Avenue in Studio City. It has, sadly, been remodeled beyond recognition. Drew Barrymore’s childhood home is across the street at 4002 Ethel.

July 24, 2020July 23, 2020

Molly’s Apartment from “Booksmart”

Recently I’ve had to face the fact that my friend Owen, a Connecticut native, possibly knows more than I do about Pasadena, the city that I called home and regularly explored for almost 15 years! Last December, he tipped me off to Oaklawn, a gorgeous South Pasadena enclave full of cinematically famous houses I had not previously heard of. Then, a few weeks ago, he sent me this Entertainment Weekly article about locations from Booksmart. I had yet to see the 2019 comedy at the time, but the photo of the gloriously pink mid-century modern apartment complex where Molly (Beanie Feldstein) lived immediately caught my eye. I was shocked to learn while diving into the article that the retro property, made up of condos in real life, is in Pasadena! How I had missed it in all my years residing in Crown City is beyond me! So I made it a point to amend that and headed on over there soon after.

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Villa San Pasqual, as Molly’s complex is known in real life, was designed in 1953 by architect Lionel V. Mayell.

The property, a designated Pasadena landmark, features striking mid-century detailing, including a bright stucco exterior, hipped roofs, and arresting floating staircases with uniquely-patterned railings.

Oh, and front doors with centered knobs. Why do we not do that anymore??

The complex’s pink and turquoise color combo is perfection!

The sprawling property, comprised of 15 separate buildings surrounding landscaped courtyards, is absolutely huge! You could get lost wandering the grounds.

To say Villa San Pasqual is cinematic is an understatement! The interiors are even more so!

The complex is incredibly versatile, too. It could just as easily portray Las Vegas as it could Los Angeles or Miami onscreen. In fact, according to The Movieland Directory website, it appeared in a 2010 episode of CSI: Miami, but I have been unable to figure out which one.

Per Entertainment Weekly, Booksmart’s director Olivia Wilde and production designer Katie Byron zeroed in on the locale because “they fell in love with the retro peach color.” As did I, ladies! As did I (though I consider it more pink than peach). The site also fit in with their desire to film at a “quintessentially Angeleno complex.”

Wilde furthers, “I also love that [Molly’s complex] is designed to make you commune with your neighbors, yet it’s something Molly would want nothing to do with.”

The only thing missing according to the duo? “One of the cheesy, vaguely European monikers that evoke a vacation rental.” So they added the Le Capris sign – “intentionally misspelled so that it wouldn’t be confused with a real building,” per EW.

In the movie, Molly lives in Unit T of Villa San Pasqual’s southeastern-most building, which is situated on Catalina Avenue.

It is denoted with yellow arrows in the photos below.

Interiors appear to have been filmed on a set. You can check out the real inside of Unit T here.

Villa San Pasqual boasts a couple of other roles on its resume.

Along with the aforementioned appearance on CSI: Miami, I also learned via The Movieland Directory that David Sinclair (Alimi Ballard) and Colby Granger (Dylan Bruno) chased down a suspect there in the Season 4 episode of Numb3rs titled “Graphic,” which aired in 2007.

Villa San Pasqual also popped up a couple of times as the complex where Levi Callow (Luke Wilson) lived on the television series Enlightened, which aired from 2011 to 2013.

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine, and Discover Los Angeles.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Villa San Pasqual, aka Molly’s apartment complex from Booksmart, is located at 1000 San Pasqual Street in Pasadena. Molly lived in unit T of the complex’s southeastern-most building (denoted with a yellow arrow below), which is situated on South Catalina Avenue.

July 22, 2020July 22, 2020

The “Gimme a Break!” House

Though I definitely consider myself a child of the ‘80s, somehow I never watched Gimme a Break!, which aired on NBC from 1981 to 1987. So when my friend Owen emailed in April asking if I had any intel on the supposed Glenlawn, California residence where widowed police chief Carl Kanisky (Dolph Sweet) lived with his three daughters, Katie (Kari Michaelsen), Sam (Lara Jill Miller) and Julie (Lauri Hendler), and their housekeeper, Nell Harper (Nell Carter), on the series, I was at a loss. Owen isn’t actually a huge Gimme a Break! fan either, but bored during quarantine, caught an episode on YouTube and quickly zeroed in on the traditional-style pad shown in the opening credits. As he wrote to me, “I’m guessing this is one of the few remaining popular ’80s sitcom houses that has yet to be found.” I was, of course, intrigued. One look at its stately architecture told me the property was likely in Hancock Park. I did some digging in the area, but came up empty. It was not until the end of May that the home was finally identified thanks to fellow stalker Chas, of the It’s Filmed There website. As it turns out, my hunch about Hancock Park was right on the money! The Kanisky residence can be found at 515 South Norton Avenue in Windsor Square, looking pretty much exactly as it did during the Gimme a Break! days almost four decades ago!

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In real life, the 1910 home boasts 4 bedrooms, 3 baths, 3,022 square feet, a fireplace, a 0.16-acre lot, and a detached 2-car garage with what appears to be an in-law unit upstairs.

It really is a handsome property, with plenty of Anywhere, U.S.A. appeal. So it’s no surprise it found its way to the screen.

Said to be at 2938 Wells Drive in the fictional town of Glenlawn, the pad popped up in Gimme a Break!’s Season 1 and 2 opening credits, which you can watch here. Like me, Chas had a feeling the property was most likely located in Hancock Park and its environs. He began his search at Beverly Boulevard and Manhattan Place at the very eastern edge of Windsor Square and, using Street View, worked his way south on Manhattan until he hit Wilshire Boulevard. He then ventured back toward Beverly on North St. Andrews Place and continued on that way in a grid-like fashion, moving west. And there, on the sixth street he searched, was the Kanisky house. Thank you, Chas!

It truly is a feat that so little of the property has been changed considering 39 years have passed since Gimme a Break! first hit the screen, not to mention how prevalent remodels are in L.A.

Only the exterior of 515 South Norton appeared on the series. The interior of the Kanisky house was just a set located on a soundstage at the now-defunct Metromedia Square in Hollywood, where Helen Bernstein High School now stands.

Gimme a Break! is not the pad’s only claim to fame!

Thanks to On Location Vacations, I learned that Jack Pearson (Milo Ventimiglia) took Rebecca (Mandy Moore) to an open house there in the Season 3 episode of This Is Us titled “A Philadelphia Story,” which aired in 2018. Only the interior of the property was shown in the episode.

On Location Vacations also tipped me off to the residence’s stint as the home of Marisol (Veronica Osorio) and Richard Onsted (Peter Mark Kendall) on the television series Strange Angel, which aired from 2018 to 2019.

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine, and Discover Los Angeles.

Big THANK YOU to Chas, from the It’s Filmed There website, for finding this location and to Owen for initiating the hunt!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Kanisky house from Gimme a Break! is located at 515 South Norton Avenue in Windsor Square.

July 20, 2020July 19, 2020

Henry Willson’s House from “Hollywood”

Just when you thought I was done blogging about locales from Hollywood, here I am with a new spot! A couple of months back, an anonymous reader informed me that the Buck House, an architecturally famous pad in the Mid-Wilshire area, portrayed the residence of lecherous powerhouse agent Henry Willson (Jim Parsons) on the popular 2020 Netflix miniseries. Even though the exterior was never shown, I was intrigued and promptly headed over to Google to bring up images of the place. Doing so only intrigued me further! Featuring clean lines, windows galore, and unique Streamline Moderne built-ins, the Buck Residence is stunning! To the top of my To-Stalk List it went and I made it over there for some socially-distant stalking a few weeks later.

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The 1934 International-style stunner was constructed by architect R.M. Schindler for clothing store designer John J. Buck.

The sprawling L-shaped property, which surrounds a rear courtyard, boasts 2 bedrooms, 2 baths, 2,500 square feet, a brick fireplace, sliding glass walls, varying ceiling heights, clerestory windows (defined by Architectural Digest as “a row of windows well above eye level”), a 0.17-acre corner lot, and an attached 3-car garage with an upstairs apartment featuring its own private entrance.

In 1977, the dwelling was slightly remodeled, with one of the three original bedrooms opened up and combined with a breakfast nook. The kitchen and a bathroom were also updated at the time. Otherwise, the Buck House looks much as it did when Schindler completed it almost nine decades ago.

Today, the property, which is Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument #122, operates as the Country Club art gallery.

You can check out some great interior images of it here.

The Buck House only appears once on Hollywood. After a rather tense dinner at The Prince in the episode titled “Outlaws,” Henry forces his client Rock Hudson (Jake Picking) to come back to his home to watch him perform the Dance of the Seven Veils.

805 S Genesee Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90036

The scene, which you can watch here, is insanely cringeworthy and perfectly showcases Willson’s eccentric and predatory personality, but I was more taken with the striking surroundings than anything else.

The production utilized a couple of areas of the house including the living room (above) and a den/office that was transformed into Henry’s bedroom.

As you can see in the MLS images from a recent listing as compared to the screen captures above and below, though some artwork and mid-century décor were added to the premises for the shoot, the place is still very recognizable from its onscreen stint.

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine, and Discover Los Angeles.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Buck House, aka Henry Willson’s home from the “Outlaws” episode of Hollywood, is located at 805 South Genesee Avenue in Mid-Wilshire.