Ashley Benson – IAMNOTASTALKER

February 17, 2016February 17, 2016

Non-Warner Bros. Studio Locations of “Pretty Little Liars”

I have covered Pretty Little Liars locations ad nauseam on my blog, as well as on the other sites that I write for. As I’ve mentioned in all of the posts, the series is lensed pretty much in its entirety at Warner Bros. Studio in Burbank (you can check out an extensive guide to the WB locations used on the show here and here) and it is a rare occasion that filming of any kind takes place off the lot. Over the years, I have compiled a list of the few non-studio locales utilized on the series and thought it would be fun to chronicle them in a single post. So here you have it, all of the PLL locations that cannot be found at the WB (excluding the Vancouver sites from the pilot episode, which I covered here, here, here, here and here).

[ad]

1. Dr. Ackard’s Office – In the Season 1 episode titled “Reality Bites Me,” Hanna Marin (Ashley Benson) begins assisting at the dental office of Dr. Ackard (Paula Cale) as a way to work off the damage she caused by crashing Dr. Ackard’s son’s car. The site that masked as the dental office on the series is actually one of my favorite buildings in all of Los Angeles, one that I have mentioned many times on this blog – the John Ferraro Building, aka the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power located at 111 North Hope Street in downtown L.A. The structure, which I chronicled in a 2010 post, is only used in establishing shots on Pretty Little Liars. The interior of Dr. Ackard’s actual office – as well as the neighboring office of Jenna Marshall’s (Tammin Sursok) psychologist, which Hanna broke into – is a set built inside of a soundstage at Warner Bros. Studio.

2. Rosewood Greens Country Club – In that same episode, Spencer Hastings (Troian Bellisario) and her father play a “friendly” game of doubles tennis against one of Spencer’s dad’s clients at Rosewood Greens Country Club, said to be located in Rosewood, Pennsylvania, where the series is set. Filming of the club scenes actually took place at the Toluca Lake Country Club, which is located pretty much right next door to Warner Bros. Studio at 6711 Forest Lawn Drive in Burbank. Sadly, the property is closed to the public, so as of yet, I have not been able to stalk it.

3. Ian’s Burial – Ian Thomas (Ryan Merriman) is laid to rest at Rosewood’s local cemetery in the Season 2 episode titled “The Devil You Know.” The burial scene was actually lensed, though, at the oft-filmed Mountain View Cemetery located at 2400 North Fair Oaks Avenue in Altadena. Countless productions have been filmed at Mountain View and while I covered the place in an October 2010 post, come October I will be doing a redux as I have since discovered numerous other credits that I need to add to its extensive filming resume.

4. A Is Unmasked – In Pretty Little Liars Season 2 finale, which was titled “UnmAsked,” the Liars learn the true identity of A and confront her while on a dark and twisty Rosewood road. Thanks to a helpful crew member, I learned that the scene was shot on Mount Hollywood Drive inside of Griffith Park. Unfortunately though, due to the lack of light and the fact that very little of the surrounding area was shown, I have yet to pinpoint the exact spot where the climactic sequence took place.

In that same episode, Jenna secretly rendezvoused with A at a turnout also located on Mount Hollywood Drive.

5. Fitzgerald Theatre – In Pretty Little Liars’ Season 5 premiere, titled “EscApe from New York,” Alison DiLaurentis (Sasha Pieterse) and the girls hide out from A at the Fitzgerald Theatre in New York City. In reality, filming took place about 2,800 miles outside of Manhattan at downtown Los Angeles’ Orpheum Theatre, which is located at 842 South Broadway. I covered this locale in a post for L.A. magazine here. Sadly, I have only ever stalked the exterior of the Orpheum, but am hoping to catch a glimpse of its interior at some point by either seeing a show there or by embarking upon a Los Angeles Conservancy Broadway Historic Theatre and Commercial District Walking Tour.

6. The Rosewood Courthouse – In the Season 5 episodes titled “The Melody Lingers On” and “I’m a Good Girl, I Am,” a standing court set at Riverfront Stages, located at 13100 Telfair Avenue in Sylmar, stood in for the Rosewood courtroom where Alison’s trial for the murder of Mona Vanderwaal (Janel Parrish) was held. You can check out some photographs of that courtroom set here. I can’t currently find much information about the facility online, so I am guessing that it might have closed recently. Its sister studio, located at 3061 Treadwell Street in Glassell Park, is still in operation, though. You can see the website for that property here.

7. Hollis College – Although several different areas of Warner Bros. Studio have been used to represent Hollis College over the years, in the Season 5 episode titled “Pretty Isn’t the Point,” production made the short trek over to Warner Bros. Ranch to shoot some campus scenes. I recently wrote about the Ranch, which is located about a mile northeast of Warner Bros. Studio at 411 North Hollywood Way in Burbank, for the Mike the Fanboy website. You can check out that post here. In “Pretty Isn’t the Point,” Spencer grabs coffee with Johnny Raymond (Will Bradley) at what is supposed to be Hollis. The scene was actually lensed, though, in front of the Ranch’s row of picturesque townhouses. Those same townhomes famously appeared each week in the background of the Friends opening credits.

On a fashion side-note – Spencer’s outfit in that scene is one of my favorites of the entire series. So simple, so classy, and oh so cute!

8. Art Gallery – Later in “Pretty Isn’t the Point,” while walking near Hollis, Spencer and Johnny discover that their graffitied artwork has been stolen and is now for sale in a local gallery. That scene was shot just a few feet away from where the two had coffee earlier in the episode, at one of the Ranch’s townhome façades.

A close-up view of that townhouse is pictured below. It is easily one of the most picturesque structures at Warner Bros. Ranch.

9. Gas Station – Later in that same episode, Toby Cavanaugh (Keegan Allen) arrests Johnny for breaking into the art gallery while at a nearby gas station. That gas station is also located at Warner Bros. Ranch, just a bit southeast of the townhome façades, and should look familiar to The Middle fans – it is used regularly as Ehlert Motors on the ABC series.

10. Aunt Carol’s House – In Season 6’s “Don’t Look Now,” Jason DiLaurentis (Drew Van Acker) and the Liars discover the gravesite of Charles DiLaurentis while visiting Jason’s aunt’s house. That clapboard residence is another Warner Bros. Ranch location and is best known as being the Walton family home from The Waltons.

11. Rosewood Community Pool – The Ranch’s large swimming pool also made an appearance as the Rosewood Community Pool, where Emily Fields (Shay Mitchell) took Sara Harvey (Dre Davis) swimming in that same episode.

12. Welby State Psychiatric Hospital – In a bonus scene that aired during the Season 6 special titled “Five Years Forward,” Alison and Jason visit Charlotte DiLaurentis (Vanessa Ray) at the Welby State Psychiatric Hospital. One of Pasadena’s most famous properties, the Tournament House at 391 South Orange Grove Boulevard, was used in the establishing shot of the institution in the episode. I wrote about the oft-filmed locale in a recent Los Angeles magazine post.

I do not believe that any actual filming took place at the Tournament House, though. I am fairly certain that all of the scene’s on-location shooting was done at Warner Bros. Studio.

One non-studio locale that I have been unable to track down is the Speed Demon Express exterior that was featured in Season 2’s “The Devil You Know.” Though an address number of 4680 or 4690 is visible above the storefront’s doors, try as I might, I have not been able to find the place. If it looks familiar to anyone, please let me know.

Interestingly, by the time that Season 2’s “If These Dolls Could Talk” was filmed, a different exterior was chosen to stand in for Speed Demon Express. That exterior is located on Warner Bros. Studio’s Midwest Business Street and, in an ironic twist, is the very same exterior that is used regularly as The Brew on the series. It was altered significantly prior to being transformed into The Brew, though, and is hardly recognizable from its appearance as Speed Demon Express. Prior to the remodel, the same façade also masked as Sophie’s Music on Gilmore Girls. You can check out what it looked like at the time on Chas’ It’s Filmed There website. Big thank you to Chas for helping me to ID this one.

If anyone can think of any other instances in which filming took place off the lot, please let me know. 🙂

And on a Pretty Little Liars side-note – my mom and I had the pleasure of meeting Troian Bellisario this past weekend and I can honestly say that she is one of the nicest celebrities I have ever encountered! A complete and total doll! I love her even more now than I did before! Troian is currently starring in a play called The Last Match in San Diego. I’ve heard that it is excellent and am hoping to head back down there to catch it in the coming weeks. If I do, I will definitely review it here.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

January 18, 2016February 16, 2016

The “Pretty Little Liars” Church

Before we get started, I have a couple of announcements. Some changes will be coming to the blog in 2016. The biggest change will be a major site redesign, which the Grim Cheaper is currently working on and which I could NOT be more excited about. You’ll notice I’ve altered my screen captures a bit in today’s post, which is part of the revamp. My editor at Los Angeles magazine also recently started a new position and until someone is hired to replace her full time, things are a bit up in the air with my Scene it Before column. Regardless of what happens with that, I will be scaling my IAMNOTASTALKER postings down to three days a week (most of the time, anyway), so that I can free up some time to write for other websites (and for my own sanity – throughout most of 2015, I found myself working every weekday plus Sundays, which is no way to operate). One of my new ventures is a monthly column for one of my good friend’s blogs (more info on that to come), which I am thrilled about. So yeah, changes are a-coming. But hopefully my fellow stalkers will embrace them. I have a feeling big things are on the horizon for 2016. And now, on with the post! The winter premiere of Pretty Little Liars, titled “Of Late I Think of Rosewood,” aired last Tuesday night and I have to say it was surprisingly enjoyable. I am really digging the five-year time jump and all of the mysteries that come with it. Well done, PLL! You’ve sucked me right back in, which I wasn’t sure was possible considering the debacle of the whole Big A reveal in August. In honor of the show’s promising return, I am here yet again with yet another Vancouver locale from the pilot episode – Ryerson United Church, which my good friend/fellow stalker Kerry was nice enough to stalk for me during a recent weekend trip to Canada.

[ad]

Ryerson United Church was featured at the very end of the Pretty Little Liars pilot. In the episode, it stood in for the Rosewood, Pennsylvania parish where Alison DiLaurentis’ (Sasha Pieterse) funeral was held.

Most notably, it was while standing outside of the church after the funeral that the Liars received their first ever ominous group text message, which read, “I’m still here, bitches. And I know everything. -A”

Being that I had nothing to go on with this one – no visible street signs or address numbers – I thought the church would be tough to track down, but it was a surprisingly easy find. I simply did a Google Images search using the terms “church” and “Vancouver” and, voila, in the fourth row of results, there was a photo of the place I was looking for! Clicking on said photo led me to a page about Ryerson United Church on the Wedding Mappers website.

The actual inside of Ryerson United also appeared in the Pretty Little Liars pilot. You can check out some photographs of the interior here.

Though, as I mentioned in this post, the supposed church stairs shown in the funeral scene are not located at Ryerson United, but in the Vancouver home that masked as Ali’s in the episode.

It is interesting to be blogging about this particular location now, after having watched “Of Late I Think of Rosewood,” being that the episode so closely paralleled the pilot, especially the funeral scene.

Side note – I absolutely loved the line in the premiere in which Caleb Rivers (Tyler Blackburn), when talking about Radley Sanitarium’s transformation into the boutique hotel “The Radley,” said, “Well, people get do-overs, why shouldn’t buildings?” I couldn’t agree more, Caleb! Oh, how I wish people would stop tearing down old and historic structures! I’m looking at you, owners of the Clueless party house!

When Pretty Little Liars got picked up, production moved from Vancouver to Warner Bros. Studio in Burbank and the series began to make use of a structure located on the Midwest Street backlot as Rosewood’s local church. The façade has gone on to appear in countless episodes, including the funeral scene in “Of Late I Think of Rosewood.”

The Midwest Street church is a practical set and its interior also regularly appears on the show, as was the case with “Of Late I Think of Rosewood.”

Back to Ryerson United Church in Vancouver. Pretty Little Liars is hardly the first production to make use of the site. Most notably, the church was the main location featured in the 1983 TV movie The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.

The interior of Ryerson United was also utilized in the production.

In the Season 2 episode of The Flash titled “Legends of Today,” Ryerson United Church masked as St. Marks in Central City, where Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) and Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) went to track down a consecrated staff.

The exterior shown in the episode was that of a different church, though.

Big THANK YOU to Kerry for stalking this location for me!

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: Ryerson United Church, aka the church from the pilot episode of Pretty Little Liars, is located at 2195 West 45th Avenue in Vancouver.

January 13, 2016January 13, 2016

The Ultimate “Pretty Little Liars” Guide to Warner Bros. Studio

Be sure to check out my latest post for Discover Los Angeles, The Ultimate Pretty Little Liars Guide to Warner Bros. Studio Tour Hollywood Part One and Part Two. It is a continuation of my February 2015 article, which covered locales from the series’ first two seasons. I had so much fun putting this one together – and even had a very apropos “A” moment while doing so! I hope my fellow stalkers enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!

January 11, 2016April 12, 2020

Lord Byng Secondary School from “Pretty Little Liars”

I hope y’all aren’t sick of Pretty Little Liars locations yet, because I still have a few more up my sleeve, as well as a huge soon-to-be published article on the subject for Discover Los Angeles. Today’s locale is Vancouver’s Lord Byng Secondary School, which stood in for Rosewood High School in the pilot episode. For those who have not read my other PLL articles (which you can do here, here, here, and here) and are unfamiliar with the production of the show, I’ll give you the skinny. While the series is lensed almost in its entirety at Warner Bros. Studio in Burbank, the pilot was shot in Vancouver. I recently became a bit obsessed with tracking down locations from the inaugural episode and found the school featured in it thanks to the Pretty Little Liars Wikia page. My good friend/fellow stalker Kerry was nice enough to stalk it for me during a recent trip to Canada. Thank you, Kerry!

[ad]

The stately Lord Byng Secondary School was originally constructed in 1925 and was named after The Lord Byng of Vimy, who, at the time, was the Governor General of Canada. You can see a photograph of what the site looked like when it was first constructed here.

The property has been expanded several times over the years. You can see some photos of those additions being built here.

Lord Byng popped up a few times in the Pretty Little Liars pilot and establishing shots of it still appear on the series from time to time.

The real life interior of the school was also used in a few scenes.

Once the show got picked up, production moved to the Sunshine State, more specifically to Warner Bros. Studio. Outside of an occasional establishing shot of Lord Byng, a brick-faced façade located in the Midwest Street portion of the lot has since been used to mask as Rosewood High. Surprisingly, that structure (pictured in the second photograph below) bears quite a resemblance to Lord Byng Secondary School. I say “surprisingly” because the façade was not constructed for Pretty Little Liars, but has been a lot staple since it was built the ‘50s. The Dukes of Hazzard fans should recognize the place as the infamous Hazzard County Courthouse.

As I mentioned in my post about Aria Montgomery’s (Lucy Hale) house, the parts of Mike Montgomery (Cody Allen Christian) and Byron Montgomery (Chad Lowe) were re-cast after the Pretty Little Liars pilot was shot, which required many scenes to be re-shot. A few of those scenes took place at Rosewood High and the re-shoots made use of the Warner Bros. façade. Those scenes included the segment in which Aria dropped Mike off at lacrosse practice . . .

. . . and close-up shots from the scene in which Byron dropped Aria and Mike off at school on the first day of classes.

Lord Byng is an oft-used filming location. In fact, it has appeared in so many productions that it would be impossible for me to chronicle them all here, but I’ll list a few. In 1986’s The Boy Who Could Fly, LBSS was where Milly (Lucy Deakins) attended high school.

Lord Byng has appeared in no less than five episodes of 21 Jump Street, including Season 2’s “After School Special,” which aired in 1987. For that episode the rear side of Lord Byng was utilized. You can read about more of the episodes filmed there on the 80sFilmLocations site.

LBSS was where Nicole Walker (Reese Witherspoon) went to high school in the 1996 thriller Fear.

In 2009’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine, the school was where Victor Creed (Liev Schreiber) and Scott Summers (Tim Pocock) had a showdown.

And in the Season 1 episode of Emily Owens, M.D. titled “Emily . . . and the Outbreak,” which aired in 2012, Lord Byng masked as Robert M. Johnson High School, where Emily Owens (Mamie Gummer) taught a sex education class.

Kerry also let me know that the site is currently portraying Erie Harbor School on the new Apple TV+ series Home Before Dark.

Big THANK YOU to Kerry for stalking this location for me!

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: Lord Byng Secondary School, aka Rosewood High School from the pilot episode of Pretty Little Liars, is located at 3939 West 16th Avenue in Vancouver.