Barbara Hershey – IAMNOTASTALKER

August 29, 2018August 28, 2018

The Ella Strong Denison Library from “Beaches”

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.

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 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.

September 29, 2011September 28, 2011

The “Beaches” Mansion vs. The “Starsky & Hutch” Mansion

Two weeks ago, fellow stalker Jenny left a comment on my post about the long-sought-after Beaches mansion in which she mentioned that the very same residence had also been used in both 1983’s Mr. Mom and 1987’s Who’s That Girl. Ironically enough, I had received virtually that same exact comment from a fellow stalker named Sarah on the post I wrote about the Starsky & Hutch mansion (pictured above) way back in May of 2009. So yesterday I decided to do some digging to see which mansion, if either, had been used in the two 80s flicks – a task which proved to be easier said than done.

Both the Beaches mansion and the Starsky & Hutch mansion are extremely large, Tudor-style residences situated on absolutely huge pieces of land in Pasadena, so it is easy to see how they have been mistaken as being one in the same over the years. The Beaches mansion, which is pictured above although sadly not much of it can be seen from the street, was originally built in 1916 and boasts 8 bedrooms, 4 baths, and a whopping 7,479 square feet of living space.

The gargantuan home sits on just under two acres of land.

In Beaches, the mansion was where Hillary Whitney Essex (aka Barbara Hershey) lived with her daughter, Victoria Cecilia Essex (aka Grace Johnston).

The Starsky & Hutch mansion, which was built in 1912, boasts 13 bedrooms (and no that is not a typo!), 8 baths, and 11,573 square feet of living space.

The monstrous residence sits on a 2.2 acre plot of land.

In 2004’s Starsky & Hutch, the mansion was where Reese Feldman (aka Vince Vaughn) lived with his wife, Mrs. Feldman (aka Molly Sims), and was where David Starsky (aka Ben Stiller) accidentally shot a pony while at a bar mitzvah party.

As it turns out and as you can see above, Mr. Mom was filmed at the Starsky & Hutch mansion and not at the Beaches mansion. In the movie, the property stood in for the residence belonging to Caroline’s (aka Teri Garr’s) millionaire boss, Ron Richardson (aka Martin Mull).

And here’s where things get confusing. As you can see above, the Starsky & Hutch mansion was also used as the home of Simon Worthington (aka John McMartin) in Who’s That Girl. Well, the front of the house was, at least.

The backyard, though, where the wedding of Louden Trott (aka Griffin Dunne) and Wendy Worthington (aka Sixteen Candles’ Haviland Morris) was supposed to take place, was actually the backyard of the Beaches mansion!

The interior scenes from Who’s That Girl were also filmed at the Beaches mansion. The screen captures in the top row pictured above were taken from Who’s That Girl, while the ones in the bottom row were taken from Beaches, and, as you can see, the interiors match perfectly.

The Starsky & Hutch mansion was also used numerous times in the television series Falcon Crest as the home belonging to Carlo Agretti (aka Carlos Romero) and his daughter, Melissa (aka Ana Alicia). It first showed up in the Season 1 episode titled “House of Cards” and then popped up repeatedly throughout the next few seasons. According to IMDB, the Starsky & Hutch mansion was also used in the Season 2 episode of Fantasy Island titled “The Last Whodunit” and in the Season 4 episode of Murder She Wrote titled “Witness for the Defense”, neither of which I could find a copy of to make screen captures for this post. And according to my buddy E.J. over at The Movieland Directory, the property also appeared in an episode of the short-lived television series Pepper Dennis.

As I mentioned in my post two weeks ago, the Beaches mansion has also been used in countless productions over the years. It stood in for Roger Sterling’s (aka John Slattery’s) country club in the Season 3 episode of Mad Men titled “My Old Kentucky Home”.

And in the Season 2 episode of Parks & Recreation titled “94 Meetings” it appeared as the Turnbill Mansion, which Leslie Knope (aka Amy Poehler) fought to save.

Fellow stalker Tamara in Australia also let me know that the Beaches mansion was used as the residence where the eponymous Alice (aka Natalie Gregory) lived in 1985’s FABULOUS Irwin-Allen-produced television movie Alice in Wonderland, which featured an all-star cast and which I used to watch repeatedly with my grandma when I was a child. The same property also appeared in the Season 7 episode of Columbo titled “Try and Catch Me”, which I was unfortunately unable to find a copy of to make screen captures for this post.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalkers Jenny, Sarah, and Tamara for helping me to clear up the filming location confusion with these particular properties. Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Beaches mansion is located at 880 La Loma Road in Pasadena. The Starsky & Hutch mansion is located just about two miles east at 1050 Arden Road in Pasadena.

September 15, 2011September 14, 2011

The “Beaches” Mansion

One location that I have been asked about repeatedly ever since I first started my blog almost four years ago (and I CANNOT even believe that it has been that long!!!) is the large Tudor-style mansion where Hillary Whitney Essex (aka Barbara Hershey) lived in the 1988 tearjerker Beaches. And while it had long been noted on various websites that the property was located somewhere in the Pasadena area, try as I might, I just could not seem to track the place down. Then this past January a fellow stalker named Alain who lives in France emailed me to ask about a mansion that had appeared in the Season 7 episode of Columbo titled “Try and Catch Me”. He mentioned that the same estate had also been used in Beaches. I explained to Alain that I had been trying to find that particular home for years, but had had absolutely no luck. Flash forward 9 months to this past Tuesday afternoon when I received another email from Alain, this one announcing that he had found the property! Whoo-hoo! How he managed to locate it while living thousands of miles away in France, when I failed to do so while living right here in Pasadena, is absolutely beyond me! My hat is most-definitely off to you, Alain!

So I, of course, ran right out to stalk the place early Wednesday morning. Sadly though, as you can see above, hardly any of the property is visible from the street.

But, as I have said before, that is why God created aerial views. In real life, the 7,479-square-foot, 8-bedroom, 4-bath home, which was built in 1916 by the noted Pasadena architecture firm Marston & Van Pelt (who also designed the Twins mansion), is known as the S. S. Hinds Estate. The property was named for one of its original owners, actor Samuel S. Hinds, who is best known for playing Peter Bailey, George Bailey’s (aka James Stewart’s) father, in the 1946 classic It’s A Wonderful Life. According to my buddy E.J. over at The Movieland Directory, Hinds lived in the home from the 1920s until the 1940s. Ironically enough, Hinds was originally a very prominent attorney who lost his fortune in the stock market crash of 1929. He was able to keep his Pasadena manse during that difficult time by renting it out to various boarders. Finding himself destitute at the age of 54, he decided to abandon law and try his hand at acting and it was not long before Hollywood came a’callin’. Hinds went on to star in over 200 films before his death in 1948.

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In Beaches, the S.S Hinds Estate stood in for the supposed Atherton-area residence where Hillary lived both as a child and an adult.

The house’s front gate was used quite prominently in the movie in the scenes in which Hillary checked her mailbox in anticipation of receiving letters from her lifelong best friend, Cecilia “CC” Carol Bloom (aka Bette Midler).

And while the gate is thankfully visible from the street and still looks EXACTLY the same today as it did in 1988 when Beaches was filmed, sadly, as you can see above, Hillary’s mailbox is not there in real life. I am guessing that it was just a set piece that was brought in solely for the filming.

The real life interior of the property was also used in the flick.

Thanks to fave website OnLocationVacations, I learned that the Season 3 episode of Mad Men titled “My Old Kentucky Home” was also filmed at the S.S. Hinds Estate. In the episode, the property stood in for the country club where Roger Sterling (aka John Slattery) and Jane Siegel (aka Peyton List) hosted their Kentucky Derby party.

As you can see in the screen captures above, one of the hallways that appeared in Beaches was also used in Mad Men as the spot where Betty Draper (aka January Jones) first met Henry Francis (aka Christopher Stanley).

I am fairly certain, though, that the club’s bar, where Don Draper (aka Jon Hamm) spent most of his evening, is not actually located inside of the Hinds Estate, but is a real life bar somewhere in Los Angeles.

And again thanks to OnLocationVacations, I also learned that the estate was used as the Turnbill Mansion, which Leslie Knope (aka Amy Poehler) fought to save, in the Season 2 episode of Parks & Recreation titled “94 Meetings”.

Amazingly, the very same hallway that appeared in both Mad Men and Beaches was also featured in Parks and Recreation.

As was the stairway from Beaches.

And the front gate, which Leslie Knopes barricaded herself to, thinking it opened in the middle, on Parks and Recreation. LOL

A large painting of the mansion was created for the filming of Parks and Recreation, as well. Being that I doubt the painting would ever be used again on the series, I am wondering if the owners of the Hinds Estate got to keep it. So cool if they did!

Unfortunately, I was not able to find a copy of the Columbo “Try and Catch Me” episode anywhere, so I could not make screen captures of the Hinds Estate’s appearance in it for this post.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Alain for telling me about this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Beaches mansion is located at 880 La Loma Road in Pasadena.