The “Beaches” Cottage

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For Mother’s Day this year, my mom decided that she wanted to take a little weekend getaway to Newport Beach with my dad, the Grim Cheaper and me. I was absolutely thrilled over her choice of destination as while we were vacationing at the Hyatt Huntington Beach, aka the Beverly Hills Beach Club from 90210 (which I blogged about here), for the GC’s birthday last year, I happened to come across an article on South Bay filming locations in an area-attractions magazine that had been put in our room. One of the locations mentioned in the article was the Crystal Cove Historic District’s Cottage #13, which had been featured in the 1988 film Beaches. I was absolutely floored to learn of the locale as I had previously been under the impression that the Beaches cottage was located on the East Coast, near Coney Island where the flick’s opening scenes were lensed. And while I immediately added the address to my To-Stalk list, we unfortunately did not have time to go there that particular weekend. So before checking into our hotel for our Mother’s Day vacay a few weeks ago, I dragged the GC right on over to Crystal Cove State Park to finally stalk the place

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The Crystal Cove Historic District encompasses 12.3 acres of coastal land running along a 3.5-mile stretch of picturesque shoreline. The site was first developed in the late 1800s as a cattle ranch, then later as a sheep farm, and then later still, in a fortuitous twist, as a South Seas-style set for the movie industry. At the time, the property was owned by San Francisco-financier James Irvine (and later his son, James Irvine II), who had purchased it in 1864 from Jose Andres Sepulveda, who, in turn, had acquired it from the Mexican government in 1836. During the early 1900s, countless silent film productions came in, planted palm trees and built thatched-roof shacks for movies such as Treasure Island (1918), The Sea Wolf (1920), Stormswept (1923), White Shadows in the South Seas (1928), Half a Bridge (1928), and Sadie Thompson (1928). Some of those shacks were left behind after shooting wrapped and became homes for the Irvine’s friends and employees.

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The Irvines also allowed their friends and employees to build custom cottages on the beachfront site, most with thatched roofs to accommodate film production. Forty-six cottages in all popped up during the 1920s and 1930s, each constructed by hand using salvaged materials, including wooden pieces from a shipwrecked vessel that washed ashore in 1927. Miraculously, thanks to a leasing contract clause and some avid preservationists, each of the 46 original bungalows remains standing to this day. In the 1930s, the Irvine family decided to give their tenants the option of either moving their homes off the land or of transferring over ownership and paying monthly rent on the cottages. For whatever reason, the family added a clause to each lease which stipulated that no portion of the small dwellings was to be altered.

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The State of California purchased the land from the Irvines in 1979 and offered all then-tenants a twenty-year lease on their cottages. That same year, the site was added to the National Register of Historic Places, which listed the bungalows as “the last intact example of California beach vernacular architecture”. Once the twenty-year leases had expired in 1999, the state began showing interest in demolishing and vastly restructuring the cottages in order to make way for a large resort hotel. Thankfully, a Pasadena resident/local preservationist named Martha Padve, who regularly vacationed at Crystal Cove, joined forces with several other concerned citizens and formed the Crystal Cove Alliance, which ended up saving the site. Today, the cottages, which recently underwent an extensive two-phase restoration process, are offered to the public as extremely reasonably-priced vacation rentals.

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I can honestly say that the Crystal Cove Historic District is one of the most adorable places I have ever visited. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to vacation there! The beachfront enclave features 22 charming vacation rentals, the quaintest little general store/gift shop that I have ever seen, an exhibit center, a park and marine research facility, a Ruby’s Shake Shack, and The Beachcomber Café (pictured below)– a fabulous toes-in-the-sand restaurant where the GC and I grabbed lunch – and some champagne, of course! Smile I honestly cannot more highly recommend stalking the site! Setting foot on the grounds is like stepping back to a simpler time – one which definitely encapsulates the Cove’s longtime motto, “Where every night is Saturday night and Saturday night is New Year’s Eve”. Love it!

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Towards the end of Beaches, longtime friends Hillary Whitney Essex (Barbara Hershey) and CC Bloom (Bette Midler), along with Hillary’s daughter, Victoria Essex (Grace Johnston), spend the summer at Hillary’s beach house. As you can see below, the cottage looks quite a bit different today than it did onscreen in 1988. I am fairly certain, though, that the structure has always been the same basic shape and that set designers added the A-line roof for the filming.

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The cottage’s porch area was used extensively during the filming.

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The interior of Hillary’s beach house was just a set, though. As you can see below, the real life interior of Cottage #13 is much, much smaller than what appeared onscreen.

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Although it does appear that one of the cottage’s actual rooms was used in the filming.

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The Beaches cottage, which is currently under renovation and will eventually serve as Crystal Cove’s film museum (how cool is that???), has a plaque on display on its front gate that alerts visitors of its cinematic history, which I was absolutely FLOORED to discover! Why don’t the owners of ALL movie locations do something like this?

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I was also floored to discover that the porch area is completely accessible to the public!

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Oh yeah, just hanging out at Hillary’s house. Winking smile

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The cottage also boasts some amazing views, as you can see below.

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As you can see in this May 2010 picture from the Finding the Famous blog, before the recent renovation the home was in pretty bad shape. Thank goodness for the Crystal Cove Alliance!

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Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

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Stalk It: There is no real address for this location. The Beaches cottage, aka Cottage #13, is located in the Crystal Cove Historic District, inside of Crystal Cove State Park, in Newport Beach. The best way to describe how to get there is to head to The Beachcomber Café, which is located at 15 Crystal Cove in Newport Beach. You will have to park across the street from the park at the Los Trancos Parking Lot, which is located on the Pacific Coast Highway just south of Newport Coast Drive. Parking is $15 per car, but the café does validate. Then either walk or take a shuttle (which costs $2 a person, each way) to the park (I would recommend walking). Reservations are highly recommended for The Beachcomber as the place was absolutely jammed when we were there and the bar area was pretty much standing-room-only. The Beaches cottage is located about 8 houses east of the café. You can visit the official Crystal Cove Beach Cottages Website here.

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

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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.

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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.

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

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

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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.

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

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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.

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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).

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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.

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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!

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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.

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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.

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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”.

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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.

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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.

The “Beaches” Mansion

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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!

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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.

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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 LifeAccording 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.

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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).

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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.

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

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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.

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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).

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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.

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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”.

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

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As was the stairway from Beaches.

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

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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.