Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston’s Honeymoon Suite at the Ingleside Inn

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As I mentioned in Monday’s post, I spent my recent birthday weekend in Room 148 of the Ingleside Inn in Palm Springs – the very room where Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston stayed during their mini-honeymoon shortly following their July 29th, 2000 wedding.  I first found out about the Ingleside Inn back in April of 2009 thanks to this Jetsetters Magazine article and, as you can imagine, just about died upon hearing that my girl Jen had honeymooned there.   Then, shortly thereafter, the Grim Cheaper ended up proposing to me at the Ingleside, so the hotel has always had a very special place in my heart.  During that proposal weekend, I, of course, just had to ask Melvyn Haber, the Ingleside’s longtime owner, what room it was that Brad and Jen had stayed in.  Before I could even get the question fully out of my mouth, he replied, “Room 148, the Princess Room.”  And that right there is just one of the many reason that I fell in love with the hotel!  Almost a full decade later, Melvyn STILL knew the exact room where Brad and Jen had stayed right off the top of his head!

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Flash forward to a couple of weeks ago.  My dad called me up to let me know that he had booked Brad and Jen’s honeymoon suite as a surprise for my upcoming birthday.  (He had to tell me about his plans a few weeks early as the GC and I had been thinking about spending my birthday at Disneyland and were thisclose to booking a hotel room there.)  I happened to be driving at the time and got so excited upon hearing his news that I literally almost crashed the car!  For those who have never visited the Palm Springs area, it gets EXTREMELY hot there during the summer months – we are talking like 115 to 120 degrees hot – so hotels drastically drop their rates from early June through the end of August.  Because of this, and the fact that the Ingleside inn is not overly-expensive to begin with, my dad was able to get Brad and Jen’s room for only $200 per night!  My birthday just so happened to fall on my mom’s very last day of work ever (she retired this year), so he also booked a suite at the hotel for them, and talked the GC into booking a second night in Brad and Jen’s room so that we could all spend the weekend together.  Now mind you, my dad was extremely sick during this time and was in and out of the hospital, so how he managed to come up with such an incredible idea AND do all of the planning without me or my mom’s help – not to mention that he also purchased some FABULOUS gifts for the two of us – is absolutely BEYOND me!!  It was one of the best, most exciting weekends of my entire life and I cannot believe he pulled it all off while feeling so incredibly sick!  Best.  Present.  Ever.

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When we first arrived at the Ingleside Inn and were checking in at the front desk, I saw the above-pictured “Happy Birthday Lindsay” message displayed on the marquee in the front lobby and just about fell over.  So incredibly cool!!  The lobby sign is very typical of the personal touches that the Ingleside Inn employs in order to make guests feel at home.  Love it!

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After checking in, we were handed the above-pictured room key.  As you can see, the Ingleside Inn still uses actual brass room keys, not the keycards that are typically found in hotels today.  So, as you can imagine, as soon as those keys were handed over, I turned to the GC and said, “OH MY GOD!  Jennifer Aniston once held this key in her hand!”  Granted, the key quite possibly could have been swapped out for a new one in the decade that has passed since Jen stayed at the Ingleside, but just let me have my fantasy!  Winking smile

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I covered the Ingleside Inn’s vast history in the post I wrote about the hotel back in May of 2009, so I won’t go over it again here. But needless to say, the tiny, 30-room inn, which sits on just over 2.5 acres of land, has had quite a celebrated history since it was first founded in 1939. Thanks to its extreme privacy and award-winning service, celebrities have long been drawn to the place like moths to a flame. Just a few of the luminaries who have stayed there over the years include Frank Sinatra, Kate Hudson, Goldie Hawn, Kurt Russell, Greta Garbo, Elizabeth Taylor, Debbie Reynolds, Lance Bass, Donald Trump, Marla Maples, Ava Gardner, Clark Gable, Marlon Brando, Gary Cooper, John Wayne, Bob Hope, John Travolta, David Boreanaz, Joan Collins, Cher, Howard Hughes, and Rita Hayworth.  The Ingleside is by no means fancy or extravagant, though. It is a very simple, low-key retreat where people go to truly get away from it all. The Inn is not a party hotel, it is not a place for families, and it is not modern in any way, shape, or form. It is an extremely quiet, private, and relaxing sanctuary; the type of place where an A-List star can lay out by the pool and not worry about being approached by a fan or fellow guest.

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Brad and Jen’s honeymoon suite features a wood-burning fireplace, a sitting area, a king-sized bed, two picture windows, and a plasma TV, and while it is extremely nice, it is not overly-luxurious or the type of place one would expect one of the most famous couples in the world to have spent their honeymoon.  And that right there is why I LOVE Jen so much!  Of course she would choose a simple, laid-back, low-key space to spend her first few days of married life.  And while Brad and Jen’s room is a suite, it is by no means the Ingleside’s largest.  There are two others that are far bigger than the Princess Room, which led me to wonder how the couple ending up choosing it for their honeymoon.

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Besides the fact that Jen has always been a fan of small spaces (the bungalow she rented in Malibu post-divorce measured a scant 1,531 square feet, the home on Blue Jay Way where she lived during the height of her Friends’ success measured only 2,903 square feet, and she is currently selling her 9,105-square-foot Beverly Hills manse as it is reportedly too large for her), as it turns out, the Princess Room is by far the hotel’s most private and secluded suite.  It is located towards the very back of the property, far away from the pool and the award-winning Melvyn’s restaurant, but close to the back parking area, which means that Brad and Jen could have parked their car and been inside of their room less than ten steps later.  As you can see above, there is also a gate surrounding that particular wing of the hotel, which consists of three rooms, and the actual suite itself is bordered by a large stucco wall.

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The Princess Room is one of the few at the hotel that also boasts a completely private patio area, which I absolutely fell in love with while there.

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As you can imagine, pretty much all weekend I was saying things like “I just took a shower where Jennifer Aniston once showered!” or “Jennifer Aniston sat on this couch!” or, my personal favorite, “Jennifer Aniston slept here!”  My head was literally about to explode the entire time I was there!  And poor, poor fellow stalker Owen!  I must have sent him about 100 text messages, all saying things like, “I just washed my face where Jennifer Aniston once washed her face!”   Smile

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My parents stayed in Room 145, aka “Margaret’s Room”, which according to one of the super-nice front desk clerks that we spoke with while there, was one of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver’s favorite suites.  The former Governator and his soon-to-be ex-wife stayed at the hotel on an almost monthly basis at one point in time.

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My parents’ room boasted a HUMONGOUS semi-private patio (semi-private as it has an opening on the backside that is accessible to the public) that was honestly bigger than most backyards!

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All in all, it was an A-MA-ZING weekend and, as you can see above, I was BEYOND sad to check out of what the GC and I had dubbed “our perfect little room”.

Ingleside Inn–Brad and Jen’s honeymoon hotel

You can watch a video about the Ingleside Inn, in which owner Melvyn Haber is interviewed, by clicking above.

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And you can watch another video, which shows the Inn’s beautiful grounds, by clicking above.

On a stalking side-note – This Sunday (June 19th), stalking gods Harry Medved and Karie Bible will be signing copies of their new book Location Filming in Los Angeles at Vroman’s Bookstore, which is located at 695 East Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena.  They will also be conducting a walking tour of some famous Pasadena movie sites, including locations from Knocked Up, The Prestige, Live Free and Die Hard, and Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator immediately following the signing at 4 p.m.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The Ingleside Inn is located at 200 West Ramon Road in Palm Springs.  Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston spent their honeymoon in the hotel’s Princess Room, aka Room 148.  Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver frequently stayed in Margaret’s Room, aka Room 145.  You can visit the Ingleside Inn’s official website here.

The Mansion Where Brad and Jen Got Married

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There are some events in history that people remember as if they occurred just yesterday.  For instance, my mom remembers exactly where she was, right down to what she was wearing, on November 22, 1963 when she found out that President Kennedy had been murdered.  Well, I wasn’t alive when JFK was assassinated or when man first walked on the moon.  But I do remember exactly where I was and what I was wearing on July 30thof 2000 when it was announced that Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston had finally gotten married.  🙂  Now, some may not qualify that event as being historic, or even memorable, but for me it was.   I was in Hawaii with my family at the time and the day beforehand I had found out that one of my closest friends had passed away.  I was absolutely inconsolable.  My parents didn’t really know what to do with me, so they decided to bring me down to the hotel bar in the hopes that a cocktail and a sunset might bring me some sort of comfort.  As we sat at that outdoor bar watching the waves crash on the sand, I heard Jennifer Aniston’s name on the television set behind me and my ears perked up.  The announcer stated that sources had confirmed that my girl Jen had married Brad Pitt in a ceremony on a Malibu bluff the previous evening.  And it was the first time I smiled in days.  🙂   So, a few weeks ago, when I found the location of the mansion where Brad and Jen tied the knot, I just had to go stalk it.

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I had read long ago that Brad and Jen had tied the knot at a five acre seaside estate belonging to television producer Marcy Carsey (of 3rd Rock From the Sun, Roseanne, and The Cosby Show fame) that was located on the 33000 block of Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu.  But I had no idea of the home’s exact location.  Until I found this fabulous website, which led me to the right spot.  🙂  Yay!  From what I can tell from the few photographs released of the couple’s nuptials, the actual wedding ceremony took place on the circular patch of lawn located in front of Marcy’s home.  Their reception took place in a large tent on an empty parcel of land located just south of the estate.  You can see the wedding set up in the above paparazzi photograph, which was taken the day of Brad and Jen’s wedding.

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Unfortunately, virtually none of the home is visible from the street.  🙁

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If you head a few hundred feet up nearby Decker Canyon Road, you can just make out the outline of the mansion’s roof . . .

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. . . and you can see the empty patch of land where Brad and Jen’s reception was held.  But other than that, sadly, there’s not a whole lot to see.  🙁

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Which is why God created aerial images.  🙂  LOL  You can see a great aerial photo of Brad and Jen’s wedding mansion here.

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According to People Magazine, Brad and Jen’s wedding cost over $1 million and featured 50,000 flowers, a 13 minute fireworks display, four live bands, and a gospel choir!  Their 200 person guest list was strictly A-List, and included Courteney Cox and David Arquette, Edward Norton and Salma Hayek (who were dating at the time), Cameron Diaz, Melissa Etheridge (who serenaded the couple), David Schwimmer, Kathy Najimy, Dermot Mulroney, Jon Lovitz, David Spade, and Lisa Kudrow.   During their vows Jen promised to always make Brad’s “favorite banana milkshake” and Brad vowed to “split the difference on the thermostat”.  Knowing how things turned out after that little homewrecker Angelina Jolie got her claws into Brad, doesn’t the whole thing kinda bring a tear to your eye? 🙁

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Located directly next door to the estate where Brad and Jen got married, is the 19,340 square foot mega-mansion originally owned by Verna Harrah, widow of William F. Harrah, who was the founder of the famous casino hotels of the same name.  In December of 1999, Verna sold her collosal mansion to Mark Reynolds Hughes, creator of Herbalife Vitamins, for a cool $27 million.  Less than six months later, Hughes passed away of an alleged prescription drug and alcohol overdose in the master bedroom of the home.  He was 44.   The manse was subsequently purchased by billionaire venture capitalist Howard Marks.

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And it looks to me as if Howard also purchased the once empty parcel of land where Brad and Jen held their tented wedding reception and which originally belonged to the Carsey estate.  As you can see in the above aerial photographs of the two neighboring properties, it looks as if the Howards moved their property line over quite a bit.

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Even though not much of Brad and Jen’s wedding mansion can be seen from the street, I was still floored to finally be stalking it.  And even though their wedding occured during a difficult time in my life and their marriage ended rather unamicably, somehow thinking back on the day when I learned about my idol’s nuptials still manages to bring a smile to my face.  🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: Brad and Jen’s wedding mansion is located at 33148 Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu.  Mark Reynolds Hughes’ former house is located directly next door at 33064 Pacific Coast Highway.  For the best views of the homes, head a few hundred feet up Decker Canyon Road, which is located just south of the properties.