Triada Palm Springs

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For those who are unfamiliar with the area, Palm Springs is HOT in the summer.  Well, it’s hot year-round, but in the summer it’s hot hot – like 115 most days.  One nice consequence of that fact is that hotels drop their prices during the inclement months.  My family loves to partake of the low rates with short staycations in various area hotels.  Last week, we had the pleasure of checking into Triada Palm Springs.  Though not a filming location, the place does have quite a few celebrity ties, so I figured it was most definitely blog-worthy.

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I was unfamiliar with Triada until my mom booked our recent stay and was under the assumption that it was newly-built.  Upon checking in, I got to talking with the front desk clerk about the hotel’s history (as I am always apt to do) and was shocked to discover that the place has a ton of it!  Though the property opened as Triada less than a year ago, its origins date back to the 1920s!

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Triada Palm Springs (7 of 12)

The man who checked us in turned out to be Triada’s sales manager and, prior to the hotel’s opening last November, he put together an extensive article on the site’s past, including its ties to Tinseltown.  He lit up when I began asking for information (turns out he is just as big of a Hollywood history buff as I am) and even offered to give me a tour of the historic parts of the property.  I, of course, took him up on that offer and was thrilled with what I learned.

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The property now known as Triada was originally a private residence built between 1927 and 1929.  Owned by a woman named Lucy Berry, it was the first home to be constructed in the Palm Springs Estates neighborhood.  The dwelling was situated on the southeast corner of East Via Altamira and North Indian Canyon Drive, in the area where Triada’s Alma Building, which houses the hotel’s lobby, business center and restaurant, now stands.

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It is thought that portions of the lobby (pictured below) may be original to Lucy’s house.

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In 1934, Lucy sold her home to a venture capitalist named David Margolius, who planned to use it as a winter residence.  It was not long before he changed course, though, and decided to capitalize on Palm Spring’s growing tourism industry by transforming the property into a hotel.  He converted Lucy’s home into a small inn and then began purchasing the land surrounding it.  By 1938, he had acquired the neighboring 1.4 acres and that same year began constructing a building and a courtyard, the design of which was reminiscent of his favorite city, Barcelona.  Today, that building is Triada’s Mente Building (pictured below).

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Triada Palm Springs (2 of 12)

As you can see in the photograph below as compared to this picture from the book Palm Springs in Vintage Postcards, Mente looks almost exactly the same today as it did when it was originally built.

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The archways pictured in this 1943 photograph are also part of the Mente Building.  The side of the arches that appears in the historic image has since been covered over with shrubbery, so I was not able to snap a matching photo.  The picture below is taken from the opposite direction, but it still shows how little of the archways has changed in the ensuing 72 years.

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Margolius named his inn The Ambassador Apartment Hotel and it was opened to the public in 1939.  It quickly became a success.  You can check out some pictures of the place in those early days here, here and here.  In 1947, Margolius added a swimming pool to the property, which you can see a photograph of here.  Sadly, that pool has since been filled in and the Triada’s Corazon Building now stands in its place.  The Corazon’s central courtyard (pictured below) is situated in pretty much the exact spot where the former pool was located.

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In 1948, Margolius renamed the site The Ambassador Hotel.  To accommodate his growing patronage in the years that followed, he expanded Lucy’s former residence by adding two large wings with guest rooms, the first in 1951 and the second in 1956.

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Celebrities flocked to The Ambassador.  Such luminaries as Tyrone Power, Lana Turner, Jimmy Durante, Esther Williams, and Italian opera singer Amelita Galli-Curci are all reported to have stayed there.  It is said that Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton trysted at the hotel on more than one occasion and typically did so in the Penthouse, aka Room 125, the entrance to which is pictured below.

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Room 125 boasts its own private stairwell and entrance, which afforded the two the ultimate in privacy during their stays.

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Howard Hughes preferred Room 312 in what is now the Mente Building.  Since Triada took over, more than a few strange happenings have occurred in that particular suite.  Apparently, shortly before opening, a photographer was set to snap some publicity shots of the hotel and several of the rooms, one of which was 312.  The space was dressed prior to the shoot, but when the photographer stepped inside, he found that the never-been-used sheets had been removed from the bed, balled up and stashed in a corner.  Perhaps Hughes enjoyed his time at The Ambassador so much that he chose to move in permanently in the afterlife – and bring his eccentric habits with him.

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After Margolius’ death in 1969, his widow sold the 34-room hotel to an Italian-American family.  They sold the property just a few years later, in 1972, to Sue Ladd, actor Alan Ladd’s widow.  She renamed the site Alan Ladd’s Spanish Inn and during her tenure as owner, many of Ladd’s Hollywood friends and contemporaries stayed on the premises.

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Sue passed away in 1982 and her estate sold the hotel five years later.  The new owners renamed the place The Spanish Inn and set about remodeling it, but wound up going bankrupt less than a year after acquiring the property and Ladd’s estate subsequently foreclosed.  The Spanish Inn was eventually shuttered in 1994 and, outside of a few attempts at renovating it, sat abandoned for the two decades that followed.  When I found this information out, I just about fell over.  A long abandoned property in Palm Springs that I never had the chance to view?  How is that possible?  I did just discover and stalk a different abandoned hotel in the area that I will be blogging about during my Haunted Hollywood postings, though, so I guess there’s that.  I am already counting down the days until those posts!  Why can’t it be October yet?

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After being bought, sold and partially renovated several times, The Spanish Inn was finally purchased by Pacifica Host Hotels in 2012.  The company completed the many different renovations that had been started on the site, all the while preserving as much of its history as possible.  As you can see in the aerial images pictured below, the first of which was taken in 2000 by architect James A. McBride II, the site still looks very much the same today as it did prior to the remodels.  Notice that in the 2011 aerial view, the second pool in the courtyard of the Mente Building had yet to be built.  (Bing Maps does not currently provide a more recent aerial image, unfortunately.)

Triada Palm Springs

Triada, which is Spanish for “three related parts,” opened its doors on November 22nd, 2014.  The Marriott Autograph Hotel boasts three wings, 56 rooms, two pools, a hot tub, a restaurant, two bars, and a gym.  Its motto is “exactly like nothing else” and my family found that absolutely to be true.  Triada is an incredibly special place and we loved our time there.  Not only is the property gorgeous and peaceful and the rooms fabulously modern and sleek (I could happily live in one of the rooms!), but the customer service is bar none.  We are already eager to return.  In fact, my dad is currently making plans to do so.  I, for one, can’t wait.

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

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Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Triada Palm Springs is located at 640 North Indian Canyon Drive in Palm Springs.  You can visit the hotel’s official website here.

Hotel Shangri-La from “The Bachelor”

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This past Sunday morning (which was particularly cloudy, as you can see above), the Grim Cheaper and I headed out to Santa Monica to run a couple of errands and while there we happened to walk by the Hotel Shangri-La – a historic Art Deco masterpiece that I have wanted to stalk ever since early 2010 when it was featured in an episode of fave reality series The Bachelor. So the two of us decided to pop in to take some quick pictures – and we were not disappointed. Hotel Shangri-La is quite spectacular.

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The seven-story, reinforced concrete property, which was originally named the Shangri-La Apartment Hotel, was constructed beginning in 1939 at a cost of $400,000. The L-shaped site was designed by Beverly Hills-based architect William E. Foster and was owned by oilman Frank A. Gillespie. The structure, which at the time housed 61 individual apartment units, was the first Class A apartment building built in Los Angeles County following the stock market crash of 1929. Its doors were opened to the public on May 1, 1940. You can see a great photograph of the location from that time period here.

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Hotel Shangri-La (8 of 41)

During World War II, the building, which is a Santa Monica Historic Landmark, was used as a rehabilitation center by the United States Army Air Forces.

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Hotel Shangri-La (5 of 41)

In 1983, Hotel Shangri-La, which is of no relation to the Asian Shangri-La hotel chain, was purchased by an India-born real estate maven named Ahmad Adaya. The property is still owned by his family to this day.

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Hotel Shangri-La (11 of 41)

According to the book Hollywood & the Best of Los Angeles Alive!, in 2002 the site was seriously lacking in amenities and, for whatever reason, did not feature a pool, a restaurant, a bar, room service, or valet parking. All of that has since changed, though, thanks to a $35 million renovation in 2008.

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Hotel Shangri-La (34 of 41)

Today the Streamline Moderne-style property, which is currently owned and operated by Ahmad’s daughter, Tehmina Adaya, boasts 71 rooms and suites (almost all of which have views of the Pacific Ocean), an upscale restaurant named the Dining Room (where each entrée features ingredients from the famous Santa Monica Farmers Market), an open-air rooftop bar and lounge known as Suite 700 (which was voted one of L.A.’s top 5 rooftop bars in a 2013 The New Zealand Herald article), a pop-up spa known as the Sybaris Rejuvenation Lounge, custom-designed furniture, a solar-powered pool, valet parking, 24-hour in-room dining, and an indoor gym.

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Hotel Shangri-La (16 of 41)

Hotel Shangri-La has been popular with the Hollywood set ever since its inception. Just a few of the stars who have been spotted there over the years include Drew Barrymore, Cyndi Lauper, Diane Keaton, Bill Murray, Matthew Broderick, Bill Clinton, Madonna, Tom Cruise, John F. Kennedy, Jr., the Dalai Lama, Sean Penn, Rashida Jones, and Andy Samberg. Supposedly, even my girl Marilyn Monroe once spent some time there.

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Thanks to its striking architecture, Hotel Shangri-La has been featured in numerous productions over the years. In the Season 14 episode of The Bachelor titled “Week 2”, Jake Pavelka hosted a group date at the Shangri-La where the female contestants took part in a rooftop photo shoot for InStyle magazine.

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After the shoot, the group headed down to the pool area for the remainder of the date, during which Rozlyn Papa was given the coveted rose.

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The Hotel Shangri-La rooftop was also featured in the music video for Randy Newman’s 1983 song “I Love L.A.”

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You can watch that video by clicking below.

In 1992’s White Men Can’t Jump, Hotel Shangri-La was where Gloria Clemente (Rosie Perez) celebrated her Jeopardy! win with boyfriend Billy Hoyle (Woody Harrelson).

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The interior of one of the suites was also featured in the movie.

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In 1995’s The Net, the Shangri-La was where Dr. Alan Champion (Dennis Miller) got his former patient Angela Bennett (Sandra Bullock) a hotel room shortly after her identity was stolen.

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I am fairly certain that one of the hotel’s actual rooms was used in the filming, although the Shangri-La rooms look significantly different since the remodel, as you can see here.

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An exterior view of the hotel’s central stairwell was also shown.

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Thanks to Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, I learned that the hotel was where Valerie Malone (Tiffani Amber Thiessen) stayed in the Season 7 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 titled “Graduation Day: Part II”, which aired in 1997.

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The interior of the Shangri-La was also shown in the episode.  (Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for making the 90210 screen captures that appear here.)

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Ella Simms (Katie Cassidy) and Jonah Miller (Michael Rady) walked by the Hotel Shangri-La after a business lunch with famed German film director Franz Keppler (Craig Robert Young) in the Season 1 episode of the new Melrose Place titled “Ocean.”

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Channing Tatum did a photo shoot with Mario Testino at the hotel for the August 2009 issue of GQ Magazine, which you can see photographs of hereAccording to the book Hollywood & the Best of Los Angeles Alive!, the hotel was also featured in an episode of the 1992 television series Bodies of Evidence and the 1988 Bruce Weber documentary Let’s Get Lost, but I was unable to verify that information.  And while Wikipedia states that the Shangri-La appeared in the 2004 rockumentary DiG!, I was unable to verify that information, either.

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For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

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Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Hotel Shangri-La, from Jake Pavelka’s season of The Bachelor, is located at 1301 Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica. You can visit the hotel’s official website here.

The Ojai Valley Inn & Spa from “The Bachelorette”

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I know I said yesterday that today’s post would be about a Behind the Candelabra location, but I wound up getting a bit distracted by a spot that I stalked well over two years ago – the Ojai Valley Inn & Spa which appeared on this week’s episode of The Bachelorette. So y’all will have to wait until Monday for more Liberace-related locales. In the meantime . . . in April 2011, the Grim Cheaper and I embarked upon a little stalking road trip up State Route 126. One of our stops along the way was the Ojai Valley Inn, which I had been absolutely itching to stalk as it was where guests had stayed the weekend of Jim Toth and Reese Witherspoon’s wedding just a few weeks prior.

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And I am very happy to report that the hotel did not disappoint! The Ojai Valley Inn & Spa is often referred to as “majestic” and I honestly can’t think of a better word to describe the place.

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Originally opened in 1923 as a private country club, the Inn was founded by a wealthy Ohio glass manufacturer named Edward Drummond Libbey who wanted to built a winter retreat/golf course for himself and his friends. He commissioned gold course architect (I hadn’t been aware there was such a thing) George C. Thomas to design the course and legendary architect Wallace Neff -who was also responsible for the house where Amanda Woods (Cameron Diaz) lived in The Holiday, the estate belonging to Viola Fields (Jane Fonda) in Monster-in-Law, Brad and Jen’s former manse, and The Biggest Loser Ranch – to design the clubhouse. That clubhouse still exists to this day and is known as the Neff Lounge. Sadly, Libbey passed away in 1925, only two years after his Spanish Colonial-style retreat had been completed.

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Ojai Valley Inn Bachelorette (1 of 33)

In 1942, during the midst of World War II, the property was transformed into Camp Oak, a training center for the U.S. military that hosted over one thousand army troops. Just a couple of years later, in 1944, the site was converted to a rest and recuperation facility for the Navy. In 1946, shortly after the war ended, the 100-room hotel was purchased by a group of investors that included film star Loretta Young and her then husband Tom Lewis and an industrialist named Henry Crown. It was reopened as the Ojai Valley Inn and Country Club and quickly became a retreat for wealthy vacationers and show business elite. In 1983, the Crown family took over full ownership of the property and three years later began an extensive $35-million renovation that added more rooms, eight new tennis courts, a second pool, a gym, and a 4,800-square-foot, 550-seat conference center.

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The Inn underwent another restoration in 2004, this one costing $90 million. Today, the 220-acre hotel, which is still owned by the Crown family, boasts 308 guest rooms, a kids’ camp, five restaurants, two pools (a family pool and an adults-only pool), an herb garden, countless meandering pathways, an aviary, and an 18-hole championship golf course. The 31,000-square-foot on-site spa, Spa Ojai, features two additional pools, a 50-foot bell tower, numerous treatment rooms, a gym, a café, a Mind & Body studio for yoga and meditation, an Artist’s Cottage where art classes are offered, and an Apothecary where guests can create their own perfume. As you can see below, the place could not be any more charming or idyllic.

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The hotel also boasts a huge, centuries-old tree known as the Friendship Oak Tree . . .

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. . . from which hang countless iron lanterns. I couldn’t help but think how gorgeous it must look at night, all lit up.

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The other trees on the property are just as unique and stunning.

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The area of the hotel that I was most excited to see was Jimmy’s Pub, where Scarlett Johansson and Sean Penn very publicly canoodled the weekend of Jim and Reese’s wedding. Sadly, we could not grab a cocktail while we were there as we had a long drive home ahead of us.

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Besides ScarJo and Sean Penn, a few of the other stars who have vacationed at the AAA Five Diamond Ojai Valley Inn over the years include Walt Disney, Judy Garland, Clark Gable, Anthony Quinn, Joan Crawford, George Gobel, Jane Wyman, Rita Hayworth, Lana Turner, Joe DiMaggio, President Ronald Reagan and wife Nancy, President Gerald Ford, President Jimmy Carter, Jack Benny, Audrey Hepburn, Kate Walsh (who hosted her 2007 wedding reception at the hotel), Anthony Hopkins, Renee Zellweger, Kenny Loggins, Rebecca Romijn, Jessica Simpson, Drew Barrymore, Robert Pattinson, and Kristen Stewart.

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In the second episode of Season 9 of The Bachelorette, Desiree Hartsock took contestant Bryden Vukasin on a road trip up the coast of California, during which they visited the Ojai Valley Inn & Spa. John DiScala of the Johnny Jet website happened to be staying at the hotel during the filming and it was not a pretty experience. You can read his article about it, which I could NOT get enough of, here.

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Quite a few areas of the hotel were utilized during the filming, including the main entrance;

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the spa’s Herb Garden Pool, where the two shared a rather awkward first kiss;

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and the Friendship Oak Tree, under which the couple ate a romantic meal. (As you can see, I was right – the tree is absolutely gorgeous all lit up at night.). It was during the meal that Bryden told Des about the car accident that he was in during his Freshman year of college in which he was badly injured. The accident, of course, made him the person that he is today and . . . “I actually just happen to have a couple of pictures of it that I can show you.” Um, OK. The episode was full of “tragic” backstories like this one, to the point that it became laughable and the GC and I could not stop making up our own stories that we dubbed in over the contestant’s dialogue while watching.

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The Ojai Valley Inn & Spa has actually been a filming location since way back in 1952 when it was featured in Pat and Mike, in the scene in which Patricia ‘Pat” Pemberton (Katharine Hepburn) played golf with her fiancé, Mike Conovan (Spencer Tracy) in the beginning of the movie.

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In the 1990 flick The Two Jakes, the Ojai Valley Inn was where J.J. ‘Jake’ Gittes (Jack Nicholson) played a very bad round of golf against Julius ‘Jake’ Berman (Harvey Keitel) for “twenty bucks a hole.”

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The hotel’s front entrance was also shown briefly in the scene, although it has changed considerably since the movie was filmed. The Two Jakes did not mark Jack Nicholson’s first visit to the resort, though. Ironically enough, in November 1967, when he was a fledgling actor/up-and-coming screenwriter, Jack headed to the Inn for a drug-fueled scriptwriting session with director Bob Rafelson, producer Bert Schneider and The Monkees for what would become the 1968 flop Head.

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The Ojai Valley Inn & Spa was featured in two Season 3 episodes of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. It first popped up in “Uh Oh, Somebody’s Crying!”, in which Kim Richards decided to take the women to the resort for a peaceful, relaxing weekend getaway during which there would hopefully be no fighting and no drama. Ha! Fat chance of that, Kim! During their visit, the girls stayed at the resort’s private residence, Casa Elar. The gated, 10,407-square-foot, five-bedroom manse, which was built in 2005, boasts a pool, a spa, a separate entrance, four en-suite bathrooms, a golf cart, a private massage room, dry cleaning services, a library/entertainment room, an elevator (!), a fully-stocked pantry, and its own staff, including a Personal Estate Manager.

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As you can see below, the pad is simply uh-ma-zing!

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Especially the kitchen, which reminded me a lot of the kitchen belonging to chef Jane Adler (Meryl Streep) in the 2009 flick It’s Complicated.

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In the episode, the group dined at Maravilla, the Inn’s signature restaurant, during which they drank complimentary Schramsberg rosé sparkling wine. Um, yes please! Some serious drama also went down during the meal, pretty much ruining Kim’s hopes for a peaceful weekend. Housewife Yolanda Foster’s commentary on the evening: “Where are these women from? What planet are they from? I mean, one doesn’t seem to wish the other one well on a book deal, one tells the other one “Shut the f*ck up!” I mean, it’s like the Wild Wild West on that dinner table, you know?” LOL

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The resort was also featured in the following episode titled “Girls Gone Ojai ’ld”, by which time all of the drama had subsided – until the limo ride home, at least.

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In the episode, the women were shown racing around the resort in golf carts (made by Bentley and Escalade, natch!);

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playing badminton;

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and partaking of some spa treatments.

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You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

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Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Ojai Valley Inn & Spa, from Season 9, Episode 2 of The Bachelorette, is located at 905 Country Club Road in Ojai. You can visit the resort’s official website here.

The Colony Palms Hotel

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Upon first moving to the Desert back in January, the Grim Cheaper’s boss, who also resides in the Coachella Valley, told me about a small Palm Springs-area inn named the Colony Palms Hotel that she thought I might be interested in stalking due to its vast Hollywood history.  For whatever reason, though, I completely forgot about the place until the GC and I happened to drive by it a couple of weeks ago.  So, since we were right there and since it was almost 5 o’clock, I suggested we pop in for a quick cocktail.  It turned out to be quite the fortuitous stop, too, because while sitting at the wood-paneled bar, I did some cyber-stalking of the property on my trusty iPhone and just about died when I came across this June 2012 Los Angeles Times article that stated that my girl Miss Marilyn Monroe used to hang out there!

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The Colony Palms Hotel was originally founded in 1936 by Al Wertheimer, a Detroit mobster who was once a member of the Motor City’s notorious Purple Gang.  At the time, the property was known as the Colonial House and, while billing itself as a hotel, under Wertheimer’s tutelage the site was actually a private club that featured an underground gambling den, a bar and a brothel that were reached via a secret staircase hidden behind a pantry door.  The upscale establishment quickly became popular with the Hollywood set and such stars as Clark Gable, Carole Lombard and Humphrey Bogart were known to frolic there.

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Colony Palms Hotel (7 of 47)

In 1951, the property was sold to Robert Howard (whose father owned the legendary racehorse Seabiscuit) and his wife, Academy Award-nominated actress Andrea Leeds.  The couple hired architect E. Stewart Williams and designer/artist O. E. L. Graves to remodel the site and it was re-opened a year later under the name Howard Manor.  The Spanish Colonial-style hotel remained popular with the Hollywood elite and such stars as Kirk Douglas, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Diahann Carroll, Frank Sinatra, Howard Hughes, Ronald Reagan, David Janssen, Dean Martin, and my girl Marilyn were all known to check in from time to time.  You can see a photograph of what the place looked like during the Howard Manor days here.

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The hotel changed hands several times from the late 1950s through 1979 (it was even at one time owned in part by boxer Jack Dempsey), at which point it was purchased by fitness guru Sheila Cluff, who had previously founded The Oaks at Ojai.  Sheila transformed the site into a health resort and renamed it The Palms at Palm Springs.

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In 2004, The Palms was purchased by a commercial investor named Steven Ohren who immediately enlisted designer Martyn Lawrence Bullard to renovate the place, at a cost of $15 million.  Of his creation, which took three years to complete, Bullard said in a December 2007 Palm Springs Life article, “I wanted to make it young and fresh with these mad designs — sort of Chateau Marmont in the desert.”   Thankfully though, the Chateau’s horribly snobby attitude (that place is my least favorite hotel in L.A.) was left at the door.  The same Palm Springs Life article stated, “After tolerating the standard withering gaze of ultra-hip hotel staff around the world, he [Ohren] promises an attitude-free environment.”  And he delivered!  I am very happy to report that the Colony Palms is most-definitely attitude-free.

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Sadly, Ohren, who lived onsite at the Colony, passed away in 2008.  The hotel was subsequently sold in July 2012 to developer Michael Rosenfeld, who, thankfully, has managed to maintain the place’s charming, attitude-free environment.  Today, the 57-room, three-acre property boasts a pool, a gym, a hot tub, a Moroccan-themed spa, and several French-inspired gardens.

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The Colony also features a poolside fine-dining establishment named the Purple Palm, a nod to Al Wertheimer’s one-time membership in the Purple Gang.

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As you can see below, the Purple Palm’s patio is nothing short of heavenly!  I could have spent all day there!

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Despite the Colony Palms’ fairly large size, the property feels intimate and quaint with numerous tucked-away spaces.  And while I would absolutely LOVE to stay there for a weekend, being that rates start in the $250-range (during the off-season summer months, no less!), I know the GC will be having none of that.

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Bonus – the Colony Palms is also a filming location!  Kristin Cavallari checked into the hotel with her glam squad while in town for an Uncommon James photo shoot in the Season 2 episode of Very Cavallari titled “Shake Ya Palm Palms,” which aired in 2019.

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER.  And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

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Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The Colony Palms Hotel is located at 572 North Indian Canyon Drive in Palm Springs.  You can visit the Colony’s official website here.

The Parker Palm Springs Hotel

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This past Sunday afternoon, in the hopes of spotting some of the countless celebrities in town for the Coachella music festival, I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to a few of the desert’s more upscale hotels.  And while we did not end up seeing any stars during our venture, we did discover one of the coolest places I have visited in all my years of stalking – the Parker Palm Springs hotel.  Although I wouldn’t really consider the place a filming location – it was the subject of Bravo’s short-lived reality series Welcome to the Parker, which I never saw or had even heard of until doing research for this post – because it has a vast celebrity history and is one of the most aesthetically fascinating locations that I have ever seen, I thought it was most-definitely blog-worthy.

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The Parker Palm Springs was originally established in 1959 as a Holiday Inn of all things.  In fact, it was California’s very first Holiday Inn.  In 1961, the non-descript concrete and cinderblock property was purchased by singing cowboy Gene Autry for the main purpose of lodging his newly acquired baseball team, the California Angels, during Spring Training.  He changed the name of the site to Melody Ranch (it was also often called The Autry Hotel) and added a few luxury touches, like a second pool, tennis courts, a bar, and a couple of restaurants.  He also placed his famous silver-trimmed saddle on display in the lobby.  Love it!

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Parker Palm Springs hotel (33 of 35)

In 1994, Autry sold the resort to his hotel director, Rose Narva, who immediately set about remaking the site into an ornate, French-themed wonderland in affiliation with famed Breakfast at Tiffany’s-fashion-designer Hubert de Givenchy.  Narva also renamed the site the Givenchy Hotel and Spa.  Interestingly enough, for several years afterward Gene and his wife, Jackie, continued to live at a large private home located at the rear of the property.  The two-bedroom, two bath house still stands to this day and is leased out as a part of the resort.  You can see photographs of it here.

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Parker Palm Springs hotel (28 of 35)

In 1998, the hotel was purchased by Merv Griffin, who promptly renamed it Merv Griffin’s Resort Hotel and Givenchy Spa.  It became quite a celebrity magnet at that time, attracting such legends as Lauren Bacall, Gregory Peck, John Travolta, and Barbra Streisand.  It was during Merv Griffin’s tenure as owner that, over Thanksgiving Weekend 2000, Robert Downey Jr. was arrested in Room 311 after police received an anonymous 911 tip that the actor had drugs and guns in his possession.

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Parker Palm Springs hotel (8 of 35)

In 2002, Griffin sold the space to Epix Hotels and Resorts.  It then sat vacant until 2003 when it was purchased by hotelier Jack Parker, who hired designer Jonathan Adler to give the space a $27-million facelift.  The property re-opened in 2004 as Le Parker Meridien, or Parker Palm Springs as it is better known.  According to the 2005 book Palm Springs Legends, at the time it was the city’s only five-star resort.

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Parker Palm Springs hotel (22 of 35)

Today, the 13-acre, 144-room property boasts fire pits, a tropical palm garden, petanque and croquet courts, four pools (two indoor, two outdoor, one saltwater), red clay tennis courts, two restaurants (Norma’s and Mister Parker’s), an outdoor café (The Lemonade Stand), an 18-hole executive golf course, and a 16,500-square-foot award-winning spa named the Palm Spring Yacht Club which boasts 21 treatment rooms, two of them outdoor.

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Parker Palm Springs hotel (26 of 35)

In the book Explorer’s Guide Palm Springs & Desert Resorts, of the unique décor author Christopher P. Baker says, “Frankly, many of the pieces look like they were picked up at a garage sale.  But the overall effect is magnificent.”  I’d say the hotel is more “flea market” than “garage sale”, but the effect is magnificent indeed!  I literally could not stop taking pictures of the place.

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Parker Palm Springs hotel (17 of 35)

My favorite portion of the resort had to be the Mini Bar, a lush, mirrored spot with seating for six tucked into a tiny alcove off the hotel’s lobby.

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Parker Palm Springs hotel (19 of 35)

The Lemonade Stand is pretty amazeballs, though, too.

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Parker Palm Springs hotel (5 of 35)

Love the lemon-stuffed shell.

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And the tree-shaded dining area, where you can order a Pimm’s and learn how to play croquet.

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The Parker Palm Springs has played host to countless celebrities over its nine-year history, including Jonah Hill, Adrien Brody, Drew Barrymore, Will Kopelman, Lindsay Lohan, Wilmer Valderrama, Eva Mendes, Charlize Theron, Kevin Spacey, Liam Neeson, Teri Hatcher, and Ozzy Osbourne.  Lake Bell’s Bachelorette Party was held at the Parker just a few weeks ago and pal Cameron Diaz was in attendance.  And Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie famously stayed there – at opposite ends of the property, according to their publicists – on March 25th and 26th, 2005 while shooting the “Domestic Bliss” cover story for W Magazine.  (I blogged about the Kenaston Residence where the shoot took place here).  According to the Hotel Chatter website, the duo, who were at the time ferociously fighting rumors of a relationship, checked in under the aliases Jasmine Pilaf and Bryce Pilaf.  Nyuck nyuck nyuck!  Winking smile  It is not very hard to see why stars flock to the Parker – the hotel is full of tucked-away spaces and is incredibly intimate, serene and cozy despite its large size.

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Parker Palm Springs hotel (11 of 35)

Being there feels more like hanging out at a good – and ultra-hip – friend’s house (Cupcake and Cashmere’s Emily Schuman’s house, perhaps – oh, if only we were friends! Winking smile) than staying at a hotel.  I would SO love to book a room there for a little stay-cation, but being that rates start at around $300 a night, I am sure the GC will be having none of that!

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Parker Palm Springs hotel (25 of 35)

UPDATE – a fellow stalker named TJ recently posted a comment alerting me to the fact that the Parker actually IS a filming location.  The hotel was featured extensively in the Season 1 episode of the short-lived HBO series The Comeback titled “Valerie Relaxes in Palm Springs”, in which fledgling actress Valerie Cherish (Lisa Kudrow) vacations in the desert with her husband, Mark Berman (Damian Young).  Areas of the hotel that appeared in the episode include the front entrance;

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the lobby;

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the pool;

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and Norma’s restaurant.

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You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER.  And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

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Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The Parker Palm Springs is located at 4200 East Palm Canyon Drive in Palm Springs.  You can visit the hotel’s official website here.

The Historic Mayfair Hotel from “The Office”

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Fellow stalker John Bengtson, from the SIlent Locations blog, sent me an email last week after reading my post on Red Studios Hollywood from The Artist (a location that I had learned about from his website) informing me that he had tracked down some locales from Season 7’s “The Search” episode of The Office that I might be interested in stalking, most notably The Historic Mayfair Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles where Michael Scott (Steve Carell) and Holly Flax (Amy Ryan) shared a rooftop kiss.  Ironically enough, my good friend, fellow stalker Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, had also sent me this location on February 4th of last year, the day after the episode had originally aired, along with a list of all of the other places featured in “The Search”.  And while I did stalk a few of them – Kung Pao China Bistro and Larry’s Chili Dog – for whatever reason, I never made it out to The Mayfair.  So, this past weekend, I decided to change that and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on over there.  (I am not sure what happened with the above photograph, but somehow it turned out a bit wonky and neither the GC nor I realized it at the time.)

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The Historic Mayfair Hotel was originally designed in 1927 by Alexander E. Curlett and Claud W. Beelman, the same architecture team who gave us the Park Plaza Hotel near MacArthur Park (an extremely popular filming location that I have stalked, but have yet to blog about), the Cooper Arms condominium building in Long Beach, and the Los Angeles Board of Trade Building in Downtown L.A.  The 13-story hotel, which at the time was named simply The Mayfair, was commissioned by Texas oil tycoons and was constructed at a cost of $1.5 million – and we’re talking 1920’s dollars!  In its heyday, the luxury property hosted such luminaries as Mary Pickford and John Barrymore.  Raymond Chandler even wrote and set his 1939 short story “I’ll Be Waiting” at The Mayfair, although he dubbed the place the “Windermere Hotel” in the tale.

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The property, which originally boasted 350 rooms, but now has just 304, was the largest hotel west of the Mississippi at one time and featured an immensely popular supper and dance club known as the Rainbow Isle Room, from which George Eckhardts, Jr. and the Rainbow Isle Orchestra would broadcast a live radio show each night.  In 2004, after suffering from a long period of neglect, the structure underwent a massive and much-needed $40 million renovation, at which point it was renamed The Historic Mayfair Hotel.  You can check out some great photographs of the place during its early days on The Mayfair’s Facebook page here.

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In “The Search” episode of The Office, after being stranded at a supposed Scranton, Pennsylvania-area gas station, Michael Scott goes on a walkabout which ends on the rooftop of The Historic Mayfair Hotel.  When Holly finds him there and Michael tells her how much he has missed her, the two finally kiss, ending several years worth of will-they-or-won’t-they-get-together storylines and allowing  audiences to finally breath a long-overdue sigh of relief.  Not surprisingly, the roof area of The Mayfair is closed to the public, so I was unable to snap any pictures of it.

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Mike, from MovieShotsLA, figured out that The Mayfair stood in for the supposed Chicago, Illinois-area The Addison Hotel where Beth Cappadora (Michelle Pfeiffer) attended her 15-year high school reunion in 1999’s The Deep End of the Ocean.

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It was from the lobby of The Mayfair that Beth’s 3-year-old son, Ben Cappadora (Michael McElroy), was kidnapped.

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As you can see above, despite the renovation, the lobby still looks very much the same today as it did back in 1998 when The Deep End of the Ocean was filmed.

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The super-nice front desk clerk that we spoke with while we were there informed us that both the interior and the exterior of the property had also appeared in 1994’s True Lies, as the supposed Washington, D.C.-area Washington Mayfair Hotel where Harry Tasker (Arnold Schwarzenegger), on horseback, chased motor-cycle-riding religious zealot Salim Abu Aziz (Art Malik) through a lobby.

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The Mayfair lobby was actually one of three different lobbies used in that particular scene.  Harry is first shown chasing Salim across the length of The Mayfair’s lobby.

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The two then turn a corner and are magically transported to the now-defunct The Ambassador hotel, the same lobby of which was used as the Regent Beverly Wilshire in 1990’s Pretty Woman.

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The duo then heads outside, “across the street” and into The Westin Bonaventure Hotel.  In reality, when the Ambassador was still standing, it was located a good two miles away from The Bonaventure.  Ah, the magic of Hollywood!

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Thanks to the Richard Dean Anderson Website, I learned that The Historic Mayfair Hotel was also used in the 1986 Season 1 episode of MacGyver titled “The Assassin”.

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I am fairly certain that only the exterior of the property appeared in the episode, though, and that all of the interior hotel scenes were filmed on a set.  And while IMDB states that The Mayfair was also featured in 2009’s Don’t Look Up, I scanned through the flick yesterday while doing research for this post and did not see it pop up anywhere.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalkers John Bengtson, from the SIlent Locations blog, and Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, for telling me about this location and to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for informing me of its appearance in The Deep End of the OceanSmile

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The Historic Mayfair Hotel, from “The Search” episode of The Office, is located at 1256 West 7th Street in Downtown Los Angeles.  You can visit the hotel’s official website here.

The Ritz-Carlton, Marina del Rey from “90210”

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Way back in July of last year, the Grim Cheaper and I found ourselves on the West Side of Los Angeles with a few hours to kill, so we decided to head down to Marina del Rey as I had never before done any stalking there.  I ended up absolutely falling in love with the seaside community, especially its downtown shopping area where I know I could have done some serious damage to my credit cards had the GC not been with me.  Anyway, one of the area locations that had long been listed in my trusty stalking notebook was The Ritz-Carlton, Marina del Rey hotel, which had made an appearance in the 1998 remake of The Parent Trap. So I dragged the GC right on over there as soon as we got into town.  Flash forward to this past February when I was checking out fellow stalker Geoff’s 90210Locations website and, let me tell you, I just about fell out of my chair when I saw that the hotel had been featured prominently in a recent episode of the series.  Now, as you all know, I watch 90210 religiously and am always keeping my eye out for locations, but, for whatever reason, I had somehow not recognized the place at all!  Am I losing my touch here?  Winking smile

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The Ritz-Carlton, Marina del Rey is situated on a 5.6-acre plot of land directly overlooking the picturesque marina from which the town gets its name.  With its dark paneled walls, marble floors, and huge floral arrangements, the beautiful hotel reminded me quite a bit of The Langham Huntington in Pasadena, which, not so coincidentally, was formerly owned by the Ritz-Carlton Corporation.  Needless to say, I fell in love with the place on the spot and so wanted to book a room and spend the night there, but the GC was having absolutely none of that.  Shocking, I know.  Winking smile

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The Ritz-Carlton Marina del Rey, which is Los Angeles’ only waterside AAA Five Diamond hotel, features 304 guest rooms, each with its own “Juliet” balcony, tennis courts, marina and city views, over 30,000 square feet of event space, a fitness center, and a Michelin-recommend restaurant.  According to the hotel’s website, it also boasts “L.A.’s only waterfront pool and whirlpool” (pictured above).  Besides being a filming location, the place is also a big-time celebrity hot spot.  Just a few of the stars who have been spotted there include Adrian Grenier,  John Travolta, Johnny Depp, Bridget Marquardt, Brooke Shields, Chris Henchy, Zac Efron, The Bachelorette’s DeAnna Pappas and then fiancé Jesse Csincsak, Brad Garrett, Mary Hart, Halle Berry, Hulk Hogan, Dave Annable, Odette Annable, Jason Lewis, Jason Mraz, Scott Caan, Paul Bettany, and Steve Carell.  Snoop Dogg and childhood sweetheart Shante Taylor got married there in 1997.  And pop star Britney Spears is a regular guest.  In fact, these famous (and oh-so-classy) photos of BritBrit and then fiance Kevin Federline were taken on one of the hotel’s balconies.

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In the Season 4 episode of 90210 titled “No Good Deed”, the Ritz-Carlton, Marina del Rey, popped up twice.  The hot tub area was first used as the spot where Naomi Clark (AnnaLynne McCord), wearing a very skimpy, blue cut-out bathing suit (and I’m telling you, if I had that body, I’d be wearing that bathing suit every single day of my life!), convinced movie star Mitchell Nash (Will Kemp) to let her throw a party for him.

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That spa area is pictured above.

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Later in the episode, the hotel’s pool area was the site of the Hillingsbrook Foundation’s “Clean Up Castillo Bay” charity event which Annie Wilson (Shenae Grimes) hosted.

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The spot where Liam Court (my love Matt Lanter) rescued the drowning girl is located just outside of the pool area, in the Marina del Rey harbor.

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The scene where the event’s silent auction was held was also most likely filmed at the Ritz, although I did not see any areas which resembled the screen captures above while I was there, nor can I find any similar-looking rooms on the hotel’s website.

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In the 1998 remake of The Parent Trap, the Ritz-Carlton, Marina del Rey’s pool stood in for the pool of the fictional “The Stafford Hotel”.  Interestingly enough, two other spots were also used to masquerade as The Stafford in the flick – the exterior was the Treasure Island Administration Building in San Francisco and the interior scenes were filmed at the Langham Huntington Hotel in Pasadena.

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The Ritz-Carlton, Marina del Rey was also used extensively in the Season 5 episode of Dexter titled “Take It”, as the hotel where Jordan Chase (Angelina Jolie’s ex-husband Jonny Lee Miller) hosted his “Take It” convention.  Quite a few areas of the hotel were used in the episode, including the exterior;

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The Ritz-Carlton Ballroom, which you can see a photograph of here;

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one of hotel’s outdoor terraces;

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The Ritz-Carlton Suite, which you can see a photograph of here;

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and two neighboring 7th floor suites.

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Big THANK YOU to Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, for informing me of the hotel’s 90210 connection!  Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The Ritz-Carlton, Marina del Rey, from the “No Good Deed” episode of 90210, the “Take It” episode of Dexter, and The Parent Trap remake, is located at 4375 Admiralty Way in Marina del Rey.  You can visit the hotel’s official website here.

The Redbury Hotel from “Entourage”

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Last July, while doing some cyber-stalking, I came across an article on the USA TODAY Travel website about the numerous Southern California hotels and restaurants featured in the eighth and final season of the hit television series Entourage.  One of the spots mentioned in the blurb was Tinseltown’s newly-opened The Redbury Hotel, which appeared in the episode titled “The Big Bang”, and, thanks to its dark crimson walls, unique architecture and old Hollywood vibe, I immediately became enamored of the place.  I, of course, added the locale to my “To-Stalk” list right then and there, but, for whatever reason, did not make it out there to actually do so until three weekends ago.

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And I am very happy to report that the place did not disappoint!  To say that I am in love with The Redbury would be a gross understatement.  The 57-room boutique hotel, which first opened in November of 2010, was the brainchild of sbe Entertainment Group founder/CEO Sam Nazarian and photographer/music video director Matthew Rolston.  The 5-story structure was originally conceived as a high-end, $50 million condominium project by the Palisades Development company, but that venture was forced to be scrapped during the real estate downturn.  In February of 2010, at which time the building was about 80-percent complete, it was purchased by the CIM Group, who re-envisioned the locale as an upscale hotel and hired Nazarian and Rolston to manage and design it, respectively.

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The name Redbury comes from a combination of “red”, the hue that Palisades Development had already painted the building, and “bury”, in honor of San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district.  According to an August 2010 Los Angeles Times article, the hotel’s eclectic style is a mix of “bohemian, 1960s flower power and old Hollywood”.  Apparently, Rolston wanted the locale to feel “’theatrical’, a little bit like actually being in one of my photographs or music videos”.  And, as you can see above, he succeeded with that vision – in spades!  The Redbury is honestly like nothing I have ever seen before and absolutely does feel like a movie set come to life.  I so loved it that I was even tempted to book a room while we were there for a spontaneous little stay-cation, but the Grim Cheaper was, of course, having none of that.

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The Redbury staff was BEYOND friendly and, even though none of the hotel’s restaurants were open while we were stalking the place, I was allowed to go inside to take a peek at each of them and told that I could snap “all of the photographs you want” – six little words that I absolutely LOVE to hear.  The areas of the hotel that we visited included the Library Bar – which honestly feels more like the ultra-cozy living room of a very stylish friend’s house than a public bar;

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The Glade courtyard lounge – a huge terrace garden complete with teak decking, Moorish-style lanterns and outdoor couches and daybeds;

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and Cleo – an ultra-hip Middle-Eastern-style restaurant that is dominated by a large 1917 movie poster of actress Theda Bara dressed as Cleopatra.  The Library Bar, Glade and Cleo are all major celebrity hotspots.  Just a few of the stars who have been spotted at the one of the three watering holes include my girl Kristin Cavallari, my man Matt Lanter (sigh!), Drew Barrymore, Matthew Lillard, Jamie Foxx, Hilary Duff, Joe Jonas, Ashley Greene, Audrina Patridge, Emma Roberts, Hayden Panettiere, Sam Trammell, the entire Kardashian/Jenner family, Courteney Cox, Josh Hopkins, Anna Paquin, Stephen Moyer, Adam Brody, Neve Campbell, Carla Gugino, Nia Vardalos, Jesse Williams, Lauren Conrad, Lo Bosworth, Whitney Port, Busy Phillips, Stacey Keibler, David Beckham, Kirstie Alley, Cheryl Burke, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Jessica Lowndes, Gillian Zinser, Sarah Hyland, Salma Hayek, Mila Kunis, and Ali Fedotowsky.

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In “The Big Bang” episode of Entourage, Cleo restaurant was where Vincent Chase (Adrian Grenier) ambushed Vanity Fair reporter Sophia Lear (Alice Eve) and tried to convince her that he was not a womanizer.  And while the USA TODAY Travel article stated that the series had filmed scenes “throughout the hotel, including its Library lounge”, I did not spot any other areas of the property in “The Big Bang” or in other episodes from Season 8, so I believe that information is incorrect.

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The yet-to-be released movie Between Us, which stars Julia Stiles, Melissa George and Taye Diggs, also did some filming at The Redbury.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The Redbury Hotel, from “The Big Bang” episode of Entourage, is located at 1717 Vine Street in Hollywood.  You can visit the hotel’s official website here.

The Cliffhouse Restaurant from “City of Industry”

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For our first wedding anniversary this past weekend, the Grim Cheaper and I headed out to the desert to spend a few days at the La Quinta Resort & Club, a historic hotel and popular celebrity hangout which I blogged about extensively last December.  The GC’s brother, who works for the Hilton Hotels chain, which owns the resort, hooked us up royally with a Friends-and-Family discount so we were able to book a suite at an amazingly low rate – a suite that turned out to be the property’s Errol Flynn room!  When I first walked through the doors and saw Errol’s star hanging on the wall, I just about had a heart attack!  (As I mentioned in my December post, in each room where a celebrity has once stayed, the hotel posts a replica of that celebrity’s Hollywood Walk of Fame star.) A super-nice concierge that we later spoke with also informed us that comedian Red Skelton had once vacationed in our suite.   But for some reason, even though Red Skelton was actually honored with two Walk of Fame stars during his lifetime – one for radio and one for TV – only a replica of Errol’s star was posted in our room.

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We absolutely fell in love with our little Spanish-style suite, which featured two bathrooms and two patios and was situated in an adorable trellised courtyard.  So much so that we ended up extending our stay at the last minute by one more night, as neither of us could bear to leave.

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Just to explain the kind of place La Quinta Resort is, we were not only sent a split of champagne and chocolate-covered strawberries on the night of our anniversary . . .

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. . . but after deciding to extend our stay, we were sent more champagne, more strawberries, and a bottle of wine!  All while we were paying a room rate that was almost obscenely low.  Needless to say, the La Quinta Resort & Club is all about customer service.  I absolutely LOVE the place and cannot more highly recommend staying there!  You can read more about Hollywood’s extensive love affair with the hotel in the post I wrote back in December.  And now, on with today’s location!

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Long before they moved to the desert, my parents discovered a La Quinta-area eatery named the Cliffhouse and it quickly became their favorite local spot to grab a bite to eat.  And while I have dined there quite a few times over the years, it was not until just a couple of weeks ago that, thanks to favorite stalking tome Hollywood Escapes: The Moviegoer’s Guide to Exploring Southern California’s Great Outdoors, I discovered the restaurant was a filming location!  As it turns out, the ranch-style eatery was featured briefly in the 1997 heist movie City of Industry!  So when my parents mentioned that they wanted to treat me and the GC to dinner there in honor of our anniversary, I could NOT have been more excited!

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As you can see in the above aerial view, the Cliffhouse is literally built directly into the side of a small cliff that is known locally as “Point Happy”.  The area was named for rancher Norman “Happy” Lundbeck who, in the early 1900s, owned a store and ranch directly across the highway from the small hillside.  Over time, Norman’s homestead, which he dubbed “Point Happy Ranch”, became a popular hitching post and watering hole for weary gold-seekers traveling from California to the Colorado River.  And the small, but prominent hillside eventually became a landmark to those travelers, letting them know that much-needed food and rest was near.  The Cliffhouse restaurant, which cost $5 million to construct, took over 5 years of planning to complete, and involved a hollowing out of a part of the Point, opened in 1992 and has been a desert staple ever since.  The eatery is not only beautiful and incredibly unique in its architecture, but it also serves up some FABULOUS food, especially the fish tacos, which are INCREDIBLE – and I don’t even like fish!  The two-story, 9,000-square foot steakhouse is owned by TS Restaurants and, sadly, the corporation will not be renewing its lease come 2012, which is such an incredible shame I cannot even tell you.  There is hope that a new company will come in and take over the property, keeping the Cliffhouse name and menu, so my fingers are crossed.  I will be extremely sad if this place closes, as will my parents!

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In City of Industry, after being double-crossed and shot at by his partner Skip Kovich (aka Stephen Dorff), bank robber Roy Egan (aka Harvey Keitel) climbs up the retaining wall located on the western side of the Cliffhouse and then proceeds to steal a car from the restaurant’s parking lot.  Immediately after dining at the Cliffhouse, the GC and I ventured over to my parents’ house to watch City of Industry and I have to say that the movie was pretty darn horrible!  We ended up fast-forwarding through the vast majority of it, pausing just long enough to check out the numerous Palm-Springs-area locales which popped up.

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Only the parking lot area and the exterior of the restaurant were shown in the movie.  If you were at all a fan of City of Industry (I’m sure there have to be at least a few of you out there Winking smile), and would like to stalk the restaurant, I would recommend doing so before December 31st, when it is set to close.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Cliffhouse parking lot

Stalk It: The Cliffhouse restaurant, from City of Industry, is located at 78250 Highway 111 in La Quinta.  The area where Harvey Keitel climbed up the retaining wall in the movie is marked with a pink “X” in the above aerial view.  The area from which he stole the car is marked with a blue star.  You can visit the official Cliffhouse website here.  La Quinta Resort & Club is located at 49-499 Eisenhower Drive, also in La Quinta.  You can visit the hotel’s official website here.  The Errol Flynn suite is Room 222.

Edith Palmer’s Country Inn

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The final Nevada-area location that I stalked while visiting my grandmother in Reno last month was Edith Palmer’s Country Inn in Virginia City – the spot where my girl, Miss Marilyn Monroe, stayed for a short time while filming her last completed movie, 1961’s The Misfits.  I had actually stalked the exterior of the historic property once before, while vacationing at my grandmother’s back in June of 2008, and had also written a short blog post about it.  As fate would have it, the inn’s super-nice owner, Leisa Findley, happened to see that post and wrote a comment in which she mentioned that if I ever wanted to re-stalk the place, she would give me a personal tour of the interior.  Well, as you can imagine, I read Leisa’s words and had been absolutely itching to collect on her kind offer ever since.  Because I usually visit my grandmother at Christmastime, though, when driving conditions from Sparks, where she lives, to Virginia City are a bit unfavorable, I was not able to do so until my most recent trip to the Silver State this past July.

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Edith Palmer’s Country Inn was originally built in 1863 as a private home/cider factory for a businessman and cider/vinegar manufacturer named Ellis Morton.  In 1948, an award-winning chef named Edith Palmer purchased the premises with the intention of using it as her residence.  Edith, who was a member of the prestigious French gastronomic society Chaine des Rotisseurs, would host frequent dinner parties in the former cider factory area of the property (pictured above) and eventually decided to turn her abode into an inn, so that those guests who did not want to drive home after eating her culinary feasts would have a place to stay.  Word of mouth traveled quickly and Edith’s meals became so sought after that she wound up converting the factory into a public restaurant which she dubbed ”The Cider Factory”.  It did not take long for the Hollywood elite to come a-knockin’ on the door of Edith’s ultra-private little haven of an inn and its ambrosial eatery. Just a few of the luminaries who stayed or dined at the property include Liberace, Polly Bergen (who played grandmother Kate Allen on fave show Commander in Chief), Michael Landon, Lorne Greene, Dan Blocker, Pernell Roberts, Phil and Alice Harris, Yvonne De Carlo, Robert Goulet, and Dinah Shore.  In 2000, Leisa and her husband, Pat, purchased the inn, which had fallen into serious disrepair, from Edith’s heirs and and immediately set about a three-year renovation process during which they lovingly restored the place to its former grandeur.  Today, Edith Palmer’s Country Inn is comprised of three separate Victorian-style houses – the Edith Palmer House, the Silver Street House, and the Storey House – which feature eight guest rooms and two suites.

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As luck would have it, the inn was vacant during our visit and Leisa was kind enough to take us through pretty much every square inch of the property.  She began our tour in the Edith Palmer House, where we were shown the sitting room area;

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the Maggie Belle Room, which was named in honor of Pat’s grandmother;

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the Edith Room;

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the Evelyn Room, which was named after Leisa’s mother;

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and the Marilyn Room, which was where the starlet stayed for a brief time while The Misfits was being filmed in nearby Dayton, Nevada.

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As you can see above, the Marilyn Room is an absolutely adorable little space which is tucked away in a quiet corner of the inn’s second floor and features peaked ceilings, gabled windows, and a sitting area.

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It was in the Marilyn Room that Leisa showed me what I had been absolutely dying to see for more than three years – the inscription MM wrote to Edith during her stay at the historic property.

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The inscription reads, “To Edith Palmer and her oasis in the desert and warm hospitality – may I always be a welcome guest.  Marilyn Monroe.”  Apparently, when Leisa and Pat purchased the property, Marilyn’s autograph had become extremely weathered and faded, so they took it took a restorer who made two copies of the print in which the ink was darkened.  One of the copies currently hangs in the inn’s Marilyn Room and the other in Leisa’s main office.  The original is safely tucked away somewhere, far from sunlight and possible sticky fingers.  And even though it was a copy, I cannot tell you how exciting it was for me to see that inscription in person.  SO INCREDIBLY COOL!

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Next, Leisa took us to the famed Cider Factory, which is no longer in use as a restaurant, but is currently only available as a wedding and special events venue.  The front room of the Cider House is still set up much the way it was in Edith’s day and features an adorable little bar that one former waitress dubbed “The Biggest Little Bar in Nevada”.

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The walls of the front room are almost completely covered with autographed headshots and messages written to Edith on pieces of paper placemats, as had become the Cider Factory custom during Edith’s day.

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As you can imagine, I was absolutely drooling while reading the many inscriptions.

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I was most excited to see the inscription from Lee Strasberg, Marilyn’s beloved acting coach and founder of the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute, who accompanied the star to Virginia City.  Lee’s daughter Susan also signed the placemat.

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The back room of the former restaurant, which housed the original cider factory, is a beautiful rock-walled space that seems straight out of another era.

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The room features a HUGE, floor-to-ceiling fireplace that was constructed completely out of rocks from the nearby hills.

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We also got to walk through the inn’s quaint garden area, which, as legend has it, was where Edith first met Marilyn upon the star’s arrival in Virginia City.  All in all, Leisa spent over an hour showing us her lovely inn and regaling us with tales of its storied past.  My grandma, my dad, and I all absolutely fell in love with the place and my dad is already talking about booking a room there for a few days next summer.  I told him to count me in, so long as he reserves the Marilyn Room.  Winking smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Edith Palmer’s Country Inn is located at 416 South B Street in Virginia City, Nevada.  You can visit the Inn’s official website here.