Stu’s House from “The Hangover”

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One location that I have been on the lookout for for over a year now is the adorable bungalow where Stu Price (aka Ed Helms) and his girlfriend Melissa (aka Rachael Harris) lived in fave movie The Hangover.  I absolutely fell in love with Stu’s home the moment I saw it in the flick and, thanks to its Craftsman-style architecture, became convinced that it was most likely located in the Pasadena area.  Thankfully, I had spotted an address number of 1325 on the front of the house while watching the movie, so as soon as I got home from the theatre I immediately began searching all of the 1300 blocks in Pasadena for the property.  When that failed, I moved my hunt first to South Pasadena and then to Altadena, but came up completely empty-handed on both ends.  I was still absolutely convinced, though, that the property had to somewhere in the San Gabriel Valley.  And oh, how wrong I was!  Enter Mike, from MovieShotsLA, who decided to help me in my Hangover quest by searching for the home outside of the Pasadena city limits.  And sure enough, it wasn’t long before he found it, in a place I never would have even thought to look – West Hollywood.  So, a couple of weeks ago, after our tour of Paramount Studios, I took fellow stalkers Lavonna, Beth, Debbie, and Connie, who were all in town visiting from Ohio, right on over to WeHo to do some Hangover stalking.

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The house was used in the very brief, but extremely funny scene in which Phil Wenneck (aka Bradley Cooper), Alan Garner (aka Zach Galifianakis), and Doug Billings (aka Justin Bartha) pick up Stu before heading to Las Vegas, where Doug’s bachelor party is being held.  And I am very happy to report that the incredibly picturesque home looks exactly the same in person as it did onscreen.

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As you can see in the above screen captures and interior images of the property (which I snagged off of a real estate listing that I found online yesterday), the actual interior of the home was also used in the filming of The Hangover.  The areas used include the kitchen;

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one of the bathrooms;

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the dining room;

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and the living room – the fireplace of which you can just barely see in the above screen capture.

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The window where Stu and Melissa sat in the scene is located just to the left of the abode’s front door.  Unfortunately, though, the real estate website did not include an interior photograph of that exact spot.  Nor did the listing make any reference to the home’s cinematic history, which is a total abomination in my eyes!  I mean, come on, did the real estate agent honestly not realize that mentioning the property’s appearance in one of the biggest movies of 2009 would add value to the home?  Sigh!  Why do I have to think of everything?  😉   

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The 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom, 1,746-square foot dwelling, which was originally built in 1919, was sold this past August for a cool $1.2 million.  Interestingly enough, while searching property records for the house yesterday, I came across information that former Beverly Hills, 90210-actress Lindsay Price and her then-husband, producer Shawn Pillar, owned the home from October 2003 through March 2006.  So incredibly cool!

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  Zack and Bradley 

On a Hangover side note – Before meeting up with me a couple of weeks ago, fellow stalkers Lavonna, Debbie, Connie, and Beth went on a tour of Warner Brothers Studios, where The Hangover 2 is currently being filmed, and while there they spotted both Bradley Cooper and Zach Galifianakis.  The actors were being shuttled around on a golf cart at the time and while Zach tried to shield his face from view, Bradley Cooper was nice enough to turn around and wave to the girls.  So cute!  🙂

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for finding this location and to fellow stalkers Lavonna and Beth for loaning me the above photographs of Zach and Bradley to publish in this post!  🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: Stu Price’s house from The Hangover is located at 1325 North Ogden Drive in Hollywood.  You can check out the home’s real estate listing here.

Dylan’s House from “Beverly Hills, 90210”

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Still licking our wounds this past weekend after finding out that the Walsh Family garage had recently been dismantled, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I decided to head over to Dylan McKay’s house to do some more Beverly Hills, 90210 stalking.  And, as fate would have it, the real life owner of Dylan’s home, an INCREDIBLY nice woman named Mary, just happened to be outside doing some gardening work when we arrived!  So, we got to talking to her and found out quite a bit of behind-the-scenes information, the most fascinating of which was the fact that throughout the show’s entire second season, all of the scenes which took place at Dylan’s residence were actually filmed inside of Mary’s house and not on a soundstage!  And, let me tell you, I just about died when I heard that!  Interestingly enough, though, Mary’s house was not used for the exterior establishing shots of Dylan’s house until early in the show’s third season! 

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The house used as the exterior of Dylan’s abode during the show’s second season is pictured above.  And, ironically enough, it’s also the very same house that was used as Andrea’s residence in the Season One episode of 90210 entitled “Spring Dance”.   LOL  The location manager’s wires must have gotten crossed somewhere along the line while dealing with this residence!  😉

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The interior of Mary’s house first appeared early on in the series’ second season in an episode entitled “Necessity is a Mother” (pictured above).  According to Mary, whenever filming would take place at her home, producers would use her actual furniture in all of the scenes.  She said she and her husband owned a pink couch at the time and producers would cover it up with Indian-style blankets during the filming, as you can see in the above screen captures.  So, that finally answers the question of how Dylan McKay’s blanket-happy decorating style came to be.  😉   

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The exterior of Mary’s house (pictured above) didn’t show up until a full year after the “Necessity is a Mother” episode aired.  Its first appearance was in the premiere episode of the Third Season, which was entitled “Misery Loves Company”.  I guess producers didn’t figure viewers would notice that Dylan’s house changed mysteriously mid-series, but they really should have accounted for all of us stalkers out there.  😉

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According to Mary, the interiors of her house were used throughout the filming of the entire second season and into the beginning of third, at which time producers ended up building an exact replica of the structure on a studio soundstage. 

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They even rebuilt the home’s front porch and side patio area (pictured above), complete with a replica red Webber BBQ, just like the one Mary and her husband owned at the time!  So cool!   You can watch a clip which features an extensive view of Dylan’s house from the Season 3 episode entitled “A Song of Myself” here

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Mary also told us that a scene from the Season Four episode entitled “Twenty Years Ago Today” was also filmed inside of her house.  In the scene, Dylan is shown taking a shower, just as Brandon pulls up to pick up a picture frame he had purchased for his parents’ twentieth wedding anniversary.  Because Dylan can’t hear him knocking, Brandon ends up breaking the glass on the back door and entering the house.  Dylan hears the glass break, grabs his gun, and almost shoots him.  Ah, dontcha just love 90210 drama?  Mary said that for the filming of Brandon’s breaking-and-entering scene, a fake back door – complete with break-away glass – was built and that she got to keep the door after the filming was completed!  She still has the door in her garage!  Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see it, but I think it is so incredibly cool that she still has it after all these years. 

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She also told us that her real life bathroom was used for the scene in which Dylan is showering in that episode, which means that Luke Perry actually stood in her shower!  Sigh!  Mary also said that Shannen Doherty was her favorite out of all of the actors on the show.  YAY!  Go Team Brenda!  See, I knew Shannen had to be nice!  🙂 

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Because Mary’s front door is glass, you can easily see inside of the house when standing on the front porch.  And, let me tell you, I was ABSOLUTELY DYING looking at the interior because it looks EXACTLY the same in person as it did on 90210.  But while Mary told us that we could take all the pictures we wanted of the house’s exterior and the front porch area, she asked us not to take any photos of the interior through the glass.  🙁   Apparently fans are apt to do that and she’s not too keen on it.  And even though it killed me not to, I had to respect her wishes.  🙁  Ugh, such a bummer as I would have LOVED to have posted photographs of the inside here. But you can see some great interior photos of the house from before Mary owned it here and a photograph that someone did actually take through her front door here

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The house’s front porch area, which showed up countless times on 90210, is absolutely HUGE and Mike and I just had to take pictures of every single angle of it!  🙂 

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The house is absolutely BEAUTIFUL, and extremely unique, in person.  It’s appearance from the street is actually quite deceiving, though, as it seems to be rather small and quaint. . .

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  . . . when in reality it is absolutely huge and stretches the length of an entire block.  When you walk by, the place literally seems to just keep going and going and going.

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Mary’s house was also used as Jesse Bradford’s residence in the super cute 2002 movie Clockstoppers.

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Besides its cinematic significance, the house also has quite a bit of historical significance, as well.  The dwelling is known as the “Parsons House” in architectural circles and it was originally built in 1910 by Arthur and Alfred Heineman, former Greene & Greene Brother’s’ apprentices.  Amazingly enough, the house wasn’t always located in Altadena, though.  It was originally built on East California Boulevard in Pasadena, four miles away from its current location.  In 1980, a condominium development company purchased the land where the Parsons House used to stand and slated the area for demolition.  The developer ended up giving the home to the Pasadena Heritage Society, who later sold the entire structure for one dollar to a man named Phil Elkins.  Elkins hired architect Tim Anderson to restore the Parsons House and then purchased a vacant lot in Altadena, where he would eventually move the structure.  In order to do so, though, the home had to be cut into three separate pieces, using a chain saw, no less!  But the house survived the cut and the four mile journey to Altadena and two years later the entire property was completely restored.  Anderson says, “We probably could have built a reproduction of the house for less than what it cost to restore.  Had we all been less enthusiastic and naive about this project, the house would not have been saved.”  You can read an entire history of the house on Tim Anderson’s website here.

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Only the home’s chimney and front porch area had to be rebuilt from scratch, but they were made in exact replication of the originals.  Ironically enough, George McDavitt, the stoneworker who did all of the masonry work on the new porch – and who also did the stone work on Bob Dylan’s Malibu house –  actually showed up one day at Mary’s front door with his teenaged daughter.  It turns out that his daughter was a huge 90210 fan and she didn’t believe that her father had actually built a part of Dylan McKay’s house, so he wanted to show her his name, which he had engraved in one of the rocks (pictured above).  So cool! 

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I honestly cannot tell you how exciting it was to be able to see Dylan’s house in such an up-close-and-personal way and to talk to Mary about her amazing home and the historic filming that took place there almost two decades ago.   It was truly a dream come true!  🙂

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On a side note – My good friend Kristin, who owns my very favorite restaurant POP Champagne and Dessert Bar in Pasadena, will be appearing on KTLA tomorrow morning at around 9:45 in honor of dineLA’s Restaurant Week.  If you live in the Los Angeles area be sure to tune in for the segment.  🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: Dylan’s house from Beverly Hills, 90210 is located at 1605 East Altadena Drive, at the corner of Altadena Drive and Porter Avenue, in Altadena.

The Blast from the Past House

UPDATE: Just a quick note to let all of you stalkers out there know that tonight at 11 p.m. PST I will be interviewed by radio host Peter Anthony Holder for his talk show Holder Tonight on Montreal’s number one English talk station, CJAD, and on their sister station CFRB, which is the number one talk station in Toronto!  🙂  Those of you who want to listen in to a live stream can do so at  www.CJAD.com or www.CFRB.com.   The live stream link for both stations is located on the upper left hand side of their homepage.  Then tomorrow morning Kelly Green, from Tensessee’s The Farm 100.9, will be interviewing me at 7:20 a.m., but unfortunately it doesn’t look like that station has streaming audio.  🙁  http://www.thefarmradio.com/greenteam.htm   Hopefully they will put the interview in the archive section of their website, though, and I’ll be able to post a link.   Now on to the post!  🙂

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A few weeks ago, I dragged Mike, from MovieShotsLA, out to a location I have been meaning to stalk for quite a while now – Alicia Silverstone’s cute little craftsman house from the 1999 movie Blast from the Past.  I had actually been wanting to stalk the adorable house ever since I first saw the movie over ten years ago, but had no idea where it was located.  So, when I found out that Mike knew the address and had actually stalked the home several times previously, I begged him to take me there.  🙂

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I am very happy to report that the house looks exactly the same in person as it did onscreen in Blast from the Past – right down to the little red car parked out front!  I’m not kidding – that red car really was parked out there while we were stalking the place!!!!  LOL LOL LOL  I was shocked to discover, though, that the Blast from the Past  house was located in Los Angeles, because, thanks to its Craftsman style architecture, it actually looks more like a Pasadena area home.  Even stranger still is the fact that in the beginning of the movie, when Brendan Fraser leaves his family’s bomb shelter, his mom tells him to seek out “a girl from Pasadena”, because she’s “always found girls from Pasadena to be a little bit nicer”.  🙂   So, basically, the Blast from the Past  location scouts went, not to Pasadena, but to Los Angeles to find a Pasadena style home to stand in for a Pasadena girl’s residence.  That’s Hollywood for you!  🙂  

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The house, most notably the front door and front porch area, show up numerous times throughout the movie.

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And it is on the street in front of the home that Brendan Fraser runs away from the County Family Services people . . .

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. . . and crashes his rented meat truck into the County Family Service woman’s car.  LOL LOL LOL

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I was shocked to discover, while doing research for this post, that the same home was also used in the 1974 movie Chinatown  as the house where the mysterious Katherine (Belinda Palmer) hides out.  It is amazing to me how similar the home still looks thirty-five years later!!  According to IMDB, the same house was also featured in the 2000 made-for-TV movie If These Walls Could Talk 2, but I haven’t been able to verify that.  I can say for certain, though, that it was not the main house used in the movie.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

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Stalk It: The Blast from the Past  house is located at 1972 Canyon Drive, just off of Franklin Avenue, in Los Angeles.

Sandy and Kirsten’s Berkeley House from “The O.C.”

dscn0350.jpg Thought I’d do a post tonight on another Craftsman style house – one that was featured on the series finale of The O.C. On the last show of the series, after the Cohen home is destroyed in an earthquake, Seth and Ryan hatch a scheme to buy their parents back the Berkeley house they spent the early years of their marriage in. The Berkeley house cannot really be found in Berkeley, though – it is actually located in South Pasadena, just a few blocks from the 13 Going On 30 houses.

I found this location thanks to my fave OC Stalking Guide and ran right out to stalk it this weekend. The house is very pretty in person, and is a great example of Craftsman style architecture. Although the house was only featured in one episode of The O.C., it played a pretty significant role and was shown many times throughout the finale. If you walk south past the house, you can even see partially into the backyard where Summer and Seth got married. 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! : )

Stalk It: The “Berkeley House” is located at 1617 Marengo Avenue in South Pasadena. It is just a few blocks south of the Fair Oaks exit off the 110 Freeway. After stalking be sure to stop into Fair Oaks Pharmacy at nearby 1526 Mission Street for a homemade cherry coke. They make the best! Fair Oaks Pharmacy played the role of the soda fountain in Winona Ryder’s hometown in the movie Mr. Deeds.