Bridges Auditorium from “The West Wing”

Bridges Auditorium from The West Wing (18 of 20)

I am one of the few people in the world who did not watch The West Wing when it was on the air.  And boy was I missing out!  The Grim Cheaper and I started binging the series on a whim this past January and now can’t get enough!  The show is so good, I could cry!  It’s literally one of the best productions to ever grace television screens!  Early in our binging, I, of course, went on a deep dive to unearth some of its locations and was thrilled to come across a 2012 Architectural Digest article that spelled out one locale in particular, stating “Because The West Wing had not yet acquired an East Room set in time, the series’ second-season Christmas episode, ‘Noël,’ featuring the cellist Yo-Yo Ma, was filmed in the lobby of Pomona College’s Bridges Auditorium, in Claremont, California.”  Well, believe you me, the venue went straight to the top of my To-Stalk List and I headed out there way back in February, but I’ve held off on blogging about it as I figured it would make for an excellent holiday post.

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The Mabel Shaw Bridges Music Auditorium, as it is formally known, was commissioned by Appleton and Amelia Shaw Bridges in honor of their daughter, Mabel, who passed away while attending Pomona College in 1907.

Bridges Auditorium from The West Wing (19 of 20)

Bridges Auditorium from The West Wing (20 of 20)

Designed by San Diego-based architect William Templeton Johnson in the Northern Italian Renaissance style, the venue was constructed from 1930 to 1931 at a cost of $650,000.

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Bridges Auditorium from The West Wing (13 of 20)

Bridges Auditorium was dedicated on September 18th, 1931 and its inaugural concert season officially kicked off the following month, on October 27th, with a performance by Artur Rodziński and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra.  Since then, it has gone on to host a slew of celebrated personalities.  Just a few of the luminaries who have set foot on its stage include Steve Martin, Muhammad Ali, Amelia Earhart, Benny Goodman, James Earl Jones, and Bono.

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Sadly, the hall was closed when I visited, so I did not get to see the interior.

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The exterior is pretty darn spectacular, though, with a towering arched overhang lined with grand columns and topped by a cathedral ceiling.

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The auditorium itself, which you can see photos of here, boasts rich red carpeting, seating for 2,494 guests, and a magical ceiling mural spanning 22,000 square feet that was hand-painted by Giovanni Smeraldi, the famed artist who also adorned the ceilings of Doheny Memorial Library’s Los Angeles Times Reference Room, the Pasadena Main Branch of the Bank of the West, St. Vincent de Paul Church, and the Millennium Biltmore Hotel’s South Galleria.  (The latter, coincidentally, is also a West Wing locale!)

Bridges Auditorium from The West Wing (8 of 20)

Bridges Auditorium from The West Wing (9 of 20)

It is Bridges Auditorium’s lobby that is its real claim to fame, though.  Featuring a coffered ceiling, marble columns, and a grand staircase, the versatile space has appeared onscreen as everything from a courthouse to a college admissions office to the White House (twice!).  You can take a look at the beautiful room here.

Bridges Auditorium from The West Wing (10 of 20)

In The West Wing’s “Noël” episode, which aired in 2000, President Bartlet (Martin Sheen) and his senior staff attend a congressional Christmas party during which Yo-Yo Ma performs – and yes, the actual Yo-Yo Ma guest-starred!  As mentioned above, the production team transformed Bridges’ lobby into the White House’s East Room for the shoot.  Architectural Digest notes, “Although smaller than the actual East Room—the largest room in the White House, primarily used for entertaining—the space, says [production designer Kenneth] Hardy, had the right feeling.  He and his production crew hung replica chandeliers and added chairs, flowers, and presidential portraits.”  It was a lot of preparation for what essentially amounted to about two minutes of screen time, much of which was interspersed with flashbacks of Josh Lyman’s (Bradley Whitford) shooting from Season 1.  Nevertheless, the space did look beautiful in the scene.

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The Bridges Auditorium foyer also masked as the courthouse lobby where Hillary Whitney Essex (Barbara Hershey) collapsed in the 1988 drama Beaches.

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It again portrayed the White House – this time its grand entry hall – in the 1993 comedy Dave.

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And in the Season 3 episode of Gilmore Girls titled “Let the Games Begin,” which aired in 2002, the foyer masqueraded as the main administration building at Yale University, where Richard (Edward Herrmann) forced Rory (Alexis Bledel) into an impromptu interview with the Dean of Admissions.

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The exterior of Bridges Auditorium also appeared briefly in the episode.

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The theatre itself is where the body of a murdered ballerina is found in the Season 3 episode of Lucifer titled “Anything Pierce Can Do I Can Do Better,” which aired in 2018.

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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: Bridges Auditorium, from the “Noël” episode of The West Wing, is located at 450 North College Way, on the Pomona College campus, in Claremont.

The Gilmore Mansion from “Gilmore Girls”

The Gilmore Mansion from Gilmore Girls-7900

While I realize this may be considered blasphemy in some circles, I have never really watched Gilmore Girls.  On paper, the show definitely looks like something that would appeal to me, but for whatever reason, I failed to tune in when it originally started airing in 2000.  At the behest of fellow stalker/Gilmore Girls aficionado Chas, from the It’s Filmed There website, I finally viewed six or so episodes early last year, but the series just didn’t hook me.  Don’t get me wrong – GG is not bad or unentertaining by any means.  I just can’t seem to get into it – which I think is largely due to the fact that the show boasts 7 seasons, 153 episodes, and a 4-part reboot.  That’s a lot of binge-watching to get through.  It’s kind of overwhelming to even think about.  Despite my viewing neglect, I do know quite a bit about the series’ locations, thanks both to Chas and the fact that I’ve gone on the Warner Bros. Studio Tour Hollywood, where GG was mainly lensed, countless times.  One locale I did not know about – heck, not even Chas knew about it – was the home used for establishing shots of the Gilmore mansion, aka the stately pad where Richard (Edward Herrmann) and Emily Gilmore (Kelly Bishop) lived.

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It is pretty common knowledge among Gilmore Girls fans – and regular Warner Bros. tourgoers such as myself – that the exterior of the Gilmore mansion was a façade built inside of a soundstage on the studio lot.   So imagine Chas’ surprise when he received an email from Thomas Pucher, of the Falcon Crest website, a couple of months back informing him that said façade was modeled after the exterior of an actual house – a handsome 1924 French Provincial Revival-style manse located in Pasadena.  Not only that, but actual footage of the dwelling was used in establishing shots of the Gilmore residence during Season 1.

The Gilmore Mansion from Gilmore Girls-7889

The Gilmore Mansion from Gilmore Girls-7891

In real life, the massive 5-bedroom, 7-bath, 8,124-square-foot property, which sits on a 0.74-acre lot, is known as the William R. Staats House.

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The Gilmore Mansion from Gilmore Girls-7893

It was designed by the Marston, Van Pelt & Maybury architecture firm for real estate developer William Staats, who worked with Henry Huntington in developing Pasadena.

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The Gilmore Mansion from Gilmore Girls-7895

The William R. Staats House was not the only mansion utilized as the Gilmore home on Gilmore Girls.  In fact, the tale of Richard and Emily’s residence is a bit of a long one.  The GG pilot was lensed largely in Toronto, Canada and its environs, with a few re-shoots done on the Warner Bros. Studio backlot.  In the pilot, a dwelling at 61 Binscarth Road masked as the Gilmore mansion.

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The interior of the Binscarth Road pad was also utilized in the pilot.

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Once Gilmore Girls got picked up, production moved to Los Angeles.  Virtually all series filming took place at Warner Bros.  GG is not a show that left the lot very often.  One of the few non-studio locales utilized was the William R. Staats House.  The exterior of the residence was first featured in the Season 1 episode titled “Kill Me Now.”

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The exterior also appeared in “Star-Crossed Lovers and Other Strangers.”

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While I knew that the studio-built façade was also utilized during Season 1, because I don’t watch the show, I was unsure of which bits were shot at the real house and which were shot on set.  Enter my friend/guest poster extraordinaire Michael (you can read his many IAMNOTASTALKER articles here).  Michael is a big fan of GG, so I passed the information about the Staats House along to him.  He wound up reviewing several Season 1 episodes and came to the conclusion that the Pasadena pad only appeared in establishing shots a couple of times on the series and that all of the scenes that took place in front of the Gilmore mansion involving actors were lensed at the set re-creation.  It was easy for him to distinguish between the real home and the façade based on three factors – the façade bricks are much whiter and flatter than those of the real house, the studio re-creation bushes are much taller than those of the real home, and, most telling of all, the set mansion does not have a threshold, while the real house does.

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As Michael further explained, “In the first season they keep pretty close to the door.  I assume they hadn’t built much of the exterior at that point.  Then in the second season, the front driveway set is expanded, ivy is added to the facade, and a second light is added next to the door, all deviating from the Pasadena location.”

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Though some commenters on this recent Reddit post about the Gilmore mansion speculate that the actual interior of the Staats House was utilized during Season 1, that is incorrect.  Once the series was picked up, a set replica of the interior of the Toronto residence used in the pilot was constructed.  Said set was featured from the second episode, titled “The Lorelais’ First Day at Chilton” (pictured below), through the end of the series – though it was altered a bit over the years.  As creator Amy Sherman-Palladino explained during Entertainment Weekly’s PopFest in October 2016, “We always had this issue with the Gilmore house where we didn’t have a lot of money that first season, so it was a little tiny, and it kinda looked like Ed [Herrmann] was in a doll house.  He was a very tall man, and the next year we had a little bit more money, so we could make a room a little bigger every year.”

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The enlarged Gilmore mansion interior from Season 2 is pictured below.

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As Thomas informed Chas, the Staats House also popped up in two Season 5 episodes of Falcon Crest as the Monte Carlo chateau where Peter Stavros (Cesar Romero) was held prisoner.  It first appeared in “Gambit Exposed.”

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The interior of the property was also shown in the episode and, as you can see, it does not look anything like the Gilmore mansion.

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The Staats House then appeared in the subsequent Falcon Crest episode, titled “Finders and Losers.”

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Thanks to Chas, I also learned that the Staats House masked as the home of Richard Montana (Balthazar Getty) in the Season 6 episode of Charmed titled “Love’s a Witch.”

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The episode affords us a fabulous look at the interior of the residence.

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

Big THANK YOU to Thomas Pucher, from the Falcon Crest website, for finding this location and to Chas, from It’s Filmed There, for telling me about it.  Smile

The Gilmore Mansion from Gilmore Girls-7890

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Richard and Emily Gilmore’s mansion from Gilmore Girls is located at 293 South Grand Avenue in Pasadena.

The 101 Coffee Shop from “Swingers”

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One location that I have wanted to stalk ever since moving to Los Angeles over a decade ago, but didn’t because there were numerous erroneous reports floating around online which stated that the place had since closed down, was the 101 Coffee Shop which appeared in the 1996 movie Swingers.  It wasn’t until Mike, from MovieShotsLA, pointed out the restaurant to me while driving by it after we finished our tour of Paramount Studios back in September that I realized the location was, indeed, still open for business.  I added the cafe to the top of my “To Stalk” list that very day and when fellow stalkers Lavonna, Beth, Debbie, and Connie came out from Ohio for a Hollywood stalking trip a few weeks later, we all hit the place up for a quick bite to eat.

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Apparently, there is quite a bit of confusion surrounding this particular location, so I thought I’d put all the mystery to rest with today’s post.  The diner, which is located on the first floor of the Best Western Hollywood Hills Hotel, originally opened in the 1930’s and was named the “Hollywood Hills Coffee Shop”.  In 1994, the restaurant, which was faltering at the time, was taken over by a French chef named Susan Fine Moore and her husband, Michael, who revamped the property’s interior and updated its menu to include an array of standard comfort foods along with some Mexican dishes.  Of the new menu, which vacillated greatly from L.A.’s typical low-fat fare, Fine said, “We kind of pride ourselves on being an oasis from all that craziness.  There’s a new diet, a new fad every week, but actually people seem a little bit less obsessed than they used to be about diets.  Otherwise we wouldn’t be so busy.  Generation X is lovely – they’ll eat anything.  And the older generation is figuring, I suppose, who wants to live to 108 if you can’t put butter on your potato?”  Love it!  The Hollywood Hills Coffee Shop really started to take off under the helm of Susan and Michael and it was at that point that the place, thanks to its high-quality food and laid-back attitude, started attracting celebrities.  A few stars who were known to frequent the diner include Brad Pitt, my girl Jen Aniston, Sandra Bullock, Gwyneth Paltrow, Johnny Depp, Andy Garcia, Minnie Driver, Bruce Willis, Milla Jovovich, and Kevin Spacey.  After losing their lease in July of 2001, Susan and Michael moved their restaurant two miles east to a new location at 1745 North Vermont Avenue, but the place, sadly, closed down shortly thereafter.  In the meantime the former Hollywood Hills Coffee Shop space was leased to new owners – Warner Ebbink and Brandon Boudet of the Eat Heavy Restaurant Group – who opened a new eatery in its place.

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That new restaurant is named the 101 Coffee Shop and, let me tell you, it is a VERY cool place.  Ebbink, who has a passion for architecture as well as food, redesigned the property’s interior himself, modeling it after the old-time cafes of the ‘60s and ‘70s.  Boudet serves as the head chef and, under his tutelage, the eatery still serves up high-quality comfort food, including macaroni and cheese, meatloaf and gravy, and tuna melts.  For the foodies in your group, more highbrow offerings, like the Grilled Tandoori Salmon Sandwich, the Kale “Greek” Salad, and the Grilled Albacore Tuna Burger, are also on the menu.  And, despite the change in ownership, the restaurant is still a big time celebrity hotspot.  Fellow stalker Chas ran into both Nicolas Cage and Matt LeBlanc on two separate occasions while dining at the cafe.  So, while the Hollywood Hills Coffee Shop is no longer in operation, the 101 Coffee Shop is alive and well, and, despite the remodel, is still very recognizable from Swingers.

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Then out-of-work actors Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau actually wrote the screenplay for Swingers over several meals at the Hollywood Hills Coffee Shop.  (The restaurant seems to be something of a lucky charm for writers as the pilot episode of the extremely successful CBS comedy series Everybody Loves Raymond was also penned in one of the cafe’s back rooms.)  According to a November 1998 New York Times article, Favreau and his good friend Vaughn used to frequent the diner regularly.  Of the restaurant, Favreau said, “It was like a family atmosphere.  We didn’t have a lot of money, and I lived in a tiny apartment up the block.  I loved the people who ran the place, who made you feel like a big shot, even if you weren’t.  Very good portions – you never left hungry.”  Once the screenplay was sold, Favreau decided to use the restaurant as a filming location for no less than three scenes in the movie!  The Hollywood Hills Coffee Shop first appears in the opening scene in which Mike (aka Favreau) talks to Rob (aka Sex and the City’s Ron Livingston) about how to get his girlfriend back.

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That scene was filmed in the second booth to the left of the restaurant’s main door, which, despite the remodel, still looks very much the same today as it did in the movie.

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The scene in which Trent (aka Vince Vaughn) tells Mike that he is “all growns up” was also filmed at the cafe.  The booth where that scene was filmed is, sadly, no longer there.  It looks as if the restaurant also had some sort of a grocery section at the time the movie was filmed, but it no longer does today.

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The movie’s ending scene, in which Trent thinks a fellow diner is making goo-goo eyes at him, also took place at the former Hollywood Hills Coffee Shop.

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In more recent years the coffee shop stood in for Winkie’s, the diner where Lorelai (aka Lauren Graham), Rory (aka Alexis Bledel), and Emily Gilmore (aka Kelly Bishop) stopped to grab a bite to eat while on their way to North Carolina to attend Mia’s wedding in the Season 7 episode of Gilmore Girls titled “Gilmore Girls Only”.

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Randomly enough, Gilmore Girls filmed in pretty much the exact same spot where Lavonna, Debbie, Connie, Beth, and I ate lunch!  🙂  So cool!

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In the Season 1 episode of Entourage titled “Date Night”, Vincent Chase (aka Adrian Grenier), Johnny ‘Drama’ Chase (aka Kevin Dillon), Eric Murphy (aka Kevin Connolly), and Turtle (aka Jerry Ferrara) grab some breakfast at the cafe on the morning of Vince’s big movie premiere.

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Some filming for that episode also took place outside of the coffee shop.

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The Entourage boys returned to the cafe to film the Season 7 episode of the show titled “Buzzed”, in which Turtle’s credit card is rejected after he tries to pick up the gang’s lunch tab.

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The coffee shop was also featured twice in the 2007 movie In the Land of Women. It was first seen in the opening scene in which Sofia Bunuel (aka Elena Anaya) breaks up with Carter Webb (aka Adam Brody).

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And it was used in the ending scene in which Carter meets Janey (aka fave actress Ginnifer Goodwin).

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for telling me about this location!  🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: The 101 Coffee Shop, aka the former Hollywood Hills Coffee Shop from Swingers, is located at 6145 Franklin Avenue, on the first floor of the Best Western Hollywood Hills Hotel, in Hollywood.  You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.

Stalking the WB!

This past Monday, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I took a little stalking field strip to both Warner Brothers Studios and the Paramount Lot. I’ll get to the Paramount tour tomorrow, but today it’s all about the WB. What can I say – the Warner Brothers tour was awesome! It is nothing at all like the Universal Studios back lot tour. The WB tour is far more intimate and personal. A maximum of twelve people is allowed in each tour group, which makes for a far more flexible, personalized tour. The WB tour also lacks the cheesiness that is pretty much ever-present over at Universal. Don’t get me wrong, I had a blast on my Universal birthday tour, but if I had to choose between the two, I’d much prefer stalking the WB. Anyway, Mike and I arrived bright and early at about 8:30AM and I must admit I was as giddy as a schoolgirl! 🙂 Before the tour began, we got to do some shopping in the WB gift shop. The gift shop sells some great souvenirs like t-shirts, key chains, mugs, and even lip gloss, from hit shows like Entourage, Gossip Girl, Gilmore Girls and, my personal fave, Friends.

There is also a lot of movie memorabilia to stalk inside the gift shop, such as Daniel Radcliffe’s costume from the original Harry Potter movie and Will Smith’s outfit from I Am Legend (pictured above).

There is even a Starbucks located right inside the gift shop, so I was in heaven!! Movie memorabilia AND a Starbucks?? What more could a girl ask for? 🙂

After getting our shopping on at the gift shop, we were instructed to move into a small movie theatre where we were shown a short movie about the many productions that have been filmed on the lot. The movie definitely got me pumped up and excited for the tour and I was literally on the edge of my seat ready for the tour to begin. After the 15 minute movie, our tour group boarded a small tram and headed for the famous WB back-lot.

The first movie site stalked on our tour was the location of one of the most well-known screen kisses in cinema history – the famous upsidedown kiss between Spiderman and Mary Jane that took place on a fire escape in the pouring rain. That fire escape is located on the WB’s back-lot in an area that is now called “Spiderman Alley”. 🙂 Apparently the scene was not very fun, or romantic, to film, as Tobey Maguire had to hang upside down for over eight hours, giving him a massive headache, not to mention all the water running up his nose from the fake rain. That kiss was later emulated by Seth and Summer in one of my favorite O.C. scenes ever!

Our next stop on the tour was the exterior set of ER ‘s Cooke County General Hospital. This set was very cool to see as I was a big fan of ER during its first few seasons.

While 95% of the sets for ERare located inside a soundstage, the exterior set includes the hospital’s ambulance entrance, a small portion of the waiting room,

The Jumbo Mart where the doctors eat,

the “L” tracks from the Chicago railway system,

and even George Clooney’s former basketball hoop left over from the days he starred on ER.

Next up our tour guide took us to a small stretch of grass that often doubles for Central Park in Warner Brothers movies and television shows. The patch of lawn is so small, I have no idea how it can possibly double for a park, but it does. The small park was featured on Friends as the place where Phoebe “runs weird” and also as the location of Rory’s “study tree” on the Gilmore Girls.

Next up was Lorelai’s house from Gilmore Girls which looks pretty much exactly as it did during the filming of the show.

In actuality, the entire town of Sleepy Hollow from Gilmore Girls is located on the WB lot, and it, too, looks pretty much exactly as it did during filming. This set is usually called Anytown, USA and has been used in countless productions, most prominently as Hazzard County in the Dukes of Hazzard television series.

Pictured above is Luke’s restaurant from Gilmore Girls,

and the Hazzard County Courthouse from Dukes of Hazzard.

I think I was most excited of all to see the house from one of my fave 80s sitcoms – Growing Pains (pictured above). I used to seriously love me some Kirk Cameron. 🙂 The house looks a bit different now, but it is still pretty recognizable as the Seaver Family home. As we drove up upon the house, our tour guide asked if anyone could still remember the words to the show’s theme song and I am proud to say, I still could. 🙂 You can watch the Growing Pains intro here. Cue theme song – “Show me that smile again, don’t waste another minute on your crying . . .” 🙂

The side of the Seaver house was also used as Lane’s house on Gilmore Girls. Apparently many houses on the WB lot have double, or even triple, fronts so that they can be used for multiple houses at a time.

We also got to see crew members setting up a scene for Ghost Whisperer on the WB’s Paris Street. Ghost Whisperer used to be filmed at Universal Studios, but due to the recent fire, production has since moved to Warner Brothers. Paris Street was also used in the filming of Casablanca, as the location of Rick and Ilsa’s Parisian tryst.

The building pictured above was featured as the location of Rick and Isla’s teary Paris goodbye. Ahhh, we’ll always have Paris! 🙂

Also included in the tour was a walk through of the set of Two and a Half Men– which was VERY cool as I watch that show all the time; an up-close and personal view of many cars used in major motion pictures – ie. the General Lee from the Dukes of Hazzard movie, the Batmobile, and Keanu’s car from the Matrix; a tour of the Warner Brothers Museum which displays numerous costumes and other movie memorabilia from such films as Harry Potter, Fools Gold, The Matrix, and The Dark Knight;and a walk through of the third biggest soundstage in the US which has been used in productions such as Ocean’s 13 and The Perfect Storm. We were not allowed to take any photographs while inside the soundstages or the museum which was a total bummer! 🙁

My favorite part of the tour, hands down, had to be when we got to see the original Central Perk set from Friends. SO COOL! After the final season of Friends, the entire Central Perk set was moved to an empty soundstage preserved for us fans to visit. 🙂 The set pieces are a little tweaked and aren’t set up exactly as they were during filming, but it still looks pretty much as it did on TV. SO COOL!

Mike and I had an absolute blast on the WB tour and I HIGHLY recommend stalking it!!!! No two tours are ever the same, and I am seriously considering doing it again soon. 🙂

BIG THANK YOU to Mike for taking all of the above pictures – would you believe my camera died at the very beginning of the WB tour cause this stalker forgot to charge it the night before. I am such a blond sometimes!!! LOL

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Warner Brothers Studios is located at 3400 Riverside Drive in Burbank. Tours run every 30 minutes Monday through Friday from 8:20am to 4:00pm. Advance reservations are recommended. Tickets will cost you $45 per person – and I assure you, it is $45 well spent! You can learn more about the tour here.

Greystone Mansion

Greystone Mansion I While most mansions in Beverly Hills are well hidden from prying eyes thanks to tall gates and large trees, there is one that is open to the public on a regular basis and it’s called Greystone Mansion. The 46,000 square foot mansion was commissioned in 1928 by millionaire Edward L. Doheny as a gift to his son Edward “Ned” Doheny, Jr. Ned only lived in the home for four short months before he was found dead in his bedroom, along with his secretary Hugh Plunket, on February 16th, 1929.

There has been much speculation surrounding the deaths of Ned and Hugh – some believe it was a bizarre murder-suicide due to a lovers’ quarrel between the two, others believe Hugh asked Ned for a raise and became enraged when he was denied and subsequently shot Ned and then himself, and still others believe Hugh suffered from a psychological disorder and shot Edward during a mental breakdown. Whatever the case may be, after his death Edward’s widow continued to live in the mansion with their five children for the next 26 years until she sold it to a man named Henry Crown. Henry wanted to tear down the mansion, but the city of Beverly Hills stepped in and purchased Greystone from him in 1965, turning it into a public park several years later.

Greystone sits on over 16 acres and is an amazing piece of property. I highly recommend stalking it. Everyday from 10am to 5pm the public is given free reign to walk around the beautiful grounds and get an up close and personal view of the exterior of the mansion. On occasion, there are times when one can tour the inside of the mansion as well. Greystone has also been the filming location of hundreds upon hundreds of movie, TV, print, and commercial productions. Just to name a few – it was featured in Entourage as the location of Anna Faris’ photo shoot, it played Nicolas Cage’s home in National Treasure: Book of Secrets, it was the British Embassy and ball location in Jumpin’ Jack Flash with Whoopi Goldberg, it played a restaurant in The Holiday, and it was featured each week as Rory Gilmore’s school in Gilmore Girls. It also figures prominently in one of my favorite books The Prada Paradox by Julie Kenner.

While I was at Greystone this past weekend, a production crew was setting up for a film shoot (they wouldn’t say which film) and unfortunately much of the mansion was blocked off. But a very nice security guard happened to let me in to walk around and my boyfriend snapped a pic as I stalked behind the film crew’s signs. 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Greystone Mansion is located at 905 Loma Vista Drive in Beverly Hills. It is open everyday from 10am to 5pm. You can visit Greystone’s official website here.