Charlie’ Apartment Building from “Gossip Girl”

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Well, it certainly looks as if it is shaping up to be Gossip Girl week here at IAMNOTASTALKER.com because here I am yet again with yet another location from the fabulous teen drama series – this time the apartment building where con-artist Charlie Rhodes (aka Kaylee DeFer) lived with her chef boyfriend, Max (aka Brian J. Smith), in the Season 5 episode titled “Beauty and the Feast”.  This location was once again found by fellow stalker Geoff, from the 90210Locations website who has somehow managed to track down all of the Los-Angeles-area locales featured in the two episodes of the series that were filmed on the West Coast this past August.  Thank you, Geoff!  So, I, of course, dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to West Hollywood to stalk the place, shortly before grabbing cocktails at Eveleigh Restaurant a few weeks back.

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The exterior of Charlie’s apartment building is featured three times in the “Beauty and the Feast” episode of Gossip Girl.  It first pops up in the scene in which Charlie and Max discuss the difficulties of trying to make it as an actor in Los Angeles.

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It next shows up in the scene in which Serena van der Woodsen (aka Blake Lively) waits outside for Charlie in order to confront her about her bounced rental deposit check.

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And finally it appears in the scene in which Serena arrives via limo to pick Charlie up to take her to their grandmother’s house in Montecito.

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No filming took place inside of any of the actual apartment units, though.  The interior of Charlie and Max’s dwelling was, I am fairly certain, just a set that was most likely built on a soundstage at Silvercup Studios in New York where the series is filmed, as was the case with Diana Payne’s bedroom which I talked about in yesterday’s post.  You can check out some photographs of what the interior of the real-life apartments actually look like here and here.  As you can see, they do not match up at all to what appeared onscreen and do not have nearly the same amount of charm that Charlie and Max’s apartment had.

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I really had to laugh when Serena tried to convince Charlie to move out of the apartment building by saying, “But you can’t live here!” LOL  While the outside of the place is a bit bland, I actually thought the interior of Charlie’s pad was kind of cute and not nearly the dump that Serena made it out to be.  And I absolutely fell in love with her little kitchen alcove, which is pictured above.  As my friend Pinky Lovejoy, from the Thinking Pink blog, would say, “It’s adorbs!”  But then again, I did not grow up on the Upper East Side, so what do I know?  Winking smile

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In real life, the exterior of Charlie’s apartment building looks pretty much exactly the same as it did on Gossip Girl.  I am totally kicking myself, though, as I SO wished I had leaned against the entryway to pose for a picture as Serena had done in the episode!  I do not know WHY I did not think of it at the time.  UGH!  Ah well, I will just have to drag the GC back there sometime to re-stalk the place.

Big THANK YOU to Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, for finding this location!  Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Charlie’s apartment building, from the “Beauty and the Feast” episode of Gossip Girl, is located at 1009-1015 North Croft Avenue in West Hollywood.

Diana Payne’s House from “Gossip Girl”

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Another Los-Angeles-area location from fave show Gossip Girl that fellow stalker Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, tracked down recently was the home belonging to Diana Payne (aka Elizabeth Hurley) in the Season 5 episode titled “Yes, Then Zero”.  Because Gossip Girl is primarily filmed on the East Coast, I was beyond excited when the cast and crew descended upon Tinseltown in early August to lens a few scenes and was positively itching to stalk absolutely everything and anything from the New-York-based series that I could.  And being that I had fallen in love with Diana’s Mid-Century-modern-style abode at first sight while watching the episode, I just about died of excitement when Geoff emailed me to let me know that he had somehow managed to track the place down.  So I, of course, promptly dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to the Hollywood Hills to stalk the dwelling the very next day.

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In the “Yes, Then Zero” episode of Gossip Girl, recent Los-Angeles-transplant Serena van der Woodsen (aka Blake Lively) invites her visiting friends Nate Archibald (aka Chace Crawford) and Chuck Bass (aka cutie Ed Westwick – sigh!) to attend a show biz party at the hilltop home of media mogul Diane Payne.  And I just have to say here that the “Yes, Then Zero” episode featured one of my very favorite lines ever uttered on the series – when Serena’s boss, Marshall (aka Ethan Peck), speaks to her in a condescending manner, Nate says, “Well, the zip codes may be different, but douchebags are the same no matter where you go!”  LOVE IT!  But I digress.  Anyway, several areas of Diana’s abode were featured in the Hollywood party scene, including the front exterior;

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the amazing backyard;

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. . . and some of the property’s interior.

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I am fairly certain, though, that the bedroom that was shown in the episode was just a set (most likely built on a soundstage at Silvercup Studios in New York where the series is filmed) as it does not match up to any of the bedrooms featured on the home’s real estate website.

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It, in fact, even reminds me a bit of Serena’s former bedroom at her mother’s house (which you can see more pictures of here) where Cousin Charlie (aka Kaylee DeFer) is now living, which makes me wonder if the same space was redressed to be used for the filming of the scene at Diana’s house.  But who knows.

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Diana’s home pops up a second time in the “Yes, Then Zero” episode, in the scene in which Nate returns to the residence in order to retrieve his phone, which he accidentally left behind the previous evening.  The areas featured in that scene include the front exterior;

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the backyard;

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and the main entrance.

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I am very happy to report that Diana’s house is just as cool in person as it appeared to be onscreen.  In fact, it is exactly the type of place I imagine Frank Sinatra used to hang out at back in the heyday of Hollywood.  I can so picture Ol’ Blue Eyes kicking back there, looking out at the view, listening to LP records, and mixing up martinis for the rest of the Rat Pack.  Ironically enough, the property, which was first built in 1972, was not originally designed in the Mid-Century-modern-style you see pictured above, but as a French-ranch-style abode!

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As you can see in the aerial views pictured above, Diana’s abode was given an extensive facelift in recent years, whereupon it was transformed into the Mid-Century modern marvel that it is today.   Bonura Building Architects & General Contractors, along with CTW Engineers and Mark Schomisch Design, handled the remodel, during which an infinity edge pool was added, walls were taken down, and an open floor plan was created.  As you can see in these pictures, the result was nothing short of spectacular!  The home, which boasts 3 bedrooms, 4 baths, and approximately 3,300 square feet of living space, currently features cantilevered stairs, travertine flooring, and floor-to-ceiling glass walls.  And, according to fave website The Real Estalker, the property also has a celebrity connection!  In February of 2007, American-Idol-creator Simon Fuller purchased the dwelling for a cool $7,650,000 to use as an interim residence while his Beverly Hills manse was being renovated.  He then sold the place in May of 2008 for $8.5 million.

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There is an ABSOLUTELY amazing home visible from the front of Diana’s house that the GC and I became just a wee bit obsessed with while there.  The home is located at 1474 Blue Jay Way and it was apparently only built just recently.  Oh, what I wouldn’t give to live there!

You can watch a video which showcases that house by clicking above.

Big THANK YOU to Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, for finding this location.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Diana Payne’s house, from the “Yes, Then Zero” episode of Gossip Girl, is located at 1407 Tanager Way in the Hollywood Hills.

Eveleigh Restaurant from “Gossip Girl”

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Fellow stalker Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, emailed me a few weeks back to let me know that he had tracked down the open-air-patio-ed restaurant where Serena van der Woodsen (aka Blake Lively) and Charlie Rhodes (aka Kaylee DeFer) ate lunch in the Season 4 episode of Gossip Girl titled “Beauty and the Feast”.  And while that lunch was supposed to have taken place in Los Angeles and some scenes from that episode were actually filmed in the SoCal area, I had been absolutely convinced that Serena and Charlie’s restaurant was located in New York.  Not only did the place just look like a Manhattan-style eatery to me, but in the previous episode, which was titled “Yes, Then Zero”, Colonie, a restaurant in Brooklyn Heights, had been made to appear as if it was located in L.A.  So when I received Geoff’s email alerting me to the fact that Eveleigh Restaurant in West Hollywood had been used in the “Beauty and the Feast” episode, I practically jumped for joy and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk it.  Because I was in the thick of my Haunted Hollywood postings at the time, though, I had not been able to blog about the place until today.  So here goes!

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I can honestly say that Eveleigh, which opened on November 1st, 2010 in a space that used to house a Kenneth Cole shoe store, is easily one of the coolest places I have ever been!  From the outside, the restaurant does not look like anything out of the ordinary.  In fact, with its large hedges, unmarked doorway, and sidewalk street sign that screams “Sunset Blvd”, the eatery could not seem any more “Hollywood”.  But when you step inside, it is a different story entirely.

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From Eveleigh’s airy front patio . . .

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. . . to its cozy fireplace, complete with armchairs . . .

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. . . to its central bar and wood-beamed ceilings . . .

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. . . to its couch-like and antique school-chair seating . . .

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. . . to its exposed wood tables and chalkboard menus . . .

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. . . to its sweeping views . . .

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. . . to its large, tented back patio – all I can say is, we are certainly not in Los Angeles anymore, Toto!  As you can see in the twenty-some-odd pictures I took while there, Eveleigh, named for a suburb in Australia, is entirely unique.  It is a little bit country, a whole lotta New York, with a dash of California thrown in for good measure.  And I absolutely fell in love with the place on site.  The GC and I ended up only having cocktails while there, though, as the menu was a bit too extravagant for my low-brow tastes.  The offerings are definitely geared toward “foodies” and not this stalker, who much prefers hot dogs, mac & cheese, and chicken strips to the upscale culinary feasts served at Eveleigh, which include duck rillettes, jidori chicken liver pate, roasted natural bone marrow salad, and crisp sonoma pork belly.  We will definitely be stalking the place again, though, and if I am feeling more epicurean-ly brave, I will surely branch out and sample some of the fare.

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In the “Beauty and the Feast” episode of Gossip Girl, Serena and Charlie, a fraud who is posing as Serena’s cousin, meet up at Eveleigh and discuss life in California and possibly living together.

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In the scene, the two sit on the restaurant’s tented patio, near the back bar.

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After their meal, they walk past Eveleigh’s main bar, through the front patio area, and out onto Sunset Boulevard.

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And our super-nice bartender informed us that the cover shoot for the Fall 2011 issue of Viva Magazine, which featured Paula Abdul, also took place at Eveleigh.

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Besides being a filming location, Eveleigh is also something of a celebrity hot-spot.  Just a few of the stars who have been spotted there over the past year include Ashley Greene, Paula Patton, Nicky Hilton, Nicole Richie, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Dakota Fanning, Kimora Lee Simmons, Lisa Edelstein, Marcia Cross, Rebecca Romijn, Jerry O’Connell, Robin Tunney, Ashley Simpson, Ali Fedotowsky, Sasha Alexander, Jordana Brewster, Pete Wentz, Samantha Ronson, Amy Smart, Rachel Leigh Cook, Dianna Agron, Jamie King, Jessica Capshaw, Busy Phillips, Elisha Cuthbert, Mindy Kaling, Nia Vardalos, Idris Elba, Pierce Brosnan, and Armie Hammer.  And the restaurant also has one more celebrity connection.  While researching this post, I discovered that back when the place was a Kenneth Cole shoe store, the front patio area was the site of the Kenneth Cole Walk of Fame – a take-off of the iconic Grauman’s Chinese Theatre forecourt in Hollywood.  At the KC Walk of Fame, such stars as Elizabeth Taylor (and her dog Sugar), Richard Gere, Matthew Modine, Patricia Arquette, Elizabeth Glaser, Rosie O’Donnell, Julianne Phillips, and Leeza Gibbons all placed their bare feet into blocks of cement outside of the store, with Kenneth Cole promising to donate a portion of sales on the day of each participating star’s birthday to AIDS research.  Sadly, when the store closed, the footprints were removed and I can find no information whatsoever about where they are now located.  I cannot tell you how said I am that I never got to see them!

On a side-note, I would like to wish my mom a VERY happy 60th birthday today!  I love you, Mom!  Smile

Big THANK YOU to Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, for finding this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Eveleigh Restaurant, from the “Beauty and the Feast” episode of Gossip Girl, is located at 8752 West Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood.  You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.