Hancock Park filming locations – Page 2

May 28, 2010May 27, 2010

The “War Games” House

A few weeks ago, I got an email from fellow stalker Owen who was writing to ask if I owned a copy of the 1983 movie War Games on DVD. And while I did not own the movie, nor had I ever actually even seen it, my fiancé, thankfully, did. Owen was inquiring about the DVD because he was currently in the process of trying to track down the house where teenaged computer prodigy David Lightman (aka Matthew Broderick) lived in the flick. Owen had recently discovered – thanks to the stalking tome The Worldwide Guide to Movie Locations – that the Lightman residence was located somewhere in the Hancock Park area of Los Angeles. Even though the movie was supposedly set in Seattle, the vast majority of it was actually shot right here in Southern California. YAY! So, that very night I popped in my fiancé’s DVD and settled in to watch War Games for the very first time. And I have to say that I absolutely LOVED it! How I missed the movie when it first came out in 1983 – and all of the years since – is absolutely beyond me, especially since I am SUCH a child of the ‘80s. Being that I was only six years old at the time the movie premiered, though, I guess I was a bit too young to appreciate it. But I digress.

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Owen had asked me to watch War Games in the hopes that the address number of the Lightman house would be visible at some point during the movie. And, thankfully, as you can see in the above screen capture, it was! I spotted the number “333” towards the beginning of the flick in the scene in which Jennifer (aka Ally Sheedy) is shown running up to knock on David’s front door. So, Owen immediately got to searching all of the 300 blocks in the Hancock Park area and fairly quickly came upon the house. Ironically enough, there is a notation on Wikipedia’s Larchmont Village page which states that the War Games house is located on the corner of “Lucerne and Second Street”, but that information, like so much of Wikipedia’s filming location information, is actually incorrect. The Lightman home can actually be found at 333 South Arden Boulevard, a few blocks south of where Lucerne meets Second Street.

As soon as Owen emailed me the address of the War Games house, I grabbed my camera and headed over to Hancock Park to snap some pics. And I was absolutely shocked at what I found. As it turns out, even though over 27 years have passed since the movie was filmed, the War Games house still looks pretty much exactly the same as it did onscreen! Love it, love it, love it! The owners of the property deserve some very big kudos for resisting the urge to change anything. Although the home, which was built in 1920, appears to fairly average-sized from the street, it actually boasts a whopping 7 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, and 3,728 square feet of living space.

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The War Games house is located at 333 South Arden Boulevard in the Hancock Park area of Los Angeles.

July 20, 2009November 16, 2009

The Never Been Kissed House

Last weekend, thanks to fellow stalker Chas, I was able to stalk a location I’ve been on the lookout for for quite some time – Drew Barrymore’s childhood home from fave romantic comedy Never Been Kissed. Chas is quite the master stalker, so last week I enlisted his help in finding this location and, lo and behold, he unearthed it pretty much immediately! Thank you, Chas!!! Never Been Kissed supposedly takes place in the Chicago area, but being that 99.9% of the movie was filmed right here in L.A., Chas had an inkling that “Josie Grosie’s” childhood home was most likely located here, as well. And sure enough, he was right. 🙂

I am very happy to report that Josie’s house looks EXACTLY the same today as it did back in 1999 when Never Been Kissed was filmed. And I really could not have been more excited to be seeing it in person!

Josie’s home is featured several times throughout the movie, most notably as the location of the heartbreaking scene when she gets egged on prom night by her high school crush, Billy. Ugh, such a sad scene!

It is also the spot where Guy picks up Josie for her second prom experience – one that turns out to be much better than her first. 🙂

Amazingly enough, Chas also managed to track down the home Josie lived in as an adult in the movie, which, ironically, can actually be found in Chicago. I find it incredibly strange that the producers would go all the way to the Windy City to film a few establishing shots of the home along with one very brief scene between Drew Barrymore and David Arquette that takes place in front of the home, when pretty much every other scene in the movie was filmed in Los Angeles. But, according to Chas, whenever filmmakers want to establish that a movie is taking place in Chicago, they film at a location near an ‘L’ Train. Which is exactly what they did in Never Been Kissed. 🙂 In the movie, Drew’s home is located directly beneath a set of ‘L’ Train tracks. Chas just recently visted the Windy City and was kind enough to stop by Josie’s house to take some pictures for me. SO COOL!

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Big THANK YOU to Chas for finding these locations and sharing his pictures of Josie’s Chicago home! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Never Been Kissed house is located at 368 North Ridgewood Place in the Hancock Park area of Los Angeles. The home Josie lives in as an adult is located at 930 West Newport Avenue in Chicago, Illinois.

November 17, 2008February 13, 2009

The 90210 Halloween Party House

Mike, from MovieShotsLA, has done it yet again! I really think I need to name my first born after him or something. 🙂 One of my very favorite episodes in 90210 history was the Season 2 episode entitled “Halloween”, in which the whole gang dresses up and attends a Halloween bash in a humongous, spooky mansion. I’m not sure why I loved that particular episode so much – most likely because Halloween is my favorite holiday and also because I absolutely LOVED Brenda and Dylan’s Bonnie and Clyde costumes. Ever since October of 1991, when the “Halloween” episode aired I have wanted to dress just like Brenda and Dylan did for Halloween! 🙂 Anyway, ever since moving to L.A. eight years ago I have been on the lookout for that Halloween party house, but was always unable to locate it. Then, during October’s Haunted Halloween theme, I got Mike in on the hunt, but even with our two heads put together we just could not find the house!! Until yesterday!!!

Ironically enough, Mike was looking for another movie location in the Hancock Park area of Los Angeles when he ran across this article and immediately recognized the home in the picture! Mike called me and I just happened to be IN Hancock Park at that time, so I immediately drove myself right over to the house. And sure enough it was the “Halloween” house!!!!!!!! YAY! I could not have been more excited to see this home in person. It was a stalking adventure eight years in the making!

90210 featured both the interior and the exterior of the house during the filming of the “Halloween” episode. The front porch area was also featured quite prominently. It is on the front porch that Steve tells Kelly that he still loves her, right after she is rescued by both Dylan and Steve after almost being raped by a fellow party guest. Besides 90210, the home also appeared in Willard, Ben, Witchboard, The Addams Family Halloween Special, Mae West, Inner Sanctum II, Night Walker, Secret Games 3, Life Without Dick, Out on a Limb, and Masked and Anonymous. Sadly, according to the article Mike found, the owners have since “retired” the home from filming. 🙁

The house, which is known as the Higgins-Verbeck-Hirsch Mansion, has an interesting real life history, as well. The 9,918 square foot, 32 room home was built by renowned L.A. area architect John Austin in 1902 for a wealthy grain merchant named Hirman Higgins and his family. The mansion was originally located on three lots on the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Rampart Boulevard. In 1919, the Higgins family sold the home to the Verbecks, who were forced to actually relocate the mansion a few years later. As strange as that sounds, apparently it was quite commonplace at the time. Due to the commercialization of Wilshire Boulevard and the widening of many Los Angeles streets, homeowners were forced to either move their homes or lose them to the wrecking ball. The Verbecks chose the former and bought a parcel of land 2.5 miles away, on Lucerne Boulevard in Hancock Park. On June 28, 1924 at 1 O’clock in the morning, house-mover George Kress split the Queen Anne mansion into two pieces, and using TWELVE trucks, moved it to its current location. Apparently the Verbecks decided to mark the occasion with a party and invited the mayor and over 100 of their closest friends to hang out in the house during its 2.5 mile, four hour drive down Wilshire Boulevard. From the 30s to the mid 80s, after many subsequent owners, the mansion suffered from severe neglect, until it was purchased by current residents Peggy and Perry Hirsch in 1986. The couple spent the next few years painstakingly restoring the home to its original beauty and grandeur. In 1988, it was designated a Los Angeles cultural historical monument.

The house is absolutely HUMONGOUS in person – much larger than I had expected it to be – and absolutely beautiful. I highly recommend stalking it, even for the rare few of you out there who aren’t 90210 fans. 🙂

Big thank you to Mike, as always, for finding the location and for providing the screen caps!

Stalk It: The 90210 Halloween party house is located at 637 S. Lucerne Boulevard in the Hancock Park area of Los Angeles.