Hollywood apartment buildings

May 25, 2012May 24, 2012

Afton Arms – “The Boys Next Door” Apartment Building

A couple of months ago, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, informed me of a location that he thought was right up my alley due to its vast and storied Hollywood history – the Afton Arms apartment building from the movie The Boys Next Door. After Mike mentioned it, I attempted to watch the 1985 flick – which centers around a Los Angeles killing spree – on more than one occasion, but it was, sadly, far too dark for this stalker’s liking and I never ended up finishing it. But I decided to do some research on the Afton Arms anyway and, let me tell you, the information I dug up had me practically salivating at the mouth! So I immediately added the building to my To-Stalk list and finally dragged the Grim Cheaper out to Hollywood to see the place in person this past Saturday afternoon.

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The 42-unit Afton Arms apartment building was originally built in in 1924 and was designed by Leland Bryant, the prolific architect who also designed the Sunset Tower Hotel (one of my favorite spots in L.A.), Granville Towers (Portia de Rossi’s former home), the Harper House [where Cotton Weary (Liev Schreiber) was murdered in Scream 3], and the Romanesque Villa Apartments (where my girl Miss Marilyn Monroe once lived). Afton Arms has had countless claims to fame over the years, the most notorious of which is the legend that one of its apartments was the site of regular trysts between Joseph Kenney and actress Gloria Swanson during the 1920s. Whether or not the two ever set foot on the property, though, is anyone’s guess, but what is known is that Afton Arms has been home to several Hollywood luminaries (my buddy E.J.’s Movieland Directory’s page on the place is one of the most extensive on his entire website) and the location of several murders (one in 1987) and deaths (on June 27, 1988, the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Hillel Slovak was found dead of a drug overdose in apartment #114).

In 1972, a man named General Hershey Bar (I’m not making this up!) took over the management of the Afton Arms and renamed the place “The Happy Malaga Castle” (again, not making this up!). After Mr. Bar’s short tenure as manager, the building went through a succession of different caretakers, fell into serious disrepair and became home to more than a few seedy characters. Journalist Rob A. Campbell states in a fabulous September 20th, 1995 Los Angeles Times article on the property, “Though the Castle was listed as ‘Best Hollywood Apartment Building’ in the L.A. Weekly, its major assets were ‘a plausible little garden’ and ‘easiest place to buy cocaine.’” LOL He also says, “the Castle was so notorious with local police that officers would show up two or three times a day, whether called or not.” Thankfully, long-time resident Ynot Navillus finally took over management of the building and saw to it that the Arms was restored to its original grandeur – and name. Of the process, Ynot said, “When you bring light and air into a situation in the form of service and cleanliness, those who need a dank environment depart. Then there are those who respond to the change of the environment and they themselves change and end up staying. Those are the success stories.”

Today, Afton Arms is a gorgeous (albeit slightly overgrown) vine-covered property, one which I doubt the local police ever have much reason to visit. The place was named Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument Number 463 on November 3, 1989.

In The Boys Next Door, best friends Roy Alston (Maxwell Caulfield) and Bo Richards (Charlie Sheen) take a road trip to Los Angeles shortly following their high school graduation. During their trip, they meet a man at a bar and wind up going back to his apartment at the Afton Arms, where they randomly murder him. Like I said, it’s a dark movie. As you can see below, thanks to the abundant foliage that now covers the structure, it looks quite a bit different today than it did in 1985 when The Boys Next Door was filmed. In fact, it is, sadly, almost unrecognizable. Major kudos to Mike for finding it!

And while I cannot say for sure, I am fairly certain that the real life interior of one of the Afton Arms apartments was used in the filming. You can check out some pics of a unit that is currently for lease in the building here.

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for finding this location and convincing me to stalk it! Smile

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Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Afton Arms, aka The Happy Malaga Castle, aka The Boys Next Door apartment building, is located at 6141 Afton Place in Hollywood.

April 29, 2010April 28, 2010

Charlie’s Apartment Building from “Monster-in-Law”

The third and final Monster-in-Law locale that I set out to find this past weekend was the supposed Venice Beach area apartment building where Charlie Cantilini (aka Jennifer Lopez) lived in the flick. Fellow stalker Nick had already determined that the Spanish-style building was located somewhere in Hollywood, so from there I set out on a Google search using the terms “Mediterranean”, “apartments”, and “Hollywood”. And I have to say that I got REALLY lucky on this one, because the first thing that popped up was this link to a complex named “Mediterranean Apartments” on North Sycamore Avenue. After looking at an aerial view of the building, I quickly determined that it was not, in fact, the Monster-in-Law locale that I had been searching for, but I did notice another apartment complex just a few doors down that looked an awful lot like Charlie’s. And sure enough, it was! The stalking gods were definitely smiling on me during this search, because, honestly, what are the odds of tracking the building down so easily??? And, let me tell you, I almost fell over when I realized that not only had I already stalked Charlie’s apartment a few years prior, but I had even blogged about it! More on that later, though.

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In real life, Charlie’s apartment building is known as the El Cadiz and it is located in the heart of Hollywood, a good fifteen miles away from Venice Beach, it’s purported location in Monster-in-Law. The building was constructed during the height of the Great Depression in 1936 by architect Milton J. Black and was named after the province of El Cadiz in the south of Spain. According to the book Courtyard Housing in Los Angeles: A Typological Analysis, the complex has the distinction of being the very last Spanish Revival-style courtyard apartment building to be constructed in L.A. In 2005, the Church of Scientology purchased the El Cadiz, and thanks to the community’s fear that the place would subsequently be torn down, just a few months later the City of Los Angeles declared it a Cultural Historic Monument, preserving its beauty for future generations to appreciate. The El Cadiz is an absolutely gorgeous dwelling that boasts numerous Andalusian decorative elements including a red-tiled roof, covered balconies scattered throughout, large water fountains, arched doorways and windows, and a multitude of courtyards. Sadly, though, none of those elements is visible from the street and what is visible is fairly non-descript, as you can see above.

Even more unfortunate is that fact that not even Google maps can give us a very good view of the building. 🙁 But you can read a more in-depth history of the property and see a picture of its interior courtyard here.

Charlie’s apartment building is only featured at the very beginning of Monster-in-Law, in the scenes which take place before she moves in with new-fiancé Kevin Fields (aka Michael Vartan).

Because of the way some scenes were filmed and because, according to the movie’s production notes, all of the apartments in the El Cadiz building were vacant and undergoing extensive renovations at the time of the filming, I am fairly certain that the real life interior of one of the units was used in the movie, too.

Coincidentally, the El Cadiz was also featured each week during the first two seasons of the immensely popular television series Alias, where it stood in for Sydney Bristow’s apartment. (An even further coincidence is that both productions starred actor Michael Vartan!) As I mentioned above, I actually stalked the place – and blogged about it! – back in February of ‘08, but because only the exterior of the complex was featured in Alias, while only the interior courtyard was featured in Monster-in-Law, I didn’t recognize that they were actually the same place.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Nick for helping me find this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: El Cadiz, aka Charlie’s apartment building from Monster-in-Law and Sydney Bristow’s apartment building from Alias, is located at 1721-1731 North Sycamore Avenue in Hollywood.

September 30, 2009September 27, 2009

Lila’s Apartment Building on Dexter

A few months ago, my fiancé and I started watching the Showtime television series Dexter and I have to say that it didn’t take very long for the two of us to become completely and totally obsessed with it. So, as I’m sure you can probably imagine, I’ve also become pretty obsessed lately with the Seeing Stars website page that catalogs the many filming locations featured on the show. In fact, I can’t even watch an episode of Dexter now without having my laptop next to me and open to the site! LOL Anyway, after my fiancé and I had finished watching the series’ second season, I was absolutely dying to stalk the apartment building belonging to Dexter’s psychopathic girlfriend Lila Tournay on the show. And, while I actually could NOT stand the character of Lila, I absolutely loved her loft-style apartment, which is one of the main reasons I wanted to stalk it. But that’s not actually the whole story. The biggest reason that I wanted to stalk it is that it was actually thanks to Lila’s building that fellow stalker Chas was able to locate the Girls Just Want to Have Fun apartment for me. Apparently, Gary from Seeing Stars was having a hard time tracking down Lila’s building, so he enlisted the help of master stalker Chas in his hunt. And while Lila’s building and the GJWTHF building don’t look all that much alike, they do both have central courtyards and are both made out of brick. So, during his search for Gary, Chas came across the GJWTHF apartment and took a close look at it. And, while he quickly realized that it wasn’t the Dexter building, he remembered it later when I mentioned my GJWTHF quest. And the rest, as they say, is history! If it hadn’t been for Dexter, it’s quite possible Chas never would have found the GJWTHF apartment, and because of that, Lila’s building will always hold a VERY special place in my heart. 🙂

The exterior of Lila’s apartment building was shown repeatedly throughout Dexter’s second season, beginning with the episode entitled “Dex, Lies, and Videotape”, and I am very happy to report that it looks exactly the same in person as it did on the show. Well, sort of!

As it turns out, the view of the building shown on Dexter is not actually the view of the building that is visible from the street. The view featured on the show is actually the building’s side entrance, which can only be reached via a gated parking lot located just East of the complex. You can compare the view shown on Dexter to the street view of the building in the screen capture and photograph pictured above. As you can see, they look nothing alike.

But if you go around to the East side of the building, you’ll see the entrance that was shown on Dexter, looking much the same as it did in the series. 🙂

Sadly, though, that entrance is located behind a locked gate and is not accessible to the public. But as it turns out, when Chas stalked the building back in February of this year, the stalking gods were smiling down on him because he was actually invited onto the property! 🙂 As fate would have it, when Chas first showed up to stalk Lila’s place, a gentleman happened to be outside painting the gate and when he noticed Chas snapping photographs, he, of course, asked why. When Chas explained that the building was featured on Dexter, a show which the painter had never heard of LOL, he opened the gate and allowed Chas to step inside to get some better photographs. YAY! You can see Chas’ pictures here.

And while the interior of Lila’s apartment was actually filmed on a soundstage at Sunset Gower Studios and not at this location, as you can see in the sign pictured above, the building is actually made up of loft-style apartments just like Lila’s. 🙂

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Big THANK YOU to Chas for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Lila’s apartment building from the television series Dexter is located at 6201 Yucca Street in Hollywood.