Sierra Madre Pioneer Cemetery from “Twin Peaks”

As I mentioned in my post last month about The Old Place restaurant, thanks to fellow stalker/David-Lynch-aficionado Brad, from the Brad D Studios website, I recently discovered that fave television series Twin Peaks was shot almost in its entirety in Southern California.  Because I have long been a Twin Peaks fanatic, I was beyond eager to start stalking the many locations mentioned on Brad’s blog – the most exciting of which was Sierra Madre Pioneer Cemetery, the site of the funeral of Laura Palmer (aka Sheryl Lee) in the Season 1 episode titled “Rest in Pain”.  Surprisingly, even though Sierra Madre is located just a few miles east of Pasadena and even though the cemetery has been featured in several spooky productions over the years, until perusing through Brad’s site in early September, I had never before even heard of it!  So, because the place fit in perfectly with my Haunted Hollywood theme, I waited to drag the Grim Cheaper out there until this past weekend.

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Pioneer Cemetery was originally established in 1881 by Sierra Madre’s founding father, Nathanial Coburn Carter, who, that same year, purchased a 1,103-acre plot of land from Santa-Anita-Park-racetrack-founder Elias Jackson “Lucky” Baldwin.  Carter set aside 2.32 of those 1,103 acres to build a cemetery and the first burial, of one of Carter’s servants, took place just a year later in 1882. Today, Sierra Madre Pioneer Cemetery is the final resting place of over 1,700 souls, including Carter and his family, as well as numerous veterans of the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, both World Wars, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War.

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I cannot tell you how absolutely amazing it was to wander the grounds of the place and see tombstones dating all the way back to the 1880s, some so old that the inscriptions had simply worn off.  And while I realize that “charming” might be an odd word to describe a graveyard, that is exactly what Sierra Madre Pioneer Cemetery is.  It is an extremely small and quiet space, with cherry blossom, sycamore, oak, and palm trees dotting the landscape, as well as several stone benches on which one can sit and reflect.

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In the “Rest in Pain” episode of Twin Peaks, Laura Palmer’s friends and family gather at Sierra Madre Pioneer Cemetery to lay the slain teenager to rest.  This being Twin Peaks, weirdness, of course, ensues – one of the mourners has a Tourette’s moment and starts screaming out “Amen”, Laura’s father, Leland Palmer (aka Ray Wise), jumps on her coffin as it is being lowered into the ground, and a fist-fight even breaks out.  Yes, at a funeral!

Laura Palmer's funeral location

Laura Palmer’s funeral was held in the northwest section of Sierra Madre Pioneer Cemetery, in the area denoted with a pink “X” above.

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Her funeral location is pictured above.

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The crooked tombstone that was visible in the background of the scene is, I am fairly certain, the same tombstone that is circled in the above photograph.  In real life, it reads “Fannie J. Garey”.

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The tree in front of which James Hurley (aka James Marshall) stood during the funeral is located just east of Laura’s burial site.

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In real life, James’ tree is located behind a large gravestone that reads “Gibson P. Kelly” and next to a gravestone that reads “Zola M. Croman”.

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A view of tree from the funeral site is pictured above.

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And I, of course, just had to pose like James while there.  That’s my brooding face above.  Winking smile

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Amazingly, Sierra Madre Pioneer Cemetery also appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s final film, 1976’s Family Plot, in the scene in which George Lumley (aka Bruce Dern) heads to the supposed “Barlow Creek Cemetery” to look for a missing person whom he has been hired to find.  According to a fabulous Sierra Madre Patch article, before filming began, production designer Henry Bumstead, who was a San Marino resident and often used nearby locations in his movies, had the Pioneer caretakers cease weeding the property so that it would appear to be unkempt and dilapidated.  The shoot also happened to take place on two particularly gloomy L.A. days, which only added to the macabre atmosphere.  And cinematographer Leonard South lit the set without using any artificial lighting to further add to the dismal effect.

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The caretaker’s shack which appeared in the scene has since been replaced with a more modern-looking structure.

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Sierra Madre Pioneer Cemetery also shows up once again towards the end of Family Plot, in the scene in which Joseph P. Maloney (aka Ed Lauter) is buried.

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For that scene, Hitch brought in a thirty-foot scaffold so that he could shoot the chase sequence between George and Mrs. Maloney (aka Katherine Helmond) from above.

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And Mike, from MovieShotsLA, let me know that Pioneer Cemetery was also used in the 1978 horror flick Halloween, in the scene in which Michael Meyer’s psychiatrist, Sam Loomis (aka Donald Pleasence), discovers that Judith Meyer’s headstone, which is supposed to be located in Row 18, Plot 20, is missing.  As I mentioned in yesterday’s post about the Strode residence, Halloween director John Carpenter is a huge Alfred Hitchcock fan, so I do not believe it was a coincidence that he chose to film a scene at the very same cemetery where the Master of Suspense once filmed.

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In the Halloween scene, Dr. Loomis enters the graveyard and parks his car near what is actually Pioneer Cemetery’s exit, on the southeastern side of the property.  Amazingly enough, that area still looks almost exactly the same today as it did back in 1978 when the movie was filmed, minus a large tree, which as you can see above, has since been removed.

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But the three tombstones that Dr. Loomis parked next to still look exactly the same as they did three decades ago.

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The area where Judith Meyers’ headstone was located is directly behind James’ tree from Twin Peaks and in front of a large tombstone which reads “Sinclair”.

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Ironically enough, the back of the Sinclair tombstone can be seen behind James during Laura Palmer’s funeral scene.

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On a Twin Peaks side note – I had the amazing good fortune to run into Special Agent Dale Cooper himself, Kyle MacLachlan, at the Emmy Awards last month.  Kyle could NOT have been nicer and not only agreed to pose for a picture, but also chatted briefly with me about Twin Peaks and how much he loved being a part of it.  For this stalker, who had answered “Special Agent Dale Cooper” when asked “What do you want to be when you grow up?” as an Eighth Grade yearbook quote, this was a particularly special moment.

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Big THANK YOU to Brad, from Brad D Studios, for telling me about this location!  Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Pioneer Cemetery

Stalk It: Sierra Madre Pioneer Cemetery, from the “Rest in Pain” episode of Twin Peaks, is located at 553 East Sierra Madre Boulevard in Sierra Madre.  Laura Palmer’s funeral was held in the area marked with a pink “X” in the above aerial view.  James Hurley’s tree is located behind a large gravestone which reads “Gibson P. Kelly” and directly next to a gravestone which reads “Zola M. Croman”.  In Halloween, Dr. Loomis and the caretaker enter the cemetery in the area marked with a blue arrow above.  The spot where Dr. Loomis parks his car is denoted with a blue oval and Judith Meyer’s gravesite is located just west of a large headstone that is marked “Sinclair”.

The “Doppelganger” Mansion

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Another location from the 1993 thriller Doppelganger that I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to stalk this past weekend was the mansion where Holly Gooding (aka Drew Barrymore) grew up in the flick.  I found this locale, once again, thanks to Tony, my friend and fellow stalker who has the amazing Flickr photostream which I mentioned yesterday.  Incredibly enough, Tony has somehow managed to track down almost every single location featured in Doppelganger and he was kind enough to share them all with me so that I could blog about them during my Haunted Hollywood month well, every location that is except for the supposed-Arcadia-area Our Lady of Mercy Psychiatric Institute which I have now become just a wee bit obsessed with finding.  But I digress.  Anyway, last weekend, after stopping by the apartment building featured in the movie, the GC and I headed a short two miles north to Los Feliz to do some stalking of the mansion.

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The Doppelganger mansion is featured twice in the flick.  It first pops up in the scene in which Holly and her new roommate, struggling mystery writer Patrick Highsmith (aka George Newbern), meet with Holly’s family lawyer, Mike Wallace (aka George Maharis), in order to get the keys to her former home which has been locked up and sealed since her father’s murder four years prior.  While there, Patrick says that the abode is “right out of a Bette Davis movie” – a line which I, of course, loved.  Winking smile

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The large, English-country-style abode later pops up in the movie’s climactic, rather odd, and definitely spooky final scene in which Holly returns to her childhood home in the middle of the night to confront her evil doppelganger and finally end the nightmare in which she has been living.

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Patrick, of course, follows Holly and, carrying a baseball bat, climbs up the side of the house and through a second story window in the hopes that he can save her.

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I believe that the interior of the mansion that was shown in the movie was just a set and not the home’s real life interior.

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According to fave website Zillow, the Doppelganger mansion, which was originally built in 1923, boasts 5 bedrooms, 2 baths, and 3,500 square feet of living space, although I would have guessed it to be much, much larger.  And amazingly, the property still looks almost exactly the same today as it did 18 years ago when Doppelganger was filmed.  Even the three large circular trees which flank the home’s front door and front window still look exactly the same.   Love it!

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Tony for finding this location!   You can check out Tony’s FANTASTIC Flickr photostream, which features countless filming locations, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The Doppelganger mansion is located at 2421 Glendower Avenue in the Los Feliz section of Los AngelesDonna Martin’s house from the B.Y.O.B. episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 is located just two doors south of the Doppelganger mansion at 2405 Glendower Avenue.  And the so-called “Los Feliz Murder House”, which I blogged about back in January, is located just around the corner at 2475 Glendower Place.

The Stimson House from “House II: The Second Story”

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After stalking Mills View, the Monrovia-area residence that appeared in the 1986 movie House, I started doing some online research on the flick’s 1987 sequel, House II: The Second Story, and came across information about the Stimson House, an incredibly unique, castle-like property located in Los Angeles’ West Adams District.  I was immediately intrigued by the home and, because it has been featured in several spooky productions over the years, figured it would fit right in with my Haunted Hollywood theme and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the place a short time later.  Incredibly though, thanks to the abode’s unusual beauty and prominent history, this was one location that he actually did not mind being dragged to!

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The 3 1/2-story Stimson House was originally built in 1891 as a retirement home for Chicago lumberman/financier Thomas Douglas Stimson.  The 12,800-square-foot, 30-room property was designed in the Richardsonian Romanesque style by architect Carroll H. Brown and featured an Arizona red sandstone façade, a 4-story octagonal corner tower, stained glass windows, gabled Gothic arches, Palladian windows, and brick chimneys.  The interior, which was dubbed “a shrine to lumber” by Jake Doherty in a January 1994 Los Angeles Times article, consisted of oak flooring, hand-carved wood-paneled walls, beamed ceilings, custom-built china cabinets, and made use of over 8 different kinds of wood, including ash, sycamore, walnut, gumwood, birch, mahogany, oak, and monkeypod.  Construction on the residence was completed in 1893 and cost approximately $130,000, making it, at the time, the most expensive home in all of Los Angeles.  After Stimson passed away in February 1898, his widow, Achsah, continued to live at the residence until her death in 1904.  The property was then sold and underwent several ownership changes until 1940, at which time it was purchased by the USC chapter of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity for $20,000.  For the next 8 years, the Stimson House became the site of boisterous parties, elaborate pranks, and late-night frolicking.

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At the time, Carrie Estelle Doheny, the widow of oil tycoon Edward L. Doheny, lived in the mansion located directly behind the Stimson House and was not at all happy with her rowdy neighbors.  After filing countless complaints with the USC president, she decided to take matters into her own hands and offered the Pi Kappa Alphas $70,000 for the residence.  They agreed, moved out, and Carrie promptly deeded the home to a much quieter set of neighbors, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet.  The Sisters transformed the abode into a convent where they lived until 1969, at which point they allowed the neighboring Mount St. Mary’s College to use the property as student housing.  In 1993, the Sisters returned to the house and set about an extensive $1 million restoration of the property.  They continue to live there to this day and often rent the place out for filming in order to offset the mansion’s expensive upkeep and to finance their retirement fund.  The Stimson House was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on March 30, 1978 and became Los Angeles’ 212th Historic-Cultural Monument on May 16, 1979.

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In House II: The Second Story, the Stimson house was the haunted residence inherited by Jesse (aka Arye Gross) and his girlfriend, Kate (aka Lar Park-Lincoln).

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The Aztec-inspired interior appears to have been a set, though, as it does not match up with these interior photographs of the actual home.

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In the Season 2 episode of The Bionic Woman titled “Black Magic”, the Stimson mansion was used as the island home of wealthy inventor Cyrus Carstairs (aka Vincent Price).   Both the exterior . . .

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. . . and the interior of the property were featured in the episode.  And, according to the aforementioned Los Angeles Times article, Vincent Price became so enamored of the house’s echo-y acoustics during filming that he returned there later to tape a few productions of his own.

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In the 1989 horror movie After Midnight, the Stimson house appeared in the segment titled “The Old Dark House” as the spot where Joan (aka Nadine Van der Velde) and Kevin (aka Marc McClure) sought help after getting two flat tires while driving late at night.  Ironically enough, though, only the front porch and the interior of the Stimson house appeared in the flick.

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As you can see above, for the wide angle shots of the mansion’s exterior another location altogether was used.

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In the Season 1 episode of Pushing Daisies titled “The Fun in Funeral”, the Stimson House stood in for the Schatz Brothers Funeral Home in Couer d’Couers, where grave-robbing twins Lawrence and Louis Schatz (who were both played by Brad Grunberg) worked and also died.

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The home’s real life interior was also used in the episode.

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Two television mini-series,  1976’s Captains and the Kings, and 1977’s Testimony of Two Men, were also filmed at the mansion, but unfortunately I could not find copies of either of them to make screen captures for this post.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The Stimson house, from House II, is located at 2421 South Figueroa Street in the West Adams District of Los Angeles.