Descanso Gardens

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This past weekend I dragged my fiance and my parents out to stalk Descanso Gardens in La Canada Flintridge – another location that I discovered thanks to my new favorite stalking book.  The 160-acre botanical garden has been featured in countless movies and television shows over the years and is also a popular wedding venue.

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E. Manchester Boddy (pronounced “Boh-dee”) first purchased the property now known as Descanso Gardens in 1937 to build a home for his family.  Besides being the owner and publisher of the Los Angeles Illustrated Daily News, Boddy was also a horticulturalist and a commercial camellia grower and he needed a piece of property large enough to cultivate his prized flowers.  Rancho de Descanso, as it was then known, fit the bill perfectly.  In 1938, he commissioned a 12,000 square foot home to be built on the property.  The 22-room mansion, named the Boddy House, was designed in the Hollywood Regency style by “architect to the stars” James E. Dolena.  Boddy positioned the home in the very southeast corner of Descanso – which means “rest and repose” in Spanish – so that he and his family would be able to enjoy specatular views of the San Gabriel Mountains.  In 1953, Boddy sold the entire 160 acre property, including his custom built home, to the City of Los Angeles, who later opened it up to the public.  In 2007, the Boddy Home was featured as the Pasadena Showcase House of Design and was completely renovated and restored to its former glory.  The bottom floor of the home is open for all visitors of Descanso Gardens to tour.  The Boddy House can also be rented out for weddings and private events.

descanso-gardens-1241 Descanso Gardens encompasses a twenty-acre oak tree forest, a bird sanctuary, a five-acre rosarium featuring over three thousand roses, a Japanese tea garden, countless waterfalls and koi ponds, a lilac garden, and a California garden featuring Redwood trees, California poppies, and chaparral plants.   The site is stunning and extremely expansive, but also, sadly, very crowded, I believe due to its low admission price.

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The venue’s beauty has, of course, led to countless onscreen cameos.  Descanso was the location of Nikolas Natchios’ funeral in the 2003 movie Daredevil.

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Its greenhouse was used in a prominent scene in Minority Report.

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And Reese Witherspoon has filmed no less than three productions at the Gardens!   In Legally Blonde, Descanso was transformed into Golden Springs Spa where Reese and her partner Luke Wilson interviewed Raquel Welch.  The building located just to left of Descanso’s main entrance was used as the entrance to the spa.

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Both the interior and the exterior of the Boddy House were used as the home of John Voight, where Reese spends Christmas, in last year’s Four Christmases.  Because the movie has not yet been released on DVD, I was not able to make screen captures of it.  🙁    According to one of the Boddy House docents, though, the mansion was significantly dressed up for the filming of the movie and is not very recognizable.  Four Christmases  featured many areas of the Boddy House, including the front entrance, main foyer, library, and living room.  Reese also filmed her latest Avon commercial, which has yet to be released, at Descanso Gardens.

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An episode of Mad Mad  was also recently filmed on Descanso’s main lawn area (pictured above).  Descanso Gardens was also featured in Memoirs of a Geisha, America’s Sweethearts, Graduation Day, Tiny Dancer, Congo, Land of the Lost, the recently wrapped Untitled Duplass Brothers Project  starring Marisa Tomei, Jonah Hill, and John C. Reily, and Eddie Murphy’s new movie The Incredible Shrinking Man.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: Descanso Gardens is located at 1418 Descanso Drive in La Canada Flintridge.  The Gardens are open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.  The entrance fee is $8 for adults and $3 for children aged 5 to 12.  Children under 5 are free.  You can visit the Descanso Gardens website here.

Harry’s New York Bar

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Every year while in New York, my boyfriend and I make it a point to stop into the Helmsley Park Lane Hotel located on 59th Street. I love stepping inside the Park Lane’s beautiful lobby with its grand winding staircases, red antique rugs, and twinkling crystal chandeliers. I don’t know what it is about the Park Lane that I like so much, as it is not the grandest of New York hotels. Though I do believe it is the friendliest. Despite once being owned by Leona Helmsley, aka the “Queen of Mean”, the hotel’s lobby is warm and inviting and the staff is extremely friendly. Walking into the Park Lane feels more like walking into a friend’s home than a hotel. I just love it! The hotel was first owned by New York billionaire Harry Helmsley. When he passed away in 1997, he left his entire $5.5 billion dollar fortune to his wife Leona. Part of that fortune included the Park Lane Hotel. After Harry’s death, Leona kept a duplex apartment at the Park Lane and would frequently be seen in the lobby and restaurant. When Leona died, she left $12 million to her Maltese poodle named Trouble. After it was made public that the dog was worth a fortune, Trouble started to receive death threats and security (for the dog) had to be hired at a cost of $100,000 per year! LOL I am not kidding.

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This year, on our last day in New York, I happened to poke my head into Harry’s, the Park Lane Hotel bar, to see if it looked like a cool place to grab a drink. While poking around I struck up a conversation with a cocktail waitress who told me that the bar is somewhat of a celeb hang out. So, of course, I dragged my parents and boyfriend back there later that night to grab a drink and do some star stalking. 🙂 Sadly, while stalking Harry’s we did not spot any celebs. According to our cocktail waitress, though, both John Voight and Keanu Reeves had made an appearance at Harry’s the previous night. Apparently John Voight is something of a regular and always visits Harry’s when he’s in town. Unfortunately, as much as I begged her, our waitress couldn’t remember the names of the other celebs who had frequented Harry’s in the past. New Yorkers crack me up – it seems that none of them really care all that much about celebrities. LOL

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Even though we didn’t spot any celebs, Harry’s was still a very cool place to grab a drink and I highly recommend stalking it. With it’s dark wood paneling and long marble bar, Harry’s definitely evokes a feeling of Old New York and it was the perfect place to spend our last night in the Big Apple.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Harry’s New York Bar is located on the second floor of the Helmsley Park Lane Hotel which is situated at 36 Central Park South in New York.

"He Tied Me to a Chair and Stole My Car!"

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On Thanksgiving my mom and I did a little stalking in South Pasadena – we aren’t much for football games or the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. 🙂 Anyway, one of the places we stalked was John Voight’s home from the movies National Treasure and National Treasure : Book of Secrets. Mike, from MovieShotsLA , had found the house long ago, but I had yet to go out and stalk it.

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In the first National Treasure, Nicolas Cage, along with his cohorts Diane Kruger and Justin Bartha (LOVE him!!), show up at this house, which is supposedly located in Philadelphia, carrying a stolen copy of the Declaration of Independence. After using lemon juice and heat to uncover a code located on the back of the historical document, the trio tie John Voight to a chair and steal his car. LOL The house also shows up a few times in the second National Treasure movie.

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When I first saw National Treasure, I remember thinking that John Voight’s house looked like a Pasadena house, despite the writing that appears onscreen which says otherwise (pictured above). LOL Sure enough, I was right. The white clapboard residence does have an East Coast feel to it, though, which is probably why the producers chose it. Pasadena is chock full of Colonial style homes like this one, and many of them have made appearances in movies, such as the Father of the Bride house, the Mr. and Mrs. Smith house, and the Catch Me If You Can house.

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Seeing so many similar Pasadena houses appearing in movies really makes me wonder what makes producers choose one over another. While the National Treasure house is very cute in person, for some reason the two octagon shaped windows located above the front door kind of creep me out. I guess someone on the location team liked them, though. 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The National Treasure house is located at 1030 Buena Vista Avenue in South Pasadena, just down the street from Lady Heather’s house.