Leo’s Apartment Building from “Relativity”

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During my recent Relativity location-finding fest, I also managed to track down the apartment building where Leo Roth (David Conrad) lived with his quirky roommate, Doug (Adam Goldberg) – who was actually my favorite character – on the show.  I really could kick myself over this one, though, because I began searching for the property while watching the third episode of the series, which was titled “First Impressions”, and did not have many clues to help with the hunt.  Had I waited until the fifth episode, “Moving,” in which Leo’s address was literally spelled out, it would have been a much quicker find.  Instead, I spent a ridiculous amount of time scanning the background of “First Impressions,” looking for readable signage on storefronts near Leo’s place and then Googling to see if said businesses were still in existence.  Thankfully, after numerous searches, I finally found one that was.

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In “First Impressions,” a sign reading “Asia Auto Center” was visible across the street from Leo’s apartment.  An internet search led me to a listing for an Asia Auto Center at 3700 West Pico Boulevard in Arlington Heights.  Sure enough, when I looked at the address via Google Street View, there was Leo’s building right across the street.

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In reality, Leo’s building is located at 1310 4th Avenue, just south of West Pico Boulevard.  So when I watched the “Moving” episode a few nights after finding the place and heard it mentioned several times that Leo lived near “Pico and 4th Avenue,” I had a major face-palm moment.  D’oh!

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Pictured below are a few of the many neighborhood signs that I had tried to read and do Google searches for.  As you can see, it was not the easiest of tasks.

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It is said several times on the series that Leo’s neighborhood is a bit sketchy and I can attest to that fact being true in real life, as well.  Just as I pulled into a parking space near the building, a man hopped over the fence of the business across the street, opened the dumpster located there and began throwing its contents onto the sidewalk.  Yeah, I pretty much could not wait to get out of there, hence the limited number of photographs I have for this post.

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The full exterior of Leo’s building is never actually shown on Relativity – at least not in any of the episodes I have re-watched up until this point.  Typically, tight shots of the doorway and balcony are all that appear onscreen.

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Thanks to that doorway, with its ornate casing, and balcony, with its wrought-iron detailing, the building has a very New Orleansy-feel.

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The structure still looks very much the same today as it did when Relativity was filmed 18 years ago.  As you can see below, not even the address plate has been altered since 1996!  Love it!

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The Arlington Heights building was only used for exterior filming on the series.  The ramshackle interior of Leo and Doug’s loft existed only on a studio soundstage.

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For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online.  And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

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Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Leo’s apartment from Relativity is located at 1310 4th Avenue in Los Angeles’ Arlington Heights neighborhood.

The “Relativity” House

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Back in 1996, the Bedford Falls Company, the production company behind fave show My So-Called Life, debuted a new dramedy named Relativity.  I was hooked on the series from the get-go.  Sadly, it suffered the same fate as My So-Called Life and was cancelled after a solitary season.  Unlike MSCL, though, which prospered in syndication, Relativity was not really ever heard from again.  So when I recently found some episodes online, I just about flipped my lid.  The Grim Cheaper happened to be out of town at the time and I proceeded to indulge in a rather long Relativity binge-watching session.  I also, of course, spent some time tracking down several of the show’s locations, including the architecturally unique home where the Lukens family – David (Cliff De Young), Eve (Mary Ellen Trainor), Jennifer (a very young Poppy Montgomery) and Isabel (Kimberly Williams-Paisley) – lived.

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First a little background on the show, being that I am guessing most of my fellow stalkers have never heard of it.  The storyline centered around the relationship of Isabel and Leo Roth (David Conrad), two twentysomethings from Los Angeles who meet randomly while on vacation in Italy.  It is love at first sight.  The only caveat is that Isabel has a longtime boyfriend, Everett (Randall Batinkoff), back home – a boyfriend whom she flew to Europe to get some distance from.  Upon returning to California, Isabel promptly breaks up with Everett, much to the dismay of her family.  The series then follows Isabel and Leo’s blossoming relationship and all of the tribulations that come along with it.  Of choosing Relativity as the title, producer Marshall Herskovitz is quoted in a 1996 Entertainment Weekly article as saying, ”Obviously, we’ve borrowed the notion of Freud’s that whenever two people go to bed, there are six people in the room, because their parents are also in the room.”

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I tracked down the location of the Lukens home thanks to the fact that a street sign reading “1200 N. Corsica Dr.” was visible in the background of a scene featured in the episode titled “First Impressions.”  From there, I just did a Google search for “1200 North Corsica Drive” and, though it took me longer than I’d like to admit, finally found the residence at 1269 Corsica Drive in Pacific Palisades.

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The exterior of the Lukens home was only shown a few times on Relativity and very briefly at that.  What was shown, though, was spectacular!  I am in love with the unique slatted roofline!

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In real life, the 1960 property features four bedrooms, four baths, 3,496 square feet of living space and 0.39 acres of land.  It last sold in September 2001 for $1,875,000.

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Virtually none of the exterior (which reminds me a bit of The Brady Bunch house) has been changed since Relativity was filmed on the premises 18 years ago.

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Relativity House (8 of 11)

I am fairly certain that the interior of the Lukens home was just a set and not the interior of the actual house.

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On a Relativity side-note – a couple of years ago, while doing some stalking of an event that was attended by Lisa Edelstein (who played Leo’s sister, Rhonda), Miss Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog, and I discovered our mutual love of the series.  At the time, I had never met anyone else who had even heard of Relativity before, so the fact that she not only knew of it, but was just as in love with it as I was amazed me.  Sometimes I really feel like the two of us share a brain.  After discovering our mutual Relativity obsession, we had a fabulous fan girl moment with Lisa in which we both absolutely spazzed out.  Lisa was shocked when we brought up the show, which isn’t surprising because I am fairly certain that Pinky and I were the only two people who ever watched it.  Winking smile

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For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online.  And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

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Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The Lukens family’s home from Relativity is located at 1269 Corsica Drive in Pacific Palisades.

Franck’s Wedding Coordinator Shop from “Father of the Bride”

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When the Grim Cheaper and I first showed up to stalk Fig & Olive restaurant, from the 2012 “Matthew’s Day Off” Honda CR-V Super Bowl commercial which I blogged about last week, I became absolutely enchanted with Melrose Place, the tiny tree-lined street on which the eatery is located.  Even though I had been a fan of the series Melrose Place back in the 90s, before tracking down Fig & Olive earlier this year I had no idea that the charming and idyllic little street, which runs a scant three blocks and is made up of mostly high-end boutiques, even existed.  In a recent About.com Los Angeles article, author Shana Ting Lipton calls Melrose Place a “hidden gem” and she could not be more right!  Because its name so closely resembles that of the neighboring, and far more well-known, Melrose Avenue, I believe Melrose Place often gets lost in the shuffle, which explains why this stalker had never before heard of it.  Needless to say, I absolutely fell in love with the picturesque little thoroughfare on the spot, as did the GC.

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While we were there, I happened to notice that the sidewalks on Melrose Place were extremely wide with brick ornamentation and my mind immediately flashed upon the shop where wedding coordinator Franck Eggelhoffer (Martin Short) and his assistant, Howard Weinstein (BD Wong), worked in fave movie Father of the Bride – a location that I had long been trying to track down.  For some odd reason, I had remembered that the sidewalk in front of Franck’s shop was also quite wide and lined with brick (I know, I know – my mind retains the oddest of information), so I snapped a quick pic of the Melrose Place sidewalk so that I could compare the two when I returned home.  Well, lo and behold, when I popped in my DVD later that night, I was able to confirm that the sidewalks were one and the same.  Yay!

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From that point, all I had to do was pinpoint the exact storefront where Franck worked and, being that Melrose Place is only three blocks long, the venture was an easy one.  Then, last Thursday, after I had figured out the correct spot, I dragged Mike, from MovieShotsLA, right on back out there to do some stalking of it.

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Franck’s shop shows up only once in Father of the Bride, in the scene in which George Banks (Steve Martin) begrudgingly accompanies his wife, Nina (Diane Keaton), and daughter, Annie (Kimberly Williams-Paisley), to meet the hard-to-understand wedding coordinator for the first time.  One of my very favorite lines in the movie is actually uttered during that scene – when George laments over the high price of the wedding cake, he says, “My first car didn’t cost $1,200!”, to which Franck responds, “Well, welcome to the ‘90s, Mr. Banks!”  Love it!

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In the scene, George, Nina and Annie are shown walking east on Melrose Place in front of the building numbered 8420.

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And I, of course, just had to imitate them by posing for an action walking shot while I was there. Smile

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I believe that the green “Antiques” awning that was visible in the background behind the trio was once attached to the building pictured above, which is located at 8422/8424 Melrose Place.  Fellow stalker Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, came across an article about the vacant property which mentions that it did, in fact, once house an antique store.  And, as fate would have it, back in 2007 the very same building was also the site of a Hanes Comfortique Event hosted by none other than Owen’s main squeeze, Jennifer Love Hewitt.  Talk about synchronicity!

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The building that stood in for Franck’s shop, which was also an antique store at the time of the filming, is now home to the Zero + Maria Cornejo boutique.  According to the About.com Los Angeles article that I mentioned earlier, Melrose Place actually used to be known as “the antiquing street” thanks to the myriad of antique shops that were located there once upon a time.

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And while the full exterior of the property was not shown in Father of the Bride, the door that Annie, George and Nina walked through still looks exactly the same today as it did back in 1991 when the movie was filmed!  Love it!

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The real life interior of the store was also featured in Father of the Bride.  As you can see in these pictures, while that interior has since been remodeled, it is still set up in the same basic three-room configuration that it was during the filming.

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Even the ribbed pillars that were visible in the background of the scene are still there, as you can see in the main photograph featured in this RackedLA post.

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In the scene, George, Nina, Annie, and Franck sat on a couch in front of the store’s eastern-most window.

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That window is pictured above.

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It is thanks to that portion of the scene that I was able to pinpoint exactly where Franck’s shop was situated.  While looking for clues, I had noticed a few distinct architectural elements on the building located across the street, which was visible through Franck’s window.  From there I used Google Street View to search for those elements and, thankfully, it was not long before I found them.  As you can see in the screen shot and Street View image above, the arched window (denoted with a pink arrow), horizontal lip (denoted with a yellow arrow) and rectangular-shaped cutout (denoted with  a blue arrow) of the building located at 8417 Melrose Place all match up to what appeared onscreen.

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Sadly, as you can see above, those elements are now covered over with large awnings and are no longer visible.  Thank God for Street View!

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I had also spotted a center island and a “Keep Right” sign through the window in the scene and, looking at aerial views, saw that that same island was located just east of the Zero + Maria Cornejo boutique.  And while the island still exists to this day, the “Keep Right” sign has since been removed.

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The Zero + Maria Cornejo employee that we spoke with while there could NOT have been nicer and was not only floored to learn that he worked in such a cinematically significant location, but also allowed Mike and me to snap some pics through the same window that Annie, Nina, George, and Franck sat in front of.

On a Father of the Bride side note – I just learned that the character of Franck Eggelhoffer was inspired by real life wedding planner Kevin Lee, who appeared on this past season of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills as the wedding coordinator hired by Lisa Vanderpump.  You can watch a video clip of the “real Franck” by clicking above.  And yes, Martin Short had the guy down to a T!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Zero + Maria Cornejo, aka Franck’s wedding planning shop from Father of the Bride, is located at 8408 Melrose Place in West HollywoodFig & Olive restaurant, from the 2012 “Matthew’s Day Off” Honda CR-V Super Bowl commercial, is located just down the street at 8490 Melrose Place in West Hollywood.  You can visit Fig & Olive’s official website here.

George’s Side Kicks Shoe Factory from “Father of the Bride”

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Another Father of the Bride location that fellow stalker Chas, from the ItsFilmedThere website, tracked down recently was the Side Kicks shoe factory owned by George Banks (aka Steve Martin) in the flick.  And while I had been absolutely dying to stalk the place for what seemed like ages, I just could not seem to figure out where on earth it was located.  Then last month Chas managed to get into contact with several of the movie’s crew members, one of whom not only remembered the exact address of the warehouse (432 South Arroyo Parkway in Pasadena), but also informed him that while the building was vacant at the time of the filming, it was now occupied by Snyder Diamond, a high-end kitchen and bath appliance retailer.  And while I was BEYOND excited when Chas told me the news, because a new company had taken over the space, I did not have high hopes that it would be very recognizable from the movie.

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So imagine my surprise when I walked through the doors and discovered that the building looked almost exactly the same as it did when Father of the Bride was filmed over two full decades ago!  I just about died of excitement and then proceeded to walk almost every square inch of the place, soaking in the many memories of the movie that came flooding back to me.

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As you can see in the above screen captures, the ceiling area, windows, interior pipes and brick walls all still look EXACTLY the same today as they did onscreen in 1991.  The only real difference is the fake kitchen and bath set-ups which have since been installed on the main floor.

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I was most excited to stalk the warehouse’s upstairs mezzanine, which was used as George’s office in Father of the Bride.

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Sadly though, that particular area has been completely gutted and all of the interior walls, doors, and windows removed and now looks entirely different than it did when the movie was filmed.

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A view of George’s office area from the ground floor of Snyder Diamond is pictured above.

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The circular staircase leading up to George’s office has also, sadly, since been removed.

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The exterior of the Snyder Diamond building, which was not shown in Father of the Bride, is quite beautiful.  The Tudor-style structure, which was originally constructed in 1922, is currently on the National Register of Historic Places.  As I mentioned above, the property was vacant at the time of the filming, which allowed producers to come in and dress it as they pleased.  Sometime after the movie was lensed, Thomasville Furniture moved in.  They vacated the property in 2005, whereupon it was leased by Snyder Diamond.  For whatever reason, when Father of the Bride Part II was filmed in 1995, location scouts found a different Pasadena area building to stand in for the Side Kicks factory.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Chas, from the ItsFilmedThere website, for finding this location.  You can check out Chas’ Father of the Bride filming locations page here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: Snyder Diamond, aka George’s Side Kicks shoe factory from Father of the Bride, is located at 432 South Arroyo Parkway in Pasadena.

The “Father of the Bride Part II” Wall, House, and Intersection

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As I’ve mentioned quite a few times in the past, fellow stalker Owen and I are just a bit obsessed with both the 1991 movie Father of the Bride and its sequel, 1995’s Father of the Bride Part II.  And while we had tracked down most of the locales featured in the flicks, Owen had his sights set on locating the wavy stone wall that George Banks (aka Steve Martin) walked by towards the beginning of Part II.  Although the wall only appears for one very brief second in the movie and seems like a rather peculiar spot to want to stalk, Owen was absolutely consumed with finding it.  And I must say, I understand.  Yes, maybe to some it is just a wall that flashed by once in a movie that is well over a decade and a half old, but to people who love Father of the Bride Part II and have watched it countless times over, that wall is a landmark – a significant piece of cinematic history.  Fellow stalker David from Spain made a comment to me the other day that rang so very true.  Speaking about our shared and unwavering desire to track down certain filming locations, he said, “I think you and I are infected with the same virus.”  😉    Couldn’t have said it better myself, David, couldn’t have said it better!  So, when Owen told me he was dying to stalk that Father of the Bride Part II wall, I completely understood and vowed to help him find it.  As it turned out, though, he didn’t need my help after all. 

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I was able to help him with one thing, though.  After Owen asked for my assistance with this particular stalk, I popped in my Father of the Bride Part II DVD and immediately recognized the grey-shingled home that George walks by just prior to the stone wall.  In the scene, George is shown walking in his neighborhood after getting into a fight with his wife Nina (aka Dianne Keaton), after just finding out that she is pregnant.  While walking he wonders if he still has what it takes to be a good dad at his age and then spots a man much younger than he standing on the front porch of a home kissing his son goodbye before leaving for work.

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As fate would have it, Mike from MovieShotsLA, and I had JUST walked by that very same house a few weeks beforehand.  While grabbing a Starbucks one day in Pasadena, the two of us decided to take a walk over to the Mr. Deeds house which was fairly close by.  As we strolled down Madison Avenue, we randomly stopped to admire the above pictured residence and Mike said, “Wow, what a beautiful home!  I bet it’s been used in a movie before!”  Because the house was so incredibly picturesque and had “Anywhere, U.S.A.” written all over it, I completely agreed.  As the two of us walked on, the residence stuck in my brain and became one of many in Pasadena that I refer to as a “Thanksgiving House”.  Every so often in my stalking travels I will come across incredibly charming and idyllic spots that immediately make me think of coming home at Thanksgiving.  I started using the phrase “Thanksgiving House” as a child after taking a stroll one holiday morning with my parents and listening to my mom say “Don’t you want to spend Thanksgiving in a house that looks like that?” as she pointed out the many beautiful residences we passed.  The term has, for whatever reason, stuck.  So, when I popped in my Father of the Bride Part II DVD to help Owen with his search, I, of course, immediately recognized my “Thanksgiving House”!  Which proved Mike right – it had been used in a movie!  😉  And, ironically enough, when I returned to the house a few weeks later to snap some pictures, a crew was just getting ready to set up for the filming of a Cialis commercial on the premises!

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Once Owen knew that the grey-shingled house was located in Pasadena, he began searching for the stone wall there, too.  What he found first, though, was the intersection where George gets propositioned by a young blond woman in a convertible.   How in the heck he managed to recognize a fairly non-descript intersection is beyond me!  But he did and my hat is definitely off to him!  As fate would have it, while looking at the intersection via Google Street View, Owen fairly quickly noticed that it was located at the top of a very large hill.  Also located on that hill?  You guessed it – the stone wall Owen had been searching for!  YAY!

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Sadly, though, Owen’s stone wall looks very different today than it did in 1995 when Father of the Bride Part II was filmed.  In fact, the entire thing is now completely covered over with ivy and is almost completely unrecognizable.  Such a bummer!  Why anyone would cover up such a cool looking stone wall is beyond me. 

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But as you can see in the above photograph, a few stones can still be seen peeking out from under the ivy in some parts of the wall.  So, at least there’s that.

Big THANK YOU to Owen for tracking down these locations!  🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: The Father of the Bride Part II house is located at 639 South Madison Avenue in Pasadena.  The spot where the blond woman hits on Steve Martin is at the intersection of South Grand Avenue and Arbor Street in Pasadena.  The stone wall Steve Martin walks in front of later on in the movie is just west of the intersection, on the 500 block of Arbor Street.

The Father of the Bride Apartment

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I must bow down yet again to Mike over at MovieShotsLA for finding a filming location that has eluded me for years! Ever since seeing Father of the Bride Part II way back in 1995 – has it honestly been that long??? – I have been obsessed with Kimberly Williams’ Spanish style apartment building from the movie (pictured above). I can still remember sitting in the theatre thinking that one day I wanted to live in an apartment building just like hers! So the other day when Mike called me and asked if there were any locations I was currently stumped on, I remembered my obsession with the Father of the Bride apartment and enlisted his help in locating it. Sure enough, not even an hour later I got an email from him with a link to the address! I am telling you, the guy is unbelievable! So, bright and early the following morning I ran right out to finally stalk Annie’s apartment building. 🙂

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The small building, named La Casa Torre, is located in Pasadena and actually consists of eight condominium units situated around a picturesque central courtyard area, complete with a fountain. The complex was built in 1927 by renowned Pasadena area architect Everett Phillips Babcock, who is famous for designing numerous Spanish style residences in the San Gabriel Valley. Babcock started off his career working for prominent Los Angeles architect Wallace Neff, who just happens to have designed the famous French Normandy style home Brad and Jen lived during their married years. In his design of La Casa Torre, Babcock implemented numerous Italian, Spanish, and Moorish details and each apartment boasted a real wood burning fireplace, mahogany floors, and travertine walls. Adding to the building’s charm is the fact that no two units are alike. La Casa Torre was featured in the 1996 book Courtyard Housing in Los Angeles and is currently under evaluation by the City of Pasadena to receive historic landmark status.

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Although it has been over fourteen years since Father of the Bride Part II was filmed at this location, the building looks very much the same today as it did in the movie. The foliage is somewhat overgrown now and the courtyard is not quite as picturesque as it appeared onscreen, but for all intents and purposes La Casa Torre hasn’t changed much since filming took place. And I can’t tell you how excited I was to be seeing it in person!

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Ironically, it turns out that I used to work just down the street from Annie’s building and must have driven past it about a hundred times, but never recognized it. In reality, the central courtyard is located behind and off to the side of the main building and therefore the complex doesn’t look like your typical couryard apartment building. So I never stopped to check it out. LOL La Casa Torre is located just down the street from the house that was used as Steve Martin and Diane Keaton’s home in both Father of the Bride movies. Looks like when Annie moved out of her parents’ house she didn’t go very far. 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Annie’s apartment building from Father of the Bride Part II is located at 611-627 California Boulevard in Pasadena. Annie lived in Unit 619. Remember the building and courtyard are private property – while it is OK to look, it is not OK to trespass. 🙂