Koreatown – IAMNOTASTALKER

May 11, 2020May 9, 2020

LINE LA from “The L Word: Generation Q”

Noise is a real trigger for me. I don’t know why, but loud sounds, namely of the musical variety, bother me to the extreme! I can’t think of anything that turns me off more, in fact, especially when I’m at a hotel. So I was thoroughly disappointed walking into LINE LA back in July 2015 only to discover techno music blaring from the lobby speakers. I could hardly hear myself think! The disappointment escalated as we made our way to Commissary, the lodging’s gorgeous former restaurant, and realized that the adjacent pool had been transformed into a weekend discotheque! As I wrote to my friend Michael (whom you may remember from his many fabulous guest posts and who vacationed at the hotel several months prior), “We would have needed noise-canceling headphones just to eat lunch!” Needless to say, we did not dine on the premises, nor did I get any photos of the place. I regretted that move last week when I spotted Commissary while scanning through the pilot episode of The L Word: Generation Q for my write-up on the InterContinental Downtown Los Angeles. Fortunately, Michael saved the day by kindly sharing the many images he took during his stay at the LINE for this post. Thank you, Michael!

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LINE LA started life as the Hyatt Wilshire in 1964.

The 12-story hotel, which originally encompassed 396 rooms, was designed in the Brutalist style by the Daniel, Mann, Johnson & Mendenhall architecture firm.

Boasting fabulous mid-century detailing, the exterior of the steel and glass structure looks like a wall of old-time televisions stacked on top of each other.

In December 1991, the Hyatt Wilshire was purchased by the South Korean-based Koreana Hotel company and renamed the Wilshire Plaza Hotel. You can check out some photos of what it looked like during that era here. It’s quite a difference from the current concrete-on-concrete-on-concrete aesthetic.

The lodging changed hands once again in 2012 when it was snapped up by the Sydell Group, the hospitality team behind The Saguaro Palm Springs. The company collaborated with chef Roy Choi, nightlife impresarios Mark and Johnny Houston, and interior designer Sean Knibb on a major overhaul of the site. The result is an atmosphere that is both highly modernized and minimalistic and in keeping with the property’s Brutalist origins.

LINE LA opened its doors in January 2014 boasting 388 rooms (each with floor-to-ceiling windows), 2 restaurants, a café, 2 nightclubs, a 24-hour fitness studio, a pool, and 12,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor event space.

The accommodations are tasteful, if not a bit odd. As Michael commented when he emailed me the photos, “I’m still haunted by that cement room with the crooked lamp.”

One area of the hotel that is right up both my and Michael’s alley is the poolside restaurant, now named Openaire (though it was still operating as Commissary during Michael’s 2015 stay).

The gorgeous, light-filled eatery, which is situated inside of a greenhouse next to the pool, was the brainchild of Choi.

With a glass ceiling and walls, hanging topiaries and a plethora of natural light, it is easily one of the prettiest restaurants in all of L.A.

And one of its most unconventional! As the menu states, “There are no description words. I know, I know. Don’t freak out. Trust the pictures. And choose your own adventure. This is the experience. Point and build. And have a great time.” Though an unusual culinary concept, Michael thoroughly enjoyed it.

In fact, he said dining there was the highlight of his stay! (That’s his Shrimp Po’boy lunch pictured below.)

Choi severed connections with the LINE in June 2018 at which time two-star Michelin Chef Josiah Citrin took over operation of Commissary, transforming it into Openaire.

The eatery definitely has a more upscale vibe now, with mirrored tables, tailored chairs, and a marble-capped bar, as you can see here, but it remains just as gorgeous as ever. As such, it’s no shock that it made its way to the screen.

In the premiere episode of The L Word: Generation Q titled “Let’s Do It Again,” which aired in 2019, Bette Porter (Jennifer Beals), Shane McCutcheon (Katherine Moennig), and Alice Pieszecki (Leisha Hailey) brunch at Openaire.

Thanks to Michael I learned that, way back in 1980, the Hyatt Wilshire popped up in the background of the Season 2 episode of Hart to Hart titled “What Murder?”

Issa Dee (Issa Rae) and Molly Carter (Yvonne Orji) dine at Commissary in the Season 1 episode of Insecure titled “Messy as F*ck,” which aired in 2016.

Besides filming, the hotel has another claim to fame! It was there that George Steinbrenner got into an elevator fight with two Dodger fans back in 1981, causing him to wind up with a bump on his head, a swollen lip, and a mangled left hand.

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Huge THANK YOU to my friend/guest poster extraordinaire Michael for providing the photos that appear in this post! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: LINE LA, from the pilot episode of The L Word: Generation Q, is located at 3515 Wilshire Boulevard in Koreatown. You can visit the property’s official website here.

February 5, 2020February 3, 2020

Lanie’s House(s) from “Truth Be Told”

I am pretty darn good at recognizing actors in the various roles they play (I am a stalker, after all!), but I watched the new Apple TV+ series Truth Be Told almost the entire way through before realizing that Lanie Buhrman and her estranged twin, Josie, were both portrayed by Lizzy Caplan, aka Mean Girls’ Janis Ian herself! In my defense, the star is virtually unrecognizable today from her snarky 2004 high school character, as you can see above. It didn’t help that she played a set of twins with very differing appearances on Truth Be Told, either – Lanie sports a short brown bob, while Josie’s hair is long and blonde. Lanie’s house on the series is also somewhat of an enigma being that two different dwellings were used to depict it – a tidbit I didn’t realize until I actually sat down to write this post, which meant I had to run out to do some last-minute stalking before hitting publish.

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In Truth Be Told’s premiere episode, “Monster,” Lanie, the daughter of a famous author who was murdered twenty years prior, is shown to be living in a dark peaked-roof Craftsman.

An address number of “229” was visible next to the front door in the episode, which, along with the home’s style, central walkway, and stairs leading down to the sidewalk, led me to believe it was likely in the Windsor Square area. So I began my search there, working my way outward until I found it at 229 South Gramercy Place in Koreatown. I ran out to see the place shortly thereafter.

The charming 1911 pad, which looks much as it did onscreen, boasts 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, 2,060 square feet, and a 0.18-acre lot. Though the interior was not utilized in the episode, you can check out some photos of it here.

In a bizarre twist, the next time the home appeared, in episode 4 “No Cross, No Crown,” it was a different property entirely – one that did not resemble the original in the slightest. Somehow (and I am going to blame the seven days in between the episodes airing), I did not realize the change – even though I had already tracked down the initial house by that point! It was not until I started making screen captures for this post that I noticed the swap and was flabbergasted, to say the least! While location change-ups are fairly common after a pilot is picked up due to the purchasing networks wanting to make certain adjustments, Truth Be Told was developed straight-to-series, meaning Apple TV+ optioned an entire season before the pilot was even lensed. A location alteration made in that scenario is odd. And while I have seen productions switch locales from season to season (I’m looking at you Wilson house from 90210!), it’s a pretty rare circumstance and I can’t ever recall it occurring on a series with a scant eight-episode run like Truth Be Told.

Fortunately, an address number was also visible on Lanie’s second house – “5131” above the front porch. Thanks to that four-digit address and the home’s Anywhere, U.S.A.-style, I figured it was likely in Eagle Rock. Sure enough, I IDed it fairly quickly as 5131 North Maywood Avenue.

Google Street View imagery of the pad shows it in a rather beaten-down state – a far cry from how it looks today. Per Zillow, the abode was completely restored in 2012 – and it is now nothing short of adorable!

The charming property boasts 4 bedrooms, 3 baths, 2,612 square feet, a formal dining room with coffered ceilings, original oak wood flooring throughout, a parlor, wood-beamed ceilings, a modern kitchen, and a large 0.28-acre plot of land.

The gorgeous restored interior, which you can see photos of here, also appeared on Truth Be Told.

The home is no stranger to the screen – it is also where Brett (Mark Duplass) and Michelle Pierson (Melanie Lynskey) lived on the HBO series Togetherness.

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Lanie’s house from the first episode of Truth Be Told is located at 229 South Gramercy Place in Koreatown. The pad used as Lanie’s in subsequent episodes can be found at 5131 North Maywood Avenue in Eagle Rock.

May 23, 2018May 22, 2018

Hotel Normandie from “Vanderpump Rules”

Vanderpump Rules is like a fine wine – it just keeps getting better with age. Six seasons in and the show still hasn’t peaked! Well, in my opinion, at least. Not only do the storylines continually get more and more compelling (and ridiculous – “My boyfriend can hang a TV in under seven minutes. I timed him!”), but the series consistently provides great stalking locations. I recently visited one of its earlier locales, Hotel Normandie, which was the site of a brief, but notable moment during Season 4. I originally learned about the historic lodging back in July 2015 thanks to a Cupcakes and Cashmere blog post that featured the property. Completely taken by the gorgeous detailing visible in the background, I promptly included the place on my To-Stalk List and the Grim Cheaper and I headed out there shortly thereafter. At the time, I did not think the hotel had appeared onscreen, so I did not snap any photos and was shocked to see it pop up just a few weeks later on VR. Though I instantly re-added the site to my To-Stalk List, it was not until last week that I finally made it back out there.

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Hotel Normandie, named for its location on the corner of 6th Street and Normandie Avenue in Koreatown, was originally constructed by architects Albert R. Walker and Percy A. Eisen in 1926.

A newspaper ad from that year described the locale as “a delightful hotel for permanent and semi-permanent guests.”

Decidedly Renaissance Revival in style on the outside . . .

. . . Walker and Eisen gave the interior a Spanish Colonial Revival feel.

Hotel Normandie was popular from the start, becoming especially well-known for its $1 Sunday-night turkey dinners, homemade by culinary supervisor Mrs. H.F. Bruner.

Several notables lived on the premises during the hotel’s early days, including author Malcolm Lowry who penned portions of his 1947 novel Under the Volcano onsite. The work has since been called one of the most influential books of the 20th Century.

In 1964, the property was purchased by hoteliers Paul and Adelaide Stockhammer who completely overhauled the site with a $250,000 modernization.

Sadly, much of the hotel’s original detailing was covered over as a result of the project.

It was not long before the place fell into disrepair. In the ‘80s, the building was transformed into low-income housing and then it later had a short stint as a “pot-tel,” aka a pot-friendly hotel (whatever that is).

Thankfully, in 2011 Jingbo Lou stepped in. The Pasadena-based architect/preservationist was initially introduced to the aging hotel by a realtor relative who brought him in to advise a potential buyer on a possible renovation. The buyer was turned off by the costly rehab estimate Lou provided and stepped away from the deal, at which point Lou turned around and made an offer himself. As a 2015 article in the Commercial Observer notes, the purchase was a labor of love. Reporter Michael Kaplan states, “Why else would an ordinarily rational architect from Pasadena, Calif., buy a 1926 Renaissance-style hotel loaded with drug addicts and prostitutes and situated on a dodgy stretch of downtown Los Angeles’s pre-gentrified Koreatown? The property, after all, had been hanging in foreclosure and was ultimately bailed on by the previous owner.” As Lou explains, though, “When I first walked in and saw the ceiling height, the chandeliers, the columns, a wood-burning fireplace in the lobby, the grandness of it all, I knew it could be something special.” With Jingbo’s guidance, that is exactly what it became.

Embarking upon a massive restoration, which took 3 years to complete at a cost of $5 million, Lou saw to it that the unsightly drywall and carpeting that covered much of the building’s original design elements were removed, the myriad broken windows were replaced, and the original Mansard roof, which had been dismantled in the 1950s, was re-constructed. Stucco that had long since marred the hotel’s exterior brickwork was also extracted – well, for the most part. According to the Los Angeles Conservancy website, the southeast lower-level corner of the structure (visible on the bottom left of my photo below) was left ensconced “as a nod” to the property’s “long history of alterations.”

The reinvigorated space opened to the public in February 2014.

The 4-story property, which is Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument #1013, boasts 91 sleek but comfortable rooms, a large ballroom, meeting space, a gym, and countless retro details throughout.

#barcartgoals, amirite?

Hotel Normandie is also home to four onsite restaurants and lounges, including The Walker Inn, le comptoir, The Normandie Club, and Cassell’s Hamburgers.

The later is an L.A. institution that was originally established by Alvin Cassell in 1948. (Special thanks to my friend Katie for providing the photo below!)

After a change in ownership in the ‘90s, the eatery saw a decline in quality and, subsequently, patronage. The site was eventually shuttered in 2012.

Figuring the Normandie would be the perfect spot to re-establish the historic burger joint, Jingbo partnered with chef Christian Page and opened a re-invigorated version of Cassell’s on the ground floor of the hotel in December 2014.

To ensure the restaurant would be on par with the Cassell’s of Alvin’s day, Jingbo brought in many of the original furnishings, including vintage signage and Al’s former Hobart grinder. He also reverted back to the menu used during the eatery’s early years which featured homemade mayonnaise, fresh produce, and absolutely no French fries because, as Cassell explained to Oui Magazine in 1972, “The more things you do, the less chance there is of reaching perfection.”

Cassell’s Hamburgers was the site of James Kennedy and Lala Kent’s first – and last – date in the Season 4 episode of Vanderpump Rules titled “Cock of the Walk.” Both the outside of Hotel Normandie . . .

. . . and the inside of the restaurant were shown in the episode. During their early evening meal, the duo discuss James’ ex-girlfriend, Kristen Doute, and toast to “making music and babies.” (Insert major eye roll emoji here!) Though the date goes well, Lala calls it quits the very next episode after discovering that James has slept with one of her friends. (He’s such a catch!)

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Hotel Normandie, from the “Cock of the Walk” episode of Vanderpump Rules, is located at 605 Normandie Avenue in Koreatown. You can visit the hotel’s official website here.

October 13, 2015September 29, 2017

Mary Miles Minter’s Former Mansions

The death of William Desmond Taylor remains one of Hollywood’s most notorious unsolved mysteries, over 90 years after its occurrence. On the evening of February 1st, 1922, the 50-year-old director was shot and killed in his Westlake apartment complex. Though there were suspects aplenty, no one was ever indicted in the murder and the case was officially closed without resolution (for the second time) on February 23rd, 1938, never to be re-opened. Common belief, though, has long since held that the guilty party was Charlotte Shelby, the mother of 19-year-old starlet Mary Miles Minter, with whom Desmond was said to be having an illicit May-December affair. I became fascinated with the case after reading Tinseltown: Murder, Morphine, and Madness at the Dawn of Hollywood and stalked the site of Taylor’s former bungalow as part of my 2014 Haunted Hollywood postings. So this year I thought it only fitting to venture out to visit two mansions that once belonged to Mary and Charlotte, the addresses of which I found thanks to my buddy E.J. Fleming’s new book, Hollywood Death and Scandal Sites: Seventeen Driving Tours with Directions and the Full Story.

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The life of Mary Miles Minter was a strange one. The actress was born Juliet Reilly on April 25th, 1902 in Shreveport, Louisiana. Her mother, then known as Lilla Pearl Reilly, soon tired of what she deemed a lowly existence in the Bayou and moved Juliet and her sister, as well as her widowed mother, Julia Miles, to New York, hoping to catch a taste of the good life. Lilla changed her name to Mrs. Charlotte Shelby and quickly became the stage mom to end all stage moms, pushing her daughters into the limelight. Charlotte was the OG momager. Before there was a Dina Lohan, before there was a Kris Kardashian, there was a Charlotte Shelby. It wasn’t long before Juliet caught the eye of theatre producer Charles Frohman, who hired the nine-year-old to act in rather sexy stage productions. When Juliet’s age was questioned by child labor advocates, Shelby’s response was to acquire the birth certificate of a 16-year-old dead relative named Mary Minter and pass it along as her daughter’s. The scheme worked and from that point on the youngster was known as Mary Miles Minter. Shortly thereafter, Charlotte relocated the family to Los Angeles and Mary quickly secured a $1.3-million contract with film magnate Adolph Zukor, going on to act in 54 silent films.

After finding success, Charlotte, using Mary’s money, leased the family a mansion in Hancock Park that had once belonged to silent screen star Mary Pickford. Today, the estate, which still stands at 56 Fremont Place, is a popular filming location, appearing in everything from Taken (screen capture below) to CSI: Miami to Beverly Hills, 90210. During the time the family was living there, Mary landed a role in the 1919 movie Anne of Green Gables. William Desmond Taylor, who was then 47, was the director. For 17-year-old Minter, it was love at first sight. Though rumors of an affair between the two are still persistent to this day, Tinseltown author William J. Mann asserts that Taylor kept her at arms length. Either way, Mary was smitten and wanted nothing more than to marry Desmond, retire from the film industry and have his children. Charlotte would have none of it, though. Mary was her meal ticket and she did not want the gravy train to end.

In late 1920, when the lease on the Hancock Park mansion was up, the family headed to the East Coast for a brief vacation. Upon returning, Charlotte, using Mary’s money once again, purchased a 20,000-square-foot, 3-story, 40-room mansion that they named Casa de Margarita (or Casa de Marguerite, depending on which website you are reading). They lived at the property for a short time before beginning a renovation project in the fall of 1921, at which point they relocated to a house at 2039 Hobart Boulevard in Los Feliz, where they remained until the spring of 1922. It was while they were living on Hobart that Taylor was murdered in his bungalow. Mary’s career came to an almost screeching halt.

Charlotte was immediately painted as a prime suspect. Shelby had vocally opposed her daughter’s adoration of Taylor for years, had done everything she could to keep the two apart, and had even once threatened him publicly, saying “If I ever catch you hanging around Mary again, I will blow your goddamned brains out.” A grand jury was convened at one point, and while they chose not to indict her, the murder plagued both Charlotte and Mary for the rest of their lives.

At the time of William’s murder, Hollywood was in a precarious position thanks to the Fatty Arbuckle scandal, which had hit the industry hard financially. Studios did not want their stars to have connections to any sort of salacious behavior as it proved detrimental to the success of their movies. The Famous Players-Lasky Corporation decided that Mary had to go. When she was informed that her contract would not be renewed, she was just shy of her 21st birthday. The unemployed actress had just moved out of Casa de Margarita and into a Hollywood Hills bungalow. The move had caused an estrangement between the star and her mother and, unfortunately for Mary, it was Charlotte who held the purse strings. Without a studio contract, she no longer had a way to pay the bills.

By the summer of 1923, Mary was in dire straits. She was broke, had lost the love of her life, her career had disappeared, she had developed a heroin problem and gained a large amount of weight. To stir up publicity (which would hopefully lead to a job), she created a fake story claiming an attempt had been made on her life and that the killer’s intentions had been to forever silent her on what she knew about Taylor’s death. Neither the police nor the tabloids bought her story, though. The starlet then moved to New York for a time, hoping to carve out a career on the stage, but it never took shape. She eventually began legal proceedings against Charlotte in order to regain the money she made as a young star. For reasons that are not entirely clear, but that I am guessing have to do with the lawsuit, Shelby was forced to sell Casa Margarita at auction in December 1932.

Mother and daughter eventually reconciled. Ever the shrewd businesswoman, Charlotte had invested Mary’s money rather wisely and the two moved in together, first to an estate in Beverly Hills and then, in the 1950s, to a spacious, 6-bedroom, 9-bathroom (!!!), 5,501-square-foot home known as the Bishop Conaty House in Santa Monica. The pad, which sits on 0.46 acres, was originally constructed in 1907 for the Reverend Bishop Thomas Conaty of Los Angeles and San Diego. Charlotte and Mary would live there for the rest of their days.

Mary’s later years were not happy ones. The former starlet started turning into a recluse. Shortly after Charlotte passed away in 1957, Minter married a real estate developer named Brandon O’Hildebrandt. When he passed away in 1965, she grew even more reclusive. Last year I attended a Q&A about Tinseltown and photographer Michael Childers happened to be in attendance. He spoke of meeting Minter at her home in her final years and described her existence as a very “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? situation.“ Apparently, the then obese actress surrounded herself with photographs from her younger years and continued to wear the hairstyle and clothing from her movie star days. On one particularly bad night in 1981, a robber broke into Mary’s residence, tied her up and stole $300,000 worth of items. It was later discovered that her caretaker was behind the theft.

On August 4th, 1984, Mary Miles Minter passed away silently at the home, her film legacy largely forgotten, but her entwinement with one of Hollywood’s most infamous unsolved murders still very much intact.

Casa de Margarita served many incarnations after it was sold by Charlotte in 1932. For a time the property was utilized by a seminary, then it became a home for unwed mothers, and then a shelter for children. Today, it is a family service center named Children’s Institute, Inc. According to this article, the dwelling still boasts much of its original décor, including large fireplaces, a grand staircase, built-in bookcases, a central courtyard with a fountain, and hardwood flooring. It is also supposedly haunted. You can see some interior photos of it here.

A big THANK YOU to my friend E.J., of The Movieland Directory website, for providing these addresses. For those who are as into Haunted Hollywood locales as I am, I highly recommend his book Hollywood Death and Scandal Sites: Seventeen Driving Tours with Directions and the Full Story (the second edition was just released via McFarland). The tome is chock full of macabre spots (I swear, one year virtually all of my Haunted Hollywood locations came from the first edition), all of which are well-researched and well-documented. As I have mentioned many times before, E.J. is one of the very few fellow stalkers whose information I trust. He is a rare breed in this field in that his data is accurate, his locales unique (read: not regurgitated from all of the other websites out there), and his story-telling bar none!

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Casa de Margarita, aka Mary Miles Minter’s former mansion, is located at 701 South New Hampshire Avenue in Koreatown. The home where Mary spent her final years can be found at 144 Adelaide Drive in Santa Monica.

August 3, 2015August 16, 2015

Olivia Pope’s Apartment from “Scandal”

While Scandal has fallen a bit out of favor with me (for reasons mentioned here), there are two parts of the series that I will never get over – Olivia Pope’s (Kerry Washington) wardrobe (Gah! Her clothing is amazing!) and her apartment. I recently did a bit of research on said apartment and was floored to discover that a real unit in a real building was used for a time as Olivia’s pad. So yes, that means that Olivia’s apartment actually exists!

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Thanks to a 2013 Hooked on Houses blog post, I learned that the set of Olivia’s apartment had been based off of real units at the El Royale in Hancock Park. Upon doing further research, I came across this CurbedLA article from 2011 which mentioned that the series had also done some filming inside of the building during its inaugural season, angering residents in the process.

The El Royale was originally designed in 1929 by architect William Douglas Lee, who also built the famed Chateau Marmont hotel.

The 12-story Spanish Renaissance Revival-style property, which houses 56 units, has been a celebrity magnet from the very beginning. Just a few of the luminaries who have called the place home over the years include Harry Cohn, Clark Gable, George Raft, Loretta Young, Harry Langdon, William Faulkner, Huell Howser, Cameron Diaz, Ben Stiller, Uma Thurman, Jack Black, Ellen Page and Katie Holmes.

Olivia Pope’s apartment first showed up in the Season 1 episode of Scandal titled “Hell Hath No Fury.” The apartment featured in that episode – as well as all of the subsequent episodes of Season 1 – is an actual unit inside of the El Royale.

Scandal was initially picked up as a mid-season replacement in 2012 and, due to that fact, its inaugural season was a short one that consisted of only seven episodes. I am guessing that is why a set of Olivia’s apartment was not built until Season 2.

You can check out some photographs of what a few different El Royale units look like here.

By the beginning of Season 2, a set modeled after the El Royale apartment had been built. Of the set, production designer Corey Kaplan said in a 2013 People magazine article, “We took the basic elements of the El Royale apartments to stage. We loved the moldings and the embellishments, but we made it a little bit larger scale with larger arches.”

The exterior of the El Royale also appeared in a couple of Season 1 episodes of Scandal. The Rosewood Avenue side of the building was where Olivia ambushed David Rosen (Joshua Malina) to ask for dirt on one of his colleagues in “Hell Hath No Fury.”

And the building’s large courtyard was where the supposed “New Hampshire” Veteran Pancake Breakfast was held in “The Trail.”

According to my buddy E.J. of The Movieland Directory website, the El Royale also served as Steven Carrington’s (Jack Coleman) apartment building on Dynasty.

And according to fave book Los Angeles Attractions, the building was also featured in Switch and Other People’s Money.

For whatever reason (most likely those angry residents mentioned in the Curbed LA article), from Season 2 onward The Gaylord Apartments building in Koreatown was used for all on location filming supposedly taking place at Olivia’s apartment.

The Gaylord Apartments was originally designed by the Walker & Eisen architecture firm in 1924. At the time, the 13-story Italian Renaissance-style property, which was named in honor of land developer Henry Gaylord Wilshire, was the city’s tallest building.

Celebrities also flocked to The Gaylord over the years. A few of the stars who have lived onsite at one time or another include John Barrymore, Constance Talmadge, Kevin Dillon, and Lance Robertson, aka “DJ Lance Rock” from Yo Gabba Gabba. Richard Nixon is also rumored to have spent some time there.

I have blogged about The Gaylord once before, back in March 2011, after a visit to its historic ground level restaurant, HMS Bounty.

To me the building has a very East Coast feel to it and it is not hard to see why producers chose it to stand in for Olivia’s Washington, D.C.-area apartment.

The exterior of The Gaylord has appeared in several episodes of Scandal, including Season 4’s “Run.” During filming, the building’s signage is changed to read “Barrington Court.”

The interior of the building also occasionally makes an appearance onscreen. The Gaylord’s lobby was featured in the Season 2 episode “White Hat’s Back On.”

And an almost-naked Jake Ballard (Scott Foley) ran down The Gaylord’s main stairwell in “Run.” You can check out a photograph of that stairwell here.

The Gaylord has appeared onscreen several times over the years. In the 2015 thriller Insidious: Chapter 3, the building was where Quinn Brenner (Stefanie Scott) lived with her father, Sean Brenner (Dermot Mulroney).

The Gaylord was also featured in Sparkle and The Master.

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The El Royale Apartments, aka Olivia Pope’s apartment from the first season of Scandal, is located at 450 North Rossmore Avenue in Hancock Park. You can visit the building’s official website here. The Gaylord Apartments, aka the exterior of Olivia Pope’s apartment building from Season 2 on, is located at 3355 Wilshire Boulevard in Koreatown. You can visit the building’s official website here.

April 2, 2015March 26, 2015

Latest L.A. Mag Post – About My Filming Location Holy Grail

Don’t forget to read today’s Los Angeles magazine post – about the the Girls Just Want to Have Fun apartment building. My articles typically get published in the late morning/early afternoon hours.