The Ritz-Carlton, Marina del Rey from “90210”

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Way back in July of last year, the Grim Cheaper and I found ourselves on the West Side of Los Angeles with a few hours to kill, so we decided to head down to Marina del Rey as I had never before done any stalking there.  I ended up absolutely falling in love with the seaside community, especially its downtown shopping area where I know I could have done some serious damage to my credit cards had the GC not been with me.  Anyway, one of the area locations that had long been listed in my trusty stalking notebook was The Ritz-Carlton, Marina del Rey hotel, which had made an appearance in the 1998 remake of The Parent Trap. So I dragged the GC right on over there as soon as we got into town.  Flash forward to this past February when I was checking out fellow stalker Geoff’s 90210Locations website and, let me tell you, I just about fell out of my chair when I saw that the hotel had been featured prominently in a recent episode of the series.  Now, as you all know, I watch 90210 religiously and am always keeping my eye out for locations, but, for whatever reason, I had somehow not recognized the place at all!  Am I losing my touch here?  Winking smile

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The Ritz-Carlton, Marina del Rey is situated on a 5.6-acre plot of land directly overlooking the picturesque marina from which the town gets its name.  With its dark paneled walls, marble floors, and huge floral arrangements, the beautiful hotel reminded me quite a bit of The Langham Huntington in Pasadena, which, not so coincidentally, was formerly owned by the Ritz-Carlton Corporation.  Needless to say, I fell in love with the place on the spot and so wanted to book a room and spend the night there, but the GC was having absolutely none of that.  Shocking, I know.  Winking smile

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The Ritz-Carlton Marina del Rey, which is Los Angeles’ only waterside AAA Five Diamond hotel, features 304 guest rooms, each with its own “Juliet” balcony, tennis courts, marina and city views, over 30,000 square feet of event space, a fitness center, and a Michelin-recommend restaurant.  According to the hotel’s website, it also boasts “L.A.’s only waterfront pool and whirlpool” (pictured above).  Besides being a filming location, the place is also a big-time celebrity hot spot.  Just a few of the stars who have been spotted there include Adrian Grenier,  John Travolta, Johnny Depp, Bridget Marquardt, Brooke Shields, Chris Henchy, Zac Efron, The Bachelorette’s DeAnna Pappas and then fiancé Jesse Csincsak, Brad Garrett, Mary Hart, Halle Berry, Hulk Hogan, Dave Annable, Odette Annable, Jason Lewis, Jason Mraz, Scott Caan, Paul Bettany, and Steve Carell.  Snoop Dogg and childhood sweetheart Shante Taylor got married there in 1997.  And pop star Britney Spears is a regular guest.  In fact, these famous (and oh-so-classy) photos of BritBrit and then fiance Kevin Federline were taken on one of the hotel’s balconies.

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In the Season 4 episode of 90210 titled “No Good Deed”, the Ritz-Carlton, Marina del Rey, popped up twice.  The hot tub area was first used as the spot where Naomi Clark (AnnaLynne McCord), wearing a very skimpy, blue cut-out bathing suit (and I’m telling you, if I had that body, I’d be wearing that bathing suit every single day of my life!), convinced movie star Mitchell Nash (Will Kemp) to let her throw a party for him.

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That spa area is pictured above.

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Later in the episode, the hotel’s pool area was the site of the Hillingsbrook Foundation’s “Clean Up Castillo Bay” charity event which Annie Wilson (Shenae Grimes) hosted.

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The spot where Liam Court (my love Matt Lanter) rescued the drowning girl is located just outside of the pool area, in the Marina del Rey harbor.

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The scene where the event’s silent auction was held was also most likely filmed at the Ritz, although I did not see any areas which resembled the screen captures above while I was there, nor can I find any similar-looking rooms on the hotel’s website.

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In the 1998 remake of The Parent Trap, the Ritz-Carlton, Marina del Rey’s pool stood in for the pool of the fictional “The Stafford Hotel”.  Interestingly enough, two other spots were also used to masquerade as The Stafford in the flick – the exterior was the Treasure Island Administration Building in San Francisco and the interior scenes were filmed at the Langham Huntington Hotel in Pasadena.

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The Ritz-Carlton, Marina del Rey was also used extensively in the Season 5 episode of Dexter titled “Take It”, as the hotel where Jordan Chase (Angelina Jolie’s ex-husband Jonny Lee Miller) hosted his “Take It” convention.  Quite a few areas of the hotel were used in the episode, including the exterior;

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The Ritz-Carlton Ballroom, which you can see a photograph of here;

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one of hotel’s outdoor terraces;

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The Ritz-Carlton Suite, which you can see a photograph of here;

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and two neighboring 7th floor suites.

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Big THANK YOU to Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, for informing me of the hotel’s 90210 connection!  Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The Ritz-Carlton, Marina del Rey, from the “No Good Deed” episode of 90210, the “Take It” episode of Dexter, and The Parent Trap remake, is located at 4375 Admiralty Way in Marina del Rey.  You can visit the hotel’s official website here.

Maggie Peyton’s House from “Herbie Fully Loaded”

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After fellow stalker Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, so expertly tracked down the Georgia Rule house for me last week, I asked for his assistance in locating the residence where the Peyton family – Ray Peyton Sr. (aka Michael Keaton) and his children Ray Peyton Jr. (aka Breckin Meyer) and Maggie Peyton (aka Lindsay Lohan) – lived in the 2005 movie Herbie Fully Loaded.  Now before I get y’all thinking that I am a massive Lindsay Lohan fan or something, I would like to assure you that I most definitely am not.  Nor was I a huge fan of Herbie Fully Loaded, truth be told.  What I was a fan of, though, was the Peyton family’s adorable and – what I thought was – little Craftsman-style bungalow which appeared countless times throughout the movie.  And while I had a hunch that the property was located somewhere in the Pasadena area, I just could not seem to find it.  So last week I called upon Chas and, working together this past Monday afternoon, the two of us were finally able to track it down.  Yay! 

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I decided to take a page out of fellow stalker Owen’s book for this particular hunt and began my search by looking through various Herbie Fully Loaded message boards to see if any fans had mentioned the home or its location.   And, sure enough, several had!  I first came across this filming locations thread on the LoveBugFans website on which a real life photograph of the house was posted and, amazingly enough, an address number of 1120 was visible on the curb out in front of it.  After seeing that photograph, I became convinced that the home was located somewhere in Altadena.  So I immediately passed that information along to Chas and he subsequently started using Google Street View to search all of the 1100 blocks in the Altadena area, even though his gut was actually telling him that the house was located in South Pasadena. 

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Imagine my surprise when I came across yet another thread, this time on the LoveBugCentral website, on which someone had stated that the Peyton home was located just a few doors down from Patrick Gates’ house from the National Treasure movies.  And where is Patrick Gates’ house located, you ask?  I am ashamed to admit that it can be found on Buena Vista Street in . . . yep, you guessed it, South Pasadena.  So, after apogizing profusely to Chas for steering him in the wrong direction, I immediately opened up Google Street View and started perusing Buena Vista Street and, sure enough, found the house in just a few short minutes.

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The Herbie Fully Loaded house actually looks much different in person than it did onscreen as, for whatever reason, only a side view of the property was ever shown in the movie.

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The view of the house from the street is pictured above and, as you can see, it is absolutely MASSIVE in real life – much, MUCH larger than it appeared onscreen.

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 In actuality the Peyton home, which was built in 1870, boasts 6 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, and a whopping 3,974 square feet of living space.  It is incredible to me how deceiving the home’s appearance was onscreen, as while watching the movie I had been fully convinced that Maggie’s house was a teeny, tiny, little California bungalow, ala Dylan McKay’s home from Beverly Hills, 90210.

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As you can see in the above aerial view, in real life the home also sits on a GINORMOUS parcel of land.

  

 

The home’s real life backyard also appeared quite a few times in the movie.

Big THANK YOU to Chas, from It’sFilmedThere, for helping me find this location!  Be sure to check out his detailed Herbie Fully Loaded filming locations page here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Maggie Peyton’s house from Herbie Fully Loaded is located at 1120 Buena Vista Street in South Pasadena.  Patrick Gates house from National Treasure and National Treasure: Book of Secrets is located just a few houses west of Maggie’s at 1030 Buena Vista Street.  Lady Heather’s house from the television series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation is located at 929 Buena Vista Street.  And the Liar Liar house is located just around the corner at 1004  Highland Street.

The “Georgia Rule” House

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One location that I have been absolutely DYING to stalk for what seems like AGES now is the supposed Hull, Idaho-area home belonging to Georgia Randall (aka Jane Fonda) in the 2005 dramedy Georgia Rule.  And I have to say here that despite being largely panned by the critics (Moviefone even rated it the Number 2 Worst Movie of the Year in 2007!), I thoroughly enjoyed Georgia Rule . . . and its locations – none more so than the adorable white Craftsman-style residence where Georgia lived.  Over the past few years I had managed to track down just about every single locale which appeared in the flick, except for, for whatever reason, that house!  Because director Garry Marshall had thanked the City of Monrovia in the movie’s final credits, I had an inkling that the house was most likely located there.  So, using Google Street View, I spent countless hours searching through various neighborhoods in the San Gabriel Valley suburb – all to no avail.  Then last week, I decided to bring in the big guns, so to speak, and enlisted the help of fellow stalker Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, who immediately added the flick to his Netflix queue.  The movie arrived in his inbox on Wednesday night and within twenty minutes of watching it, he somehow managed to find Georgia’s house – in Monrovia no less – as well as another location that had eluded me!  I am telling you, the guy just has the magic touch!  So, while in Monrovia taking care of my dad yesterday, I ran right out to stalk the place.

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In Georgia Rule, wild child Rachel Wilcox (aka Lindsay Lohan) is sent by her mother, Lily (aka Felicity Huffman), to live for the summer with her grandmother, Georgia, in the small town of Hull, Idaho in the hopes that doing so will calm the troubled teen’s rebellious ways. 

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In real life Georgia’s home, which is known as the  E.N. Hawes House, was built in 1906 and is a Monrovia Historical Landmark.  And I am very happy to report that the property is just as charming in person at it appeared onscreen.

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The real life interior of the residence was not used in the production, but was apparently very faithfully recreated on a soundstage at the Sunset Gower Studios in Hollywood, where the movie was lensed.  Oh, what I wouldn’t give to see the inside of that house in person!!

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For whatever reason, producers changed the address number of the house from 243 to 247 for the filming.  As you can see in the above screen captures and photographs, though, the address plaque was kept exactly the same and producers simply swapped out the real life “3” for a “7”.

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They even went so far as to change the number painted on the curb out in front of the house.

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Oddly enough, though, they did not change the number of the house located next door, even though it was highly visible throughout much of the movie.

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In an interesting side note – according to Garry Marshall’s commentary on the Georgia Rule DVD, he thought the house across the street from Georgia’s was too ugly to appear in the film, so he parked a large boat in front of it during the production, hiding it from view.  As you can see in the photographs above, though, the house has since been remodeled and actually has a bit of “curb appeal” today.

Big THANK YOU to Chas, from It’sFilmedThere, for finding this location!   Smile  You can check out Chas’ highly detailed Georgia Rule  filming locations page here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It:  The Georgia Rule house is located at 243 North Encinitas Avenue in Monrovia.