The Milbank Mansion – aka Chapman Academy Preschool from “Daddy Day Care”

P1030787

A couple of weeks ago, Tony, my friend and fellow stalker who has the fabulous On Location in Los Angeles Flickr photostream (seriously, it’s amazing – go check it out!), asked me for some help in tracking down the ginormous Mediterranean mansion that stood in for the prestigious Chapman Academy Preschool in the 2003 comedy Daddy Day Care.  Tony had informed me that the residence was used regularly for filming and that it had also been featured recently in the Season 10 episode of fave show CSI: Miami titled “By the Book”.  So I started doing some research on oft-filmed-at Mediterranean estates in Los Angeles and, amazingly, fairly quickly came across a photograph of a gorgeous Country Club Park property named the Milbank Mansion that, sure enough, was the right spot.  So, while Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I were out doing some stalking in the area this past Monday morning, we stopped by the place.  And I have to say that it is pretty darn incredible in person!  Not to mention pretty darn huge!

P1030782 P1030780

P1030781 P1030786

The Milbank Mansion was originally built in 1913 for prominent local businessman Isaac Milbank and his wife, Virginia.  The 12-bedroom, 5-bath, 10,059-square-foot home, which sits on 1.79 acres of land, was designed by G. Laurence Stimson, the very same architect who also gave us the legendary Wrigley Mansion, now the Tournament of Roses House, in Pasadena.  The estate is located in the heart of Country Club Park – a historic 250-acre neighborhood situated on the site of the original Los Angeles Country Club, which closed its doors in 1905.  The area was developed and subdivided  by none other than Isaac Milbank himself, along with a business partner named George Chase, beginning in 1906.  The Milbank Mansion, which, according to a June 1988 Los Angeles Times article, is “considered to be the most substantial surviving estate built for a single family in the city of Los Angeles before World War I”, became a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument on December 13, 1989.  You can see some interior photographs of the property here.

[ad]

ScreenShot3728 ScreenShot3731

ScreenShot3732 ScreenShot3730

In Daddy Day Care, both the exterior . . .

ScreenShot3734ScreenShot3737

ScreenShot3735 ScreenShot3740

. . . and the interior of the Milbank Mansion were used as the Chapman Academy Preschool.

ScreenShot3747 ScreenShot3748

ScreenShot3749 ScreenShot3761

In the Season 10 Halloween-themed episode of CSI: Miami titled “By the Book”, the mansion stood in for the island estate where a female body that had been entirely drained of blood was found hanging upside down.

ScreenShot3751 ScreenShot3762

ScreenShot3757 ScreenShot3759

The interior of the estate was also used in the episode.

ScreenShot3741 ScreenShot3743

ScreenShot3744 ScreenShot3742

In the 1929 silent film Wrong Again, the exterior of the Milbank Mansion was used as the residence where stable hands Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy mistakenly returned a horse named “Blue Boy” thinking they would be able to collect on some reward money being offered for a missing painting also known as “Blue Boy”.

ScreenShot3771 ScreenShot3770

ScreenShot3772 ScreenShot3773

In the 1975 film noir Farewell, My Lovely, both the interior and the exterior of the Milbank Mansion stood in for the brothel belonging to “L.A.’s famous madam” Francis Amthor (Kate Murtagh).  Of the estate, detective Phillip Marlowe (Robert Mitchum) says, “It was an old house, built as they once built them and don’t build them anymore.  Fitting and proper for housing the world’s oldest profession.”

ScreenShot3764 ScreenShot3765

ScreenShot3768ScreenShot3769

In 2006’s Running with Scissors, the interior of the mansion stood in for the home where Dr. Finch (Brian Cox) lived with his crazy family – wife Agnes (Jill Clayburgh) and daughters Hope (Gwyneth Paltrow) and Natalie (Evan Rachel Wood).  The property was dressed rather heavily for the production, though, and is virtually unrecognizable onscreen.

ScreenShot3763

As you can see above, for the exterior of Dr. Finch’s mansion a different location was used.

P1030784 P1030785

The Milbank Mansion was also supposedly featured in Harold Lloyd’s 1922 silent film Dr. Jack, the 1971 movie Hit Man, and the reality series Beauty and the Geek, but unfortunately I could not find copies of any of those productions to verify that information.  And while several websites have stated that the property also appeared in the 2001 biopic Ali, I scanned through the movie yesterday while making screen captures for this post and did not see it anywhere.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Tony for asking me to find this location!   You can check out Tony’s FANTASTIC On Location in Los Angeles Flickr photostream here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The Milbank Mansion, aka the Chapman Academy Preschool from Daddy Day Care, is located at 3340 Country Club Drive in the Country Club Park section of Los Angeles.

The Old Plaza at El Pueblo de Los Angeles from “90210”

90210-cabo-olivera-street-6

Last week, after reading my post on the Bob’s Big Boy in Burbank in which I mentioned that I had actually stalked the iconic restaurant way back in November, fellow stalker Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, sent me a text asking, “If you did not stalk ever again, how many blogs could you write before you ran out?”  My response, “I don’t know . . . but A LOT!”  If I had to guess I would say there are at least 200 locales stored away in my stalking back log.  In fact, there are still quite a few spots from my trip to the Pacific Northwest last May that I have yet to post.  So not to worry – even if I were to never stalk again, I would still be cranking out posts for a very long time to come!  Smile Anyway, Chas’ text got me to thinking about all of the locations that I have pushed to the back burner in recent months – one of which was The Old Plaza at El Pueblo de Los Angeles, which appeared in the Season 3 episode of fave show 90210 titled “The Enchanted Donkey” and which I had dragged the Grim Cheaper out to stalk back in July.  Speaking of 90210, I would just like to state here, for the record, that I am NOT AT ALL happy about the latest developments in the “Lannie” saga.  But I digress.

90210-cabo-olivera-street-13 90210-cabo-olivera-street-12

90210-cabo-olivera-street-7 90210-cabo-olivera-street-8

90210-cabo-olivera-street-9 90210-cabo-olivera-street-14

El Pueblo de Los Angeles, or the Los Angeles Plaza Historic District as it is also called, is the oldest surviving section of the city and serves as a monument to L.A.’s September 4th, 1781 founding.  On that day, at a site located along the L.A. River just northeast of the Plaza, eleven families, consisting of 22 adults and 22 children, arrived from the Gulf of Mexico and established a small pueblo with mud huts and a village square.  In 1815, a flood washed away that original settlement and it was later rebuilt in 1825 at its current location, which sits on higher ground.  The Plaza immediately became the social, commercial, and cultural center of Los Angeles and remained that way throughout most of the 19th Century.  By the 1920s, the area had sadly fallen into serious disrepair and was set to be largely demolished to make way for a railway station.  Thankfully, a woman named Christine Sterling came along in 1926 and, with help from Harry Chandler and several local businesses, transformed the site into a bustling marketplace and popular tourist attraction.  Today, the 44-acre property, which is considered to be the “birthplace of Los Angeles” and is a State Historic Monument and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, consists of five separate museums, a church dating back to 1861, the Mexican marketplace known as Olvera Street, 27 historic buildings, including L.A.’s oldest firehouse, and a central plaza, aka The Old Plaza.

[ad]

ScreenShot1145 ScreenShot1146

ScreenShot1147 ScreenShot1152

In “The Enchanted Donkey” episode of 90210, The Old Plaza stood in for the supposed-Cabo-San-Lucas-area marketplace that Annie Wilson (aka Shenae Grimes) and Liam Court (aka my love, Matt Lanter – sigh!  Winking smile) visited while in Mexico during Spring Break.  It is there that Annie gets bitten by a rabid monkey which lands her in the hospital.  Because the BEST Mexican restaurants in all of Southern California can be found there, the GC and I have visited El Pueblo de Los Angeles countless times over the years.  So when The Old Plaza popped up on 90210, I recognized the place immediately.

ScreenShot1151 ScreenShot1149

90210-cabo-olivera-street-10 90210-cabo-olivera-street-11

In “The Enchanted Donkey” episode, the rock that the monkey is sitting on is located in the northern-most section of The Old Plaza, under one of the site’s four historic Moreton Bay Fig trees.  Ironically enough, as you can see above, that rock bears a plaque which reads “Los Angeles Plaza”, which, being that the scene was supposed to have taken place in Mexico, explains why it was covered over with a blanket for the filming, .  Ah, the magic of Hollywood!

ScreenShot1148 Annie's Hair Clip 90210

While watching the scene, I also immediately recognized the leather clip that Annie was wearing in her hair as being from Murillo Leather, a store that is located about twenty feet from the Old Plaza and that I mentioned in my post about Olvera Street way back in May of 2009.  I have visited the shop, which is owned and operated by Armando Murillo, who made all of the purses and belts worn by Jessica Simpson in the movie The Dukes of Hazzard, countless times over the years and even have a belt that was made by the second-generation leather craftsman.

Annie's Hair Clip 90210 - Murillo Leather

So while we were there I just had to stop by to ask Armando if my hunch about Annie’s barrette had been correct.  He confirmed for me that not only did his hand-crafted hair clip appear in the episode, but that Shenae Grimes herself had come into his shop to pick it out.  I was literally drooling hearing Armando talk about meeting Shenae and how incredibly sweet she was.  (This was before I was fortunate enough to meet the actress myself this past August.)  And while I SO wanted to buy a Shenae-style hair clip while we were there, the GC immediately ixnayed the idea, noting that my hair was far too short to ever be able to get any use out of it.  Hmph!

ScreenShot1155 ScreenShot1156

ScreenShot1160 ScreenShot1161

As I mentioned in my post about Olvera Street back in May 2009, The Old Plaza was also featured in Lethal Weapon 3 as the spot where Martin Riggs (aka Mel Gibson) and Roger Murtaugh (aka Danny Glover) were assigned to work patrol after being demoted for blowing up a building.  It is there that Riggs and Murtaugh threaten to shoot a man for jaywalking and also witness an armored-car robbery.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

90210 - The Old Plaza location

Stalk It: The Old Plaza at El Pueblo de Los Angeles, from “The Enchanted Donkey” episode of 90210, is located at 1 Olvera Street, across from Union Station, in Los Angeles.  In the episode, Annie and Liam stood in front of the large rock located under the huge Moreton bay fig tree in the northern-most section of The Old Plaza, in the area depicted with a pink arrow in the above aerial view.  Murillo Leather, where Annie’s hair clip was made, is located just up the street from The Old Plaza at 6 Olvera Street in Los Angeles.