The Historic Mayfair Hotel from “The Office”

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Fellow stalker John Bengtson, from the SIlent Locations blog, sent me an email last week after reading my post on Red Studios Hollywood from The Artist (a location that I had learned about from his website) informing me that he had tracked down some locales from Season 7’s “The Search” episode of The Office that I might be interested in stalking, most notably The Historic Mayfair Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles where Michael Scott (Steve Carell) and Holly Flax (Amy Ryan) shared a rooftop kiss.  Ironically enough, my good friend, fellow stalker Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, had also sent me this location on February 4th of last year, the day after the episode had originally aired, along with a list of all of the other places featured in “The Search”.  And while I did stalk a few of them – Kung Pao China Bistro and Larry’s Chili Dog – for whatever reason, I never made it out to The Mayfair.  So, this past weekend, I decided to change that and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on over there.  (I am not sure what happened with the above photograph, but somehow it turned out a bit wonky and neither the GC nor I realized it at the time.)

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The Historic Mayfair Hotel was originally designed in 1927 by Alexander E. Curlett and Claud W. Beelman, the same architecture team who gave us the Park Plaza Hotel near MacArthur Park (an extremely popular filming location that I have stalked, but have yet to blog about), the Cooper Arms condominium building in Long Beach, and the Los Angeles Board of Trade Building in Downtown L.A.  The 13-story hotel, which at the time was named simply The Mayfair, was commissioned by Texas oil tycoons and was constructed at a cost of $1.5 million – and we’re talking 1920’s dollars!  In its heyday, the luxury property hosted such luminaries as Mary Pickford and John Barrymore.  Raymond Chandler even wrote and set his 1939 short story “I’ll Be Waiting” at The Mayfair, although he dubbed the place the “Windermere Hotel” in the tale.

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The property, which originally boasted 350 rooms, but now has just 304, was the largest hotel west of the Mississippi at one time and featured an immensely popular supper and dance club known as the Rainbow Isle Room, from which George Eckhardts, Jr. and the Rainbow Isle Orchestra would broadcast a live radio show each night.  In 2004, after suffering from a long period of neglect, the structure underwent a massive and much-needed $40 million renovation, at which point it was renamed The Historic Mayfair Hotel.  You can check out some great photographs of the place during its early days on The Mayfair’s Facebook page here.

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In “The Search” episode of The Office, after being stranded at a supposed Scranton, Pennsylvania-area gas station, Michael Scott goes on a walkabout which ends on the rooftop of The Historic Mayfair Hotel.  When Holly finds him there and Michael tells her how much he has missed her, the two finally kiss, ending several years worth of will-they-or-won’t-they-get-together storylines and allowing  audiences to finally breath a long-overdue sigh of relief.  Not surprisingly, the roof area of The Mayfair is closed to the public, so I was unable to snap any pictures of it.

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Mike, from MovieShotsLA, figured out that The Mayfair stood in for the supposed Chicago, Illinois-area The Addison Hotel where Beth Cappadora (Michelle Pfeiffer) attended her 15-year high school reunion in 1999’s The Deep End of the Ocean.

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It was from the lobby of The Mayfair that Beth’s 3-year-old son, Ben Cappadora (Michael McElroy), was kidnapped.

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As you can see above, despite the renovation, the lobby still looks very much the same today as it did back in 1998 when The Deep End of the Ocean was filmed.

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The super-nice front desk clerk that we spoke with while we were there informed us that both the interior and the exterior of the property had also appeared in 1994’s True Lies, as the supposed Washington, D.C.-area Washington Mayfair Hotel where Harry Tasker (Arnold Schwarzenegger), on horseback, chased motor-cycle-riding religious zealot Salim Abu Aziz (Art Malik) through a lobby.

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The Mayfair lobby was actually one of three different lobbies used in that particular scene.  Harry is first shown chasing Salim across the length of The Mayfair’s lobby.

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The two then turn a corner and are magically transported to the now-defunct The Ambassador hotel, the same lobby of which was used as the Regent Beverly Wilshire in 1990’s Pretty Woman.

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The duo then heads outside, “across the street” and into The Westin Bonaventure Hotel.  In reality, when the Ambassador was still standing, it was located a good two miles away from The Bonaventure.  Ah, the magic of Hollywood!

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Thanks to the Richard Dean Anderson Website, I learned that The Historic Mayfair Hotel was also used in the 1986 Season 1 episode of MacGyver titled “The Assassin”.

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I am fairly certain that only the exterior of the property appeared in the episode, though, and that all of the interior hotel scenes were filmed on a set.  And while IMDB states that The Mayfair was also featured in 2009’s Don’t Look Up, I scanned through the flick yesterday while doing research for this post and did not see it pop up anywhere.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalkers John Bengtson, from the SIlent Locations blog, and Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, for telling me about this location and to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for informing me of its appearance in The Deep End of the OceanSmile

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The Historic Mayfair Hotel, from “The Search” episode of The Office, is located at 1256 West 7th Street in Downtown Los Angeles.  You can visit the hotel’s official website here.

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

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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!

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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.

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In Daddy Day Care, both the exterior . . .

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

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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.

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

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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”.

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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.”

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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.

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

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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.

Charlie Babbitt’s Apartment from “Rain Man”

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A couple of weeks ago, I read on fellow stalker Lisa’s Finding the Famous blog that the apartment building where Charlie Babbitt (Tom Cruise) lived in the 1988 movie Rain Man was located somewhere in the Hollywood Hills.  I, of course, immediately started trying to track down the building’s exact location and fairly quickly found the information I was seeking thanks to my buddy E.J. over at The Movieland Directory.  E.J.’s website has actually been on a “hiatus” since January 8th of this year, while it is being updated from its previous database of 20,000 movie locales and celebrity addresses to one of over 90,000.  And while that all sounds well and good, this stalker has been simply lost without the website, as I use it almost daily as a resource.  When I emailed E.J. to tell him of my plight, he immediately sent over an extremely large Excel spreadsheet containing all 90,000 of his extensively-researched addresses for me to refer to at will.  Um, how do I even begin to say thank you for that???  Needless to say, the gesture was GREATLY appreciated.  And while I have to admit that I am, for whatever reason, supremely Excel-challenged, I have been using his database regularly and was able to find the location of the Rain Man apartment building with sufficient ease.  Thank you, “Ctrl-F” and thank you, E.J.!  So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out there to stalk the place this past weekend.

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Charlie Babbitt’s apartment building shows up only once, and very briefly, towards they end of Rain Man, in the scene in which Charlie brings his newly-found autistic brother, Raymond Babbitt (Dustin Hoffman), home to Los Angeles after a long road trip across America.  It is at the building that Raymond freaks out after setting off the fire alarm while attempting to cook Eggo Waffles in a convection oven.

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The area of the apartment building shown in Rain Man is not the front exterior, but the west side, which, thankfully, still looks much the same today as it did when the movie was filmed in 1988, despite the fact that almost two and a half decades have since passed.  The only difference I could spot is that the chain link fence which once surrounded the pool has since been replaced with a wooden fence.  But otherwise, the place looks exactly the same in person as it did onscreen.  So incredibly cool!

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The front exterior of the building is pictured above.  According to fave website Zillow, the dwelling was originally constructed in 1926 and measures 3 bedrooms, 3 baths, and 2,201 square feet.  And while I could not find much information about the place online, I am guessing that it is comprised of 3 separate apartment units.  I also learned from E.J.’s extensive files that actor Brad Pitt once lived on the premises sometime during the ‘90s, so the property has quite an extensive claim to fame!

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I am fairly certain that the real life interior of the building was also used in the filming of Rain Man, although I, unfortunately, could not find any interior photographs of the place online with which to verify that hunch.  And, legend has it that a lithograph of Tom Cruise, that was given to him during the production, still hangs in the property’s laundry room to this day.  Oh, what I wouldn’t give to get in there to see that!

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Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Lisa, from the Finding the Famous blog, for informing me of this location and to my friend E.J., of The Movieland Directory website, for tracking it down.  Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Charlie Babbitt’s apartment building from Rain Man is located at 8800 Evanview Drive/1599 Sunset Plaza Drive in the Hollywood Hills.  The area of the building that was shown in the movie can be seen from Evanview Drive, just west of where it intersects with Sunset Plaza Drive.

The Daily Grill at LAX from “Friends With Benefits”

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While watching Friends With Benefits this past July, I just about fell out of my theatre seat when I realized that one of the flick’s more pivotal scenes had been filmed at the Daily Grill restaurant inside of the Tom Bradley International Terminal at Los Angeles International Airport – an eatery that I am very familiar with.  As I have mentioned previously on this blog, my best friend, Robin, lives in Switzerland and comes to visit me just about once a year.  He always flies in and out of LAX and every time we take him to the airport for his return flight, we grab one final cocktail together at the Daily Grill.  The eatery long ago came to be known as “the sad restaurant” in my family’s lexicon, as, knowing that the hour to say good-bye is near, we are all invariably in tears by the time the check arrives.  Flash forward to this past November when, as I mentioned three weeks ago in my post about The Grill on Main in La Quinta, Robin’s mom, Doina, who is my mom’s best friend, flew out to America to surprise my mom on her 60th birthday.  At the end of her eight-day visit, we made our regular pilgrimage to the Daily Grill (that is me and Doina pictured above), which I was extremely excited about as it meant that I could finally blog about the place.

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The Daily Grill at LAX, which opened its doors in January 1997, is actually the largest full-service airport restaurant in the entire United States (it measures 8,300 square feet!!!) and features a full bar, a private dining room, and what are easily the best chicken strips I have ever eaten in my entire life!  In fact, on this particular visit, we ordered three servings of them (!!!!) as we could just not seem to get enough.  Best of all, unlike other airport eateries where a single slice of take-out pizza can cost upwards of $7, the Daily Grill is very reasonably priced.  (On a random side-note – while doing research for today’s post, I discovered that there are SEVEN Starbucks stores located inside of LAX!  SEVEN!  According to the Expect Delays travel blog, Starbucks outposts can be found inside of Terminals 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, and 8!  Now, that’s my kind of place!  Winking smile)

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In Friends With Benefits, the Daily Grill appeared in the scene in which Dylan (aka Justin Timberlake) and his father, Mr. Harper (aka Richard Jenkins), grab a bite to eat – sans pants – shortly after Mr. Harper arrives at what is supposedly Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey.  It is actually pretty ironic that the Daily Grill masqueraded as an East Coast location in the flick, as Friends With Benefits poked quite a bit of fun at movies that try to pull one over on their audience by having locales in Los Angeles stand in for those in New York.

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In the scene, Dylan and Mr. Harper dine in the northeastern-most section of the restaurant in the area overlooking the ticketing counters.

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That area is pictured above.

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And I, of course, just had to pose for a pic in the spot where Dylan and Mr. Harper sat in the flick.  Smile

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Our super-nice waitress answered all of my silly little questions about the filming of Friends With Benefits and even informed us that the filmmakers had covered over one of the Daily Grill’s overhead lights during the shoot and had forgotten to uncover it afterwards.  As you can see above, it is still covered over today!  So incredibly cool!

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According to the Friends With Benefits production notes, the scene in which Jamie (aka Mila Kunis) hops on a baggage carousel and starts handing out luggage to various travelers was also shot at LAX, although I am unsure of exactly where.

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Our waitress also informed us that a scene from the 2005 flick Rumor Has It involving my girl Jen Aniston had been filmed on the escalators located just outside of the Daily Grill, which I could NOT have been more excited about.  Our waitress was working during the time the scene was filmed and said she watched Jen ride up and down those escalators for pretty much an entire day!  How incredibly cool is that?  I would have absolutely DIED!

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The escalators have been remodeled since the time Rumor Has It was filmed and no longer have palm trees planted in between them, but otherwise look much the same as they did onscreen.

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And I, of course, just had to pose for a pic in the spot where my girl stood in the movie.  Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The Daily Grill, from Friends With Benefits, is located at 380 World Way in Los Angeles, on the Mezzanine Level of the Tom Bradley International Terminal inside of the Los Angeles International Airport.  It is located outside of the security checkpoint, so you do not have to be traveling to dine there.  You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.

Willy Beachum’s House from “Fracture”

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Back in early November, a fellow stalker named Eileen posted a comment on my site challenging me to find the residence where Willy Beachum (aka cutie Ryan Gosling) lived in the 2007 thriller Fracture, which is one of my all-time favorite movies.  In an extremely ironic twist of fate, at the exact moment that my site sent me an email alerting me to Eileen’s comment, I was sitting in front of the TV watching Fracture and thinking that I should try to track down the hilltop abode!  Talk about synchronicity!  So I set right out to find the place that very night.  I am leery to admit, though, that I actually “cheated” a wee bit in locating it.

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Based on the views of Downtown Los Angeles shown from Willy’s home in the flick, I figured that the property was most likely located in the Echo Park area and spent more than a few fruitless hours searching for it there.  Because this stalker is nothing if not impatient, though, after coming up completely empty-handed I decided to rent the film on Blu-ray as I had noticed a blurry street sign visible in the background of one of the scenes and hoped that I might be able to make out the name printed on it via high-definition.  Now, don’t get me wrong – I love a good hunt as much as the next stalker, but sometimes I just want to just find the place already and call it a day!  This was one of those times.   Smile

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And thankfully my hunch panned out.  As you can see in the screen capture pictured above, “Minnesota St” is clearly visible on the street sign shown in the Blu-ray version of the movie.  Yay!  Once I learned the street name, finding the exact location of the house was a snap and I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the place later that same week.

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The exterior of Willy Beachum’s home shows up quite a few times in Fracture.

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It is most notably featured in the scene in which District Attorney Joe Lobruto (aka David Strathairn) speaks with Willy, his former deputy district attorney, about returning to the D.A.’s office.  Oddly enough, while all of the other Fracture filming locations are talked about extensively in the flick’s production notes, nothing is said about Willy’s residence.  I figured there would, at the very least, be a mention of the dwelling’s spectacular views, but, for whatever reason, filmmakers remained silent on the subject.  The production notes did state, “[Fracture director Gregory] Hoblit likes to make movies that look as though they are set in Anywhere, USA so that audiences can more easily identify with the characters.  He credits production designer Paul Eads and location managers Richard Davis and Mike Fantasia with helping to make that happen.”  I found that sentiment to be a bit ironic, though, as, in this stalker’s never-to-be-humble opinion, Willy’s house in the movie could not have been more “L.A.”  With its stunning views, hilltop location, and detached garage, the place just screamed “Los Angeles” to me.  But what do I know?  Winking smile

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Because very few sets were built for the filming of Fracture, I would venture to guess that the actual interior of the property was also used in the flick, but, sadly, I could not find any interior photographs of the place to verify that hunch.

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According to the Redfin website, the 3-bedroom, 1-bath, 1,248-square-foot home, which was originally built in 1904, sold this past February for $307,000.  And I am happy to report that it looks very much the same in person as it did in Fracture.

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As do the views, which are nothing short of spectacular!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Willy Beachum’s house from Fracture is located at 3101 Minnesota Street in the Lincoln Heights area of Los Angeles.