Oliver’s Palm Springs House from “The O.C.”

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As I mentioned a few weeks ago, the Grim Cheaper and I have just recently started watching fave series The O.C. over again from the beginning and one location that popped up during the first season that I have been absolutely dying to find and stalk was the supposed-Palm-Springs-area house that belonged to troublemaker Oliver Trask (Taylor Handley) in the episode titled “The Links”.  So imagine my surprise when fellow stalker Geoff, of the 90210Locations website, randomly emailed me last week, after seeing my post on Café-Club Fais Do-Do (which stood in for a Tijuana nightclub in one of The O.C.’s early episodes), to let me know that he had tracked down a few of the show’s more elusive locales, one of which was Oliver’s Palm Springs residence!  I kid you not!  As you can imagine, I was absolutely bowled over by this information and, as I told Geoff, would have run out to stalk the place right then and there had it not been pouring at the time.  When the rain finally did subside the following morning, I, of course, rushed right on over to the house to finally stalk it.  Yay!

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In “The Links” episode of The O.C., Oliver invites the Newport gang – Ryan Atwood (Ben McKenzie), Seth Cohen (Adam Brody), Marissa Cooper (Mischa Barton), Luke Ward (Chris Carmack), Summer Roberts (Rachel Bilson), and Anna Stern (Samaire Armstrong) – to spend the weekend with him at his parents’ mid-century-modern-style home in Palm Springs, which he states is located “right on PGA West”.  And while Geoff originally thought that the property was in Huntington Beach, near the Seacliff Country Club where the group played golf in the episode, he came up completely empty-handed after searching the area.  Then, a few months later, while trying to track down a different locale in South Pasadena, he spotted a house on Arroyo Drive that looked vaguely familiar.  He was unsure of where he had seen the residence before, but made a note of the address.  It was not until a couple of weeks afterwards that he happened to re-watch “The Links” episode of The O.C. and realized that the house that had looked so familiar was Oliver’s.  Nicely done, Geoff!

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In real life, the 3-bedroom, 3-bath, 3,032-square-foot home, which was originally built in 1959 and sits on almost half an acre of land, is pretty darn spectacular!  In fact, the main reason that I wanted to stalk the property so badly, besides the fact that it appeared on The O.C. of course, was that I had fallen in love with its mid-century-style architecture pretty much as soon as it had appeared on my TV screen.  And I am very happy to report that, in person, the place did not disappoint.

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As you can see above, the residence most definitely does look like a Palm-Springs-area home, so it is not very hard to see why producers chose to use it in “The Links” episode.

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The real-life interior of the property, and even some of the real-life furniture – both of which you can see photographs of here – were also used in the episode.

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I am fairly certain, though, that the bedrooms where Ryan, Marissa, Seth, and Anna stayed were just sets that were built inside of a soundstage at Raleigh Studios Manhattan Beach where the series was lensed, as they do not seem to match the real-life interior of the house.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, for finding this location!  Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Oliver’s Palm Springs house from “The Links” episode of The O.C. is located at 534 Arroyo Drive in South Pasadena.

Café-Club Fais Do-Do from “Crossroads”

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One location that I blogged about way back in March of 2009 and had been dying to re-stalk ever since – in order to snap some interior pictures – was Café-Club Fais Do-Do, the supposed New-Orleans-area karaoke bar that appeared in the 2002 movie Crossroads.  (For those who did not catch my original post on the place, in the Spring of 2001 I was an extra in Crossroads and spent a full three days filming at the Fais Do-Do – a magical experience that I will never forget.)  Because the club is typically only open at night for concerts and events, though, and because the Grim Cheaper has a major aversion to paying any sort of a cover charge, since the filming I had never been able to get back inside.   Until last Wednesday afternoon, that is, when I tagged along with fellow stalker Mike, from MovieShotsLA, on a scouting expedition.  A couple of months back, Mike actually joined the Location Managers Guild of America under the title of Apprentice and, when I heard that he was in the process of building his portfolio, I immediately (and a bit selfishly) suggested that he visit Café-Club Fais Do-Do – with me accompanying him, of course.  Don’t get me wrong – the place is incredibly unique and visually stimulating and I knew that he would not only shoot some incredible photographs of it, but that it would also be a highly useful locale to have in his scouting arsenal.  But mostly, I just really wanted to stalk it myself.  Winking smile

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The Art Deco building which currently houses Café-Club Fais Do-Do was originally constructed in 1930 and is actually comprised of two separate sections – The Club (pictured above) and The Ballroom.  In its original incarnation, The Club was a branch of the First Citizens Savings Bank and Trust, which explains the structure’s uniquely rich and ornate interior.  Sometime in the 1960s, the bank was converted into a jazz bar/underground club, but thankfully most of its architecturally and historically significant detailing was kept intact.  During its years as a jazz club, such musicians as Sam Cooke, Ray Charles, BB King, Pearl Bailey, John Coltrane, and Billy Preston were all said to have hung out there.

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The Ballroom (pictured above) was originally constructed as the single-screen Variety Movie Theatre and was where the filming of Crossroads took place.  I am unsure of when exactly the Variety ceased showing movies, but in 1990 the entire building was purchased by a new owner who, while still keeping the two distinct areas separate, decided to turn the venues into a nightclub and bar which collectively would be known as Café-Club Fais Do-Do – “Fais Do-Do” meaning “nighty-night” in French.  And while this post on the Lon’s Place blog states that The Club area was sold to a new owner in 2010, according the film liaison that we spoke with, the same person who bought the building back in 1990 still owns it to this day.

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While we were stalking the Fais Do-Do, I was extremely sad to discover that the huge two-story bar that used to be located in the center of The Ballroom and on which I had sat in Crossroads had since been removed.  To me, that bar, which had a dance floor on top of it, was the coolest, most unique aspect of the entire club and I cannot believe the owner did away with it!  So incredibly sad.

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In Crossroads, Café-Club Fais Do-Do’s Ballroom was used for the interior of Club Bayou, where Lucy Wagner (Britney Spears), Kit (Zoe Saldana) and Mimi (Taryn Manning) competed in a karaoke contest in order to win money to fix their car which had just broken down.

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That’s me in the blue pants standing next to Ben (Anson Mount) in the above screen capture.  Smile

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The Fais Do-Do dressing room, which you can see a photograph of here, was featured in the scene in which Kit, Mimi and Lucy get ready to go onstage.  Sadly, a film crew was using that area at the time that we were stalking the club so we were unable to take any pictures of it.

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The GC and I recently started watching fave show The O.C. again from the beginning and, let me tell you, I just about fell off my chair when I spotted Café-Club Fais Do-Do pop up in a Season 1 episode.  In “The Escape”, the Fais Do-Do’s Ballroom stood in for “Boom Boom”, the supposed-Tijuana-area club where Marissa Cooper (Mischa Barton) caught Luke Ward (Chris Carmack) cheating on her.

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And, while scanning through “The Escape” to make screen captures for this post, I was shocked to discover that the little bar where Marissa almost overdosed on pain pills later in the episode was none other than the Fais Do-Do’s Club!  The Club was remodeled in 2010 (as you can see in these photograph on the Lon’s Place blog) and looks a bit different now, but, amazingly enough, the actual bar where Marissa sat still looks exactly the same today as it did when the episode was filmed back in 2003!

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After reading my original post on the Fais Do-Do back in 2009, fellow stalker Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, figured out that The Ballroom also stood in for Delloser Hall, the reggae club where Josie Geller (Drew Barrymore) got stoned after inadvertently eating a pot-laced cake, in fave movie Never Been Kissed.

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In the extremely odd 2006 film The Gymnast, the Fais Do-Do’s Ballroom was used extensively as the place where Jane Hawkins (Dreya Weber) and Serena (Addie Yungmee) learned aerial fabric acrobatics.

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In the flick, you can clearly see the club’s former bar . . .

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. . . as well as the dance floor above it.

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Café-Club Fais Do-Do’s dressing room also appeared in The Gymnast.

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And in one scene, a business card featuring the club’s actual address, fax number, and website was even shown.  So incredibly cool!

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Fellow stalker Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, also let me know that the Fais Do-Do had appeared in the Season 2 episode of Arrested Development titled “Queen for a Day”.  In the episode, the exterior . . .

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. . . as well as The Ballroom stood in for The Queen Mary, the bar that Tobias Funke (David Cross) purchased.

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The Club was also used in that episode as the restaurant where Byron “Buster” Bluth (Tony Hale) took his new girlfriend, Starla (Mo Collins), out for a milkshake.

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And the dressing room stood in for the Hot Cop stripper club, from which Lindsay Bluth Funke (Portia de Rossi) hired strippers to scare her husband into selling The Queen Mary.

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Back in February of 2011, while doing research for my post on The Little Door restaurant, I discovered that Café-Club Fais Do-Do’s Club room was used in the Season 2 episode of Entourage titled “The Abyss”, in the scene in which the boys – Vincent Chase (Adrian Grenier), Eric Murphy (Kevin Connolly), Johnny ‘Drama’ Chase (Kevin Dillon), and Turtle (Jerry Ferrara) –  gather together to watch Saigon perform.

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I was shocked to discover (thanks to the Ron’s Place blog) that in 1994’s Reality Bites, The Club stood in for the bar where “Hey, That’s My Bike!”, Troy Dyer’s (Ethan Hawke’s) band, regularly played.  The room was heavily dressed for the filming, though, and is almost unrecognizable in the movie.

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The Fais Do-Do Club was also featured in the Jane’s Addiction video for “Underground”.

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As was the dressing room area.

Jane’s Addiction “Underground” Music Video–Filmed at Café-Club Fais Do-Do in Los Angeles

You can watch the “Underground” video by clicking above.

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The Club also appeared in the Destiny’s Child “No, No No, Part 1” music video.

Destiny’s Child–”No, No, No Part 1” Music Video Filmed at Café-Club Fais Do-Do in Los Angeles

You can watch the “No, No, No, Part 1” video by clicking above.

This Is 40, the yet-to-be released sequel to 2007’s Knocked Up, also did some filming in Café-Club Fais Do-Do’s Ballroom in 2011.  And while the Ron’s Place blog stated that The Big Lebowski and American Gangster were also filmed at the Fais Do-Do, I scanned through both movies while doing research for this post and did not spot the place anywhere.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Café-Club Fais Do-Do, from Crossroads, is located at 5253 and 5257 West Adams Boulevard in Los Angeles.  You can visit the club’s official website here.

Wattles Mansion from “Troop Beverly Hills”

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After re-watching Troop Beverly Hills a couple of weeks back and subsequently stalking the mansion where the Nefler family lived, I became just a wee bit obsessed with tracking down some of the other locales featured in the 1989 flick.  Thankfully IMDB had quite a few sites listed on its Troop Beverly Hills filming locations page, one of which was Wattles Mansion – a historic and oft-filmed at Hollywood estate that, amazingly enough, I had never before heard of.  So I immediately dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the place the following weekend.

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Wattles Mansion was originally built in 1907 by Myron Hunt and Elmer Grey, the legendary Los Angeles-area architects who were also responsible for designing the Ambassador Hotel, the Huntington Art Gallery, Pasadena’s Wentworth Hotel (now the Langham), Occidental College (aka California University from fave show Beverly Hills, 90210), the California Institute of Technology, and the Beverly Hills Hotel.  The large Mission Revival-style dwelling was commissioned by a wealthy Omaha, Nebraska native named Gurdon Wallace Wattles to be used as his family’s winter residence.  The estate, which sat on 49 acres and was called“Jualita”, featured 6,167 square feet of living space, seven bedrooms, seven bathrooms, a wood-paneled library with a hand-painted ceiling, black-and-white checkerboard marble flooring, a terracotta tile terrace, wood-beamed ceilings, and a full basement.  The home’s extensive 5-acre formal garden area consisted of a Japanese Garden, an Italian Rose garden, a Spanish garden, an American garden, a palm court, sparkling ponds, and several fruit orchards.  In an amazing show of generosity, Gurdon opened his beloved gardens to the public upon moving into his new home and it was not long before they became a wildly popular tourist attraction.

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After Gurdon passed away in 1932, his widow, Julia Vance, and their son, Gurdon Wallace Wattles Jr., continued to live at the mansion.  In 1968, they sold the property to the City of Los Angeles and the Department of Parks and Recreation subsequently took over.  Sadly, the city lacked the money necessary to maintain the large estate and it quickly fell into a serious state of disrepair.  Gurdon’s formerly glorious gardens were taken over by drug dealers, squatters, and vandals, and what they didn’t destroy, a series of mudslides in the 1980s did.  Thankfully, in 1983 the Hollywood Heritage preservation group leased the property and began a massive restoration project before moving in and using the historic mansion as their headquarters.  It was at that time that the abode, which is a City of Los Angeles Cultural Monument, became a popular filming location.  For reasons that are not entirely clear, Hollywood Heritage was served with an eviction notice in 2008 and finally vacated the property in May of 2009.  The mansion is currently being maintained by the Los Angeles Department of Parks and Recreation once again.  (I snapped the interior pictures through one of the estate’s front windows.)

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The piece of property, which you can see in the above aerial view, is now made up of three separate areas.

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The section denoted with a pink square above, which measures 4.2 acres, was turned into a community garden in 1975 and has been continuously maintained by local residents.  It is private and not open to the public.  The middle section, which is denoted with a blue square, is a park known as Wattles Garden Park.  It is open to the public daily from dusk until dawn.  The mansion and formal garden area, which is denoted with a purple square above, is not open to the public, but is available for use as a special event and wedding venue.

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And although the formal gardens are not accessible to the public, from what was visible from the park, that area once again appears to be in a sad state of disrepair.  According to sign a posted on the premises, a restoration is currently in progress, so hopefully they will not look that way for long.

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Wattles Mansion actually stood in for two different locations in Troop Beverly Hills. It first appeared as the Beverly Hills Rest Haven where Phyllis Nefler (aka Shelley Long) and her group of Wilderness Girls performed their community service requirement.

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While there, Phyllis and her daughter, Hannah (aka Jenny Lewis), taught a group of senior citizens how to do the “Freddy” dance, so I, of course, just had to do a little recreation of that scene while I was stalking the place.  Winking smile

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In a later scene, the northern-facing side of Wattles Mansion and the formal garden area were used as the location of the “khaki” fashion show that was hosted by Robin Leach and featured cameos by Pia Zadora and Dr. Joyce Brothers.

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Wattles Mansion was also used extensively as the demon-haunted home inherited by Jonathan Graves (aka Peter Liapis) in the 1985 horror-comedy Ghoulies.

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The real life interior of the mansion, including the kitchen area and the formal library, appeared in Ghoulies, as well. You can check out some great interior photographs of the place here.

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Randomly enough, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit’s Mariska Hargitay made her feature film debut in Ghoulies.  She is pictured in the grey sweater above.  The actress was just 21 at the time that the movie was filmed.

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Wattles Mansion also appeared in Diana Ross’ ultra-weird 1985 music video for her single “Eaten Alive”, which was co-written by none other than the King of Pop himself, Michael Jackson.

Eaten Alive Music Video–Filmed at Wattles Mansion

You can watch that video by clicking above.

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In the 1989 movie Rain Man, Wattles Mansion stood in for the institution where the psychiatric evaluation of Raymond Babbitt (aka Dustin Hoffman) took place.

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Wattles was where Jose (aka Jacob Vargas) first met Maria (aka Jennifer Lopez) in the 1995 flick My Family.

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And finally, the mansion popped up in the Season 3 episode of The O.C. titled “The Man of the Year” as the supposed Montecito-area boarding school attended by Marissa Cooper’s (aka Mischa Barton’s) sister, Kaitlin (aka Willa Holland).

Until next time, Happy Stalking – and Happy Voting!  Don’t forget to vote for me today to be the new face of About MeSmile

Stalk It: Wattles Mansion, from Troop Beverly Hills, is located at 1824 North Curson Avenue in Hollywood.  The interior of the mansion and formal garden areas are not accessible to the public, but Wattles Park is open daily from dawn until dusk.  You can visit the official Wattles Mansion website here.