The “Bad Santa” House

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A couple of weeks ago, my good friend/fellow stalker Lavonna suggested that I do a Christmas movie stalking theme during the entire month of December.  I absolutely LOVED the idea, but,  unfortunately, by that time it was too late for me to get enough locations together and actually stalk them prior to December 1st.  I usually start preparing for my Haunted Hollywood posts in August of each year as it takes quite a bit of time to research and compile enough themed locations to fill a whole month.  So, while next year one of my goals is to do both a Haunted Hollywood month and a Christmas month (fingers crossed that it will work out!), for this year I thought I would do a Christmas-themed week, instead.  I hope that you enjoy it!  So, while in the San Fernando Valley area two weekends ago, I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to stalk the house where “The Kid” aka Thurman Merman (aka Brett Kelly) lived in the absolutely HORRIBLE 2003 Christmas movie Bad Santa.  Now you might be wondering why I would stalk a location from a movie that I thoroughly hated, but the sad truth is that when it comes to flicks of the holiday variety, very few were filmed in L.A.  And being that fellow stalker Chas, of the It’sFilmedThere website, had already tracked the place down, it required no work on my part aside from driving out to stalk it.  Beggars can’t be choosers, as they say.  Winking smile

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As you can see above, the dwelling’s address number was changed from “7211” to “41” for the filming, but Chas was able to find the place thanks to a very helpful crew member.

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In Bad Santa, disgusting and disgruntled mall Santa Willie Stokes (aka Billie Bob Thornton) takes up residence with The Kid and Grandma (aka Cloris Leachman) because, as he tells them, “things are all f*cked up at the North Pole”.  Now I have to say that that particular line did make me LOL, as did Willie’s line to his neighbor, “Well, you see, we don’t celebrate Christmas around here.  We’re Muslims.”  LOL LOL LOL  Other than those two very brief moments, though, the movie is downright terrible!

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I am very happy to report that, despite a change in the color of the garage and front doors, the Bad Santa house looks much the same in person as it did onscreen.  In real life, the gargantuan abode, which was originally built in 1997, boasts 5 bedrooms, 5 baths and 4,100 square feet of living space.

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As luck would have it, the Bad Santa home was listed for sale late last year and you know what that means, my fellow stalkers!  Yessiree, we get to take a peek inside!  I so love it when that happens!  As you can see in the real estate listing, the actual interior of the home also appeared in the flick.

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As well as the real life backyard and pool.

In an extremely random side-note – I have to ask, why in the heck was Leonardo DiCaprio given special thanks in the movie’s end credits?

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Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Lavonna for giving me the idea of doing a Christmas theme and to fellow stalker Chas, of the It’sFilmedThere website, for finding this location.  You can check out Chas’ extensive Bad Santa filming locations page here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The Bad Santa house is located at 7211 Whitehall Lane in West Hills.

David Santiago’s House from “Post Grad”

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Unfortunately, this stalker is currently suffering from a bad cold (which, for some reason, always seems to happen to me right before the holidays) and thanks to the fact that I cannot breath out of my nose and have taken copious amounts of NyQuil, I am feeling just a wee bit out of it today.  So I have to apologize if this particular post is somewhat off, but, regrettably, my head is somewhere in the clouds right now, instead of sitting on top of my shoulders in front of the computer screen where it should be.  I will do my best to be coherent, though, so here goes.  Located directly across the street from the house where Ryden Malby (aka Alexis Bledel) lived in Post Grad, which I blogged about yesterday, is the residence that belonged to her mysterious neighbor – zany, Brazilian infomercial director David Santiago (aka Love Actually’s/Lost’s Rodrigo Santoro).  So I, of course, dropped by to stalk it while in the neighborhood last weekend.

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David’s one-story, stone-and-wood, ranch-style abode shows up numerous times throughout Post Grad. And oddly enough, while I actually think the exterior is quite similar in appearance to the Malby house, according to the Post Grad production notes David’s pad was supposed to represent a more “cosmopolitan” lifestyle, the very type of lifestyle that Ryden was seeking.  In the notes, production designer Mark Hutman states, “The house we found for the Malbys is a single story, ranch-style house, which is very common in the Valley.  It’s not new, but it’s not old either, it’s just somewhat non-descript.  For David’s environment, we went very stylish and masculine. His house is more modern, with dark leather couches and a minimalist color palette.  And he has a pool.”

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As luck would have it, the real life owners of David’s house walked outside just as we showed up to stalk the place and they literally could not have been nicer!  They spoke with us for quite a while and answered all of my silly little questions about the filming.  Just a few of the tidbits they shared with us were that the shoot lasted just over three weeks and that a lot of filming did take place inside of their actual home.

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As well as in their backyard and pool.

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They also informed us that the production team replaced their entire back and side fence for the filming.  And they mentioned that the experience was the most fun they had ever had in their entire lives.  Um, you’re telling me!  I think I would just about die if a movie set up shop in my apartment for over three weeks!

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In real life, David’s house, which was built in 1960, measures 3 bedrooms, 3 baths, and 2,767 square feet.  And I am very happy to report that it looks exactly the same in person as it did onscreen.

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I was actually struck by how much it resembles the party house from fave movie Clueless, a location that has been the bane of my existence for years now as I just cannot seem to find it anywhere!!!!  UGH!  But I digress!

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On a random side-note – while getting my hair blown out the other day, I was lucky enough to run into Summer Bishil, who plays Navid Shirazi’s (aka Michael Steger’s) sister Leila Shirazi on fave show 90210!  Summer could NOT have been nicer and readily agreed to pose for a pic with me even though she had no make-up on and her hair had yet to be done.  Love it!  And when I told her that Matt Lanter was the love of my life, she said, “I think he’s pretty much the love of everyone’s life!”  Love it even more!

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On another side-note – I would like to wish my wonderful father a VERY happy 65th birthday today!!  I love you so much, Dad!

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, for finding this location!  Smile You can check out Chas’ extensive Post Grad filming locations page here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: David Santiago’s house from Post Grad is located at 5901 Farralone Avenue in Woodland Hills.  Ryden’s house from Post Grad is located directly across the street at at 22200 Tiara Street, also in Woodland Hills.

Ryden’s House from “Post Grad”

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Another location that I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to stalk while in the San Fernando Valley area this past weekend was the ranch-style house where Ryden Malby (aka Alexis Bledel) and her extremely odd, but extremely loveable family – dad Walter (aka Michael Keaton), mom Carmella (aka Jane Lynch), brother Hunter (aka Bobby Coleman), and crazy Grandma Maureen (aka the always fabulous Carol Burnett) – lived in Post Grad.  I saw the 2009 romantic comedy back when it first came out on DVD early last year and absolutely fell in love with it.  So I, of course, immediately started attempting to track down all of its featured locations, especially the Malby residence, but I am sad to say that I was a complete and total failure at the endeavor.  In my defense, though, it was not entirely my fault as the movie did somewhat lead me astray.

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As you can see above, in one of Post Grad’s early scenes, Ryden is shown being dropped off by a taxi, on the door of which is written “North Hollywood Cab Co.”, so I made the incorrect assumption that the Malby residence was located in that area.  And while I really should have known better, being that movies “cheat” that sort of thing all the time, the home just looked like a North-Hollywood-type residence to me.  So I spent more than a few fruitless hours searching NoHo (as Angelinos are now referring to it) before calling off the hunt.  Enter fellow stalker Chas, of the It’sFilmedThere website, who is pretty much the biggest Gilmore Girls/Alexis Bledel/Lauren Graham fan on the planet and who a few months later had begun his own trek to find the home.  And find it, he did, thanks to a very helpful crew member.  Once Chas told me of the location, I immediately added it to my “To-Stalk” list, but because I rarely get out to Woodland Hills, it took me quite a long time to actually visit the place.

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In Post Grad, after losing out on her book-publishing dream job, recent college graduate Ryden Malby is forced to return home to live with her parents in their quirky-looking abode.

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I am very happy to report that the Post Grad house, which in real life measures 3 bedrooms, 3 baths, and 2,500 square feet, and was originally built in 1960, looks exactly the same in person as it did onscreen.

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I was especially excited to see that the wooden wishing well that was situated in the home’s front yard in the movie was actually there in real life, as well.  Love it!

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Sadly, the little white fence that flanked the property’s front steps was not there, though.

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I am fairly certain that the real life interior of the residence was also used in the filming, but I, unfortunately, could not find any photographs of the interior online with which to verify that hunch.

Big THANK YOU to Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, for finding this location.  You can check out Chas’ extensive Post Grad filming locations page here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Ryden’s house from Post Grad is located at 22200 Tiara Street in Woodland Hills.

Farralone – Frank Sinatra’s Former House

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While doing research on the Chaplin Court apartment complex, which I blogged about last Thursday, I came across some information about an oft-filmed-at Chatsworth-area estate formerly owned by Old Blue Eyes himself, Frank Sinatra, that, for some inexplicable reason, I had somehow not previously known about.  The mansion, which in most circles is known simply as Farralone, is a marvel of modern design that just came on the public market for the very first time in history a couple of weeks ago.  And, let me tell you, I took one look at the photographs featured on the real estate listing and became just a wee-bit obsessed with stalking the place.  So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out there last weekend to do just that.

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Farralone, or the “Great Glass Mansion” or the “Sinatra Compound” as it is also sometimes called, was commissioned by Chase-Manhattan-Bank-heiress Dora Hutchison in 1951 and was designed by Pereira & Luckman, the architecture firm who also gave us the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Transamerica Pyramid in San Francisco, the Theme Building (aka The Encounter Restaurant & Bar) at the Los Angeles International Airport, and, my personal favorite, the Disneyland Hotel.  Dora built the house to be used as a party pad and regularly hosted rousing soirees where she counted Ava Gardner, Lucille Ball, Judy Garland, and Vincent Minnelli as guests.  When Dora moved back to her native New York, she leased the property to none other than Frank Sinatra, who remained there for almost ten years.  Sadly though, as you can see above, not much of the property is visible from the street.

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But that’s why God created real estate listings!  The estate, which was just put on the market earlier this month for a cool $12 million, boasts sweeping views, parking for over 200 cars, 10,000 square feet of living space, 4 bedrooms, 6 baths, 3 private offices, a conference room, a detached gym, a 50-foot swimming pool, 14 acres of land, a vineyard, a production studio, 16-foot ceilings, glass walls, and a 1,000-square-foot, 1-bedroom, 2-bath guest house (with its own separate pool) where my girl Miss Marilyn Monroe supposedly lived in for a time.

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Farralone has seen so much filming over the years that, according to a December 2nd, 2011 Forbes article, it not only nets up to $2 million a year in location fees, but also “comes with a property manager who acts as a liaison with the studios, paid for by the studios.”  The article further states that the “main house also boasts a lower level production studio equipped with conference room, edit bays, private office and a separate entrance, all paid for and maintained by the studios.”  Ironically enough, when we showed up to stalk the property some filming was actually taking place.  The super-nice security guard on duty informed us the the shoot was for a reality dating show of some sort, but she was unsure of the name.

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In the Season 4 episode of Californication titled “Lawyers, Guns, and Money”, Farralone showed up as the residence belonging to Stu Beggs (aka Stephen Tobolowsky), where Marcy Ellen Runkle (aka Pamela Adlon) made a house call to give Stu a “full Kardashian” body wax.

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In the 2001 thriller Swordfish, Farralone was the house where Gabriel Shear (aka John Travolta) lived and where Halle Berry famously shed her top for the very first time onscreen – an act for which she was supposedly paid a whopping $500,000.  Thanks to some crafty CGI, the Sinatra compound was made to appear as if it was located in the heart of Downtown Los Angeles for the film, instead of Chatsworth.

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Farralone was also the home where Jack Wyatt (aka Will Ferrell) lived and threw his post-divorce party in the 2005 romantic comedy Bewitched.

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In 2006’s Dreamgirls, Farralone stood in for the residence belonging to pop star Deena Jones (aka Beyonce Knowles) and her music-producer husband, Curtis Taylor Jr. (aka Jamie Foxx).

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In the Season 2 episode of Mad Men titled “The Jet Set”, Farralone was used as the supposed-Palm-Springs-area home where Joy (aka Laura Ramsey) took Don Draper (aka Jon Hamm) while he was visiting California.

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In the 2002 flick The Salton Sea, Farralone was the home where Nancy Plummer (aka Shirley Knight) and Verne Plummer (aka R. Lee Ermey) lived.

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In 2001’s Tomcats, the Sinatra Compound was where Kyle Brenner (aka Jake Busey) lived.

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The real estate listing mentioned that Farralone had been featured in an episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and I really have to pat myself on the back for this one because as soon as I read those words I knew immediately that the episode in question was Season 9’s “Kill Me If You Can”.  I was not even watching CSI regularly back in 2008 when the “Kill Me If You Can” episode aired, but I had caught it on TV at some point and when I saw CSI mentioned in the listing, my mind immediately flashed to an image of Lawrence Fishburne standing by the Farralone pool while investigating the death of an art dealer.  Why these random, useless bits of location information remain stored in my head is beyond me, but they do.  Smile

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Thanks to commenter Becky on the Design Public blog, I learned that in the Season 1 episode of Six Feet Under titled “An Open Book”, Farralone stood in for the home belonging to the parents of Brenda Chenowith (aka Rachel Griffiths).

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And thanks to the HGTV website, I learned that Farralone was where the Design Star contestants lived during Season 4 of the reality series.

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Location manager Scott Trimble also let me know that Farralone was where Optimus Prime came out of the swimming pool in the first Transformers movie.

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Fellow stalker Jason informed me that the estate also showed up as the party location at the very beginning of 2005’s Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.

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Farralone also popped up in the 2004 music video for Usher’s hit song “Burn”.

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

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Several articles have also claimed that the home appeared in the 2001 biopic Ali, but I scanned through that movie yesterday and did not seen anything resembling it pop up onscreen, so I am fairly certain that information is incorrect.  I am thinking that the house might have instead been featured in the similarly-named television movie Ali: An American Hero, but because I have never seen it and was unable to find it anywhere online,  I cannot verify that hunch.  One rumor that I can put to rest is that the Farralone pool was not actually the site of Marilyn Monroe’s second-to-last photo shoot, as the real estate listing and several articles about the property have claimed.  Truth be told, that photo shoot was not really a photo shoot at all, but simply consisted of photographer Lawrence Schiller snapping some stills of the starlet while she filmed scenes for her very last movie, Something’s Gotta Give.  The shoot, which took place a few days before Marilyn’s death and featured her skinny-dipping while talking to co-star Dean Martin, was not actually shot on location, but on a set that was built inside of Stage 14 on the Fox Studios lot in Century City.

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As you can see above, the pool from Something’s Gotta Give does not match the real estate listing photographs of the Farralone pool.

You can watch a YouTube video of the Something’s Gotta Give pool scene being shot, during which it is stated that filming took place on Stage 14 of the Fox lot, by clicking above.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Farralone, the former Frank Sinatra estate, is located at 9361 Farralone Avenue in Chatsworth.  You can visit the home’s official real estate listing here and you can check out some fabulous interior pics of the property here.

Judge Crawford’s House from “Fracture”

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After tracking down the hilltop abode Willy Beachum (aka cutie Ryan Gosling) called home in fave movie Fracture, which I blogged about last Tuesday, I became just a wee bit obsessed with finding the large brick mansion where Judge Gardner (aka Bob Gunton) lived in the flick.  Even though the dwelling showed up only briefly in the movie, because it was pretty much the only location I had yet to track down, I was absolutely itching to find it.  The fabulously extensive Fracture production notes stated that some filming had taken place “at a private residence in Hancock Park” and I assumed that the private residence that was referred to had to be Judge Crawford’s.  So I started searching aerial views of the area and after about 45 minutes stumbled upon the right property.  YAY!  And while out and about running some errands in Santa Monica yesterday, I took a little detour through Hancock Park so that I could stalk the place.

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In Fracture, Willy’s love interest, Nikki Gardner (aka Rosamund Pike), invites him to her parent’s home on Thanksgiving to eat dinner with her family.

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Later on in the flick, Willie returns to the house to ask Nikki’s father, who is a judge, to sign a court order prohibiting Ted Crawford (aka Anthony Hopkins) from pulling the plug on his comatose wife, Jennifer Crawford (aka Embeth Davidtz).

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In real life, the Georgian-Revival-style mansion, which was originally built in 1914, boasts 6 bedrooms, 5 baths, 6,175 square feet of living space, and almost half an acre of land.  The house was designed by Meyer & Holler, the noted Los-Angeles-based architecture firm that was responsible for the Alex Theatre in Glendale, Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, Culver Studios in Culver City, and the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood.  Thanks to the fabulous The Houses of Hancock Park and JCB blogs, I discovered that the property is currently owned by famed Los Angeles interior designer Suzanne Rheinstein and her husband, Fred.  The Rheinsteins purchased the dwelling over thirty years ago and immediately began an extensive redesign of the interior, a lengthy process that was reported on by several home magazines.  The residence is nothing short of GORGEOUS in person and is, ironically enough, exactly the type of spot that my mom and I refer to as a “Thanksgiving House” – an idyllic and picturesque dwelling that makes one think of coming home for the holidays.  I mean, the place could not look any more like it came out of a Folgers Coffee Christmas commercial if it tried!  Winking smile

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The interior of the abode, which is BEAUTIFUL, was featured prominently in Suzanne’s 2010 book At Home: A Style for Today with Things from the Past.  (The pictures featured above remain the sole and private property of Suzanne Rheinstein and photographer Pieter Estersohn.)

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As you can see above, the photographs featured in Suzanne’s book match up to what appeared onscreen, which means that the real life interior of the home, along with some of the furniture, was also used in the filming.

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On a side-note that falls into the obscenely-cool category – yesterday I dropped by my very favorite store, Lula Mae in Old Town Pasadena, and just about died when Marci, the adorable owner who has come to be my good friend, informed me that she had just named me the shop’s very first “Customer of the Month”.  Um, LOVE IT!  For those who have never been there, LA Weekly recently awarded Lula “Best One-Stop Gift Shopping 2011” and in their write-up said, “You know that friend of yours who always upstages the $10 bottle of wine you pull out of your purse when she shows up at parties with the most adorable, clever little trinket wrapped perfectly in a colorful vintage bag?  Well that smug b*tch probably has been shopping at Lula Mae for years now.”  LOL Couldn’t have said it better myself!  The store is so insanely cute, colorful, and fun that I find myself dropping in at least five times a week.  It has become an addiction!  Lula Mae is the first place I head whenever I am depressed, have writer’s block, or just need a good giggle!  So to be named their Customer of the Month was just about the best honor I could have received!  Thank you, Marci, Julia, Alison, and Lula Mae!  <3

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Judge Crawford’s house from Fracture is located at 435 South Windsor Boulevard in the Windsor Square section of Hancock Park.  Lula Mae is located at 100 North Fair Oaks Avenue in Old Town Pasadena.

Mansion Adena – The “A Haunting in Salem” House

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As I mentioned back in October during my Haunted-Hollywood-themed-month, while doing research on the Strode house from Halloween I came across a post on fellow stalker Lisa’s Midnight in the Garden of Evil website about Dick Van Dyke’s annual Halloween extravaganza, which I later had the incredible good fortune to stalk. Lisa’s post also featured some information about a movie named “A Haunting in Salem” that Dick’s grandson Shane had recently directed. I was shocked to discover that the straight-to-DVD horror flick had been filmed almost in its entirety at an 1800s-era Pasadena mansion, that, for whatever reason, I had not been previously aware of. I immediately became intrigued with the gargantuan Queen Anne structure and even though Halloween had long since passed, I just had to drag the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk it.

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In real life, the 3,098-square-foot property is known as Mansion Adena and it is one of Pasadena’s oldest surviving homes. The abode was built sometime during the years 1885 to 1887 for a dentist named Dr. R.K. Janes and was designed by architect Eugene Getschell. At the time, Pasadena had yet to be incorporated, so the mansion has the unique distinction of being older than the city itself! The recently-restored home, which was declared a Pasadena Historical Landmark in 2006 and is currently available as a vacation rental, features four bedrooms, four baths, two parlors, six fireplaces, a quarter-acre gated lot, a cook’s kitchen, a formal rose garden, a spa, two sunrooms, three wrap-around porches, and a three-story mansard tower. In the book At Home: Pasadena, the property is described as one of the city’s “finest homes” and Elizabeth McMillian, a former Architectural Digest editor, called it “the finest example of Victorian architecture in Southern California.” Sadly though, as you can see above, not much of it can be seen from the street.

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In A Haunting in Salem, Mansion Adena stood in for the supposed Salem, Oregon-area haunted abode that new town sheriff Wayne Downs (aka Bill Oberst Jr.) and his family – wife Carrie (aka Courtney Abbiati), daughter Alli (aka Jenna Stone) and son Kyle (aka Nicholas Harsin) – moved into upon arriving to town.

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The real life interior of the home (as well as all of the actual furniture!), which you can see photographs of here, here and here, was also used in the flick.

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Thanks to fave website OnLocationVacations, I learned that Mansion Adena was also featured in an episode of Parks and Recreation. Since I do not watch the series, I enlisted the help of fellow stalker/Parks-and-Recreation-fan Owen, from the When Write is Wrong website, to discern which episode it had appeared in. As it turns out, Mansion Adena stood in for The Quiet Corn Bed and Breakfast in the Season 3 episode titled “Camping”, in the scene in which the Parks Department gang ditches out on a staff camping trip in order to spend the evening in more comfortable quarters. Both the interior and the exterior of the property were featured in the episode. And Owen even managed to dig up this Wikia article about the fictional Pawnee, Indiana-area inn.

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Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Lisa, of the Midnight in the Garden of Evil website, for finding this location and to fellow stalker Owen, of the When Write is Wrong website, for letting me know which episode of Parks and Recreation it appeared in.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Mansion Adena, aka the A Haunting in Salem house, aka The Quiet Corn Bed and Breakfast from the “Camping” episode of Parks and Recreation, is located at 341 Adena Street in Pasadena. You can visit the property’s rental 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.

The Skyline Residence – Jacob’s House from “Crazy, Stupid, Love.”

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Back in August, I received an email from a fellow stalker named Brandon who wanted to let me know that he had tracked down the ultra-modern abode where Jacob Palmer (aka Ryan Gosling) lived in Crazy, Stupid, Love.  At the time I had yet to see the movie, but added the address to my To-Stalk list anyway and am so glad that I did because, as I have mentioned more than a few times before in recent posts, I have since become just a wee bit obsessed with the flick . . . and its cutie leading man.  So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to the Hollywood Hills to stalk the place this past Saturday afternoon.

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Due to a slight snafu with my GPS, though, I was unable to get to the actual house and could only snap a few pictures of it from afar.  While I always research locations to make sure that they are accessible to the public before leaving to stalk them and while Jacob’s house was visible on Google Street View, for some reason, my navigational system just could not seem to get me there.

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It was not until I returned home that evening that I was able to figure out why.  As you can see in the above aerial view, Skyline Drive, where Jacob’s house is located, dead-ends at a certain point and then picks up again a short distance later.  My GPS, thinking Skyline Drive was a through-street, directed me to the wrong end of it, where the abode was nowhere to be found.

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So the next morning, paper map in hand, I dragged the GC back on out to the Hollywood Hills to re-stalk the property.  As you can see above, it was POURING rain at the time, which I was none too happy about.  You see, there is nothing in this world that this stalker hates more than rain, except for maybe Kyle Richards.  Winking smile But once I remembered that it was also raining in the scene in Crazy, Stupid, Love. that took place at Jacob’s house, me being there during a downpour seemed quite apropos.  The GC could not stop laughing at me posing for the above picture, though, as he said that I looked as if I was dressed for “the tundra”.  Hmph!  I happen to like my rain coat, thankyouverymuch!

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In real life, Jacob’s house is known as the Skyline Residence and it was built in 2007 by Hagy Belzberg, of Belzberg Architects, to be used as his private residence.  According to this fabulous Architectural Record blog post, several previous owners had tried to build a home on the narrow plot of land on which the Skyline Residence now stands, but had not had any luck in securing permits.  Belzberg said, “I decided that instead of trying to fight the topography I would work with it and create a very narrow building that sits lightly on the land with minimal to no grading.”  The architect’s design called for a 20- by 120-foot structure made out of concrete, glass, marble, and wood.

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As you can see above, the finished product is nothing short of magnificent!  As Pinky Lovejoy, from the Thinking Pink blog, would say, it is “amazeballs”!  Love it, love it, love it!  The property is pretty much my dream abode.

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From the view pictured above, which I got off of the home’s former real estate website, the dwelling is extremely reminiscent of the Stahl House, or Case Study House #22, which I blogged about way back in March of 2009.  The Skyline Residence, which according to fave website CurbedLA was sold to new owners for a cool $5.995 million on December 21, 2009, boasts 4 bedrooms, 5 baths, a 1-bedroom, 1-bath detached guest house, a 65-foot long infinity pool, a spa, floor-to-ceiling glass windows, a large, open kitchen and dining area, outdoor terraces, sweeping views, and a whopping 5,200 square feet of living space!

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My favorite aspect of the house, though, has to be the outdoor movie deck, which sits atop the garage and in which films are projected onto a wall of the detached guest house.  How amazing is that????  A girl I was friends with in high school had an actual full-sized movie theatre located inside of her home and at the time I thought it was just about the coolest thing ever, but I can honestly say that this pretty much blows that right out of the water!  I mean have you ever seen anything more incredible???  You can check out some more fabulous interior and exterior photographs of the Skyline Residence on The Contemporist website here.

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Jacob’s house only shows up briefly in Crazy, Stupid, Love. in one of the best scenes of the movie in which Jacob brings Hannah (aka Emma Stone) home and tries to seduce her by showing her his “big move”.  Of the property, the Crazy, Stupid, Love. production notes state, “Jacob’s home also reflected his current lifestyle.  To serve as his stunning, if stark, bachelor pad, the filmmakers chose the renowned Skyline Residence designed by internationally recognized architect Hagy Belzberg.  Located off the Sunset Strip in the Hollywood Hills, the glass-enclosed, ultra-modern home is considered a prime example of world-class contemporary architecture.  As no one was residing in the home at the time, it was easy for [production designer William] Arnold and his team to make the few necessary adjustments.  ‘We just removed what we didn’t need, and put in a few of our own signature furnishings, leaving it somewhat austere,’ he says.  ‘Jacob’s house is a comment on the character’s own emptiness, really.  He rattles around in there; it’s very impersonal, yet very tasteful.’”

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The main area of the property used in the film was the living room and it appears as if the home’s hanging Fireorb fireplace was removed for the shoot, which was a good call as I personally think the space looks much better without it.

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The kitchen area also made a very brief appearance during the montage scene towards the end of the movie.

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A photograph of that kitchen is pictured above.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Brandon for finding this location!  Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The Skyline Residence, aka Jacob’s house from Crazy, Stupid, Love., is located at 8520 Skyline Drive in the Hollywood Hills.  A great view of the property can be seen from Crest View Drive, just south of where it meets Skyline Drive.  As I mentioned previously, Skyline Drive dead-ends at a certain point and then picks up again a short distance later.  Because of that, my GPS took me to the wrong location when I inputted the address “8520 Skyline Drive”.  If you have the same problem, I would suggest inputting the intersection of Skyline Drive and Greenvalley Road into your navigational system and then following Skyline Drive west until it dead-ends.  Jacob’s residence is the last house on the east side of the street.

Jessica’s House from “Crazy, Stupid, Love.”

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Another Crazy, Stupid, Love. location that I stalked recently was the residence where the Riley family – babysitter Jessica (aka Analeigh Tipton) and her parents, Bernie (aka John Carroll Lynch) and Claire (aka Beth Littleford) – lived.  And I just have to say here that now that the flick has been released on DVD, I have watched it about 100 times!  OK, OK, I am exaggerating slightly, but I do have a serious problem!  If anyone out there knows of a support group for Crazy, Stupid, Love. addiction, please, please let me know!  But I digress.  Anyway, I was informed of this particular location thanks to a helpful Crazy, Stupid, Love. crewmember and, even though it appeared only briefly, because I thought Analeigh Tipton was absolutely phenomenal in the movie, I just had to go stalk it.  Truth be told, though, every actor in Crazy, Stupid, Love. was phenomenal!  In most movies there are certain roles in which an actor seems to be perfectly cast, but in the case of Crazy, Stupid, Love., everyone – right on down to the bit players – seemed tailor-made for their role.  If only there were Academy Awards for casting!

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In Crazy, Stupid, Love., the Riley house first appears in the scene in which Cal Weaver (aka Steve Carell) drops Jessica off after an evening of babysitting and she tells him that his wife is “bat-sh*t crazy” for wanting a divorce.

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The abode next shows up in the scene in which Cal’s 13-year-old son, Robbie (aka Jonah Bobo), delivers some second-hand flowers to Jessica’s front door, while she is making an, ahem, present for Cal.

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And lastly, the home was used in the scene in which Bernie finds out about Jessica’s present for Cal.  I do not want to say anything else about that particular scene as I do not want to spoil the movie for those who have yet to see it.

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In real life, the Riley home, which was built in 1947, is absolutely adorable and boasts a whopping 7 bedrooms, 4 baths, and 3,875 square feet of living space.

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And while I am fairly certain that the real life interior of the house was also used in the flick, I could not find any interior photographs online with which to verify my hunch.

Analeigh Tipton from “Crazy, Stupid, Love.” on “America’s Next Top Model”

On an Analeigh Tipton side-note – while researching this post, I discovered that the actress starred in the Eleventh Season of America’s Next Top Model, during which she placed Third.  You can watch a clip of her on the show by clicking above.  As you can see, she is much more mature, confident, and wise than the character she played in Crazy, Stupid, Love. Like I said, the woman is phenomenal!

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Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Jessica’s house from Crazy, Stupid, Love. is located at 2564 Boulder Road in Altadena.

The Weaver House from “Crazy, Stupid, Love.”

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Back in August, on the recommendation of my girl Miss Pinky Lovejoy, from the Thinking Pink blog, I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to see Crazy, Stupid, Love. and I can honestly say that it was one of the best movies I have seen all year.  In fact, I might even go so far as to say that it was one of the best movies I have seen ever!  And while I have long thought that Ryan Gosling is one of the most gifted actors of our generation, he entered a whole new level in Crazy, Stupid, Love. and blew all of his past performances right out of the water!  The guy is simply phenomenal!  And can you say “heartthrob”?!  I also absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE me some Emma Stone and she, too, was nothing short of fabulous.  If you have yet to see the movie, I cannot more highly recommend doing so!  Like now!  Stop reading this post, in fact, and go right out and rent it!  Seriously!  Anyway, because I loved the flick so much, I could absolutely NOT wait for it to come out on DVD  – which it finally did last week – so that I could start tracking down some of its locations.  And one of the first that I found, thanks to a very helpful crew member, was the residence where the Weaver family lived.  So I ran right out to stalk it – Grim Cheaper in tow, of course – just a few days later.

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In Crazy, Stupid, Love., recently-separated Emily Weaver (aka Julianne Moore) and her two children, Robbie (aka Jonah Bobo) and Molly (aka Joey King), live in the two-story Anywhere, U.S.A.-style house pictured above.

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The backyard was the area of the property that actually appeared most often in the flick, most notably during Cal Weaver’s (aka Steve Carell’s) late-night gardening sessions.  According to the Crazy, Stupid, Love. production notes, of the residence, production designer William Arnold said, “We were really lucky to find that house, which had this beautiful back sun porch. The owners graciously let us tear down their old glass doors and put in windows and doors that opened the house up to the backyard, lending itself to Cal’s late-night ‘visits’ to his garden. He could see almost all the way through the house, but was, tellingly, on the outside looking in.”

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The backyard also appeared in my very favorite scene from the movie, in which Cal’s surprise for Emily goes a bit haywire.  I will not say anymore than that, as I do not want to spoil the scene for those who have yet to see the movie – and if that is the case, then you really should not be reading this post!  You should be out renting Crazy, Stupid, Love. like I told you to before!  Winking smile

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The real life interior of the house was also used in the flick.  Amazingly, according to the production notes, almost all of Crazy, Stupid, Love. was filmed on location at actual sites.  Only two sets were constructed for use in the movie – Cal’s post-separation apartment and Plus, the bar where Jacob Palmer (aka Ryan Gosling) taught Cal the finer points of seducing women – which I found shocking!

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In real life, the 3-bedroom, 3-bath, 2,270-square-foot home, which was originally built in 1949 and sits on over half an acre of land, looks much the same in person as it did onscreen, except for the cement front walkway, which appears to have been swapped out for a stone one during the filming.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The Weaver residence from Crazy, Stupid, Love. is located at 2002 Minoru Drive in Altadena.