In an email exchange with my friend/fellow stalker Owen in late January, I casually made mention of National Lampoon’s Vacation’s original ending, in which, after finding Walley World closed, Clark W. Griswold (Chevy Chase) heads to Roy Walley’s (Eddie Bracken) mansion, pulls a gun and forces the theme park mogul to entertain his family. The segment didn’t work with test audiences, so it was scrapped and the bit at Magic Mountain shot to replace it. Years later, that original ending was reworked into the segment involving the kidnapping of Clark’s boss for the movie’s 1989 sequel, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. Owen was unaware of all of this, though. As he replied, “I had no idea about an alternate Vacation ending. I’d love to see footage of Clark going to Roy Walley’s house. And if that footage exists and we can view it, we then need to find that house!“ Sadly, the footage has never seen the light of day, but Owen’s response took the words right out of my mouth! As I typed my initial email to him, I couldn’t help but wonder where the Walley mansion was located. Amazingly, through a series of fortunate events, Owen was able to ID it! Turns out, it’s a place I am very familiar with.
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The only imagery of the original ending I was able to dig up is below. Virtually nothing outside of the edge of a pool and a tall wall can be seen in it. In the hands of a lesser stalker that might have been a problem, but not Owen!
Amazingly, Owen managed to get his hands on the Vacation call sheets years ago. They were packed away in storage, though, and he wasn’t sure when he’d make it out to his unit to look through them. But, just a few days after our email exchange, there was a bit of a mix-up at the storage facility that had Owen driving out to check on his things not once, but twice! On his second visit, as he was taking inventory of the items inside, he remembered our Vacation query and dug out the call sheets. Sure enough, Roy Walley’s mansion was noted in the pages! As Owen discovered, filming took place at one of Pasadena’s most well-known and oft-filmed estates, Arden Villa! Though I had stalked the place before, only its front gate is visible from the street, so I never blogged about it. Armed with this scintillating new info, though, I decided it was definitely time for a post! So I ran right out there to re-stalk it just a few days later.
Arden Villa was originally built in 1913 for railroad tycoon William Kennon Jewett. Designed in the Italianate/Palladian style, the estate was the work of the Marston and Van Pelt architecture firm. Per the Knight Industries website, the home was initially rust brown in color, but was repainted to the canary yellow it is today in the mid-80s. The screen captures that appear later in this post attest to that.
Boasting 5 bedrooms, 9 bathrooms, a whopping 10,290 square feet, 7 fireplaces, a wine cellar, an elevator, a game room, a finished basement and attic, a huge pool, lily ponds, a tennis court, and a 2,340-square-foot guest house complete with its own pool, the massive manse originally sat on 9 acres, but all but 2.5 were sold off. Sadly, the only part of it visible from the street is the front gate and a portion of the 100-yard driveway just beyond it. You can check out some interior photos of the place here, though.
Arden Villa most recently hit the market in 2017 for $28 million, but did not sell until September 2019. Avengers director Anthony Russo was the lucky buyer, snapping it up for a cool $15,579,500.
Because so little can be seen in that one image of National Lampoon’s Vacation’s original ending, I wasn’t ready to sign off completely on Arden Villa being Roy Walley’s mansion, even with the call sheet documentation.
Especially since aerial views and MLS photos show that the wall running alongside the property’s pool looks nothing like the one visible behind Clark. As evidenced in the imagery below as well as in this pic, though there is a wall in the same general vicinity at Arden Villa, it is almost two-stories high, boasts a built-in outdoor fireplace, is largely covered with hedges, and has a columned edge, none of which jibe with what appeared in Vacation. So I was left thinking that filming either took place elsewhere or the wall had been knocked down and rebuilt (or at the very least remodeled) since the 1983 shoot.
Luckily, I got clarity thanks to a 1984 episode of Scarecrow and Mrs. King! In Season 1’s “Weekend,” Lee Stetson (Bruce Boxleitner) and Amanda King (Kate Jackson) work a case at Arden Villa, which is posing as The Cumberland hotel.
In a scene taking place by the pool, a wall is visible behind Lee and its rust coloring, white lip and vertical perforations all match what was seen in Vacation! Eureka!
I got further confirmation thanks to Knight Rider! On the iconic series, Arden Villa regularly portrayed F.L.A.G. headquarters, including in the Season 2 episode titled “Brother’s Keeper” (pictured below), which aired in 1983.
In a scene from the episode, the wall is briefly visible as April Curtis (Rebecca Holden) and Devon Miles (Edward Mulhare) walk near the pool, giving us an almost identical angle to that of the Vacation still. As you can see below, there’s no question the walls are one and the same!
Season 2’s “A Knight in Shining Armor” also provides a similarly-angled view of the wall and, again, it’s a direct match to what appeared in Vacation. Suffice it to say, Arden Villa did, in fact, mask as Roy Walley’s mansion and the pool wall was then remodeled after the fact! You can check out the script pages for the movie’s original ending here. It’s actually pretty funny. Though some internet sources claim the segment involves The Girl in the Ferrari (Christie Brinkley) turning up as Roy’s daughter and Clark eventually taking a plane hostage (both of which sound idiotic), that does not appear to be the case. While I love what ultimately made its way to the screen, the ending as originally shot would have been a pretty fitting closure to the Griswold family’s tumultuous trip. Here’s hoping the footage will be aired someday!
Arden Villa has appeared in countless productions over the years, far too many to chronicle here. But what follows are some of the highlights . . .
Way back in 1933, before the property had a pool, it was the site of an elegant tea party in the Marx Brothers comedy Duck Soup.
Det. Ken Hutchinson (David Soul) and Det. Dave Starsky (Paul Michael Glaser) investigate a murder there in the Season 4 episode of Starsky & Hutch titled “Photo Finish,” which aired in 1978.
Arden Villa plays the home of Avery Williams (Robert Goulet) in the Season 4 episode of Fantasy Island titled “The Proxy Billionaire/The Experiment,” which aired in 1981.
Des Spellacy (Robert De Niro) attends a wedding at the property in the 1981 drama True Confessions.
In what is perhaps its most famous cameo, Arden Villa is the site of the epic lily pond catfight between Alexis Carrington Colby (Joan Collins) and Krystle Carrington (Linda Evans) in the Season 3 episode of Dynasty titled “The Threat”, which aired in 1983. You can watch the scuffle here. The backside of the estate was actually used regularly throughout the series as the rear of the Carrington mansion. Front and aerial shots were lensed about 360 miles away at Filoli in Woodside, though.
Arden Villa serves as the home of Fred Fusco (Lorne Greene) in the Season 4 episode of Highway to Heaven titled “The Smile in the Third Row,” which aired in 1985.
It’s the residence of Zeke Bridges (Noble Willingham) in the 1992 comedy The Distinguished Gentleman.
Arden Villa pops up as the Bel Air home of Stuart “He Gives Good Woo” Carson (David Gail) in the Season 3 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 titled “Moving Targets,” which aired in 1993.
In 1996, Oasis filmed the music video for their song “Don’t Look Back in Anger” on the premises.
James Whale (Ian McKellen) and Clayton Boone (Brendan Fraser) attend a party there in the 1998 drama Gods and Monsters.
Portions of the pad appear as the interior of the Cleary mansion in the 2005 comedy Wedding Crashers.
Rose (Toni Collette) attends a wedding there in the 2005 drama In Her Shoes.
The villa is also the residence of Jason Normandy (Jonathan Banks) in the Season 2 episode of Shark titled “Partners in Crime,” which aired in 2008.
Though some articles state that Billy Madison did some filming at the estate, I don’t believe that to be true. From what I’ve read, the 1995 comedy was lensed in its entirety in Canada. And while I thought that a reshoot might possibly have taken place at Arden Villa, I scanned through the flick and did not see anything resembling the mansion. The same goes for Terms of Endearment, which is also said to have shot scenes on the premises – I’m pretty sure that information is incorrect.
Big THANK YOU to my friend/fellow stalker Owen for finding this location’s Vacation connection! 
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Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: Arden Villa, aka Roy Walley’s mansion from the original ending of National Lampoon’s Vacation, is located at 1145 Arden Road in Pasadena.
