The “Relativity” House

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Back in 1996, the Bedford Falls Company, the production company behind fave show My So-Called Life, debuted a new dramedy named Relativity.  I was hooked on the series from the get-go.  Sadly, it suffered the same fate as My So-Called Life and was cancelled after a solitary season.  Unlike MSCL, though, which prospered in syndication, Relativity was not really ever heard from again.  So when I recently found some episodes online, I just about flipped my lid.  The Grim Cheaper happened to be out of town at the time and I proceeded to indulge in a rather long Relativity binge-watching session.  I also, of course, spent some time tracking down several of the show’s locations, including the architecturally unique home where the Lukens family – David (Cliff De Young), Eve (Mary Ellen Trainor), Jennifer (a very young Poppy Montgomery) and Isabel (Kimberly Williams-Paisley) – lived.

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First a little background on the show, being that I am guessing most of my fellow stalkers have never heard of it.  The storyline centered around the relationship of Isabel and Leo Roth (David Conrad), two twentysomethings from Los Angeles who meet randomly while on vacation in Italy.  It is love at first sight.  The only caveat is that Isabel has a longtime boyfriend, Everett (Randall Batinkoff), back home – a boyfriend whom she flew to Europe to get some distance from.  Upon returning to California, Isabel promptly breaks up with Everett, much to the dismay of her family.  The series then follows Isabel and Leo’s blossoming relationship and all of the tribulations that come along with it.  Of choosing Relativity as the title, producer Marshall Herskovitz is quoted in a 1996 Entertainment Weekly article as saying, ”Obviously, we’ve borrowed the notion of Freud’s that whenever two people go to bed, there are six people in the room, because their parents are also in the room.”

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I tracked down the location of the Lukens home thanks to the fact that a street sign reading “1200 N. Corsica Dr.” was visible in the background of a scene featured in the episode titled “First Impressions.”  From there, I just did a Google search for “1200 North Corsica Drive” and, though it took me longer than I’d like to admit, finally found the residence at 1269 Corsica Drive in Pacific Palisades.

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The exterior of the Lukens home was only shown a few times on Relativity and very briefly at that.  What was shown, though, was spectacular!  I am in love with the unique slatted roofline!

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In real life, the 1960 property features four bedrooms, four baths, 3,496 square feet of living space and 0.39 acres of land.  It last sold in September 2001 for $1,875,000.

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Virtually none of the exterior (which reminds me a bit of The Brady Bunch house) has been changed since Relativity was filmed on the premises 18 years ago.

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I am fairly certain that the interior of the Lukens home was just a set and not the interior of the actual house.

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On a Relativity side-note – a couple of years ago, while doing some stalking of an event that was attended by Lisa Edelstein (who played Leo’s sister, Rhonda), Miss Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog, and I discovered our mutual love of the series.  At the time, I had never met anyone else who had even heard of Relativity before, so the fact that she not only knew of it, but was just as in love with it as I was amazed me.  Sometimes I really feel like the two of us share a brain.  After discovering our mutual Relativity obsession, we had a fabulous fan girl moment with Lisa in which we both absolutely spazzed out.  Lisa was shocked when we brought up the show, which isn’t surprising because I am fairly certain that Pinky and I were the only two people who ever watched it.  Winking smile

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For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online.  And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

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Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The Lukens family’s home from Relativity is located at 1269 Corsica Drive in Pacific Palisades.

The “Jack and Jill” House

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This past Sunday afternoon, while doing some stalking in the Pacific Palisades area, I dragged the Grim Cheaper over to Amalfi Drive to stalk the main house used in the 2011 movie Jack and Jill.  And I should mention here that while I did not have very high hopes for Jack and Jill before watching it a couple of weeks ago, both the GC and I ended up really enjoying it.  Granted, it is by no means a classic, nor will it be winning any major awards any time soon, but it is sweet and funny and I found myself laughing out loud on more than one occasion.  I also absolutely fell in love with the uh-ma-zing Mediterranean-style mansion where advertising executive Jack Sadelstein (Adam Sandler) lived in the flick and became just a wee-bit obsessed with stalking it.  Thankfully, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, was able to track it down for me.

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While watching Jack and Jill, Mike had noticed an address number of “343” visible on the curb in the background of the scene in which gardener Felipe (Eugenio Derbez) drove Jack’s visiting twin sister, Jill Sadelstein (who was also played by Adam Sandler), home from a party.  Mike knew that the residence was located somewhere in Pacific Palisades thanks to an article on the Gambino Landscape Lighting blog and began searching aerial views of the area for Mediterranean mansions with a “343” in their number.  Amazingly, it was not long before he found the right one.  So I immediately added the address to my “To-Stalk” list and headed on over there on what turned out to be a very dreary and dismal afternoon, one which I did not dress at all appropriately for.  I am surprised my lips are not blue in the first picture on this post.  Winking smile

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The Jack and Jill house was just recently built in 2005 and boasts 8 bedrooms, 8 baths, 10,160 square feet of living space, and 0.64 acres of land.  As you can see on this Estately.com listing, a completely different residence once stood on the site, one that was built in 1948 and measured 3 bedrooms, 3 baths and 3,686 square feet, but it was sold in July 2002 (for a whopping $4 million, mind you) and subsequently torn down to make way for the Mediterranean manse pictured above.

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Aerial views of the home show that there used to be a residence located next door, as well.

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But that property has also since been leveled and its land now makes up the backyard of the Jack and Jill house;

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as you can see above.

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While we were stalking the house, a woman who lives in the area walked by and asked why we were taking pictures.  When I told her that the home was where Adam Sandler lived in Jack and Jill, she got very excited and said she could not wait to tell her nieces and nephews the next time they came to visit.  I SO love it when I inform random strangers about filming locations and they actually get excited, ‘cause, let me tell you, most of the time people (from L.A., at least) could care less.  I am definitely an anomaly in this city.  Winking smile

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In Jack and Jill, the Mediterranean-style mansion was where Jack lived with his family – wife Erin (Katie Holmes), daughter Sofia (Elodie Tougne) and son Gary (Rohan Chand).  The exterior of the residence was shown repeatedly throughout the movie.

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Al Pacino, who played a crazy version of himself in the flick, even filmed a scene outside of the home’s front gate, which I somehow did not get a picture of.  Fail!

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The property’s real life backyard and pool area also appeared in the flick.

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The interior of the Sadelstein house was just a set, though.  You can check out some photographs of the property’s real life interior here and, as you can see, it does not match up at all to what appeared onscreen.

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Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for finding this location.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The Jack and Jill house is located at 1343 Amalfi Drive in Pacific Palisades.

The Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine Temple

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Another location that I stalked while my good friend Nat was in town a few weeks ago was the Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine Temple – a ten-acre public oasis located on Sunset Boulevard in Pacific Palisades that was established by spiritual leader/Kriya Yoga guru Paramahansa Yogananda in 1950.  Because Nat is a dedicated yogi, I thought she would love visiting the site.  Little did I know how much the Grim Cheaper and I would enjoy it, too.  And while the Lake Shrine is not actually a filming location, because it is located on the site of a former movie studio, I thought my fellow stalkers might be interested in it, as well.

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I first learned about the Lake Shrine Temple from Laura Randall’s fabulous book Peaceful Places Los Angeles: 100 Tranquil Sites in the City of Angels, which I gifted to the GC for Christmas a few years back.  In the tome, Randall states, “Among my collection of peaceful places, this may be the most famous one in all of Los Angeles.”  How was it possible, then, that this stalker had never before heard of it?  As it turns out, the Lake Shrine is one of Southern California’s best kept secrets.

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The site where the Lake Shrine Temple now sits was originally part of an 18,460-acre plot of land that made up Inceville – Hollywood’s first modern movie studio, which was established by producer Thomas Ince in Santa Ynez Canyon in 1912.  For the next four years, hundreds upon hundreds of silent western-style films were shot on the lot.  Sadly, in January 1916, a few days after Thomas had opened a second studio in Culver City, a fire ravaged Inceville, destroying numerous sets.  That fire was the first of many and, by 1922, the lot was rendered virtually useless.  In 1927, after the land had changed hands several times, a real estate developer named Alphonzo Bell, Sr. began hydraulically grading a portion of the site in the hopes of building a new residential community there.  As fate would have it, Bell ran out of money mid-excavation and walked away from the project, leaving a large vacant basin that, thanks to the many underground springs in the area, ended up filling with water.  The basin was neglected until 1940 when H. Everett “Big Mac” McElroy, an assistant superintendent of construction at 20th Century Fox studios, and his wife stepped in and purchased the ten-acre parcel.  Because construction materials were in short supply due to World War II, the couple then had their Mississippi-style houseboat, Adeline, moved to the property and they resided on it for the next few years.  That houseboat still sits on the lake to this day (pictured above).

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Mac and his wife eventually built themselves a new residence – one that was modeled after a mill house and which featured a two-and-a-half ton, fifteen-foot working waterwheel that irrigated the land.  The mill house now serves as the Lake Shrine’s museum and gift shop.

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With their new home completed, the couple then began construction on a three-story replica of 16th-Century Dutch windmill (which has since been transformed into the Shrine’s chapel) . . .

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. . . as well as a neighboring boat dock and landing.  As you can see above, the grounds are so idyllic they look like they were created by Walt Disney!

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In the late 1940s, the McElroy’s sold their enchanting lakeside oasis to an oil magnate, who promptly moved into the windmill and set about making plans to build a hotel on the premises.  According to the Lake Shrine’s official website, fate stepped in when the magnate had several dreams about his property becoming a “Church of All Religions”.  Those dreams prompted him to sell his acreage to Paramahansa Yogananda, founder of the Self-Realization Fellowship, who further landscaped the area and turned it into an open-air shrine dedicated to all religions.  Today, thousands of people each year stop by the Lake Shrine in order to meditate, pray, or simply just sit and appreciate its vast beauty.  According to Seeing Stars, not only was Elvis Presley a frequent visitor to the site, but the memorial service for former Beatle George Harrison was also held on the premises.

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The Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine currently consists of the Golden Lotus Archway, which was designed by Paramahansa Yogananda;

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the Mahatma Gandhi World Peace Memorial – a “wall-less temple” which houses a portion of the Indian spiritual leader’s ashes (the only portion of his ashes to be interred outside of India, in fact);

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picturesque waterfalls;

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sprawling lawns;

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verses from various religious texts displayed on plaques;

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statues of Jesus Christ, Saint Francis of Assisi, Bhagavan Krishna, Buddha, and the Madonna and Child;

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a sunken garden and grotto;

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and various animals, including swans;

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and, my personal favorite, turtles!  Hard to believe that all of that tranquility is situated on a busy stretch of Sunset Boulevard!  The Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine is an absolutely AMAZING sanctuary that is a must-see for both visitors to the city and longtime Angelinos alike.  I honestly cannot more highly recommend stalking the place!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine Temple is located at 17190 Sunset Boulevard in Pacific Palisades.  You can visit the official Lake Shrine website here.  The site is open to the public Tuesday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and both parking and admission are free.

The “If U Seek Amy” House

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A few weeks ago, Miss Britney Spears debuted her new video for the third single off her Circus  album, the controversially titled “If U Seek Amy”.  So, of course, I just had to watch!  I was actually pretty excited about this video, as many critics were proclaiming that the old Britney was finally back.  I was hoping for something along the lines of the Britney videos of old featuring adorable outfits, cute hairdos, and choreographed pop dances that high school girls everywhere (and – who am I kidding – I) would be copying.   But, alas, that was not to be.  I guess I just have to face the cold, hard truth – the old Britney will never be back.  🙁  The “If U Seek Amy” video is downright terrible.  In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more lame music video in my life.  But, since I was in the area this weekend, I figured I may as well stalk the house where it was filmed.  🙂

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The “If U Seek Amy” house was incredibly easy to find thanks to this article which stated that the video was filmed in Pacific Palisades and several paparazzi photos taken the day of the filming which clearly showed an address number of 14966 (pictured above). 

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Interestingly enough, though, the final “6” of the house number doesn’t appear in the actual music video (pictured above).  It must have been removed in the editing room after filming was completed to ward off stalkers like me.  LOL  Nice try, Britney, but don’t you know the paparazzi document your every move?  🙂

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It appears that both the interior and the exterior of the colonial style home were used in the filming of Britney’s new video.  The interiors were used for the wild party scenes where a scantily clad Britney (wearing a pair of super cute pink high heels) dances with a group of friends.  The exterior of the home is featured at the end of the video, where BritBrit – this time dressed up like a 50’s housewife – walks out of her white-picket fenced house with her husband and two children to serve the paparazzi some apple pie. 

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It’s easy to see why producers chose to use the Pacific Palisades home, as it looks like the typical American dream house, complete with a white picket fence and gabled windows.  It’s just the type of place you’d expect to find Britney’s 50’s housewife character living. You can watch the (incredibly lame) “If You Seek Amy” video here

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On a side note I have one more thing to say about the “If U Seek Amy” video – Holy roots, Batman!   I think Britney really should have visited the salon to get her roots did before filming this thing!!  I mean, I don’t let mine get even half that bad, and unlike BritBrit, I don’t have a stylist on the payroll!!   Her roots were so distracting in the video that I pretty much couldn’t focus on anything else – which actually might have been a good thing!  LOL

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: The house from Britney’s “If U Seek Amy” video is located at 14966 La Cumbre Drive in Pacific Palisades.