The Cree Estate in Cathedral City

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While doing research on Las-Vegas-Dunes-Hotel-owner Charlie “Kewpie” Rich’s former Palm Springs home, which I blogged about last Tuesday, I came across some information about another Coachella Valley location where my girl Jen Aniston and former-husband Brad Pitt had once vacationed.  The property is known as the historic Cree Estate in Cathedral City and it is apparently a big-time celebrity hot-spot and wedding venue.  According to this FASCINATING January 2004 Palm Springs Life article, which chronicles the adventures of area location scout Sylvia Schmitt who manages rentals of the Cree Estate, Brad and Jen spent a Thanksgiving weekend at the secluded Spanish-style hacienda a few years back.  Upon their arrival in the desert, Sylvia met up with the famous couple to hand over the property’s keys and walk the grounds with them.  As you can imagine, I was literally drooling upon reading those words!  Never in my life have I so badly wanted to be a location scout!  Sigh!  Anyway, at some point during their stay, Sylvia received a late-night phone call from Brad who informed her that the home’s dishwasher had broken and was leaking water all over the floor.  Sylvia promptly hired a plumber to go out to the property to fix the leak.  Well, as fate would have it, after the plumber finished working, he ended up hanging out with Jen until about 2 a.m.!!!!  Drool, drool, drool!  How incredibly cool is Jen to hang out chatting with a random stranger until the wee hours of the morning!  I love her even more now after reading that story!  According to Sylvia, the plumber said the experience was “the highlight of his life”.  Um, you’re telling me!!!!!!  So while vacationing in Palm Springs two weekends ago, I, of course, just had to drag the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the estate.

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Real estate developer Raymond Cree built his private, 5000-square foot, all-adobe estate, along with two stand-alone guest houses, on a sprawling two-and-a-half-acre plot of land sometime during the 1930s.  The property boasts 6 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms, a whopping 78 palm trees, a regulation-sized tennis court, three separate kitchens, wood-beamed ceilings, white-washed brick walls, a wood-burning fireplace, classical statuaries (including a replica of Michelangelo’s David), two jacuzzis, a swim-up bar, a permanent dance floor, and sweeping views of the San Jacinto Mountains.  The estate also features two black-bottomed swimming pools, one of which is the largest privately owned pool in the entire Coachella Valley and was featured by Huell Howser in an episode of his television series Palm Springs.  Sadly, as you can above, though, even though the front gate was open when we showed up to stalk the place, not much of the ultra-secluded property is visible from the street.

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But, as I have said before, that is why God created aerial views!  As you can see above, the property is quite magnificent and absolutely enormous.   Other stars who have spent time at the Cree Estate include Christina Applegate and now ex-husband Johnathon Schaech, who got married on the premises on October 20th, 2001, with such celebs as David Faustino, Cameron Diaz, Jared Leto, and hairstylist Ken Paves in attendance.  Apparently, in 2003 the contestants and the crew from The Bachelorette stayed at the Cree Estate for over a month during the filming of the series’ first installment starring Trista Rehn, although for the life of me I do not remember that season taking place in the Palm Springs area.  CSI:Crime Scene Investigation’s William Petersen also once vacationed at the property.  Being that rates start at $1,500 per night with a three-night minimum, though, this is one Jen location that I seriously doubt I will ever have the opportunity to visit.  But . . . to any of my friends reading this who might be planning a wedding in the near future, I think you should seriously consider the estate as your venue.  I will even go scout it for you, if you want!  Winking smile You can see some fabulous close-up and interior photographs of the historic Cree Estate here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The Cree Estate is located at 67698 Carey Road in Cathedral City.  You can visit the home’s vacation rental website here and its wedding website here.

Frankie’s House from “Alpha Dog”

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One location that I have been on the lookout for for what seems like forever now is the home belonging to Frankie Ballenbacher’s (aka Justin Timberlake’s) father, Juergen Ballenbacher (aka Chris Kinkade), in the ultra-dark and depressing movie Alpha Dog.  As I have expressed a few times before on this blog, I was not at all a fan of the 2006 flick, which was based on the real-life kidnapping and murder of 15-year-old Nicholas Markowitz by Jesse James Hollywood and his group of drug-dealing cronies, as it was far too disturbing for my taste.  But I did absolutely fall in love with the mid-century-modern-style abode where the teenaged kidnap victim, who was named Zack Mazursky (aka Anton Yelchin) in the movie, spent the majority of his imprisonment.  I started looking for the Ballenbacher residence pretty much immediately after first watching the film and, even though I knew it was located somewhere in the Palm Springs area, try as I might, I just could not seem to find it.  Then on June 1st, fellow stalker/location manager Scott Trimble, of the STS Locations website, wrote a comment on my post about the Caliente Tropics Resort, the motel featured in Alpha Dog, stating that he had actually worked on the movie.  So I immediately wrote to him and enlisted his help in tracking the place down.  And even though he had only worked on the portion of the movie that was filmed in Los Angeles and was therefore unsure of where the Ballenbacher home was located, he was instrumental in finally helping me to find it.  Thank you, Scott!  Smile So a couple of weekends ago, while out visiting my parents in Palm Springs, I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the place.

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In real life, the Ballenbacher residence is known as the Koerner House and it boasts 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, 4,224 square feet of living space, and 1.1 acres of land.  The abode was originally designed in 1955 by legendary mid-century modernist architect E. Stewart Williams, the very same man who constructed the Kenaston Residence in Rancho Mirage – the dwelling where Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie posed for their now-infamous July 2005 W Magazine photo shoot.  As you can see above, the home is pretty darn incredible!

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In Alpha Dog, drug-dealing kingpin Johnny Truelove (aka Emile Hirsch) orders his friend Frankie to take Zack, whom Johnny is holding as a marker for a $1,200 debt Zack’s brother has incurred, to Frankie’s father’s house in Palm Springs to hide out for a few days.  The vast majority of the movie was filmed at the dwelling and both the exterior . . .

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. . . and the interior of the property were used in the flick.

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And while the house is pretty darn incredible, it was actually the backyard area, which appeared quite frequently in Alpha Dog, that I became so enamored of.  What an absolutely amazing piece of property!  As you can see above, because it is so strikingly beautiful, it was rather difficult for me to narrow down which screen captures of the backyard to post.

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While driving to stalk the Koerner House, the GC and I spotted several open house signs and, thinking that it might just be the Koerner House that was open and that I might just have the opportunity to go inside and see that amazing backyard in person, I almost had a full-blown heart attack!  Sadly though, it was in fact a neighboring residence that was hosting the open house, so I guess, for the time being at least, I will just have to settle for looking at aerial views of the property.

Big THANK YOU to Scott Trimble, from the STS Locations website, for finding this location for me!  Smile You can follow Scott on Twitter, and learn all about his many location scout adventures, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The Koerner House, aka Frankie Ballenbacher’s home from Alpha Dog, is located at 1275 South Calle De Maria in Palm Springs.

Cary Grant’s Former Palm Springs Estate

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Another Cary Grant location (and I promise that this is the last of them for a while for those who are hoping for a change of pace) that the Grim Cheaper and I stalked while vacationing in the Palm Springs area two weekends ago was the “Cary Grant Estate”, aka “Las Palomas”, the Andalusian-style, U-shaped farmhouse that the actor called his desert home for nearly two decades.  I came across information about the property, which is currently for sale for a cool $2,995,000, when doing some cyber-stalking while trying to track down the estate belonging to Charlie Rich, which I blogged about yesterday.  And even though Cary’s daughter, Jennifer, never mentioned Las Palomas in Good Stuff, her newly-penned memoir about her late father, because we were in the area and because I have recently found myself just slightly obsessed with the movie icon, I decided I just had to stalk the place.

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The Cary Grant Estate was originally built in 1927 and was commissioned by Dr. Jacob John Kocher, Palm Springs’ very first pharmacist.  When Cary laid eyes upon the property in 1954, along with his then-wife, actress Betsy Drake, it was love at first sight and he immediately set about purchasing the place.  He owned it for the next 18 years and, for a time at least, made the secluded sanctuary, with its large pool, sparkling fountains, trellised arbors, and towering palm trees, his primary residence.  Cary nicknamed the property “Las Palomas”, Spanish for “The Doves”.  Just a few of the luminaries who visited Cary during the nearly two-decades that he lived at the estate include Howard Hughes, Alfred Hitchcock, Grace Kelly, Sophia Loren, Frank Sinatra, Clark Gable, and Katharine Hepburn.  Grant, a longtime supporter of the U.S. armed forces, also made it a practice of hosting numerous events on the property for the Marine Corp soldiers stationed at the nearby Twentynine Palms military base.  Sometime after Grant sold the home in 1972, it was purchased by professional bodybuilder and three-time-Mr. Olympia-winner Frank Zane.  Upon Zane’s departure, the property fell into serious disrepair due to years of neglect.  And then, in 1998, it was rescued by Jane Cowles Smith, an author/doctor who purchased the dilapidated estate and immediately set about a painstakingly-detailed and historically-accurate 11-year renovation process , during which she restored the dwelling to its original grandeur.  She also had the property designated a Class 1 Historic Site by the City of Palm Springs.  Sadly though, as you can see above, not much of the 6-bedroom, 6-bathroom, 6,000-square-foot, ultra-private abode, which sits on 1.54 lush acres of land, can be seen from the street.

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Something that can be seen from the street, though, is the estate’s mailbox (pictured above).  When Grant first purchased the property, he commissioned his close friend, legendary Los-Angeles-area architect Wallace Neff, to build a second-story addition, consisting of two bedrooms and two baths, above the home’s garage.  It is said that at that same time Neff also designed a small-scale replica of Las Palomas to be used as the home’s mailbox.  I find it so incredibly cool that that mailbox is still there, almost six full decades later!  LOVE IT!

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Sadly, the aerial views of the property are not that great, but you can visit the home’s real estate listing and see some close-up photographs of the place here and you can read a more in-depth history of the estate here and here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The Cary Grant Estate, aka Las Palomas, is located at 928 North Avenida Palmas in Palm Springs.

Charlie Rich’s Former Palm Springs Estate

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Another location that Jennifer Grant spoke fondly of in Good Stuff, the memoir about her late father, actor Cary Grant, was the Palm Springs estate belonging to Cary’s good friend, Las Vegas Dunes Hotel owner Charlie “Kewpie” Rich.  Many weekends of Jennifer’s childhood were spent at “Uncle Charlie’s” lush, four-acre Coachella Valley oasis, which the Beverly Hills, 90210 actress described as “my adolescent wonderland” and a “desert Disneyland”.  In the book, Jennifer writes, “Our number-one weekend getaway was to Uncle Charlie’s Palm Springs estate. Uncle Charlie was a staple in our life. Kewpie was maybe five feet tall, bald as they come, with a year-round tan (sometimes orange out of the Coppertone bottle – which Dad heckled him for) and a heart that never stopped giving. Uncle Charlie lived in a Spanish adobe on several acres of manicured, palm-tree-lined property. I learned to drive a golf cart and play putt-putt on that lawn. We stayed in the pool house, near the good-for-guppy-hunting pond and gorgeous rose gardens.”  Well, as you can imagine, as soon as I read those words, I became absolutely obsessed with tracking the place down.  And while vacationing in the Desert two weekends ago, I spent quite a few hours doing just that.  I ran into a few snags along the way, though, as I was originally under the very incorrect assumption that Charlie “Kewpie” Rich, hotel owner, and Charlie Rich, country crooner, were one in the same.  As it turns out, they are most definitely not!

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Charlie Rich’s Palm Springs House–Villa Paradiso

It was not until I came across the YouTube video posted above that I realized my mistake.  Thankfully, said video lead me to a real estate listing for the estate formerly belonging to the correct Charlie Rich, complete with an address!  Yay!  So I immediately dragged the Grim Cheaper right on our to stalk the place – in 108-degree weather, no less!

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Charlie Rich’s former home, which Cary Grant dubbed “Villa Paradiso”, was originally built in 1928 and features 8 bedrooms, 14 bathrooms (not kidding!!!), 13,000 square feet of living space, a four-car garage, a climate-controlled fur-storage-closet (also not kidding!!!), a swimming pool, a pond, over one hundred palm trees, several eighty-year-old Cypress trees, sweeping mountain views, and 3 stand-alone guest houses, one of which was built by Uncle Charlie especially for Cary Grant.  Cary’s guest house boasts a formal living room, a fireplace, a large bar, a kitchen, two bathrooms, and one large bedroom.  A photograph of that guest house circa 1970 was featured in Good Stuff and I was absolutely FLOORED to discover a recent picture of the structure on the property’s real estate listing in which it still looks almost exactly the same as it did when Cary and Jennifer vacationed there.  SO INCREDIBLY COOL!  According to the real estate listing, Howard Hughes also spent quite a bit of time at the property.

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Sadly, not much of the ultra-private estate, which is currently for sale for a cool $8,950,000, is visible from the street.

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Thank god for aerial views!  As you can see above, the place is pretty darn magnificent and majorly dwarfs everything which surrounds it.  I cannot even imagine owning a home like that!  Sigh!  You can visit two of the property’s real estate listings and see some great close-up photographs of it here and here.

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On a stalking side note – fellow stalker/celebrity enthusiast Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog, her dog Sammy, the GC, and I were lucky enough to  run into a few stars while hanging out together this past Saturday night in Beverly Hills.

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While walking to our cars after grabbing dinner, Pinky happened to spot The Hangover star Ken Jeong, who could not have been nicer or funnier!  He practically did an entire, private stand-up comedy routine for us, right there on the sidewalk.  So incredibly cool!  And he gave Pinky a kiss on the cheek after posing for a pic with her!  How cute is that?

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We spotted Kevin Nealon a few minutes later and he was also a total sweetheart and even remembered meeting Pinky at the Sundance Film Festival a couple of years ago.

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And last, but definitely not least, we saw Ed Helms from The Office and The Hangover.  I had previously heard that Ed is not especially fan-friendly, but I am very happy to report that that information is not accurate as he was super sweet to Pinky and me and happily posed for a picture with both of us.  Mine sadly came out a little blurry, which I did not realize until after I got home.  Such a bummer, but I am stoked nonetheless to have gotten a picture at all.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Charlie Rich’s former home is located at 457 West Hermosa Place in Palm Springs.

Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston’s Honeymoon Suite at the Ingleside Inn

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As I mentioned in Monday’s post, I spent my recent birthday weekend in Room 148 of the Ingleside Inn in Palm Springs – the very room where Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston stayed during their mini-honeymoon shortly following their July 29th, 2000 wedding.  I first found out about the Ingleside Inn back in April of 2009 thanks to this Jetsetters Magazine article and, as you can imagine, just about died upon hearing that my girl Jen had honeymooned there.   Then, shortly thereafter, the Grim Cheaper ended up proposing to me at the Ingleside, so the hotel has always had a very special place in my heart.  During that proposal weekend, I, of course, just had to ask Melvyn Haber, the Ingleside’s longtime owner, what room it was that Brad and Jen had stayed in.  Before I could even get the question fully out of my mouth, he replied, “Room 148, the Princess Room.”  And that right there is just one of the many reason that I fell in love with the hotel!  Almost a full decade later, Melvyn STILL knew the exact room where Brad and Jen had stayed right off the top of his head!

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Flash forward to a couple of weeks ago.  My dad called me up to let me know that he had booked Brad and Jen’s honeymoon suite as a surprise for my upcoming birthday.  (He had to tell me about his plans a few weeks early as the GC and I had been thinking about spending my birthday at Disneyland and were thisclose to booking a hotel room there.)  I happened to be driving at the time and got so excited upon hearing his news that I literally almost crashed the car!  For those who have never visited the Palm Springs area, it gets EXTREMELY hot there during the summer months – we are talking like 115 to 120 degrees hot – so hotels drastically drop their rates from early June through the end of August.  Because of this, and the fact that the Ingleside inn is not overly-expensive to begin with, my dad was able to get Brad and Jen’s room for only $200 per night!  My birthday just so happened to fall on my mom’s very last day of work ever (she retired this year), so he also booked a suite at the hotel for them, and talked the GC into booking a second night in Brad and Jen’s room so that we could all spend the weekend together.  Now mind you, my dad was extremely sick during this time and was in and out of the hospital, so how he managed to come up with such an incredible idea AND do all of the planning without me or my mom’s help – not to mention that he also purchased some FABULOUS gifts for the two of us – is absolutely BEYOND me!!  It was one of the best, most exciting weekends of my entire life and I cannot believe he pulled it all off while feeling so incredibly sick!  Best.  Present.  Ever.

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When we first arrived at the Ingleside Inn and were checking in at the front desk, I saw the above-pictured “Happy Birthday Lindsay” message displayed on the marquee in the front lobby and just about fell over.  So incredibly cool!!  The lobby sign is very typical of the personal touches that the Ingleside Inn employs in order to make guests feel at home.  Love it!

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After checking in, we were handed the above-pictured room key.  As you can see, the Ingleside Inn still uses actual brass room keys, not the keycards that are typically found in hotels today.  So, as you can imagine, as soon as those keys were handed over, I turned to the GC and said, “OH MY GOD!  Jennifer Aniston once held this key in her hand!”  Granted, the key quite possibly could have been swapped out for a new one in the decade that has passed since Jen stayed at the Ingleside, but just let me have my fantasy!  Winking smile

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I covered the Ingleside Inn’s vast history in the post I wrote about the hotel back in May of 2009, so I won’t go over it again here. But needless to say, the tiny, 30-room inn, which sits on just over 2.5 acres of land, has had quite a celebrated history since it was first founded in 1939. Thanks to its extreme privacy and award-winning service, celebrities have long been drawn to the place like moths to a flame. Just a few of the luminaries who have stayed there over the years include Frank Sinatra, Kate Hudson, Goldie Hawn, Kurt Russell, Greta Garbo, Elizabeth Taylor, Debbie Reynolds, Lance Bass, Donald Trump, Marla Maples, Ava Gardner, Clark Gable, Marlon Brando, Gary Cooper, John Wayne, Bob Hope, John Travolta, David Boreanaz, Joan Collins, Cher, Howard Hughes, and Rita Hayworth.  The Ingleside is by no means fancy or extravagant, though. It is a very simple, low-key retreat where people go to truly get away from it all. The Inn is not a party hotel, it is not a place for families, and it is not modern in any way, shape, or form. It is an extremely quiet, private, and relaxing sanctuary; the type of place where an A-List star can lay out by the pool and not worry about being approached by a fan or fellow guest.

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Brad and Jen’s honeymoon suite features a wood-burning fireplace, a sitting area, a king-sized bed, two picture windows, and a plasma TV, and while it is extremely nice, it is not overly-luxurious or the type of place one would expect one of the most famous couples in the world to have spent their honeymoon.  And that right there is why I LOVE Jen so much!  Of course she would choose a simple, laid-back, low-key space to spend her first few days of married life.  And while Brad and Jen’s room is a suite, it is by no means the Ingleside’s largest.  There are two others that are far bigger than the Princess Room, which led me to wonder how the couple ending up choosing it for their honeymoon.

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Besides the fact that Jen has always been a fan of small spaces (the bungalow she rented in Malibu post-divorce measured a scant 1,531 square feet, the home on Blue Jay Way where she lived during the height of her Friends’ success measured only 2,903 square feet, and she is currently selling her 9,105-square-foot Beverly Hills manse as it is reportedly too large for her), as it turns out, the Princess Room is by far the hotel’s most private and secluded suite.  It is located towards the very back of the property, far away from the pool and the award-winning Melvyn’s restaurant, but close to the back parking area, which means that Brad and Jen could have parked their car and been inside of their room less than ten steps later.  As you can see above, there is also a gate surrounding that particular wing of the hotel, which consists of three rooms, and the actual suite itself is bordered by a large stucco wall.

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The Princess Room is one of the few at the hotel that also boasts a completely private patio area, which I absolutely fell in love with while there.

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As you can imagine, pretty much all weekend I was saying things like “I just took a shower where Jennifer Aniston once showered!” or “Jennifer Aniston sat on this couch!” or, my personal favorite, “Jennifer Aniston slept here!”  My head was literally about to explode the entire time I was there!  And poor, poor fellow stalker Owen!  I must have sent him about 100 text messages, all saying things like, “I just washed my face where Jennifer Aniston once washed her face!”   Smile

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My parents stayed in Room 145, aka “Margaret’s Room”, which according to one of the super-nice front desk clerks that we spoke with while there, was one of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver’s favorite suites.  The former Governator and his soon-to-be ex-wife stayed at the hotel on an almost monthly basis at one point in time.

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My parents’ room boasted a HUMONGOUS semi-private patio (semi-private as it has an opening on the backside that is accessible to the public) that was honestly bigger than most backyards!

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All in all, it was an A-MA-ZING weekend and, as you can see above, I was BEYOND sad to check out of what the GC and I had dubbed “our perfect little room”.

Ingleside Inn–Brad and Jen’s honeymoon hotel

You can watch a video about the Ingleside Inn, in which owner Melvyn Haber is interviewed, by clicking above.

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And you can watch another video, which shows the Inn’s beautiful grounds, by clicking above.

On a stalking side-note – This Sunday (June 19th), stalking gods Harry Medved and Karie Bible will be signing copies of their new book Location Filming in Los Angeles at Vroman’s Bookstore, which is located at 695 East Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena.  They will also be conducting a walking tour of some famous Pasadena movie sites, including locations from Knocked Up, The Prestige, Live Free and Die Hard, and Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator immediately following the signing at 4 p.m.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The Ingleside Inn is located at 200 West Ramon Road in Palm Springs.  Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston spent their honeymoon in the hotel’s Princess Room, aka Room 148.  Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver frequently stayed in Margaret’s Room, aka Room 145.  You can visit the Ingleside Inn’s official website here.

La Quinta Resort & Club

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Brace yourselves, my fellow stalkers, ‘cause today’s post is going to be a long one!  As I mentioned yesterday, the Grim Cheaper and I spent this past weekend in Palm Springs and we came to do so thanks to an extremely serendipitous course of events.  Last Wednesday night, I was curled up on my couch reading the December issue of fave publication Los Angeles Magazine when I came across an advertisement for La Quinta Resort & Club which stated that Frank Capra had written the screenplay for It’s A Wonderful Life while staying at the legendary hotel.  In honor of the iconic movie, the resort was featuring an It’s a Wonderful Life-themed Christmas celebration each night throughout the month of December.  I, of course, just about had a heart attack upon reading those words and immediately informed the GC that we would be making a trip out to the desert in the coming weeks.  Well, not five minutes later, my mom called to inform me that she and my father were heading to Palm Springs for the weekend and that she had booked a room at . . . you guessed it – La Quinta Resort!  Talk about the stars aligning!  She asked if the GC and I would like to join them for the weekend and I started packing my bags pretty much right then and there.  Smile

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The resort, which was originally named Hotel La Quinta meaning “country retreat”, was first opened in 1926 by Walter H. Morgan, heir to the Morgan Oyster Company fortune.  Morgan had moved from his native San Francisco to the Palm Springs area in 1921 after purchasing 1,400 acres of land in what was then known as “Happy Hollow”.  He decided to use that land to build an intimate and exclusive hotel where his rich and famous friends could be pampered while escaping the hustle and bustle of the city.  He enlisted Pasadena-area architect Gordon Kaufman, who is most famous for constructing the Santa Anita Racetrack in Arcadia and the L.A. Times Building in Downtown Los Angeles, to design the hotel, which was to be modeled after a Spanish hacienda.  The retreat, which consisted of 20 individual casitas, a restaurant, a lobby, and a nine-hole golf course (the Coachella Valley’s first golf course, in fact!) was constructed at a cost of a whopping $150,000.  The resort officially opened to the public in January of 1927 – although Morgan had hosted a select group of his friends there in December of the previous year – and became enormously popular over the next decade and a half, mostly due to word of mouth among Los Angeles’ elite, and counted such stars as Greta Garbo, Clark Gable, Ginger Rogers, Bette Davis, Robert Montgomery, and Erroll Flynn as its guests.  World War II sadly took its toll on the hotel, though, thanks to gas rationing which prevented people from traveling long distances.  In 1942, the property closed its doors at which point the US Army took over and the Army Tank and Army Air Corps Division made use of the premises.  After the war ended, the resort was sold and once again became a popular getaway for the rich and famous, as it remains to this day.  A private airstrip even had to built on the property to accommodate those guests traveling by air.  In 1982, the City of La Quinta was incorporated, becoming one of only two cities on the West Coast to be named in honor of a hotel.  The other?  Beverly Hills, which became incorporated in 1914 and was named after the Pink Palace, aka the Beverly Hills Hotel.

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Today, La Quinta Resort & Club, which is a part of the Waldorf-Astoria Collection of hotels, is an absolutely BEAUTIFUL retreat consisting of 796 different rooms and suites, most of which are individual single-story dwellings or “casitas” situated around sprawling courtyards and pools.  And even though the resort is staggeringly HUGE – besides having 796 rooms, it also currently boasts 23 tennis courts, 4 restaurants, a 23,000-square foot spa, 41 pools, 53 Jacuzzis, and 5 golf courses – somehow the property has managed to maintain an intimate, small hotel-feel.  Because the rooms are spread across a vast 45 acres of land, the grounds are extremely quiet and private.  So private, in fact, that it almost felt as if my parents, the GC, and I were the only people on the property the entire weekend.  So love it!

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Upon check-in, we were given a booklet which not only detailed the hotel’s legendary history, but also listed many of the luminaries who have stayed there over the years.  It was at that moment that I knew that La Quinta was my kind of place!  Smile  Just a few of the stars who have vacationed there at one time or another include Drew Barrymore, Danny DeVito, Jim Belushi, Annette Bening, Sean Connery, Clint Eastwood, Kevin Costner, Simon Cowell, Casey Kasem, Diane Keaton, Ben Kingsley, Ginger Rogers (who got married on the property in 1953), Harvey Keitel, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Ray Charles, Harry Connick Jr., Neil Diamond, Cyndi Lauper, Justin Timberlake, Al Pacino, Matthew Perry, Tom Hanks, Katherine Hepburn, Adam Sandler, Katie Holmes, Gregory Hines, Shirley Temple, Mark Wahlberg, and Bruce Willis.  I could literally go on and on and on!  Several presidents have also checked into the hotel over the years, including George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Gerald Ford, Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, and Calvin Coolidge.  And numerous sports stars have also stayed there, including Andre Agassi, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Roger Clemens, Roger Federer, Wayne Gretzky, Ken Griffey Jr., Magic Johnson, Joe Montana, Bruce Jenner, Michael Jordan, Jack Nicklaus, and Arnold Palmer.  I was most excited to find out, though, that the King of Pop himself, Michael Jackson, had once visited the hotel!

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Well, let me tell you, once I heard that MJ had vacationed there, I became ABSOLUTELY OBSESSED with finding out exactly which room he had stayed in.  So, I immediately sought out the resort’s concierge and ended up speaking with a woman who literally could NOT have been nicer.  Truth be told, though, EVERYONE at the hotel was INCREDIBLY nice!  Anyway, the concierge told me that she was fairly certain the hotel had a detailed list of what particular rooms various celebrities had stayed in over the years and that she would try to track it down for me.  And track it down she did!  And even though Michael Jackson was not named on the list, due to the fact that it hadn’t been updated in quite a few years, the concierge did some research and managed to find out exactly where he had stayed during his visit – Room 735, otherwise known as Hacienda Grande.  YAY!

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So, I, of course, immediately dragged my parents right on over to stalk it.  According to the concierge, Hacienda Grande is the resort’s largest room and boasts its own living room with a fireplace, an entertainment center, a dining room, kitchen area, a separate master bedroom, a private pool, a  private Jacuzzi, a carport, and a private walled patio.  Oh, how I wish we could have seen the inside of it! 

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The concierge also told us that Britney Spears had stayed in Room 225 – El Presidente – while at the resort.  El Presidente is the resort’s presidential suite and it consists of a one-bedroom casita AND a one-bedroom guest house, along with a parlor room, a dining room, a kitchen area, two bathrooms, a fireplace, and a private patio, pool, and spa.  Actors Jerry Lewis and Cliff Robertson have also stayed in Room 225 in the past.

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The concierge also told me that in each room where a celebrity has stayed, the hotel has put a replica of that celebrity’s star from the Hollywood Walk of Fame on display.  How incredibly cool is that?  (And yes, you can call up and ask to stay in the “Drew Barrymore” or “Mark Wahlberg” room, for example.)  My mom happened to book Casita Number 936 for our stay and I just about died upon opening the front door and seeing the above-pictured star on the wall.  As it turns out, Robert Wagner had once stayed in our room!  SO INCREDIBLY COOL!  Especially since my grandma had gifted me with his autobiography Pieces of my Heart: A Life last Christmas and I absolutely LOVED it.

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Casita 936 was absolutely gorgeous and consisted of a king bed and a queen-sized sleeper sofa, a fireplace, a HUGE bathroom . . .

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. . . and an absolutely ENOURMOUS private walled patio which boasted gorgeous pool and mountain views.  I seriously did not want to leave!

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As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, Frank Capra wrote It’s A Wonderful Life while staying at the resort.  The legendary director/screenwriter first came to La Quinta in the late 1920s while writing the screenplay for It Happened One Night.  After the movie won a staggering five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Screenplay, Capra became superstitious, calling the hotel his “Shangri-La for script-writing”, and returned there to pen many of his subsequent screenplays, including Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Lost Horizon, You Can’t Take It With You, and, of course, It’s A Wonderful Life.  Frank, and his wife Lucille, always stayed in the same room while vacationing at the resort – Suite 136 in the San Anselmo Casita – and their room is now marked with both a memorial placard and a memorial bench.  According to one of the staff members that I spoke with, the very typewriter that Frank used to write those famous scripts is still on display inside of the room!  So incredibly cool!  The staff member even offered to take me on a tour of Frank’s former casita and to show me the typewriter, but when he radioed to get a set of keys brought to him, was told it was occupied.  Such a bummer!

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As you can see in the above picture, the theme of the resort’s month-long winter celebration is apparent as soon as one sets foot on the property! 

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As you turn into the resort’s long, palm tree-lined driveway, you are immediately greeted with a large saying “You are now in Bedford Falls”, which looks EXACTLY like the sign that was featured in the movie It’s A Wonderful Life.  So incredibly cool!

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The resort’s Plaza area is awash with Christmas decorations . . .

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. . . which, thanks to thousands of Tivoli lights, only gets more spectacular at night!

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The pathway leading to the Plaza is decorated with hundreds of candle-lit luminarias, as you can see in the above photograph.

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And there is also a HUGE, 43-foot white fir tree flanking the front of the property.

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Best of all, though, is the fact that the hotel projects It’s A Wonderful Life onto the wall of the Plaza’s Salon de Fiesta each evening!

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Oh, and the front of the resort is also rigged to “snow” each night, which you can kind of see in the above photograph.  SO INCREDIBLY COOL!

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Legend has it that Irving Berlin also penned the song “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas” while staying at the historic hotel and, as fate would have it, we happened to walk to into the lobby on Saturday night while some carolers were singing that very song.  I cannot tell you how cool it was to be sitting in front of the resort’s roaring fireplace, hearing Berlin’s famous words being sung while looking out at the very landscape that inspired them!

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I am fairly certain this goes without saying, but I honestly cannot recommend stalking La Quinta Resort & Club enough!  It is a truly magical, truly unique place and I loved every minute of being there!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: La Quinta Resort & Club is located at 49-499 Eisenhower Drive in La Quinta.  You can visit the hotel’s official website here.  Frank Capra stayed in Room 136 in the San Anselmo Casita, Robert Wagner stayed in Room 936, Britney Spears stayed in Room 225 – El Presidente – and Michael Jackson stayed in Room 735 – Hacienda Grande.

The Kaufmann House – One of the World’s Most Famous Houses

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I thought I’d take another break from my wedding blogging today to write about a location that has occupied a spot at the very top of my “To-Stalk” list for over two years now, but had, for whatever reason, eluded me up until this past weekend when the Grim Cheaper and I headed to Palm Springs for a little pre-Christmas getaway.  While we were there, I made it a point to finally, finally stalk what is known as one of the most iconic and, perhaps, most famous houses in the entire world; a residence that is as well-known, if not more so, than the White House, the Playboy Mansion, Neverland Ranch, and Fallingwater all put together, architecturally speaking at least  – Richard Neutra’s legendary Kaufmann house.

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The Kaufmann house was originally built in 1946 by world-renowned mid-century modernist architect Richard Neutra.  Amazingly enough, the residence was commissioned by Edgar J. Kaufmann Sr., the very same man who also commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright to construct another of the world’s most famous houses – the property known as Fallingwater in Mill Run, Pennsylvania.  It is amazing to me that two of the most iconic dwellings in the entire world were constructed for the same man, especially since they were designed by different architects.  I can’t even imagine owning one of the residences, let alone both of them!  But I digress.  Anyway, Neutra designed the International-style Kaufmann House, or Kaufmann Desert House as it is also known, out of steel, aluminum, glass, and stone at a cost of $295,000.  Famed photographer Julius Schulman’s 1947 images of the home turned the place into an architectural landmark virtually overnight, but, sadly, after Kaufmann’s death in 1955, the property sat vacant for several years.  In the time period that followed, the pinwheel-shaped dwelling went through a succession of different owners – singer Barry Manilow even occupied the place for a few years – and a slew of unsightly renovations.  In 1993, the Kaufmann House was purchased for a cool $1.5 million by an architectural historian named Beth Harris and her husband, an investment manager named Brent.  The two quickly set about a massive painstaking and costly restoration of the entire property, bringing it back to its original glory.  In a mind-boggling-bit of trivia, though, according to an October 2007 New York Times article, at the time the duo bought the residence, it had not only been on the market for over three and a half years, but was being listed as a “teardown”!

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The Harrises had not actually originally set out to buy the home, but had been stalking the property (so love it!) when Brent noticed a “For Sale” sign situated among the overgrown foliage.  The purchase turned out to be a fateful one, though, being that the couple’s decision to restore the residence is largely credited with setting into motion the massive mid-century modernist restoration movement that Palm Springs is now known for. 

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The Kaufmann House is not only considered to be one of Richard Neutra’s finest designs, but also one of the most important examples of mid-century modernist architecture in the entire world and one of the most publicized homes in architectural history.  The property has been featured in countless magazines and periodicals over its 64-year history, including Palm Springs Life, Time, and Life Magazine, as well as in numerous architectural books.  In 1996, it was designated a Class 1 Historic Site by the Palm Springs Historic Site Preservation Board.

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When the Harrises divorced in 2007, they decided to sell their beloved property.  But a unique house deserves a unique sale, so it was put up for purchase via an auction at Christie’s.  Most unusual about the sale, though, was the fact that Christie’s categorized the home not as a residence or a piece of property, but as a work of art!  The house sold at auction for a whopping $19.1 million, but fell out of escrow shortly thereafter.  It hit the market once again a few months later, this time as a regular real estate sale, for just under $12.9 million, but I don’t believe it ever sold and it looks as if it has since been taken off the market.

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The 5-bedroom, 6-bathroom, 3,200-square foot home, which sits on over 2 full acres of land, features floor-to-ceiling sliding (or “disappearing”) glass walls, indoor-outdoor living space, a wall of moveable aluminum sheets that can either be closed to keep out the sun or opened to take advantage of the mid-afternoon breeze, a second-story “gloriette” or outdoor sleeping area, a separate viewing platform, a large pool, a tennis court, and striking mountain views.  You can check out some fabulous interior photographs of the Kauffman House here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The Kaufmann house is located at 470 West Vista Chino in Palm Springs.

Halloween 2009 at The Nest!

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I hope my fellow stalkers had an absolutely fabulous Halloween 2009!  As I’ve mentioned many times before, Halloween is downright my favorite holiday.  I pretty much look forward to it all year long!  So, today I thought I’d take a little break from my New York blogging to write a post about this year’s Halloween adventure, which took place, yet again, in Palm Springs, where my fiancé and I had been invited to a little All Hallows’ Eve party.  As you know, the two of us always dress up as either a famous celebrity couple or characters from a movie or TV show for Halloween.  Well, after seeing Dirty Dancing: The Classic Story On Stage back in June, I decided that this year my fiancé and I just had to dress up as Baby and Johnny!  And yes, I always plan my costumes that far in advance.   🙂  I told you, I LOVE Halloween.  I practically live for the holiday!  So, pretty much immediately after seeing the Dirty Dancing stage show, I started scouring the internet and local thrift shops for a pink chiffon dress that would resemble the frock Baby wore in the movie’s famous final dance sequence.  And, unbelievably, I came up completely empty-handed!  I am still in shock, actually, that no one, not even an EBay seller, had a dress like Baby’s to hawk!!  In fact, the only pages I came across while performing a Google search for “Baby’s pink dress from Dirty Dancing” were entries posted from women like myself who wanted to know where they could purchase an outfit similar to Baby’s.  Thankfully, in answer to one of those queries, a woman had posted a link to a dress pattern that was a pretty close match to the one Jennifer Grey wore in the movie.   So, I begged and pleaded with my mom, who is an excellent seamstress, to make me Baby’s dress.  Begrudgingly she agreed, and did quite the excellent job on it, I might add.  THANK YOU, mom!  🙂

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Because my fiancé and I were dressed as one of filmdom’s most famous dancing couples, before heading out to our Halloween party we just had to hit up the hottest dance spot in the entire Coachella Valley – a little place known as The Nest.  The Nest is actually a combination bar/eatery/piano lounge/dance club which first opened up in 1965 and is now known as Indian Wells’ most famous restaurant and night club.  My fiancé and I refer to it, though, as the “Cougar Den”.  Contrary to how it might sound, trust me when I say that the nickname is a term of endearment as The Nest is quite simply one of my very favorite places to visit in all of Palm Springs.  And while the food is great, the drinks are strong, the music is live, and the atmosphere is hopping, none of those attributes are the restaurant’s main draw.  No, going to The Nest for the food or drinks or even the music is entirely beside the point. The Nest’s main attraction has to be its lively, dressed-to-the-nines, up-all-night-on-the-dance-floor patrons, who are almost all between the ages of 65 and 100.  Yes, you read that right!  You’d be hard pressed to find any Nest regulars who don’t fall under the senior citizen category.  You’d also be hard pressed to find any of them sitting down!  On no, the Nest’s patrons don’t let a little thing like age stop them from dancing all night long!  And, let me tell you, I can only hope that I look and feel as good as they do when I am their age.  But who am I kidding, I don’t even look or feel that good now!  My fiancé and I always feel a bit cadish when asking for our check – usually yawning while doing so – at around 10 p.m. – 11 at the latest – while all of the club’s more senior regulars are still on the dance floor and showing absolutely no signs of stopping!  It’s truly unbelievable!  And so are the outfits, which are usually quite risqué.  And thanks to A LOT of medical enhancement, the women look far better than I would in such clothing.  LOL  It’s an absolute hoot to see and something that everyone visiting Palm Springs should experience at least once!

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Ironically, I thought my fiancé and I would be a big hit at The Nest come Halloween thanks to our dance-themed costumes.  I could not have been more wrong about that one, however!  No, thanks to the many aged 75 and older women who were dressed in extremely sexy Halloween costumes, no one even gave my fiancé and I a second glance!  LOL LOL LOL  Our costumes were far too tame for The Nest, I guess.  I’ve actually never seen anything quite like The Nest on Halloween.  It was like a Leg Avenue Catalog had come to life, right before my very eyes.  In attendance were a sexy Batgirl, a sexy Catwoman, a sexy cop, and even a cougar!  🙂  But the costume that really caught my eye?  A Playboy Bunny, complete with a bowtie, fishnet stockings, and . . . a thong leotard.  Yes, you read that right!  LOL  I honestly didn’t think such a thing was possible, but The Nest is even more of a sight to see on Halloween than on any other night!

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Besides cougars, celebrities have also been frequenting The Nest since it first opened over forty years ago, and they’ve got the autographed pictures on the walls to prove it.  🙂  In fact, crooner Frank Sinatra and some of his famous friends were regulars during the bar’s early days.  Today a bevy of different celebs and sports stars (mostly professional golf and tennis players) can be spotted dancing or singing along with the club’s live “piano” – it’s actually an electronic keyboard – on a nightly basis.  Country star Toby Keith recently spent a few nights at The Nest and even obliged some fans by stepping up to the mic to sing a few songs.  🙂  So cool!  Even without the celeb connection, though, I’d still recommend stalking the place, as it is just so darn entertaining!  It’s DEFINITELY a Palm-Springs-Must-See!   If you arrive after 9 p.m., be prepared to wait, though, as you’ll be hard pressed to find a seat, or even standing room, for that matter!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: The Nest is located at 75-188 Highway 111 in Indian Wells, just outside of Palm Springs. You can visit their website here.  The live music starts at 7 p.m. nightly.  And if you would like to make your own Dirty Dancing dress, the pattern my mom used is Vogue’s Vintage Pattern #2902.