Catherine Willows’ House from “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation”

The Cox House from The O.C. (18 of 18)

I’ll never forget the first time I saw CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.  It was back in 2003 and my parents had come home from a random stop at the video store (remember those?) with a DVD of the series’ inaugural season in hand.  I had not heard of the show at the time and decided to give the pilot a watch with them.  I was immediately transfixed, as were my parents.  We proceeded to binge all 23 episodes (the old-fashioned way!) in pretty much one sitting and then ran right back out to the video store to grab Season 2.  I continued to be an avid viewer of the procedural (as well as the spin-offs CSI: Miami and CSI: NY) for years.  Then somehow it fell off my radar.  Nonetheless, I was thrilled to receive an email this past August from a fellow stalker named Sacha who wanted to know if I had any intel on the house belonging to Catherine Willows (Marg Helgenberger) in the series’ twelfth season.  I headed over to Hulu to take a look at the residence Sacha was searching for and recognized it immediately.  It’s a place I’ve not only stalked, but blogged about before!  As it turns out, Catherine’s pad is none other than South Pasadena’s Cox House, which portrayed Oliver Trask’s (Taylor Handley) Palm Springs dwelling on The O.C.  Because the property has since gone on to appear in an episode of Ray Donovan, I figured it was due for another write-up.

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The Cox House, named for original owner Paul Cox, was designed by local Pasadena architect John Galbraith in 1959.

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The Mid-Century Modern masterpiece is also known as the “Tree House” thanks to the large conifer that grows right through the roof of its entryway.

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The one-story pad, which boasts Miesian Modernist and Southern California Regional Modernist elements, features 3 bedrooms, 3 baths, 3,032 square feet of living space, glass and stone walls, a massive tile fireplace, hardwood flooring, a 0.46-acre lot, multiple patios, a pool, and a hot tub.

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The property last sold in December 2000 for $641,000.

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You can check out some interior photos of it here.

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While undeniably striking and cinematic, I am surprised the place wound up on CSI, which is set in Las Vegas, being that it doesn’t really have a Sin City vibe.  A different home was actually utilized as Catherine’s in Season 5’s “Weeping Willows” (it’s at 17145 Nanette Street in Granada Hills) and it, too, had a decidedly Mid-Century Modern-style, though, so what do I know?

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The Cox House first popped up on CSI in Season 12’s “Zippered,” which aired in 2011.  Only the interior of the residence was shown in the episode, in the scene in which Catherine meets up with her old friend Laura Gabriel (Annabeth Gish).

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The pad was subsequently featured in the next episode of CSI titled “Ms. Willows Regrets.”  In the episode, Catherine returns home from visiting a crime scene and winds up ambushed herself.  Both the exterior . . .

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. . . and interior of the property were featured prominently in the episode.

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The Cox House appeared again in the following episode of CSI titled “Willows in the Wind,” in which the team investigates Catherine’s attack.

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As I mentioned earlier, the home was also featured on The O.C.  In Season 1’s “The Links,” which aired in 2004, Oliver invites Marissa Cooper (Mischa Barton), Ryan Atwood (Ben McKenzie), Seth Cohen (Adam Brody), and the rest of the Harbor School gang for a weekend visit to his parents’ Palm Springs pad, said to be located “right on PGA West.”  Now the Cox House portraying a Palm Springs property I can certainly buy.  The residence definitely bears that desert look.

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While the home’s actual interior appeared in the episode (as well as some of the actual furniture) . . .

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. . . the two bedrooms shown were just sets built at Raleigh Manhattan Beach Studios (now MBS Media Campus), where the series was lensed.

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Not surprisingly, the Cox House also popped up as a Palm Springs residence on Ray Donovan.  In Season 1’s “Black Cadillac,” which aired in 2013, Mickey Donovan (Jon Voight), Bunchy Donovan (Dash Mihok), and Daryll (Pooch Hall) visit Daryll’s mother, Claudette (Sheryl Lee Ralph), at her supposed desert home.  Upon arriving, Mickey proclaims, “What the f*ck kinda architecture is this?”  It’s called Mid-Century Modern, Mickey!  Mid-Century Modern at its finest!

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The interior of the residence also appeared in the episode.

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That built-in firewood holder is the stuff of dreams!

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The Cox House’s backyard was featured in “Black Cadillac,” as well.

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For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

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Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Catherine Willows’ house from CSI: Crime Scene Investigation is located at 534 Arroyo Drive in South Pasadena.

The Cat & Fiddle

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We’ll always have the Cat & Fiddle.  Or so Angelinos thought.  Sadly, the historic restaurant closed its doors this past December.  When news of the impending shuttering hit the blogosphere in late October, I became desperate to stalk the eatery – especially once I read via several online news outlets that it had appeared in Casablanca (though, due to the fact that the 1942 classic was filmed pretty much solely at Warner Bros. Studios, I had my doubts as to the authenticity of the claims).  I had visited the Cat & Fiddle once many moons prior (the Grim Cheaper’s friends took us there for cocktails on his birthday in 2002), but failed to take any photos.  So I ran right back out there for a proper stalk last November while my friends Lavonna, Kim, Melissa and Maria were in town (that’s Melissa and Maria above).

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The Spanish-style courtyard complex that housed the Cat & Fiddle for almost thirty years was originally constructed between 1928 and 1929.  The property was known as the “Court of Olive” at the time and had been commissioned by silent film star Fred Thomson and his wife, journalist/screenwriter Frances Marion.  In its earliest inception, the two-story site served as a shopping pavilion.  It later became known as the “Fred Thompson Building” and went on to house a studio commissary, a studio wardrobe department, professional offices and several restaurants.  You can check out some photographs of the place in its early days here.  Miraculously, the building still looks exactly the same today as it did then.

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Kim and Paula Gardner, proprietors of the Cat & Fiddle, brought their eatery to the Fred Thompson Building in 1985.  The couple had originally established the British-style pub/restaurant at 2100 Laurel Canyon in the Hollywood Hills (that space is now Pace) in October 1982, but it became immensely popular in a very short time and neighboring residents soon complained about the noisiness of the patrons, and the Gardners were forced to move.

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For the Cat & Fiddle’s new home, Kim and Paula chose a shaded unit with a large patio located at the rear of the Thomson Building.

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The Cat & Fiddle remained popular after the move and even celebrities were known to drop by.  Such stars as Eric Clapton, Rod Stewart, Paul McCartney, Noel Gallagher, Russell Brand, Shania Twain, Nathan Fillion, Abbie Cornish, Jeremy Piven, David Cross, Ed Helms, Lizzy Caplan, Bill Hader, Seth Green, Rosamund Pike, Dave Grohl, and Chris Evans were all spotted there at one time or another, while Christopher Lloyd, Morrissey and Drew Barrymore were longtime regulars.

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Upon Kim’s death in 2001, Paula took over daily operations of the restaurant along with daughter Ashlee.  While the place continued to be an extremely popular watering hole among celebs and non-celebs alike, in late 2014 the building’s owner, Jesse Shannon, informed Paula and Ashlee that he had chosen not to renew their lease.  (Apparently, they had been paying less than half the market value of the space for quite some time.)  The Cat & Fiddle’s last day of business was on December 15th.  Paula and Ashlee are currently looking for a new spot to rent and hope to someday reopen their beloved restaurant.  As for the historic space that once housed it?  Shannon stated that he would be spending millions to restore the building to its 1920s state and that it would then be leased out to what Eater LA called a “familiar” name.

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There are differing reports as to where exactly in the Cat & Fiddle space Casablanca was filmed.  Obviously, the movie was shot long before the Cat ever came onto the scene, but the flick was supposedly lensed in the unit where the restaurant was later situated).  Some claim that the room below, which is named the “Casablanca Room,” appeared in the movie.

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While others claim that filming took place on the patio.  The patio area truly is picturesque and, while it does bring to mind the atmosphere of Casablanca, I still had serious doubts that any filming of the movie had occurred on the premises.

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As it turns out, my suspicions were correct.  I recently watched Casablanca – and then later scanned through it a second time – and did not see the Cat & Fiddle pop up anywhere.  As I mentioned above, from what I have been able to garner online, it seems that production of the movie never left the studio.  Even the countless reports about a scene being lensed at the Van Nuys Airport have been debunked.  So then how did the Cat & Fiddle rumors come about?  My best guess is that the Thomson Building was featured at some point in either  the 1955 television series Casablanca or its 1983 successor.  That is just a guess, though.  What I can say with absolutely certainty – unless I seriously missed something – is that the 1942 film did not shoot any footage at the Cat & Fiddle property.  On a side-note – Casablanca is such a fabulous movie!  I’ve seen it several times now and it just never gets old.  If you have yet to watch it, I highly recommend that you do.

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Thanks to Geoff, from the 90210Locations site, though, I learned that something was filmed at the Cat & Fiddle!  In the Season 1 episode of Ray Donovan titled “Road Trip,” Tommy Wheeler (Austin Nichols) got into some trouble at the restaurant and Ray (Live Schreiber) had to remedy things for him.

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Only the exterior of the pub was used in the episode, though.  Interiors were filmed elsewhere.

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For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online.

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Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The Cat & Fiddle was formerly located at 6530 West Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood.  You can check out the restaurant’s official website, which is is still online, here.