Leo’s Apartment Building from “Relativity”

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During my recent Relativity location-finding fest, I also managed to track down the apartment building where Leo Roth (David Conrad) lived with his quirky roommate, Doug (Adam Goldberg) – who was actually my favorite character – on the show.  I really could kick myself over this one, though, because I began searching for the property while watching the third episode of the series, which was titled “First Impressions”, and did not have many clues to help with the hunt.  Had I waited until the fifth episode, “Moving,” in which Leo’s address was literally spelled out, it would have been a much quicker find.  Instead, I spent a ridiculous amount of time scanning the background of “First Impressions,” looking for readable signage on storefronts near Leo’s place and then Googling to see if said businesses were still in existence.  Thankfully, after numerous searches, I finally found one that was.

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In “First Impressions,” a sign reading “Asia Auto Center” was visible across the street from Leo’s apartment.  An internet search led me to a listing for an Asia Auto Center at 3700 West Pico Boulevard in Arlington Heights.  Sure enough, when I looked at the address via Google Street View, there was Leo’s building right across the street.

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In reality, Leo’s building is located at 1310 4th Avenue, just south of West Pico Boulevard.  So when I watched the “Moving” episode a few nights after finding the place and heard it mentioned several times that Leo lived near “Pico and 4th Avenue,” I had a major face-palm moment.  D’oh!

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Leo's Apartment Relativity (6 of 8)

Pictured below are a few of the many neighborhood signs that I had tried to read and do Google searches for.  As you can see, it was not the easiest of tasks.

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Leo's Apartment Relativity (2 of 8)

It is said several times on the series that Leo’s neighborhood is a bit sketchy and I can attest to that fact being true in real life, as well.  Just as I pulled into a parking space near the building, a man hopped over the fence of the business across the street, opened the dumpster located there and began throwing its contents onto the sidewalk.  Yeah, I pretty much could not wait to get out of there, hence the limited number of photographs I have for this post.

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The full exterior of Leo’s building is never actually shown on Relativity – at least not in any of the episodes I have re-watched up until this point.  Typically, tight shots of the doorway and balcony are all that appear onscreen.

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Thanks to that doorway, with its ornate casing, and balcony, with its wrought-iron detailing, the building has a very New Orleansy-feel.

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The structure still looks very much the same today as it did when Relativity was filmed 18 years ago.  As you can see below, not even the address plate has been altered since 1996!  Love it!

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The Arlington Heights building was only used for exterior filming on the series.  The ramshackle interior of Leo and Doug’s loft existed only on a studio soundstage.

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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: Leo’s apartment from Relativity is located at 1310 4th Avenue in Los Angeles’ Arlington Heights neighborhood.

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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Relativity House (2 of 11)

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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Relativity House (8 of 11)

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.