The “All of My Heart” Farmhouse

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It seems that every time I turn around lately, I come across someone who is obsessed with Hallmark Channel made-for-television movies. First it was my grandma, who couldn’t stop talking about them at Christmas.  Around that same time, I started hearing about the flicks from my uncle’s girlfriend, who binge-watches them like crazy, much to the chagrin of my uncle (though he does do some amazingly funny recaps – according to him, the premises are all pretty much exactly the same). Next it was my aunt Lea, who started extoling their virtues to me in a phone call. Most recently, my good friend Kerry (you may remember her from my Club 33 post) mentioned her obsession with the flicks in an email. Prior to a recent day trip to Vancouver, where many of the Hallmark Channel movies are filmed, Kerry wrote to me to ask for some assistance in tracking down a farmhouse she had spied pop up in a myriad of the productions. As it turns out, she didn’t really need my help finding the place, but more on that in a bit. While helping her search, I came across countless online queries from likeminded fellow stalkers, all of whom were also inquiring about the location of the picturesque pad. Since the dwelling seemed to be so in-demand, once Kerry tracked it down and stalked it, I suggested she do a guest post on it and she happily obliged. Take it away, Kerry!

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Every now and then, a location will show up on my TV screen and it seems like time stops and everything moves in slow-mo. I forget about what I’m watching and instead I am zeroed in on the location. Such was the case when I was watching fave station, the Hallmark Channel, a couple of years ago. A charming farmhouse appeared before my eyes and I was instantly drawn to it. The wide open green grass leading to the steps of the perfectly curved railed porch….sigh! Yeah, this one was definitely love at first sight.

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The movie is called All of My Heart and stars Lacey Chabert and Brennan Elliott. Since that first airing I have watched it several times. I love the farmhouse but I also love the story. From Hallmark.com: “A young caterer’s life suddenly changes course when she inherits a country home and learns she must share it with a career-obsessed Wall Street trader. At first, these opposites do not attract, but feelings begin to change when they find themselves having to work side-by-side to restore their newly acquired home.”

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Once again, while enjoying another Hallmark movie, the farmhouse appeared on my big screen. This time, it was the Aurora Teagarden Mysteries movie series, starring Candace Cameron Bure. While watching The Julius House, imagine my surprise at seeing what I now refer to as “my” farmhouse take center stage as the lead in this film. To my delight, Aurora Teagarden purchases the farmhouse, which means it will continue to show up in future installments of the movie franchise. So far, it has also appeared in Dead Over Heels and will star once again in the upcoming A Bundle of Trouble, which is scheduled to air May 21.

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I became enamored with finding my farmhouse and began the search online without any success. There seemed to be a lot of people wondering the same thing as me; Where in the world is this gorgeous farmhouse? I already knew it was somewhere in Vancouver, British Columbia, as this is an oft-used area for Hallmark productions. I’ve been known to stalk Vancouver locations many times over the years because I do not live too far from the border and I have family there. I had a good idea of the area of the farmhouse but had no success in finding its location. I decided to switch gears and reach out to fave Canadian filming website What’sFilming via email for some help. I heard back with an address fairly quickly. When I looked the address up on Google, it took me to a spot on a road in the Aldergrove area of B.C., but I didn’t see a house. Thinking it may be close by, I began looking at structures in the area, hoping I could locate the farmhouse by cyber-stalking it. Lindsay and her stalking posse make it look SO easy and although I am just a novice stalker in the cyber world, I figured I’d give it a whirl. I did find a structure that looked like it could be it but dismissed it as I was totally thrown off by the enormous number of trees visible surrounding it on Google Earth! With just a week to go until my trip to Vancouver, I reached out to Lindsay and she ran with it for a few days but also came up empty handed. Then things got good, REAL good. I told her about the structure with all the trees and she used Google Street View and abracadabra……..there was my farmhouse!!! (Told ya I’m not a professional cyber stalker, but I did learn from this experience.) Thank you, Lindsay!!!

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My farmhouse is just down the road from the US/Canadian border and is totally visible from the street.

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There is a long driveway/road that leads up to the property. The home is idyllic, the setting so beautiful, and that farmhouse porch, so inviting. I still find myself wanting to know more about this property, its age, how many generations have lived there, and how the owners like seeing it show up on TV. There is a pretty good chance they haven’t seen it on the big screen as I’ve been told neither the Hallmark Channel or Hallmark Movies & Mysteries Channel are available in Canada, much to the disappointment of my cousin Mary.  [Editor’s Note – Reader Cathie just commented that many of the HC movies can be viewed on the subscription site Feeln.  I’m not sure if the site is available in Canada, but it’s worth a try.]

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During Lindsay’s research, she discovered the farmhouse was also used in Hallmark’s Growing the Big One, starring Shannen Doherty. In the movie, Shannen’s character inherits her grandfather’s farmhouse and there are some great shots of the place including that gorgeous porch and several areas of the property. [Editor’s Note – it was actually my friend/fellow stalker Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, who uncovered the info about Growing the Big One. I had gotten him involved in Kerry’s hunt for the All of My Heart farmhouse and along the way he came across a mention that my girl Shannen’s Hallmark movie had also been shot on the premises. Thank you, Owen!]

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After studying All of My Heart, The Julius House, Dead Over Heels, and Growing the Big One, it appears that filming of each movie took place inside of the farmhouse. You can see the old-fashioned stove in all the flicks and the staircase, as well.

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The interior has been painted from one movie to the next but it is very recognizable. I love that they utilized the real-life charm of this farmhouse and chose to film inside of it.

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I’m looking forward to the upcoming Aurora Teagarden movie so I can see this beautiful home again on the big screen. And for those of us who loved All of My Heart, Hallmark recently announced there will be a sequel, which will air in the fall. Personally, I will be watching to see when filming begins and perhaps wander up to ‘Hollywood North’ again for another glimpse of the farmhouse, hopefully with the lights, camera, and action of Hollywood surrounding it.

The All of My Heart farmhouse is located at 27347 0 (zero) Ave in Aldergrove, British Columbia.

Thank you, Lindsay, for letting me guest blog today.

[Editor’s Note – THANK YOU, Kerry, for this fabulous post!  Your enthusiasm and love for this locale made me not only want to head up to Vancouver immediately for another stalking trip, but to also start watching Hallmark Channel movies!]

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The “Pretty Little Liars” Church

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Before we get started, I have a couple of announcements.  Some changes will be coming to the blog in 2016.  The biggest change will be a major site redesign, which the Grim Cheaper is currently working on and which I could NOT be more excited about.  You’ll notice I’ve altered my screen captures a bit in today’s post, which is part of the revamp.  My editor at Los Angeles magazine also recently started a new position and until someone is hired to replace her full time, things are a bit up in the air with my Scene it Before column.  Regardless of what happens with that, I will be scaling my IAMNOTASTALKER postings down to three days a week (most of the time, anyway), so that I can free up some time to write for other websites (and for my own sanity – throughout most of 2015, I found myself working every weekday plus Sundays, which is no way to operate).  One of my new ventures is a monthly column for one of my good friend’s blogs (more info on that to come), which I am thrilled about.  So yeah, changes are a-coming.  But hopefully my fellow stalkers will embrace them.  I have a feeling big things are on the horizon for 2016.  And now, on with the post!  The winter premiere of Pretty Little Liars, titled “Of Late I Think of Rosewood,” aired last Tuesday night and I have to say it was surprisingly enjoyable.  I am really digging the five-year time jump and all of the mysteries that come with it.  Well done, PLL!  You’ve sucked me right back in, which I wasn’t sure was possible considering the debacle of the whole Big A reveal in August.  In honor of the show’s promising return, I am here yet again with yet another Vancouver locale from the pilot episode – Ryerson United Church, which my good friend/fellow stalker Kerry was nice enough to stalk for me during a recent weekend trip to Canada.

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Ryerson United Church was featured at the very end of the Pretty Little Liars pilot.  In the episode, it stood in for the Rosewood, Pennsylvania parish where Alison DiLaurentis’ (Sasha Pieterse) funeral was held.

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Most notably, it was while standing outside of the church after the funeral that the Liars received their first ever ominous group text message, which read,  “I’m still here, bitches.  And I know everything.  -A”

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Being that I had nothing to go on with this one – no visible street signs or address numbers – I thought the church would be tough to track down, but it was a surprisingly easy find.  I simply did a Google Images search using the terms “church” and “Vancouver” and, voila, in the fourth row of results, there was a photo of the place I was looking for!  Clicking on said photo led me to a page about Ryerson United Church on the Wedding Mappers website.

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The actual inside of Ryerson United also appeared in the Pretty Little Liars pilot.  You can check out some photographs of the interior here.

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Though, as I mentioned in this post, the supposed church stairs shown in the funeral scene are not located at Ryerson United, but in the Vancouver home that masked as Ali’s in the episode.

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  It is interesting to be blogging about this particular location now, after having watched “Of Late I Think of Rosewood,” being that the episode so closely paralleled the pilot, especially the funeral scene.

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Side note – I absolutely loved the line in the premiere in which Caleb Rivers (Tyler Blackburn), when talking about Radley Sanitarium’s transformation into the boutique hotel “The Radley,” said, “Well, people get do-overs, why shouldn’t buildings?”  I couldn’t agree more, Caleb!  Oh, how I wish people would stop tearing down old and historic structures!  I’m looking at you, owners of the Clueless party house!

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When Pretty Little Liars got picked up, production moved from Vancouver to Warner Bros. Studio in Burbank and the series began to make use of a structure located on the Midwest Street backlot as Rosewood’s local church.  The façade has gone on to appear in countless episodes, including the funeral scene in “Of Late I Think of Rosewood.”

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The Midwest Street church is a practical set and its interior also regularly appears on the show, as was the case with “Of Late I Think of Rosewood.”

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Back to Ryerson United Church in Vancouver.  Pretty Little Liars is hardly the first production to make use of the site.  Most notably, the church was the main location featured in the 1983 TV movie The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.

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The interior of Ryerson United was also utilized in the production.

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In the Season 2 episode of The Flash titled “Legends of Today,” Ryerson United Church masked as St. Marks in Central City, where Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) and Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) went to track down a consecrated staff.

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The exterior shown in the episode was that of a different church, though.

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Big THANK YOU to Kerry for stalking this location for me!  Smile

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: Ryerson United Church, aka the church from the pilot episode of Pretty Little Liars, is located at 2195 West 45th Avenue in Vancouver.

Spencer’s House and Barn from “Pretty Little Liars”

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Though all of the homes featured on Pretty Little Liars are pretty darn amazing design-wise, my personal favorite, hands-down, is the farm-like residence where Spencer Hastings (Troian Bellisario) and her family live.  So when I began tracking down the locales used in the pilot, which was shot in Vancouver, Spencer’s pad was at the top of my list of places to find.  And find it, I did.  While not much of the dwelling is visible from the street, sadly, I still had my good friend/fellow stalker Kerry drop by to snap some pics of it for me during a recent weekend trip to Canada.

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Spencer’s house played a pivotal role in the Pretty Little Liars pilot.  Not only was the home shown repeatedly throughout the episode (though never in a full exterior shot) . . .

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. . . but the Hastings’ family’s large barn was the site of the Liars’ slumber party, from which Alison DiLaurentis (Sasha Pieterse) mysteriously disappeared.

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The real life interior of the residence, including the kitchen . . .

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. . . and one of the bedrooms, was also used in the filming.

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I spent so many hours searching for Spencer’s house that I honestly no longer remember the exact story of how I ended up finding it.  What I do remember is scouring Google and Bing aerial views for Vancouver neighborhoods with large plots of land and eventually coming across the Southlands area.  While perusing that region, I spotted a large home with a barn in the backyard and, voila, it matched what appeared on PLL.

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Spencer’s house sits on an absolutely massive corner plot of land.  So massive, in fact, that it has two addresses – 3275 Celtic Avenue and 7376 Blenheim Street.

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As I mentioned, very little of the main house can be seen from the street due to the fact that it is surrounded by a huge wall of foliage.

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But there is good news!  Spencer’s barn is located on the Blenheim Street side of the property and it is visible from the road, though the area that can be seen is not the area that appeared on Pretty Little Liars.  In the pilot, the only portion of the barn shown was the eastern portion, while the western side is the side that is visible from the street.  Sadly, that side of the barn is not really recognizable, but as you can see below the barn doors are a direct match to what was shown onscreen.

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According to the book Exploring Vancouver: The Architectural Guide, the Blenheim Street side of the property is a commercial horse facility known as Golden Oaks Stables.

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Once Pretty Little Liars got picked up by ABC Family (now Freeform) and filming moved to Warner Bros. Studio in Burbank, a house on Midwest Street was tapped to stand in for the Hastings’ residence.  That façade should look familiar to Gilmore Girls fans as it was formerly used as Lorelai (Lauren Graham) and Rory Gilmore’s (Alexis Bledel) home on the popular series.

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Producers also had a re-creation of the Vancouver barn constructed in front of the Hastings’ home once the series got picked up.

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Fun fact – all of the residences on Midwest Street are built with multiple facades so that they can mask as different properties depending on which way the camera is angled.  The front of Spencer’s house is actually the back side of the dwelling that serves as Mona Vanderwaal’s (Janel Parrish) home on the series.

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Interestingly, while the Vancouver house is no longer used for filming, it still pops up occasionally in establishing shots.

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The interior of the Hastings’ residence was also re-created on a soundstage once production moved to Warner Bros.  Though the re-creation is not an exact match to the Vancouver home, it is fairly close.

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I am absolutely in love with the sitting area located just off of the family’s kitchen.  I am so ready for a fireplace in my life!  I’ll take that settee, too, while I’m at it.

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Spencer’s bedroom set is also pretty fabulous.  Actually, I should say “was” pretty fabulous.  Sadly, it was dismantled last year when filming of the five-year time jump commenced.

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Spencer’s room was my favorite out of all the girls (with Aria’s running a close second).  I especially loved the metal “S” sign that hung on her wall.

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Big THANK YOU to Kerry for stalking this location for me!  Smile

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: Spencer’s house from the pilot episode of Pretty Little Liars is located at 3275 Celtic Avenue/7376 Blenheim Street in Vancouver.  The barn is situated on the Blenheim Street portion of the propertyThe mansion featured in the 2011 Disney Channel movie Geek Charming is located next door at 3233 Celtic Avenue.

Lord Byng Secondary School from “Pretty Little Liars”

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I hope y’all aren’t sick of Pretty Little Liars locations yet, because I still have a few more up my sleeve, as well as a huge soon-to-be published article on the subject for Discover Los Angeles.  Today’s locale is Vancouver’s Lord Byng Secondary School, which stood in for Rosewood High School in the pilot episode.  For those who have not read my other PLL articles (which you can do here, here, here, and here) and are unfamiliar with the production of the show, I’ll give you the skinny.  While the series is lensed almost in its entirety at Warner Bros. Studio in Burbank, the pilot was shot in Vancouver.  I recently became a bit obsessed with tracking down locations from the inaugural episode and found the school featured in it thanks to the Pretty Little Liars Wikia page.  My good friend/fellow stalker Kerry was nice enough to stalk it for me during a recent trip to Canada.  Thank you, Kerry!

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The stately Lord Byng Secondary School was originally constructed in 1925 and was named after The Lord Byng of Vimy, who, at the time, was the Governor General of Canada.  You can see a photograph of what the site looked like when it was first constructed here.

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The property has been expanded several times over the years.  You can see some photos of those additions being built here.

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Lord Byng popped up a few times in the Pretty Little Liars pilot and establishing shots of it still appear on the series from time to time.

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The real life interior of the school was also used in a few scenes.

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Once the show got picked up, production moved to the Sunshine State, more specifically to Warner Bros. Studio.  Outside of an occasional establishing shot of Lord Byng, a brick-faced façade located in the Midwest Street portion of the lot has since been used to mask as Rosewood High.  Surprisingly, that structure (pictured in the second photograph below) bears quite a resemblance to Lord Byng Secondary School.  I say “surprisingly” because the façade was not constructed for Pretty Little Liars, but has been a lot staple since it was built the ‘50s.  The Dukes of Hazzard fans should recognize the place as the infamous Hazzard County Courthouse.

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As I mentioned in my post about Aria Montgomery’s (Lucy Hale) house, the parts of Mike Montgomery (Cody Allen Christian) and Byron Montgomery (Chad Lowe) were re-cast after the Pretty Little Liars pilot was shot, which required many scenes to be re-shot.  A few of those scenes took place at Rosewood High and the re-shoots made use of the Warner Bros. façade.  Those scenes included the segment in which Aria dropped Mike off at lacrosse practice . . .

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. . . and close-up shots from the scene in which Byron dropped Aria and Mike off at school on the first day of classes.

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Lord Byng is an oft-used filming location.  In fact, it has appeared in so many productions that it would be impossible for me to chronicle them all here, but I’ll list a few.  In 1986’s The Boy Who Could Fly, LBSS was where Milly (Lucy Deakins) attended high school.

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Lord Byng has appeared in no less than five episodes of 21 Jump Street, including Season 2’s “After School Special,” which aired in 1987.  For that episode the rear side of Lord Byng was utilized.  You can read about more of the episodes filmed there on the 80sFilmLocations site.

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LBSS was where Nicole Walker (Reese Witherspoon) went to high school in the 1996 thriller Fear.

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In 2009’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine, the school was where Victor Creed (Liev Schreiber) and Scott Summers (Tim Pocock) had a showdown.

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And in the Season 1 episode of Emily Owens, M.D. titled “Emily . . . and the Outbreak,” which aired in 2012, Lord Byng masked as Robert M. Johnson High School, where Emily Owens (Mamie Gummer) taught a sex education class.

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Kerry also let me know that the site is currently portraying Erie Harbor School on the new Apple TV+ series Home Before Dark.

Big THANK YOU to Kerry for stalking this location for me!  Smile

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: Lord Byng Secondary School, aka Rosewood High School from the pilot episode of Pretty Little Liars, is located at 3939 West 16th Avenue in Vancouver.

Aria’s House from “Pretty Little Liars”

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I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – stalking begets stalking!  One of the Vancouver locations I was most interested in finding from the Pretty Little Liars pilot was the gorgeous Craftsman-style house where doe-eyed beauty Aria Montgomery (Lucy Hale) lived.  There was virtually nothing to go on, though – no address number, no street signs, no clues visible in the background.  So I put that hunt on the back burner and instead set my sights on tracking down the DiLaurentis/St. Germain home from the episode.  As fate would have it, finding it led me right to Aria’s house!

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While scanning through the pilot during my search, I almost fell out of my chair when I noticed that Aria’s house was actually visible in the background across the street from the DiLaurentis/St. Germain residence in the scene in which Emily Fields (Shay Mitchell) walked Maya St. Germain (Bianca Lawson) home from school.

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As I mentioned in Wednesday’s post, thanks to a visible address number, I was able to track down the DiLaurentis/St. Germain house in just a few minutes.  And sure enough, when I looked across the street using Google Street View, there was Aria’s pad!  Because I don’t have any trips to Vancouver planned in the coming year, my good friend/fellow stalker Kerry, who lives in the Pacific Northwest, was nice enough to stalk the place for me during a recent (rainy) visit to Canada.  Thank you, Kerry!

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Sadly, Aria’s house looks a bit different today than it did when the pilot was shot back in December 2009.  As you can see below, besides a color change from yellow and red to gray and white, most of the windows have been swapped out for new ones, and the roofline of the second story above the porch has been altered.

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You can see some of the work being done in old Google Street View images from May 2015.

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But if you toggle Street View back to May 2014, the home appears exactly as it did onscreen.  Oh, how I wish I had gotten to see it before the alterations were made.

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In real life, the residence boasts 6 bedrooms, 4 baths, and 5,000 square feet of living space.

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Sadly, Aria’s awesome front porch swing is nowhere to be found.

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Typically when shooting a pilot, the interior of a house will be utilized.  Then if the series is picked up, that interior will be re-created on a soundstage for all future filming.  That was not the case with this particular location.  The segments that took place inside of Aria’s home in the pilot were not shot in Canada at all, actually, but at a practical house set on Midwest Street at Warner Bros. Studio.   I did not realize that factoid until making screen captures for this post.  In the scene in which Aria talked to her father, Byron (Chad Lowe), while standing in the family’s entry, the green doorway of a residence across the street was visible in the background.  I knew that doorway belonged to a studio house immediately upon seeing it, did some further research, and discovered it was part of a façade that is, sadly, no longer standing.

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The house once stood at the southern end of Midwest Street, but was dismantled in 2014 – along with the façade of Toby Cavanaugh’s (Keegan Allen) house – to make way for the studio’s newly-unveiled Stage 48: Script to Screen exhibit.  You can see some faraway photographs I took of the structure while on a tour of the WB a few years back below.

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Once I figured out the location of the green-doored façade, I was able to discern that the Montgomery house interior scenes from the pilot were shot inside of the home pictured below, which is also located on the southern edge of Midwest Street.  Why were those segments shot at the WB lot and not on location in Vancouver like the rest of the pilot, you ask?  Well, I looked into it and learned that the roles of both Byron and Aria’s brother, Mike (Cody Allen Christian), were recast after the pilot had been filmed, so any scenes involving them had to be re-shot.  The vast majority of those scenes took place inside of the Montgomery home.

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Interestingly, during one of my most recent visits to the WB back in June, I asked our tour guide for help in tracking down a couple of PLL locations that I knew were on the backlot, but that I couldn’t seem to find.  He did not end up having time to show me the locales during the tour, so after it ended he took me and my friends on a private tour of the studio (it was amazing!), during which he pointed out the house below and informed us that it was used for exterior shots of Aria’s residence.  As you can see, the bottom portion of the façade is painted to match the original coloring of the Vancouver home.

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I can only recall one time when the façade exterior appeared on the series (though I am sure there are other instances).  In the Season 6 episode titled “Don’t Look Now,” a very tight shot of the home was shown in the scene in which Spencer Hastings (Troian Bellisario) dug through Aria’s trash, looking for her anti-anxiety medication.

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All of the homes on Midwest Street are designed in such a way that their various sides can appear as different properties.  The actual “front” of the structure that is used as Aria’s house is pictured below.  The area that appears onscreen in Pretty Little Liars can be found on this residence’s southern side.

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Our tour guide had also informed us that the interior of the home contained the set of Aria’s living room.  And while sheet-covered furniture and props were visible through the front window of the house (as you can see below), which points toward a set being located there, I did not put a whole lot of credence into his assertion.  Because the interior of Aria’s house is utilized with such regularly, I figured the sets were most likely situated on a soundstage and not inside of the Midwest Street dwelling.  But now it appears that his information was correct.

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Though I do still believe that some of the Montgomery home interiors exist inside of a soundstage (most notably, the set for Aria’s bedroom), it does seem that at least a portion of them were constructed inside of the Midwest Street façade.

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UPDATE – I just came across the website of Pretty Little Liar’s production designer Rachel Kamerman and a caption on her portfolio page confirms what our tour guide told us.  As you can see below, according to Rachel, the interior of the Montgomery house is a permanent set built on the W.B. backlot and not inside of a soundstage.

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Big THANK YOU to Kerry for stalking this location for me!  Smile

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: Aria’s house from the pilot episode of Pretty Little Liars is located at 1990 West 19th Avenue in VancouverThe DiLaurentis home from the episode is located across the street at 1995 West 19th Avenue.

Ali’s House from “Pretty Little Liars”

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Pretty Little Liars will be returning to the small screen on January 12th and I could NOT be more excited!  Though I found the recent mid-season finale to be absolutely ridiculous, not to mention a total let-down (this was SO me and my mom while viewing it), to the point that I thought I might never watch again, I now find myself thrilled that new episodes are only a few days away!  As detailed in my February 2015 post titled “The Pretty Little Liars Guide to Warner Bros. Studio,” the ABC Family (soon to be re-named Freeform) series is shot pretty much in its entirety on the WB lot in Burbank.  The pilot, though, was lensed in Vancouver and last year I managed to track down most of the locales that appeared in the episode.  (There is one that remains unfound and a real thorn in my side, but more on that later.)  My good friend/fellow stalker Kerry lives in the Pacific Northwest and recently took a weekend trip up to Vancouver.  I asked if she wouldn’t mind stalking some PLL locations for me while she was in town and stalk them she did!  Every single one!  Thank you, Kerry!  So I figured what better time to blog about them than in the days leading up to the premiere – and what better locale to start with than the DiLaurentis family house, which played such a pivotal role in the pilot.

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For those not in the know, the pilot of Pretty Little Liars centers around the disappearance of a teenage girl named Alison DiLaurentis (Sasha Pieterse).  The mysterious details of her disappearance, which took place a year prior, are revealed in flashbacks.  In the episode, it is said that the DiLaurentis family, distraught over losing Ali, has chosen to sell their large Victorian-style residence and a new family is shown moving in.

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The home was actually the first locale I tracked down from the episode.  It was a snap to find thanks to its unique architecture and a “1995” number placard that I spotted above the front door in the scene in which Emily Fields (Shay Mitchell) welcomes the new girl, Maya St. Germain (Bianca Lawson), to the neighborhood.  Address number in hand, I did a Google search for “1995,” “Victorian house,” and “Vancouver,” and the first link to pop up was a real estate listing for a residence located at 1995 West 19th Avenue.  Sure enough, the images featured in the listing were a perfect match to Ali’s house.  Wahoo!

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The massive dwelling, which was originally built in the 1920s, is just as stunning in real life as it appeared onscreen (as least as evidenced by Kerry’s photos).  In actuality, though, the property is not a single-family home, but a multi-unit dwelling.

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The residence appears a couple of times in the pilot, most notably in the scene in which (spoiler alert!) Ali’s body is discovered buried in the side yard.

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The actual interior of the property was also featured in the episode.  Not only was one of the home’s bedrooms used as Maya’s bedroom . . .

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. . . but, in an odd twist, the dwelling’s ornate wood-paneled stairwell masked as a back area of the church where Ali’s funeral was held.  It is on those stairs that Ezra Fitzgerald (Ian Harding) and Aria Montgomery (Lucy Hale) share a passionate kiss.  You can check out some photographs of the stairway here.

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Once Pretty Little Liars got picked up, production moved from Vancouver to California and the DiLaurentis house was “re-created” in the Jungle area of the Warner Bros. Studio backlot.  I say “re-created” because the façade that was constructed looks absolutely nothing like the house that appeared in the pilot.

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Aside from a large set of entry steps, the two homes don’t resemble each other in the slightest, as you can see below.

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As for the location I mentioned earlier that remains a thorn in my side?  I cannot for the life of me seem to track down the interior of Hollis Bar & Grill, where Aria and Ezra met for the first time.

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My buddy Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, did manage to locate the building used in the establishing shot.  The exterior of Hollis Bar & Grill is actually that of Ashland City Hall, located at 20 East Main Street in Ashland, Oregon.  The image shown in the scene was likely stock footage, as no actual filming took place in the Beaver State.  The interior, though, remains a mystery.  If any of my fellow stalkers are familiar with the Vancouver area, please take a look at the above images and let me know if you can identify the watering hole pictured in them.

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Big THANK YOU to Kerry for stalking this location for me!  Smile

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: The DiLaurentis house from the pilot episode of Pretty Little Liars is located at 1995 West 19th Avenue in Vancouver.

Eric Hamber Secondary School from “Juno”

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The third and final Juno filming location that I stalked while in Vancouver last month was the supposed Minneapolis-area Dancing Elk High School – the learning institution attended by Juno MacGuff (aka Ellen Page), her dorky baby-daddy Paulie Bleeker (aka Michael Cera), and her absolutely hilarious best friend, Leah (aka Olivia Thirlby).  In real life, Dancing Elk High School is known as Eric Hamber Secondary School and it is located a good 1,400 miles away from Minneapolis in the Shaughnessy neighborhood of Vancouver, British Columbia, directly next door to the VanDusen Botanical Garden.  The school, which was named after a former Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia, was originally founded in 1962 and currently boasts 1,690 students in grades eight through twelve.  I found this location, once again, thanks to fellow stalker Owen, who in turn tracked it down thanks to this trusty Flikr page.  Thank you, Owen!   

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Eric Hamber Secondary School is featured numerous times throughout Juno, most notably in the beginning scene in which Juno is shown riding her bike to Dancing Elk and then locking it up at a bike rack located in front of the school’s east-facing entrance.  Sadly, in real life that bike rack does not exist, but aside from that, I am very happy to report that Eric Hamber Secondary School looks much the same in person as it did onscreen in the movie.

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Quite a bit of the school’s interior also appeared in Juno, but, unfortunately, the buildings were all locked up while we were there, so we were not able to take a peek inside. 

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The school’s outdoor track and field area was also featured in the scene in which Paulie leaves his track meet early in order to go to the hospital to be with Juno after she has her baby.  That is another area of the school that we, unfortunately, were not able to see, though.

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According to Wikipedia, Eric Hamber’s parking lot also made several appearances in the ‘80s television series 21 Jump Street, which was filmed exclusively on location in Canada.  The school also boasts quite a long list of notable alumni, including Smallville actress Kristin Kreuk, Disney animator Robert Bennett, The Daily Show writer Eric Drysdale, and former pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers Steve Wilson. 

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On a side note – Owen also managed to track down several other filming locations from Juno that we, unfortunately, did not have time to stalk while we were in the area.  Those locations include the following: the house belonging to Mark (aka Jason Bateman) and Vanessa (aka Jennifer Garner), which can be found at 13926 23 Avenue in Surrey; the Honey and Milk convenience store where Juno writes a note to Vanessa on an old Jiffy Lube receipt, which is located at 9-1449 Prairie Avenue in Port Coquitlam; the Coquitlam Centre Mall where Juno and Olivia run into Vanessa while shopping, which can be found at 2929 Barnet Highway in Coquitlam; and Victoria Park where Juno and Olivia look at adoption ads in the Penny Saver, which is located on Victoria Drive & Kitchener Street in Vancouver.

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding all of the Juno locations!  🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Juno High School

Stalk It: The Juno high school, aka Eric Hamber Secondary School, is located at 5025 Willow Street in Vancouver, British Columbia.  In the beginning of the movie, Juno is shown entering the school from its Willow Street entrance and then locking up her bike at the bike rack located in front of the school’s east facing doors, as depicted in the map above.  Please remember that this location is an educational institution that is currently in use.  I would not recommend visiting it while classes are in session, but would instead recommend stopping by after hours or on a weekend.

Juno’s House from “Juno”

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While I realize that most of my fellow stalkers are currently clamoring for me to put my Pacific Northwest blogging on hold in order to write about locales in the Southern California area, there are two more locations from the Academy Award-winning movie Juno that I wanted to blog about before doing so.  So, please bear with me for now, as I promise to get back to my L.A. roots first thing next week.  🙂  In the meantime, the second Juno location that I stalked while in Vancouver three weeks ago was the supposed Minnesota-area house where the flick’s eponymous lead character, the lovable, but quirky Juno MacGuff (aka Ellen Page), lived with her equally lovable, but quirky parents, Mac (aka J.K. Simmons) and Brenda (aka Allison Janney).  I, of course, found this location yet again thanks to fellow stalker Owen who had, in turn, tracked it down thanks to this ever-informative Flikr page.  Thank you, Owen!  On a side note, I am quickly discovering the endless values of using Flikr as a stalking tool.  The site is an enormous treasure trove of location information that one can easily sift through using key word searches and I highly recommend it to anyone who is currently trying to track down an elusive locale.  But, as usual, I digress. 

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 According to this fabulous February 2008 Vancouver Sun article about Juno filming locations in the area, two different homes actually stood in for the MacGuff residence in the movie – one property was used for all interior filming, while a different one entirely was used for all of the exterior scenes.  The article states that while scouting residences for his lead character in January of 2007, just one short month before filming began, director Ivan Reitman, along with Canadian location scout Neil Robertson, sought out an average-looking, middle-America-type home that had some “old-school” elements to it, like La-Z-Boy recliners and wood paneling.  Reitman found his perfect home (pictured above) in the Dunbar area of West Vancouver.  Unfortunately, though, upon closer inspection, the property’s interior proved to be too small for the filming, so, the scenes involving Juno’s kitchen, family room, and basement had to be shot at a different residence, which was also located in the Dunbar area, although I am not sure of exactly where.  The shooting of the interior scenes took a week to complete, during which time the owner, Yvonne Kolstee – along with her cat – had to relocate to a hotel.  And although one of Kolstee’s lamps did make an appearance in the flick, for the most part her property was completely revamped for the filming.  According to the article, set-designers made her “multi-million dollar home in Dunbar look like a trailer”.  Which begs the question, why not just build a set to film on?  Ah, I’ll never understand the decision-making process behind choosing filming locations.  Anyway, the article also states that Kolstee used the money she made off of the filming to take not one, but two vacations to Mexico, along with trips to India and Singapore, as well.  Oh, when are location scouts going to come knocking on my door???  😉

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I am very happy to report that the home which was used for the exterior of Juno’s residence looks pretty much EXACTLY the same in person as it did onscreen in the movie.

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The only notable difference is the fact that the tree from which Juno tried to hang herself using a few feet of Red Rope licorice in the beginning of the flick is not there in real life.  In actuality, that tree was a fake that was brought in solely for the filming.  The MacGuff residence is absolutely adorable in person and it’s not very hard to see why producers chose to use it.

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Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location!  🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: Juno’s house from the hit movie Juno is located at 4053 32 Avenue West in the Dunbar suburb of Vancouver, British Columbia.  Mark and Vanessa’s house, which we, unfortunately, didn’t have time to stalk, is located at 13926 23 Avenue in the city of Surrey, which is located about 30 miles southeast of Vancouver.

Bleeker’s House from “Juno”

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Another Vancouver location that fellow stalker Owen managed to track down was the supposed Minnesota-area house belonging to dorky high school track-star Paulie Bleeker (aka Michael Cera) in the 2007 breakout dramedy Juno.  And even though I was not a big fan of the flick – it was funny and all, but not especially spectacular and, in my never-to-be-humble opinion, dealt with the issue of teenage pregnancy far too cavalierly for my taste – because it was such a huge hit and because I was in the area three weeks ago, I just had to stalk the house where Paulie lived.  I should mention here that I did love Ellen Page’s performance in the movie – she was absolutely adorable, not to mention the fact that her acting was phenomenal.  So, I guess there’s that.  🙂   But I digress.  Owen managed to find the Bleeker family residence thanks to a Flikr page which posted a number of photos of locales featured in Juno, along with a rather vague description of where they could be found.  From there, he did a bit of cyber-stalking and was fairly quickly able to pin down the exact location of Paulie’s house.  Thank you, Owen! 

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According to the blog written by Academy-Award-winning Juno screenwriter Diablo Cody during the filming of the flick, Bleeker’s house was the very first location that the cast and crew shot at.  Sadly, though, the owners of the property gave the exterior of their home a slight facelift after filming wrapped, so the residence looks a bit different today than it did on February 14, 2007, when the filming of Juno began.  Boo!

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The most notable difference, for me at least, was the fact that the mailbox which Juno filled with Tic Tacs candies in order to surprise Bleeker was not actually there in real life.

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Nor was it there in the movie’s final scene, though, which was a fairly big gaff on the filmmakers’ part. 

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Because Bleeker’s mailbox was M.I.A. in the movie’s closing scene, I am fairly certain that it was, in actuality, just a prop that was brought in for the filming.  As you can see in the above photograph, the home’s real life mailbox is located just to the left of the front door.

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And I, of course, just had to sit in the same spot where Bleeker and Juno sat while singing The Moldy Peaches’ “Anyone Else But You” in that final scene.

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Amazingly enough, while we were stalking the house, the owner happened to walk outside – well, truth be told, she actually came outside to investigate why I was sitting on her front stoop 😉 – and she truly could NOT have been nicer.  She answered all of my silly little questions about the filming and didn’t even mind at all that I was sitting on her property.  She explained that her home has become a frequent stalking destination ever since Juno premiered back in 2007 and that visitors frequently stop by to pose for photographs on her front stoop.  She said she doesn’t really mind the massive attention her home draws as the majority of the picture-takers are all very respectful.  🙂  She also told us that some filming of Juno did take place inside of the house, which was redecorated slightly for the movie, and that she and her family even had to relocate to a hotel for a brief period of time during the shoot.  She also got to meet actors Ellen Page and Michael Cera, whom she said were both extremely nice. 🙂  Love it!

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Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location!  🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: Bleeker’s house from Juno is located at 3961 36 Avenue West in Vancouver.

Brockton Point Lighthouse from “The Crush”

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The third and final filming location that I stalked from the 1993 thriller The Crush while I was visiting Vancouver two weeks ago was the Brockton Point Lighthouse – the spot where 14-year old Adrian Forrester (aka Alicia Silverstone) tried to seduce Nick Eliot (aka Cary Elwes), the much older man who was leasing her parents’ guest house in the flick.  I found this location, once again, thanks to fellow stalker Owen, who in turn tracked it down via one of the movie’s crew members.  Thank you, Owen!  Brockton Point Lighthouse is one of three lighthouses that currently serve the Port of Vancouver and is located in British Columbia’s extremely popular, 1,000-acre Stanley Park.  The original Brockton Point Lighthouse tower was built in 1890, but it was replaced in 1914 with the tower that is currently standing today.  The lighthouse was designed by Canadian Colonel William P. Anderson, a civil engineer who over his lifetime designed more than 500 lighthouses situated along the Canadian waterfront.

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Brockton Point Lighthouse only pops up in one scene in The Crush, but it is a rather pivotal scene which provides the movie’s turning point.  In the scene, the seemingly innocent Adrian begs Nick to take her for a ride in his Valiant, claiming that there is a place she really wants to show him.  That place is the Brockton Point Lighthouse and it is there that Adrian first confides in Nick, telling him that she has no friends and that most people treat her like a freak due to her abnormally high intelligence.  When Nick promises to be a friend to her, Adrian immediately kisses him and the story takes off from there. 

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As I mentioned in last Thursday’s post about the Forrester mansion, while The Crush was set in Seattle, the entire movie was actually filmed on location in Vancouver, British Columbia.  Ironically enough, though, when Nick and Adrian first pull up to the lighthouse, you can clearly see the word “Brockton” painted on the ground.  I am very surprised that producers didn’t have the lettering digitally removed in post-production, being that the Brockton Point Lighthouse is a fairly well-known Canadian landmark.  In fact, Stanley Park, where the lighthouse is located, is pretty much known as Vancouver’s number one tourist attraction and is visited by over eight million people per year. 

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Sadly, though, when we got there, we discovered that the lighthouse is currently fenced in and closed to the public while it undergoes an extensive, $2 million federal restoration project.  And, while the lighthouse tower is still visible, the area where Adrian kissed Nick is, unfortunately, not.  Such a bummer!!

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Brockton Point Lighthouse features unparalleled views of Burrard Inlet and the Lions Gate Bridge and is a truly beautiful place.  I so wish I could have seen it at night as the view of the lights of the North Vancouver skyline is supposed to be spectacular.  In fact, I’m fairly certain that the lighthouse’s spectacular views are the main reason that it was chosen as the site of Adrian and Nick’s first kiss.

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location!  🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Brockton Point Lighthouse location

Stalk It: Brockton Point Lighthouse is located on Brockton Point at the far east end of Stanley Park, off of Stanley Park Drive, in Vancouver, British Columbia.  Its exact location is denoted with the blue arrow in the above aerial map.