Venice Canals – IAMNOTASTALKER

February 11, 2014February 11, 2014

Reed’s House from “Valentine’s Day”

Many moons ago (July 2012 to be exact), Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I ventured out to Venice for a day of stalking. Most of our time was spent at the Venice Canals (the history of which you can read here), one of my favorite spots in all of Los Angeles. As I mentioned in my previous posts about the area, while there, Mike continuously pointed out filming locations as we walked by (the site is chock full of them!). One locale he identified that I was particularly interested in was the residence where Reed Bennett (Ashton Kutcher) lived in the 2010 romantic comedy Valentine’s Day. So, since the holiday of love is fastly approaching, I figured what better time than now to finally blog about the place.

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Reed’s clapboard residence, which sits overlooking the Grand Canal, is absolutely idyllic, as you can see below. From what I’ve been able to discern from Zillow, the 0.06-acre plot of land where the home now stands was purchased in November 1975 for $10,000. Construction on the dwelling was completed in 1978 and it has not changed hands since – understandably! If I owned that place, I’d never sell it either!

The property looks exactly the same in person as it did onscreen in Valentine’s Day – minus the wetsuits that were seen hanging from the balcony in the movie.

In real life, the two-story dwelling boasts three bedrooms, three baths, and 2,216 square feet of living space.

Because it was seen only briefly, I believe that the home’s actual interior was also used in the filming, but, unfortunately, I could not find any photographs of the inside of the place to verify that hunch.

The bridge that appeared throughout the film is located directly in front of Reed’s house and crosses over Grand Canal.

Because of what takes place there at the end of Valentine’s Day (I won’t spoil it for those of you who have yet to see the movie), I was actually more excited to pose for a picture on the bridge than I was in front of Reed’s house.

Thanks to the Simon and Simon website, I learned that Reed’s residence was also used as the home where A.J. Simon (Jameson Parker) lived on Simon & Simon. At the time that the series was filmed in the 1980s, the property looked quite a bit different than it does today and the lot next door to it was also vacant. (The yellow house seen in the photographs above was not built until 1988.)

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.

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for showing me this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Reed’s house from Valentine’s Day is located at 2604 Grand Canal in Venice.

October 23, 2012September 29, 2017

The Correct “A Nightmare on Elm Street” Bridge

While stalking the Venice Canals (the history of which you can read about on yesterday’s post about Lana Clarkson’s former home) with Mike, from MovieShotsLA, last July, he mentioned that there was some misinformation floating around online about the Venice Canal bridge that appeared in the 1984 horror flick A Nightmare on Elm Street. Mike explained that every filming location website and book seemed to have a differing opinion as to which of the area’s nine bridges were used in the production and that he had long wanted to clear up the confusion once and for all. And that right there is why I love Mike – the guy is meticulous in his reporting. It seriously irks me when people post erroneous location information online or in books. I am of the opinion that if you are going to take the time to write a blog or publish a book, you should also take the time to make sure the information you are putting forth is valid. So Mike and I decided right then and there to finally set the record straight about the locale, even though I had never actually seen A Nightmare on Elm Street.

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In A Nightmare on Elm Street, Glen Lantz (Johnny Depp) and Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp) discuss the “Balinese way of dreaming” while standing on a white-trellised bridge overlooking the Venice Canals. Thankfully, Mike was fairly certain that he knew which bridge had been featured in the movie prior to the start of our hunt. So, iPad in hand, we headed right on over to it.

We quickly scanned through A Nightmare on Elm Street (thank you iTunes!) to the bridge scene and tried to compare the homes visible in the background to the homes near the bridge where Mike thought filming had taken place. Sure enough, he almost immediately spotted a unique house with a corner balcony and rounded windows that matched up perfectly to what had appeared onscreen. Eureka!

While the trees surrounding the house (which is pictured below from the opposite direction that it was pictured in the movie) have grown considerably over the past 28 years (how in the heck has Johnny Depp not aged in all that time, by the way?!?!), it still looks pretty much exactly the same today as it did back in 1984 when A Nightmare on Elm Street was filmed, as you can see below. Unfortunately, there was too much foliage covering the side of the house that appeared in Nightmare, so I was not able to take a photograph of it from the same direction.

But you can see in the aerial view pictured below that the house’s two arched windows and corner balcony match up perfectly to what appeared onscreen.

On an Elm Street side note – A fascinating article about Heather Langenkamp, the actress who portrayed “Nancy Thompson” in three of the horror series’ installments, was published in the July 29, 2011 issue of Entertainment Weekly magazine. You can check it out here.

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for finding the CORRECT A Nightmare on Elm Street bridge! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The correct A Nightmare on Elm Street bridge connects Linnie Avenue to Court C, crossing over the Eastern Canal, at the Venice Canals in Venice. It is denoted with an orange arrow in the above aerial view. The camera was facing southeast, toward Washington Boulevard, in the movie.

October 22, 2012September 29, 2017

Lana Clarkson’s Former House

Way back in July, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I took a little stalking trip to the Venice Beach/Marina del Rey area. Now I should explain here that stalking with Mike is an experience in and of itself. The guy has lived in Los Angeles his entire life and has absorbed so much location information during that time that he is literally like a walking-talking map of filming locations and movie stars’ homes. So when we ventured out to the Venice Canals – one of the most beautiful spots in L.A. – and he started rattling off information about almost every single dwelling that we passed, I had to get out my iPhone and start taking notes, lest I forget it all. The residence that I was most excited to learn about, as I thought it would fit in perfectly with my Haunted Hollywood postings, was the tiny cottage where actress Lana Clarkson lived at the time of her death.

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As I mentioned in my post about the Venice Beach Cotel, where SanDeE* (my girl Sarah Jessica Parker) lived in L.A. Story, the seaside city was founded by a real estate developer and wealthy tobacco heir named Abbot Kinney who was looking to create “The Venice of America” on the shores of sunny Southern California. In the early 1900s, Kinney purchased some coastal acreage just south of Santa Monica and proceeded to built his dreamland. In the process, he drained sixteen miles of area marshes and turned them into a series of saltwater canals, made complete with idyllic bridges and singing gondoliers. Sadly, while beautiful, the canals were built far too shallow, resulting in poor water circulation. In the late 1920s, they were declared a public health hazard and the vast majority of them filled in and turned into streets. Today, only six small waterways, totaling two miles, and four original bridges remain. As you can see below, what was saved is now an absolutely magical little enclave and one of the most picturesque spots in L.A. I actually hate the Venice area – it is extremely seedy and far over-crowded – but I love, love, love the canals.

Tucked away, so much so that one could visit Venice without ever realizing they were there, the canals are situated between South Venice Boulevard, Eastern Court, 28th Avenue, and Strongs Drive.

Lana Clarkson’s former home is located at the southern end of the canals. The tiny 1-bedroom, 1-bath waterfront cottage, which was originally built in 1905, boasts a scant 454 square feet of living space and sits on a small 0.09-acre plot of land. The six-foot tall actress, who was best known for the 1985 film Barbarian Queen, had rented the residence, at $1,200 per month, since at least 2001. According to a September 2007 Vanity Fair article written by Dominick Dunne, Lana fixed up the bungalow on her own dime and her bedroom, which was painted red with black doors, was decorated with photographs of her idol, Marilyn Monroe. Apparently, at the time the article was written there were plans to tear the abode down, but I am very happy to report that, as of a few months ago, the place was still standing. You can check out a picture of what the house looked like back when Lana lived there, or shortly thereafter, on the Find a Death website here.

The pictures below show the view from Lana’s former back porch.

Lana Clarkson was famously shot to death at record producer Phil Spector’s Alhambra mansion (which I blogged about here) during the early morning hours of February 3rd, 2003. While Spector claimed that the 40-year-old actress had committed suicide, a jury disagreed and he was convicted of her murder on April 13th, 2009 and sentenced to 19-years-to-life in prison. You can read a full account of the events of February 3rd, 2003 on the Find a Death website here. I actually saw Phil in person back in September 2007 during his first trial (I was serving as a juror in a nearby courtroom) and I honestly don’t know what was scarier – his spaced out eyes or his spaced out hair!

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Lana Clarkson’s former home is located at 3005 Grand Canal in Venice.