El Cabrillo from “L.A. Story”

L.A. Story apartment building (6 of 8)

Last April, in the midst of my slightly-obsessive L.A. Story location-finding mission, fellow stalker Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, tracked down a couple of the movie’s crew members for me, one of whom was extremely helpful.  After he assisted us in the finding the crash intersection from the flick, I inquired about the garden where Harris K. Telemacher (Steve Martin) and Sara McDowel (Victoria Tennant) turned into children in one of the movie’s more fanciful scenes.  I was actually under the assumption that the locale was most likely a set, but the crew member advised me otherwise and responded that the scene was shot in “a famous old Hollywood courtyard building.”  Well as soon as I read those words, I knew exactly where filming had taken place.  It was a spot I had even stalked and blogged about before!  As it turns out, Harris and Sara’s garden is the courtyard of El Cabrillo, the condominium complex from both the television series Chuck and the 1997 romantic comedy ‘Til There Was You.

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El Cabrillo, which was constructed in 1928, was designed by prolific husband-and-wife architecture team Arthur and Nina Zwebell.  (The couple also designed Villa Primavera from In a Lonely Place and the Chaplin Court apartment complex.)  Legend has it that Cecil B. DeMille commissioned the structure as housing for travelling actors.  The two-story, ten-unit building features a central courtyard, a tiered Moorish fountain, wrought-iron detailing, carved fireplaces, Catalina tiling, and wood-beamed ceilings.  Luminaries such as singer Stevie Wonder, director Lowell Sherman, actress Ann Harding, costume designer Kent Warner, makeup artist Perc Westmore, and playwright John Willard all called the property home at one time or another.  In 2005, the building was renovated by designer Xorin Balbes and turned into condos.  A gorgeous, albeit small (if my calculations are correct, it measures 462 square feet) one-bedroom, one-bath unit (with no parking!) sold for $430,000 ($41,000 over asking price!) last June.  You can check out some pictures of it here.  The place may be tiny, but it is absolutely idyllic.

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Sadly, El Cabrillo is gated and its gorgeous interior courtyard is not visible from the road.

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I did manage to snap the picture below via a crack in the gate, though.

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Even from the outside, El Cabrillo is an idyllic little spot.

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Check out that balcony – what an oasis!

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In L.A. Story, Harris and Sara are shown walking into a neon-lit store window on Melrose Avenue (you can read about that location here).  The window then turns into a magical garden, complete with flowers that bloom in an instant, statues that move, a sparkling waterfall, and the power to transform Harris and Sara into children.  Very little of the garden is actually shown in the scene, which is why I believed it was a set.

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In the 1997 romantic comedy ‘Til There Was You, El Cabrillo masqueraded as La Fortuna, the bucolic apartment building where Gwen Moss (Jeanne Tripplehorn) lived.  And while the exterior of El Cabrillo was shown several times in the flick . . .

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. . . I am fairly certain that the courtyard was a set.  As you can see below as compared to these photographs, while sharing similar elements, El Cabrillo’s courtyard is significantly smaller than the one that appeared in ‘Til There Was You.

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El Cabrillo’s central fountain is also more ornamental than the fountain shown in ‘Til There Was You.

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El Cabrillo was also where reluctant spy/Burbank Buy More employee Chuck Bartwoski (Zachary Levi) lived in the television series Chuck.  According to a 2007 The Hollywood Reporter article, Chuck producers were looking for a courtyard apartment complex “reminiscent of old Hollywood/Echo Park” for their hero to call home.  They ultimately decided on El Cabrillo.  Location manager Kelly Harris is quoted in The Reporter as saying that the Cabrillo “offered many interesting textures — concrete blocks, wood-spindle balconies, private balconies, an impressive interior courtyard turret and a courtyard fountain and provided an amazing background for our characters to interact.”  And while the pilot was shot on location at the actual complex, a replica of the building was constructed on a soundstage at Warner Bros. Studios for the remainder of the show’s run.  I got to see the set once on one of my many WB visits and it was absolutely amazing how real it looked.  The screen captures pictured below are from Chuck’s pilot episode and show El Cabrillo’s real life courtyard.

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These screen captures are from the second episode of Season 1, titled “Chuck Versus the Helicopter,” and show the soundstage re-creation that was used throughout the remainder of the series.

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A commenter on Hooked on Houses’ fabulous post about El Cabrillo stated that the building was also where Rupert Giles (Anthony Head) lived on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  I never watched the series, but fellow stalker Ashley, of the Drewseum, was a die-hard Buffy fan and had done some investigating on Giles’ apartment a few months back.  She was nice enough to share her findings with me.  As she discovered, the exterior of Giles’ building was actually El Pueblo in Los Feliz, the very same apartments used on Melrose Place, and the interior was just a set.  Ashley also sent me several screen captures of Giles’ pad and I almost fell over when I saw how similar it was to the El Cabrillo condo that sold in June.  Check out those matching arched stairways!  I have a feeling that the set of Giles’ apartment was modeled after a real life El Cabrillo interior.

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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.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, for helping me to find this location.  Smile

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Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: El Cabrillo, from L.A. Story, is located at 1832-1850 North Grace Avenue in Hollywood.

The Hyatt Huntington Beach from “90210”

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One location that I have been absolutely DYING to stalk for over a year and a half now is the Hyatt Huntington Beach Hotel, the spot which stands in for the Beverly Hills Beach Club, the regular hangout of Liam Court (aka cutie Matt Lanter – sigh!), Annie Wilson (aka Shenae Grimes), Naomi Clark (aka AnnaLynne McCord) and the rest of the West Bev gang, each week on fave show 90210.  So when the Grim Cheaper and I were discussing where to spend his upcoming birthday weekend a couple of weeks back, I casually mentioned the Hyatt as a possible destination and, amazingly enough, despite the hotel’s hefty nightly room cost, he readily agreed!  Yay!  So the two of us, along with my parents, headed down there bright and early this past Saturday morning.  And, let me tell you, I could NOT have been more excited!  I was literally bouncing out of my seat the entire drive from Pasadena down to the South Bay.

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Thankfully the hotel did not disappoint!  The Hyatt Huntington Beach is absolutely HUGE – I honestly don’t think I have ever in my life seen a hotel even remotely that big! – and features a retail plaza complete with a grocery store and coffee bar, spa grottos with 3 tucked away spa pools, 6 different on-site restaurants, a water playground for kids, over 100,000 square feet of meeting and event space;

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517 guest rooms (ours is pictured above);

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a large lagoon-style swimming pool;

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lush grounds with meandering koi ponds;

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several sparkling fountains;

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and a 20,000 square foot spa.

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For all of its grandiosity, though, there were a lot of small touches, as well, that gave the hotel an intimate feel; my personal favorite being the mini-outdoor living room that was tucked away in an alcove near our room.

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And on Sunday morning when it rained, the hotel put out umbrellas for guests to use.  Love it!

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The area of the hotel that I was most excited about seeing was the front entrance, which is used in establishing shots of the Beach Club each week.

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Pictured above is what the entry-way columns look like when not sporting the “Beverly Hills Beach Club” signs that are shown on the series. 

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Besides appearing weekly in establishing shots, filming has also taken place on location at the hotel on two different occasions.  The Hyatt was first used in the Season 2 episode of 90210  titled “New Beginnings”.  In that episode, filming took place at the front entrance of the hotel;

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in the main fountain area;

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and by the pool.

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And in the Season 3 episode titled ”Mother Dearest” filming took place once again at the hotel’s front entrance; 

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by the pool;

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outside of the spa;

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in one of the exterior courtyards;

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on the bridge that connects the hotel to the beach;

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and in the beach parking lot located directly across the street from the hotel.

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None of the interior filming of the Beverly Hills Beach Club takes place at the hotel, though.  Sadly, the interior of the Club is just a set that exists only on a soundstage at Manhattan Beach Studios where the series is lensed.

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But I was very excited to see some similarities between the interior of the Hyatt hotel and the Beach Club set.  As you can see in the above screen captures and photographs, the Hyatt has a set of three surfboards hanging on the wall behind the concierge desk, much like is the case with the check-in desk at the Beach Club!  I cannot tell you how excited I was to spot those surfboards!

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There is also an outdoor fire pit located in the patio area of Mankota’s Grill, the hotel’s poolside restaurant, that looks very similar to the Beach Club’s outdoor fire pit.

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A SUPER nice concierge that we spoke with while checking out also let us know that in the Season 3 episode of Chuck titled “Chuck Versus the Beard” the Hyatt stood in for the Malibu Vista Hotel where Devon Woodcomb (aka Ryan McPartlin) and Ellie Bartowski (aka Sarah Lancaster) vacationed . . .

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. . . and where Sarah Walker (aka Yvonne Strahovski) and Daniel Shaw (aka Brandon Roth) were sent to track down a spy.

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The Hyatt Huntington Beach also stood in for the Turks & Caicos hotel where married CIA agents Steven and Samantha Bloom (aka Boris Kodjoe and Gugu Mbatha-Raw respectively) conducted a sting operation in the Season 1 episode of Undercovers titled “Instructions”. 

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According to a column on the Surf City News website, a large green screen was set up at the north end of the pool during the filming of Undercovers so that it could be made to look as if the hotel was located on the beach.  In reality, the Hyatt is located across the street from the beach.

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The hotel’s Red Chair Lounge also stood in for a Caracas bar in the “Instructions” episode.

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And one of its exterior hallways and courtyards were also used.

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The Hyatt was also featured in an Orbitz commercial in which the Orbitz hovercraft is shown landing in a hotel pool.

Orbitz Commercial filmed at the Hyatt Huntington Hotel

You can watch that commercial by clicking above.

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The concierge also told us that the Hyatt was featured in the Season 3 episode of My Fair Wedding titled “Monopoly Bride” in which wedding planner David Tutera coordinates a Monopoly-themed wedding for a board-game obsessed bride and groom.  And she informed us that a production with Hills star Audrina Patridge was filmed by the hotel’s pool, but she was not sure exactly what production it was.  And finally she told us that the hotel will be featured as a venue in an upcoming episode of Tori & Dean: sTORIbook Weddings, which is set to premiere on the Oxygen Channel on April 6th.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The Hyatt Huntington Beach, aka the Beverly Hills Beach Club from 90210, is located at 21500 Pacific Coast Highway in Huntington Beach.  You can visit the hotel’s official website here.