February 2013 – IAMNOTASTALKER

February 28, 2013February 27, 2013

54 Holly from “1600 Penn”

Way back in April of last year, my good friend Marci, owner of my very favorite gift shop, Lula Mae, texted me to let me know that something was being filmed at a vacant diner (that was once the site of an eatery named 54 Holly) located just down the street from her store. And while I was absolutely itching to get down there to watch the filming, at the time that I received Marci’s text I was all the way across town in Hollywood stalking a premiere with my girl, Miss Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog. When I was finally able to stalk the restaurant the following day, it had already been stripped and returned to its bare bones self, which is a shame because set decorators had apparently gone all out with their embellishment of the place. I did manage to snap some pics of the empty eatery, though, and from there set out to discover what exactly had been filmed on the premises.

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Because Marci had told me that all of the production trucks had Glee signs posted in their front windows, I emailed the pictures to my go-to Glee source, fellow stalker April, to ask her to watch out for 54 Holly in upcoming episodes. (Yes, I was at one time a diehard Gleek – then I met the cast and my fandom went right out the window. They are absolutely horrid. I have not seen a single episode since. You can read a great write-up on Mike the Fanboy about the early days of the show when the cast was nice here.) April scoured several episodes of the series for me during the time period that the restaurant would have appeared, but did not see it pop up anywhere. It was then that I took to cyberstalking and came across a post on fave website OnLocationVacations which stated that the filming at 54 Holly was actually for an episode of 1600 Penn. So I finally sat down to watch the series last night – and I have to say that I was not impressed. In fact, I am thankful that the diner appeared in the show’s pilot, which spared me from having to see more than one episode. Winking smile

54 Holly was originally founded by Ernie Tan and Irene Pan in 1984, which makes me so incredibly sad. I hate to see restaurants that have been around for decades close their doors, especially when the spaces that once housed them then sit empty for months or even years, which is exactly what happened in this case. Such a shame. Anyway, 54 Holly looks to have been shuttered sometime in early 2012 after almost thirty years in business, and the storefront has remained vacant ever since. While it was in operation, the eatery maintained a retro feel. The blogger Foodoofus visited 54 Holly back in September 2011 and spoke with Ernie who informed him that he kept the place looking like an old time coffee shop because, “It’s the ambiance that keeps people wanting to come back. The ambiance is first and the food is second.” Apparently he did want to make changes to the décor at one point in time, but his customers wouldn’t hear of it. You can see photographs of what the place used to look like here. Quite a few celebrities, including Dustin Hoffman and Elizabeth Hurley, had even been known to pop in from time to time.

The tiny, 1,053-square-foot property is currently still for lease at a rate of $2,632.50 per month. You can check out its LoopNet listing here. As you can see, almost all of the fixtures, including the tops of the stools, have been removed and the site is now pretty much just a skeleton of its former self – which made it perfect for filming as set dressers were given a blank slate with which to work.

54 Holly showed up at the very end of the pilot episode of 1600 Penn, which was titled “Putting Out Fires”, in the scene in which President Dale Gilchrist (Bill Pullman) took his family – Emily Nash Gilchrist (Jenna Elfman), Skip Gilchrist (Josh Gad), Becca Gilchrist (Martha MacIsaac), Marigold Gilchrist (Amara Miller), and Xander Gilchrist (Benjamin Stockham) – out for a “normal” dinner at a supposed Washington, D.C.-area pizza joint. Both the interior . . .

. . . and the exterior of the restaurant were shown in the episode.

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 my good friend Marci, from Lula Mae, for telling me about this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The site of the former 54 Holly restaurant, from the pilot episode of 1600 Penn, is located at 54 East Holly Street in Old Town Pasadena.

February 27, 2013February 27, 2013

Bahooka Family Restaurant from “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”

This past Sunday morning, my mom emailed me a link to a Los Angeles Magazine article about the upcoming closure of a veritable San Gabriel Valley institution, Bahooka Family Restaurant in Rosemead, with the admonishment, “You’d better take pictures! It HAS to have been in movies.” And she was right. Bahooka has starred in no less than three films over its 37-year history, most notably in a scene from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas that featured Johnny Depp. I was absolutely shocked to learn that the iconic restaurant would soon be shuttered. While I had never dined there, I worked as a substitute teacher in Rosemead for over eight years and would drive by the oddly-decorated eatery almost every single day. I also used to hear quite colorful stories about the place from fellow teachers who had grown up in the area. So when I found out that Bahooka’s days were numbered, I was a bit heartbroken and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on over there that very afternoon with the hopes of grabbing some Polynesian-style lunch. Sadly though, we were not able to do so as there was a two-plus-hour wait for a table and the GC was having none of that. I was at least able to snap some photographs of the place for posterity’s sake, though.

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The first Bahooka Family Restaurant, or Bahooka Ribs & Grog as it is also known, was founded by siblings Betty Twigg and Jack Fliegel in 1967 in a building located at 1312 West Francisquito Avenue in West Covina. The tiny eatery featured a scant 13 tables. The second, and much larger, Bahooka location opened in 1976 at 4501 Rosemead Boulevard. And while the West Covina outpost closed its doors in 1980 (allegedly due to a property dispute), the Rosemead outpost, which boasts seating for 350 patrons and a banquet room that serves 80, had been going strong ever since with a loyal following of neighborhood regulars.

When Twigg and Fliegel decided to retire years ago, they handed Bahooka, which supposedly means “shack”, over to their respective children, Steve and Stacey. Now Steve and Stacey are looking to hang up their aprons, as well, but unfortunately, according to this LA Weekly article, have no children to pass the restaurant along to. So on the market it went – with a $3.3 million price tag. The 8,598-square-foot establishment sold in just one day. The new proprietor apparently purchased the Bahooka building, its hundreds upon hundreds of fish (which I’ll get to in a minute) and the site’s liquor license. The Bahooka name, though, was not for sale, as the Twiggs and Fliegels (as well as co-owner Suzanne Schneider) plan on continuing to sell their signature salad dressing, which comes from a 47-year-old family recipe, at grocery stores, including Ralphs and Costco.

Bahooka’s decidedly unique tiki- and nautical-themed décor was collected from various antique shops and scrap yards over the years, creating what countless websites and reviewers have described as a “flotsam and jetsam” dining experience.

Just a few of the whimsical touches include an actual set of antique post office boxes in the restaurant’s entrance area . . .

. . . and a cannon in the parking lot.

The tables, most of which were empty while we were there (which does not coincide with the supposed two-hour wait time), are fashioned with nautical – and Christmas! – adornments.

A few tables are even situated inside of an old jail cell.

The eatery’s most notable décor, though, has to be the 105 (yes, 105!) built-in aquariums which house countless fish, with varieties including pacus, silver dollars, catfish, Jack Dempseys, Oscars, clown knives, and koi. Almost every booth in the place is flanked by at least two aquariums.

The bar, which inexplicably does not have any bar stools, was even fashioned out of a fish tank.

Thanks to the site’s truly unique look, it is not hard to see how it ended up onscreen numerous times over the years. In 1998’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Bahooka masqueraded as a Hollywood-area restaurant where Dr Gonzo (Benicio Del Toro) stopped to use a pay phone, while his friend Raoul Duke (Johnny Depp) ordered drinks at the bar.

The restaurant’s legendary 34-pound, 36-year-old pacu fish, Rufus, was even featured in the movie.

Rufus is absolutely HUGE in real life. The photograph below does not even begin to do him justice.

On a Rufus side-note – in a typo worthy of fellow stalker Owen’s When Write Is Wrong blog, the poor fish’s name is misspelled on the sign displayed below his tank.

Rufus’ “twins”, who are both also huge, are pictured below.

In 2007’s The Number 23, Bahooka was the site of the Christmas party where Walter Sparrow (Jim Carrey) was hit on by his co-worker Sybil (Michelle Arthur).

In the 2010 comedy Barry Munday, Bahooka was where Barry Munday (Patrick Wilson) met Ginger Farley (Judy Greer).

And while IMDB states that the 1993 movie Kalifornia also did some filming at Bahooka, I scanned through the flick yesterday and did not see the restaurant pop up anywhere.

Besides being a filming location, Bahooka is also something of a celebrity magnet. Such stars as Topher Grace, Valente Rodriguez, Oscar De La Hoya, Kirstie Alley, and David Hasselhoff have all been spotted dining there over the years.

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.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Bahooka Family Restaurant, from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, is located at 4501 Rosemead Boulevard in Rosemead. You can visit Bahooka’s official website here. The restaurant will only be open until Sunday, March 10th, after which time its doors will be closed for good.

February 26, 2013December 6, 2013

Louis B. Mayer’s Former House – The Birthplace of the Academy Awards

Last week, the Grim Cheaper emailed me a fabulous Vanity Fair article about the genesis of the most iconic night in Hollywood – the Academy Awards. According to the blurb, in January 1927, legendary producer Louis B. Mayer was enjoying some idle conversation with friends Conrad Nagel and Fred Niblo at his beachfront home when the idea to form an elite club of fellow movie-industry moguls struck him. The article states, “Their flight of fancy—and what some might call anti-union maneuvering—swiftly took wing. The following week three dozen studio stalwarts attended a brainstorming dinner at L.A.’s Ambassador Hotel. By May, Mayer, Douglas Fairbanks, and eight others were addressing several hundred in black-tie and ball gowns at Hollywood’s Biltmore Hotel. Fairbanks presented the big picture, Mayer hit them up for $100 a head, and, lo and behold, they had forged an academy (Nagel’s term) of cinema’s elite. Little did L. B. Mayer suspect that two years later his simple notion would spawn a splendid offshoot: the first Academy Awards dinner dance, held on May 16, 1929, in the Blossom Room of the Roosevelt Hotel.” Well, as you can imagine, once I read those words, I was immediately itching to track down the house where it all began. As it turns out, the property is one I know quite well and had read about in countless books over the years – the infamous Peter Lawford beach house in Santa Monica where my girl Marilyn Monroe is rumored to have trysted with both John F. Kennedy and his brother, Bobby, back in the 1960s. So I dragged the GC right on out to stalk the place this past weekend while in L.A.

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Because there are numerous conflicting reports about the residence’s history online, I contacted my buddy E.J., from the Movieland Directory website , to give me the lowdown. According to him, the 6,416-square-foot abode was commissioned in 1926 by Mayer, who had purchased an empty ocean-side tract of land known as Rancho San Vicente the year prior. He employed MGM art director Cedric Gibbons to design the Mediterranean-style dwelling and utilized studio electricians, artisans and carpenters to construct it. The home was completed in an astonishing six weeks time, by April 18, 1926, with builders literally working around the clock to finish. Floodlights were brought in so that the laborers could continue to ply away through the night and, according to E.J., Mayer’s children would often head down to the beach to watch the spectacle.

The property, which cost $26,000 to construct, featured a gatekeeper’s apartment, 13 onyx bathrooms, wood-beamed ceilings, wrought-iron balconies, foot-thick exterior walls to keep the interior cool during the summer, a pool, and a projection room with a movie screen that rose from the floor. Legend has it that the first screening of Gone with the Wind took place in that projection room.

Oh, and did I mention the views?

Louis B. Mayer moved out of the home upon separating from his wife, Margaret, in 1944. She later took over ownership of the property, the front of which is pictured below, through the divorce settlement. In 1956, the residence was purchased by British-born actor Peter Lawford and his wife, Patricia Kennedy, for $95,000. JFK would often visit his sister and brother-in-law at the beach house, which became a sort of den of ill repute with Lawford throwing parties and lining up call-girls, starlets and models for the then Senator and later President to rendezvous with. One of those starlets was, of course, Marilyn Monroe. Jack stayed on the premises, which at the time was located on a private, gated road, so often during his presidency that the place became known as the Western White House. And it was there that Marilyn was set to have dinner on the final night of her life, August 4th, 1962, but she wound up declining the invite at the last minute. Much speculation has surrounded the happenings at the house on that particular evening, the most truthful of which, in my opinion, is chronicled in the fabulous book The Last Days of Marilyn Monroe.

In 1974, while working on the Pussy Cats album, John Lennon, Ringo Star and Paul McCartney all lived at the beach house. In fact, the last known photograph of John and Paul was taken on the premises. According to E.J., Warren Beatty also owned the property at one point in time and it was once rented by Led Zeppelin, as well. The historic home was last sold in October 1978 for $862,000.

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.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Louis B. Mayer’s former home, aka the birthplace of the Academy Awards, is located at 625 Palisades Beach Road (or Pacific Coast Highway) in Santa Monica. The beach side of the house can easily be viewed by parking in the lot located near 480 Pacific Coast Highway and walking just a few hundred feet south.

February 25, 2013March 5, 2013

Oscar Weekend 2013

I spent this past weekend in L.A. doing some pre-Oscar stalking and while I did not have as much luck with celebrity photos this year as I have in years past, my girl Miss Pinky Lovejoy, from the Thinking Pink blog, did. I think she got about 55 celeb pics in total! I really wish I had her stamina, but while she was out and about until 2 am on both Friday and Saturday night, the Grim Cheaper and I were in bed by 10. LOL Ah, it was still a great weekend and we had an absolute blast, but I unfortunately did not have time to write a new post for today. I will be back tomorrow, though, with a whole new location. In the meantime, here are my celeb pics from this weekend.

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Jack Black

Stephen Moyer

Kelsey Grammer (or as one of the paps called him “Chelsea Grammer” LOL)

Larry David

James Marsden

Teresa Palmer

Paul Johansson (aka John Sears from Beverly Hills, 90210!!!!)

Wendell Pierce

Johnny Simmons

February 22, 2013February 21, 2013

The Marina del Rey Marriott from “90210”

One location that has been on my To-Stalk List for ages now is the Marina del Rey Marriott, which appeared in the Season 1 episode of fave show 90210 titled “That Which We Destroy” – in two different scenes featuring my girl Shannen Doherty, no less! And while I had planned on stalking the locale last July when Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I were in the area for a full-day stalking adventure, as so often happens when the two of us get together, we had far too many locations and far too little time. Thankfully though, my and the Grim Cheaper’s new L.A. home-base is in Santa Monica, just a few miles north of the hotel, so, while we were in town last weekend, I made it a point to finally visit the place.

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The Marina del Rey Marriott, which is within walking distance of both Venice Beach and Mother Beach, features an outdoor pool, a fitness center, views of Marina del Rey’s gorgeous waterways (and, ironically enough, the parking lot where Jack McKay was killed on Beverly Hills, 90210, which I blogged about here), 24 different meeting rooms comprising a total of 18,000 square feet of space, and a ginormous rooftop ballroom named the Bayview Ballroom, which boasts 360-views of Los Angeles, a huge outdoor patio area and a helipad!

The Marina del Rey Marriott has won several accolades over the years, including being named an LA’s the Place Top Pick in 2010. Playboy Magazine also recognized the hotel’s outdoor bar, Glow Ultra Lounge, as one of the top ten lounges in Los Angeles.

With its dark red pillars, shining marble floors and glowing accent candles, the Marina del Rey Marriott gives off a very hip and trendy vibe and it is not at all hard to see how it ended up onscreen on 90210.

The Marriot actually popped up three times in the “That Which We Destroy” episode of 90210. First, one of the hotel’s hallways masqueraded as the hallway of the theatre where Brenda Walsh (Shannen Doherty) starred in a local performance of Hamlet.

It is thanks to the carpet in that hallway that I was able to figure out this particular location. For a while I was stumped as to where filming of the theatre scene had taken place, but after watching the episode for the umpteenth time, I noticed that the carpeting looked very much like hotel carpeting – Marriott carpeting in particular. (My dad has been a Marriott Rewards Member for years, so I am extremely familiar with the chain’s carpeting, which seems to be the same at every single property.) So I started looking through photographs of the various Marriotts in the L.A. area, starting with the ones nearest to Manhattan Beach Studios where the series is lensed and working my way outward, and it was not long before I came across the right one.

Once I figured out the “theatre” location, I realized that two other scenes from the “That Which We Destroy” episode had also been shot at the Marriott. The hotel’s Stones restaurant was used as the spot where Debbie Wilson (Lori Loughlin), Harry Wilson (Rob Estes), Tracy Clark (Christina Moore), and Sean Cavanaugh (Josh Henderson) went for a getting-to-know-each-other dinner.

Again, the carpet was a dead giveaway that the dinner scene had taken place at a hotel.

And finally the lobby bar was where, in my favorite scene from the episode, Brenda told Kelly Taylor (Jennie Garth) that she could no longer be friends with her because “I don’t want to fight over Dylan or Ryan or whoever. You know, I’m over all of that drama.” You tell her, Brenda! Tables were brought in for the filming of the scene in order to make the lobby bar look like a sit-down restaurant. In reality, there are couches situated in that area, as you can see below. Ironically enough, it looks like 90210 was filming at the Marina del Rey Marriot once again this very week.

90210 was hardly the first production to film at the hotel. In 1989’s Lethal Weapon 2, the exterior of the Marina del Rey Marriott was used as the establishing shot of the hotel where Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson) and Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover) first met Leo Getz (Joe Pesci).

The Marriot was only used for the brief establishing shot, though. All actual filming took place about ten miles away at the InterContinental Los Angeles Century City hotel, which was at the time a JW Marriott, the same JW Marriott that was featured in the 1990 thriller Pacific Heights.

In 2006’s Drake and Josh Go Hollywood, the Marina del Rey Marriott stood in for The Chambrulay, where Drake Parker (Drake Bell), Josh Nichols (Josh Peck) and Audrey Parker-Nichols (Nancy Sullivan) stayed while (accidentally) visiting L.A.

The Marina del Rey Marriott also stood in for the Grand Saville Hotel where almost all of the Season 1 episode of Chuck titled “Chuck Versus the Undercover Lover” took place.

Glow Ultra Lounge also appeared briefly in one of Chuck’s mind flashes in the episode.

Only the interior of the Marriott was used in “Chuck Versus the Undercover Lover.” The establishing shot was of the Wilshire Grand Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles, which is currently in the process of being torn down in order to make way for what will be the tallest building west of the Mississippi.

In the Season 3 episode of fave show Dexter titled “I Had a Dream”, the Marriott stood in for Hotel Belvedere, the supposed Miami, Florida motel where Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall) stalked his former partner-in-crime, Asst. District Atty. Miguel Prado (Jimmy Smits). Both the exterior . . .

. . . and the interior of the property were used in the episode.

One of the Marriott’s actual rooms was also utilized in the filming.

As you can see below, though, some CGI trickery was used to cut off the top floors of the hotel in the episode, making it virtually unrecognizable. In fact, had it not been for fellow stalker Gary, from the Seeing Stars website, I never would have realized Hotel Belvedere was the Marina del Rey Marriott.

The Season 9 episode of American Idol titled “Los Angeles, CA Auditions” was also filmed at the Marina del Rey Marriot. The actual auditions took place in the hotel’s Bayview Ballroom.

Some scenes from the episode were also lensed in front of the hotel;

and in the lobby. And while the judges apparently arrived via helicopter and landed on the Marriott’s roof in the episode, I could not footage of that anywhere online.

In the 2010 movie Valentine’s Day, football player Sean Jackson (Eric Dane) made a speech on the rooftop of the Marina del Rey Marriott. Check out those views!!

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.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Marina del Rey Marriot, from the “That Which We Destroy” episode of 90210, is located at 4100 Admiralty Way in Marina del Rey. You can visit the hotel’s official website here.

February 21, 2013February 20, 2013

San Francisco Saloon from “The Ugly Truth”

Before we moved in together in 2008, the Grim Cheaper lived on the West Side of Los Angeles and, consequently, the two of us spent the majority of our time out there. During those years, when driving back and forth from his condo, I would often pass by a bar named San Francisco Saloon. The place had always intrigued me (most likely because I grew up in the Bay Area), but, for whatever reason, I never stopped in. Then, back in 2009, I just about fell off my chair when I spotted the watering hole pop up in fave rom-com The Ugly Truth. We were living in Pasadena by then, though, so after I finished watching the movie, San Francisco Saloon pretty much slipped from my mind. Flash forward to this past weekend, when, while driving back to the GC’s boss’ loft in Santa Monica (our L.A. weekend crash pad), we passed by the eatery and I suggested we stop in for a spontaneous stalk and a bite to eat. Thankfully, the GC was game and, in a fortuitous twist, we ended up absolutely LOVING the place.

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Oddly enough, while the San Francisco Saloon website states that the establishment has been “serving spirits since 1934,” I could find virtually no other historical information about the place anywhere. The only scoop that I did come across was this Yellow Pages listing which claims that the bar was named in honor of San Francisco’s oldest watering hole, The Saloon. You can check out some photographs of The Saloon, which was founded in 1861, here. The place definitely does have the same look and feel as its Los Angeles counterpart.

Because I am pretty much the pickiest eater known to man, I was floored to discover that the San Francisco Saloon menu offered countless options. And when I saw that I could substitute a crispy chicken breast for a ground beef patty on any hamburger order, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I wound up creating my own crispy chicken burger with jack cheese, mushrooms, bacon, and ranch dressing, and, while I am sure that it goes without saying, the thing was uh-ma-zing! My “burger” came with a massive side salad full of mixed greens that was also fabulous – and made me feel a bit less guilty about my bacon/cheese/fried chicken-filled main portion. Winking smile The GC dined on the Saloon’s 49er Burger, with a regular beef patty, blue cheese crumbles, grilled onions, and mushrooms, and also absolutely loved it. And the prices were incredibly reasonable, too, which made him happy to no end. My favorite part of the evening, though, was when I ordered champagne and the bartender explained that the Saloon did not actually serve sparkling wine, but that he could make me some mock-bubbly by mixing white wine with seltzer water. How incredibly cool is that? While I have found myself in countless bars that do not serve champagne, never once have I had a bartender offer to make me a substitute. And his concoction turned out to be fabulous, to boot! On a sparkling wine side-note – my good friend Julia, creator of the fabulous Bunnies in L.A. jewelry line, recently asked me if I liked white wine. When I told her that I did not, she responded, “Exactly! It’s basically just flat champagne, so what’s the point?” Um, LOVE IT!

San Francisco Saloon popped up once in The Ugly Truth, in the scene in which co-workers/frenemies Abby (Katherine Heigl) and Mike (Gerard Butler) discuss Abby’s upcoming trip to Lake Tahoe with her new boyfriend, Colin (Eric Winter). Both the exterior . . .

. . . and the interior of the bar were used. According to one of the super-nice servers that I spoke with, several other scenes from the movie (all of which apparently wound up on the cutting room floor) were also filmed at San Francisco Saloon, as was an episode of Wilfred, but I was, unfortunately, unable to figure out exactly which episode.

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.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: San Francisco Saloon, from The Ugly Truth, is located at 11501 West Pico Boulevard in West Los Angeles. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.

February 20, 2013February 19, 2013

Espresso Profeta from “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills”

A couple of years ago, the Grim Cheaper and my cable service stopped providing Bravo TV (and E!) as a part of their basic subscription, which absolutely crushed me being that I was no longer able to watch The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, one of my very favorite shows. (Don’t even get me started on not being able to watch The Soup regularly!) So when we moved to the desert and realized that our new cable company offered Bravo (and E!), we immediately went on TRHOBH overload and watched almost all of Season 2 and 3 in one evening. Let me tell you, I was in reality TV heaven! Especially when, while checking out Season 2’s “The Lost Footage” special, I was introduced to Espresso Profeta, the most adorable little coffee shop that I had ever laid eyes on, in the scene in which Taylor Armstrong asked Adrienne Maloof to be her daughter’s godmother. I quickly Googled the name and discovered that the quaint little café was located on Glendon Avenue in Westwood. Being that I am a coffee connoisseur AND a stalker, I have no idea how in the heck I had never heard of the place before! So I immediately added the site to my To-Stalk list and when the GC and I were out in Los Angeles this past weekend, it was our very first stalking stop.

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Espresso Profeta, which translates to “The Prophet of Coffee”, was first founded on September 8th, 2008 by Samantha Langford and Mitch Hale. Prior to that date, the space that now houses the café (a brick-walled structure that, I believe, is named either the El Encanto Building or The Harrison Patio Building and dates back to 1924, 1927, or 1929, depending on which website one happens to be reading) was occupied by a different espresso bar, West Burton Coffee & Tea, that was owned solely by Langford. At the time, Hale, who was one of the very first baristas to be employed by the world famous Espresso Vivace in Seattle, was managing Caffe Luxxe in Santa Monica, but had decided it was time to open up his own place. While doing research on founding his shop, he learned that West Burton Coffee & Tea was one of the only sites in Los Angeles to serve Vivace beans. He contacted Langford and the two decided to partner up. In just three days time, the duo closed West Burton, remodeled the space and re-opened it as Espresso Profeta. It has been going strong ever since. And it is not very hard to see why – once I stepped through the front doors, I never wanted to leave!

In real life, Espresso Profeta is every bit as charming as it was made to appear on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.

Especially the front courtyard area.

And their coffee is to die for! Espresso Profeta takes their java very seriously. While there, I ordered an iced latte and asked the barista to hold back one of the espresso shots as I prefer my lattes more creamy than strong. He explained that it would not be nearly as good sans that second shot, but I convinced him to make it my way, anyway. And he was right. While good, when I returned to Espresso Profeta the following day (did you not see that coming? Winking smile ), I let the barista make my latte his way and it was sheer perfection!

On The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills Season 2 “The Lost Footage” special, both the exterior . . .

. . . and the interior of Espresso Profeta were shown.

In the rather awkward scene that took place there, Adrienne turned down Taylor’s request to be her daughter’s godmother. And while I never thought I’d refer to Adrienne Maloof as wise or sage, she was exactly that in her handling of the situation, telling Taylor that being a godmother is “an extremely important position to be in,” and that she should “really put thought into” whom she chooses as her child’s godparent and that she has “to take it seriously.” Um, ya think?

And while I assumed that the beautifully-crafted libations shown in the episode were most likely fabricated for the filming, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that all of Profeta’s espresso drinks, which are pulled using a Syneso machine, really do come out looking like works of art. It was mesmerizing to watch the baristas perform their special brand of frothy magic.

Thanks to the book Location Filming in Los Angeles, I learned that the building that now houses Espresso Profeta masqueraded as the art gallery owned by Carolyn Ellenson Grant (Marie Windsor) in the 1955 film No Man’s Woman.

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.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Espresso Profeta, from The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills Season 2 “The Lost Footage” special, is located at 1129 Glendon Avenue in Westwood.

February 15, 2013February 24, 2013

L.A. Bound

It has been said that you can’t go home again, but the Grim Cheaper and I are doing just that this weekend by heading out to Los Angeles for a couple of days. I have an appointment at the Pasadena Blo-Out Lounge, a coffee date with Marci from Lula Mae, all sorts of fun adventures planned with Miss Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog, and about a hundred new locations to stalk. Needless to say, this stalker is beyond excited! I will be taking today, Monday, and Tuesday off, though, to fit in all of the festivities. See you Wednesday! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

February 14, 2013February 15, 2013

Tom Rose’s House from “Beverly Hills, 90210”

This past weekend, the Grim Cheaper surprised me with tickets for the Children’s Discovery Museum of the Desert annual Discovery Home Tour as a sort-of Welcome-to-Palm-Springs gift. The tour was an experience, to say the least. I honestly cannot remember the last time the GC and I laughed so hard – and for so long. I was “live texting” fellow stalker Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, throughout the day and at one point, after describing a house that had a microwave, mini-fridge, espresso machine, and pantry set up in multiple bathrooms directly across from toilets
(I’m not making this up – residents of that particular abode could literally be sitting on the toilet and making espresso at the same time!), he asked, “What f*cking desert have you moved to? The Sahara?” I have tears in my eyes right now going back through all of the texts from that day. Ah, good times! Anyway, while driving through the Las Palmas neighborhood mid-tour, I mentioned to the GC that I had yet to stalk the Palm Springs residence that Dylan McKay (Luke Perry) visited in the Season 5 episode of fave show Beverly Hills, 90210 titled “P.S. I Love You.” I remembered that fellow stalker Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, had the address posted on his site, so I pulled over to look it up. As fate would have it, I actually pulled over directly across the street from the home! I mean, what are the odds of that? So I jumped out of the car and quickly snapped a few pics.

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In real life, the residence, which was originally built in 1983 and sits perched above Patencio Road, boasts seven bedrooms, seven baths, 6,989 square feet of living space, and a 0.73-acre plot of land. The ginormous property was last sold in December 1986 for $3,428,000.

According to a September 2010 Palm Springs Life article, the dwelling belongs to none other than Barbra Streisand and James Brolin, although I was unable to verify that claim through property records or other sources.

The article also states that the residence boasts a “guest mansion”, which, from looking at aerial views, can only be the structure denoted below. It was also built in 1983 and features five bedrooms, six baths, 6,948 square feet, and a 0.9-acre plot of land. Some guest mansion! That place is bigger than most houses!

In the “P.S. I Love You” episode of Beverly Hills, 90210, Dylan and Charley Rawlins (Jeffrey King) head to Palm Springs to meet with a possible investor for their movie. That investor, Tom Rose (James Handy), turns out to be a mobster and, as you can see below, things don’t go quite according to plan. Gotta love the later years of 90210!

Before Dylan winds up hanging off of the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway, though, he meets with Tom Rose at the mobster’s desert mansion. As you can see below, the home’s front gate looks exactly the same in person as it did onscreen. (A HUGE thank you to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for making screen captures of Tom’s house for me. I do not own Season 5 of 90210 on DVD, but presumed that the episode would be available for download on iTunes or elsewhere online. Sadly, that was not the case. I could not find “P.S. I Love You” ANYWHERE! Because the vast majority of the episode took place in the Coachella Valley, I was really looking forward to watching it, too. Boo!)

The property’s intercom now looks completely different, though, and was either swapped out for the filming or has since been replaced.

In an odd twist, the house that appeared in the episode looks nothing at all like the actual house that stands behind that front gate. As you can see below, Tom Rose’s residence was Moroccan in style and featured a tall, domed tower . . .

. . . while the real life residence is modern in style and lacks any sort of a tower.

The home’s real life driveway does not match what appeared in the episode, either. While Tom Rose’s driveway opened up to the front of his residence, the actual driveway opens up to the side of the house. Tom’s driveway was also flanked by short stone walls . . .

. . . which are missing in real life. If I had to guess, I would say that, while it is possible that the residence has been vastly remodeled since the filming of 90210 in 1995, I think it is much more likely that a different house (most likely one in the Los Angeles area) was used for the scenes that took place behind the front gate. Don’t quote me on that, though – it is just a guess. If Barbra Streisand really does own the home, as Palm Springs Life states (and because it was last sold in 1986, that means she would have owned it at the time of the filming, as well) this scenario would make sense, as Babs does not strike me as the sort of person who would EVER allow a film crew inside of her residence.

The interior of the property that appeared in the episode is pictured below. And while I am certain that a real life interior was used in the filming and not a set, I am guessing that said interior is located elsewhere, most likely in Los Angeles.

Check out the boom microphone visible in the top of the screen capture below, which Mike pointed out to me.

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 Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, for finding this location and to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for making the screen captures that appear in this post.

Until next time, Happy Stalking – and a very happy Valentine’s Day to all of my fellow stalkers!

Stalk It: Tom Rose’s house from the “P.S. I Love You” episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 is located at 555 North Patencio Road in Palm Springs.

February 12, 2013February 12, 2013

Roger Azarian’s House from "Beverly Hills, 90210"

One location that I had wanted to stalk pretty much ever since first moving to Southern California was the mansion where Roger Azarian (a pre-Friends Matthew Perry) lived in the Season 1 episode of fave show Beverly Hills, 90210 titled “April Is the Cruelest Month”. So when fellow stalker Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, managed to track it down a few years back, I was BEYOND excited – until I took a look at the place on Google Street View, that is, and saw that no part of it was visible from the road. Boo! So I never wound up stalking it. Flash forward to a couple of days before my move to the desert, when I grabbed my buddy E.J.’s Hollywood Death and Scandal Sites book and headed to the San Fernando Valley for a solo stalking adventure. At one point I randomly found myself on Louise Avenue in Encino and thought the street name rang a bell. I pulled over to do some searching on my iPhone and quickly discovered that Louise Avenue just so happened to be where the Azarian mansion was located. So, even though I knew the pad would not be at all visible, I decided to head right on over there for a little looksie.

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As it turns out, Google Maps did not lie – Roger’s residence, sadly, cannot be viewed from the street.

But Bing Maps does provide some fabulous aerial views of the place, so I guess there’s that. Winking smile As you can see below, Roger Azarian’s mansion and the parcel of land that it sits on are both absolutely ginormous!

After doing a bit of research, I believe that the property is actually comprised of two separate dwellings (a main house and a guest house) with two different addresses – one being 4839 Louise Avenue and the other 4825 Louise Avenue.

While the front gate displays a single address, 4839, Zillow shows that the residence located at that number only consists of a scant one bedroom, one bath and 1,200 square feet – far too small to be Roger Azarian’s manse. I believe that those measurements refer instead to a guest house located on the property. According to Zillow, the house at 4825 Louise Avenue boasts seven bedrooms, six baths and 7,186 square feet, which sounds much more like the dwelling that appeared onscreen in Beverly Hills, 90210. For whatever reason, though, the 4825 number is not displayed anywhere on the front gate. You can check out some interior photographs of the property, which was originally built in 1932 and appears to be named “Encino Acres”, here.

In the “April Is the Cruelest Month” episode of Beverly Hills, 90210, Brandon Walsh (Jason Priestley) befriends wealthy budding tennis star Roger Azarian and fairly quickly begins to fear that he is planning to kill to his own father. Quite a few areas of the house were used in the episode, including the front exterior;

the interior;

the pool;

and the pool house.

While doing research for this post, I discovered that Roger Azarian’s manse is quite the oft-used locale. It was also featured on 90210’s sister show, Melrose Place, as the mansion where Arthur Field (Michael Des Barres) lived.

The abode also appeared in another 90210 spin-off, the 1994 series Models Inc., as the home of Chris White (Kurt Deutsch).

In the 1983 television series Emerald Point N.A.S., the dwelling was where Harlan Adams (Patrick O’Neal) lived.

In Seasons 5 through 8 of the television Falcon Crest, the manse was used as the residence of the Agretti family.

In the Season 3 episode of Scarecrow and Mrs. King titled “Welcome to America, Mr. Brand”, the dwelling belonged to Kenneth Clayton-Dobbs (David Fox-Brenton).

Oddly enough, though, a different residence was shown for the establishing shots of the property in the episode.

In the Season 5 episode of Alias titled “Bob”, Encino Acres was where Jack Bristow (Victor Garber) met up with Elizabeth Powell (Caroline Goodall).

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 fellow stalker Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, for finding this location and to fellow stalker Gilles in France for finding episodes of Models Inc. and Emerald Point N.A.S. for me on YouTube and for making the Falcon Crest screen captures that appear in this post! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Roger Azarian’s house from the “April Is the Cruelest Month” episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 is located at 4825/4839 Louise Avenue in Encino.