Fellow stalker Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, recently embarked upon a mission to try to track down some of the unknown locations from one of his favorite movies, the 1983 classic Vacation. He had quite a bit of success, too, managing to pinpoint two elusive spots, one of which was the Norwalk motel where Clark W. Griswold (Chevy Chase) skinny-dipped with The Girl in the Ferrari (Christie Brinkley) – a place I was absolutely dying to stalk while in L.A. two weeks ago, but unfortunately, the long trek down to that area made it unfeasible to do so. Anyway, Owen’s quest had me reviewing some of the movie’s more well-known locales, including Glendale Dodge Chrysler Jeep, which I had long been aware stood in for the supposed Chicago, Illinois-area Lou Glutz Motors in the flick. Even though I lived mere miles from the dealership for over 13 years, because I assumed it had long since been remodeled, I figured it was not worth a stalk. So when I saw via Google Street View that the spot remained virtually unchanged from its onscreen appearance three decades ago (yes, three decades!) I was absolutely floored and decided that I had to write a blog post on it, stat!
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In the opening scene of Vacation, Clark arrives at Lou Glutz Motors with his son, Rusty Griswold (Anthony Michael Hall), to pick up the Antarctic blue Super Sports Wagon with the CB and optional Rally Fun Pack that he ordered for his family’s upcoming road trip to Los Angeles. After turning in his “ol’ gas guzzler,” he learns from salesman Ed (Eugene Levy) that the car he purchased has not actually arrived yet. And while Ed tries to steer Clark to a “damn fine” Wagon Queen Family Truckster in metallic pea, Clark, who is not your “ordinary, everyday fool,” cannot be deterred from the auto that he originally ordered.
That is until his old car comes back from the wrecking area, completely flattened. As you can see in the photographs above and below, aside from a difference in paint color and the addition of some bright red awnings, the dealership has been pretty much left untouched since Vacation was filmed in 1983! Despite several changes in ownership, the exterior stairway, the plants below it, the screen above the service bay, and even some of the directional road markings all still look exactly the same as they did onscreen.
The exterior of the showroom also remains in its 1983 state, minus the addition of a second set of doors.
The Star Lincoln-Mercury dealership that was visible in the background of the scene also still looks exactly the same as it did onscreen, but I, unfortunately, did not snap any photographs of it.
I honestly cannot express how cool it was to stalk this location and to see in person how closely it still resembles the images of it that are ingrained in my memory from having watched the flick so many times over the years. LOVE IT!
I am extremely excited to announce (to those who haven’t already heard via Facebook or Twitter) that I was recently invited to contribute a weekly blog post to the CityThink section of Los Angeles magazine online. (I’m feeling so very Carrie Bradshaw! ) My post, Scene It Before (thank you, fellow stalker Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, for the title!), will chronicle filming locations (duh!) then-and-now and will run each Thursday. I could NOT be more floored about this new endeavor and hope all of my fellow stalkers will check it out each week. My first column, which was published this past Thursday, can be read here. (I actually wanted to make this announcement last Friday, but felt weird mixing in such happy news with a blog about the assassination of JFK.) And now, on with the post!
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Back in September, my mom texted me to ask if I had ever stalked a huge, white boat-shaped house on Mulholland Drive. Such a property was being featured on an episode of Million Dollar Listing that she was watching at the time and real estate agent Josh Altman had mentioned that the site was often rented out for movie and TV shoots – so much so that the owner was said to make about $700,000 a year on filming alone! (In fact, during the episode Altman loses the listing because a movie production company swept in and rented the place for four months – for $320,000! When Altman learned the unfortunate news, he asked if the flick being filmed was Titanic 2. LOL) I had never even heard of such a structure before, but was, of course, immediately intrigued. Thankfully, I found the pad rather quickly that very same night via a Google search (there aren’t that many houses shaped like ships on Mulholland Drive, I guess). One look at the images Google kicked back had me absolutely drooling. The place was easily one of the most architecturally unique residences I’d ever laid eyes on. So I ran right out to stalk it while the Grim Cheaper and I were in L.A. two weeks ago.
Before arriving at the property, I had an inkling that it would not be very visible from the street, so I was floored to discover the opposite to be true.
Kinda makes you want to scream out, “I’m the king of the world!”, huh?
The 5-bedroom, 8-bath, 4-level, 11,000-square-foot residence, which was originally built in 1992, offers glass walls, 300-degree views, 2,500-square-feet of outdoor living space, an office, a pool, 2 spas, a fire pit, a gym, a nightclub/theatre, a wine cellar, 2 kitchens, and parking for 8 cars. It was last offered for sale for a cool $6,749,000. You can check out the real estate listing, complete with interior photographs, here.
For such a unique dwelling, the entrance to the property is actually quite non-descript, as you can see in the below Google Street View image. (Unfortunately, Mulholland Drive is a very busy thoroughfare and there was absolutely nowhere for me to pull over to snap photographs in the vicinity of the, ahem, stern area.)
I was floored to discover while doing research for this post that the abode has quite a few celebrity connections. According to MailOnline.com, pop group One Direction stayed there for seven nights this past August during the last week of the North American portion of their Take Me Home tour. Harry and the gang shelled out $27,000 for the privilege. Yep, $27,000 for seven nights! (While the article also states that the boat house is located in a gated community, that information is actually incorrect. As you can see above, the home is situated right on Mulholland Drive and is quite accessible.) According to Virtual Globetrotting, model Katie Price and then-husband, singer Peter Andre, leased the residence back in 2008 and Curbed LA states that Prince rented the pad for a time, but, for whatever reason, never actually lived on the premises.
The episode of Million Dollar Listing my mom had watched back in September was Season 6’s “All Aboard,” in which Altman and his assistant, Mikey, hosted a broker’s open house at the boat-shaped residence.
Of the property, Altman said, “Some houses, they sell themselves. This one, not so much. Not only is it shaped as a ship, but it probably needs about a million dollars worth of upgrades. It looks like the freaking Love Boat in here! This thing is straight out of the ‘80s.” LOL The place is definitely unique – you gotta give it that. It is not very hard to see why the pad has been utilized so often as a filming location.
Thanks to Curbed LA, I learned that in 2002 the top ten finalists from the first season of American Idol were put up in the mansion. (Once I heard the news, I ran right home and watched our American Idol: The Search for a Superstar DVD, which chronicles the series’ first year. Man, that season was great! In my mind, no other season has even come close to comparing.) Quite a few areas of the house were shown in those episodes, including the front exterior;
the kitchen;
several bedrooms;
the pool;
the living areas;
and the carport.
That same year, the boat house was featured in Eve’s “Gangsta Lovin’” music video.
You can watch that video by clicking below.
In the Season 3 episode of Californication titled “Slow Happy Boys,” which aired in 2009, the abode was where Sue Collini (Kathleen Turner) lived and threw a rowdy party.
The interior of the property also appeared in the episode.
Big THANK YOU to my mom for telling me about this location!
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: The Mulholland Drive Boat House is located at 15105 Mulholland Drive in Bel-Air. You can check out a good view of the residence from Woodcliff and Cody Roads, which run just north and east of it.
As most of my fellow stalkers already well know due to the deluge of media attention, today marks the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. I was not yet even a twinkle in my parents’ eyes on November 22nd, 1963, so I did not experience the tragic events firsthand, but they have always intrigued me. I have read quite a bit on the subject, watched countless documentaries and, of course, have my conjectures – as do most Americans. While not a conspiracy theorist, I find it incredibly difficult to believe that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. I do not think there was a second (or third) gunman in Dealey Plaza that afternoon, but I do strongly suspect that someone put Oswald up to the shooting. Knowing Kennedy’s relationship with organized crime, the fact that Lee was murdered by mobster Jack Ruby less than 48 hours after the assassination only furthers my belief. Simply put, I think someone wanted to shut him up. Whatever the true story is, I doubt it will ever come to light, but it sure is fascinating to speculate over. So when my good friends/fellow stalkers Lavonna and Kim headed to Dallas, Texas last week and informed me that they would be touring Dealey Plaza, I asked if they would tell me of their experiences and share their photographs for a blog post. They were happy to do so and sent me a plethora of pics and information, without which this write-up would not have been possible. So thank you, Lavonna and Kim!
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In most of the JFK documentaries I have watched, visitors to Dealey Plaza invariably comment on the site being much smaller in person than it appears to be in photographs and on film. Kim and Lavonna had the same reaction. Kim said, “I was surprised by the size, it always seemed more spread out in photos.” And Lavonna stated that after being on the 6th floor of the Texas School Book Depository building and seeing the spot from which Oswald made his fateful shots and its proximity to the motorcade route, she came to the belief that he was the sole gunman.
Kim, Lavonna and Debbie’s first stop once arriving in the plaza was The Sixth Floor Museum, which was established inside of the Depository building in 1989. After the Texas School Book Depository Company moved out of the structure in 1970, there were plans to demolish it. Local citizens protested the tear-down, though, and the county finally acquired the property in 1977. The site was then renovated and re-opened as the Dallas County Administration Building in 1981. Only the lower five floors of the space were used as offices – the sixth and seventh were left vacant.
Because the location remained such a tourist draw, plans were eventually drawn up for a museum to be installed on the empty levels. The site was opened to the public on Presidents’ Day 1989.
The Sixth Floor Museum serves as a tribute to Kennedy’s presidency and legacy, and also chronicles the dark day in which he was murdered. Several exhibits and artifacts are featured inside, including the sign that hung at the Depository’s entrance in 1963.
Also displayed are amazing chromogenic prints of both John and Jackie Kennedy, each designed by Alex Guofeng Cao. The portrait of John was created by merging 50,000 tiny images of Jackie. How incredible is that?
Jackie’s print, in turn, consists of 50,000 fused photos of John.
Oswald’s infamous sniper perch, which was both painstakingly restored to its 1963 condition and re-created using crime scene pictures, is exhibited, as well, albeit behind a glass partition. Of the display, Kim said, “Scruffs in the floor, the boxes, light fixtures, etc. are frozen in time.” Sadly, photographs were not permitted in that area. You can check out a picture of what the space looks like on The Sixth Floor Museum website here. Kim described being in the vicinity of such a tragic event as such, “I found the whole experience very sad. I don’t know a lot about Kennedy and his politics, or the assassination and all that followed. But you can definitely tell this was a pivotal moment for America that was felt worldwide.”
Photographs were allowed from the window located directly above Oswald’s perch. That view is pictured below.
Upon leaving the museum, Kim, Lavonna and Debbie walked the final segment of Kennedy’s fateful parade route, starting on Houston Street, from which, at 12:29 p.m. on November 22nd, 1963, the presidential motorcade made a sharp left onto Elm Street, directly in front of the Texas School Book Depository building.
That turn caused the convoy to slow considerably as it headed toward what has since become known as the “triple overpass.”
Directly north of those X’s is the much-talked-about grassy knoll, where police initially ran following the shooting. Many believe that a second gunman stood behind the wooden fence (which is a reproduction of the original) that runs along the northern end of the area.
It was on the grassy knoll, on top of the white pillar pictured below, that Abraham Zapruder stood, his secretary perched on the ground behind him providing balance, while shooting his now infamous video.
Lavonna, Kim and Debbie next embarked upon the JFK Trolley Tour, put on by Big D Fun Tours, which retraced both the presidential motorcade route and Lee Harvey Oswald’s steps following the assassination. Immediately after the shooting, Lee ducked out of the Texas School Book Depository building, walked a few blocks, caught a bus, then a taxi, and headed about three miles south to the boarding house where he had been living.
The residence, which is currently owned by Patricia Hall (granddaughter of Gladys Johnson, the home’s 1963 proprietor), has not changed one iota in the past fifty years, as you can see below.
The place, which offers tours, is currently for sale for $500,000.
Amazingly enough, the real life boarding house was used in the filming of the 1991 movie JFK. (A number of the actual assassination locations appeared in the flick – far too many for me to chronicle here.)
The actual interior of the home, including Lee’s actual former bedroom, was also featured.
You can watch a fascinating video about the residence by clicking below.
After leaving the boarding house, Oswald walked south. Near the intersection of 10th and Patton Streets, Officer J.D. Tippit spotted Lee and stopped him to ask some questions from his police car. When Tippit tried to exit the cruiser during the conversation, Lee shot him three times. He then went around to the rear of the car and fired again before fleeing the scene. A witness called police to report the incident and Tippit was subsequently transported to Methodist Hospital, where he was pronounced dead upon arrival.
A memorial plaque for the fallen officer was installed at the site in 2012. (It was instituted a year prior to the 50th anniversary, so that the event would not be overshadowed by today’s commemoration for JFK.)
After shooting Tippet, Oswald passed by the Ballew Texaco Station, now Santos Muffler & Radiator, and threw his jacket underneath a 1954 Oldsmobile that was parked in an adjacent lot.
He then headed east on West Jefferson Boulevard and ducked in and out of the storefronts pictured below in an attempt to avoid police, although officers were not yet looking for him at that time.
Johnny Brewer, the manager of Hardy Shoe Store, now Liz Bridal & Quinceañera, noticed Oswald’s odd behavior and walked outside to observe him more closely.
Brewer followed Lee about 100 feet, at which point the assassin headed inside the Texas Theatre, where he slipped past ticket clerk Julie Postal without paying for admittance. Once Oswald was out of sight, Brewer told Postal to call the police.
Officers quickly arrived on the scene, entered the auditorium and, after a brief scuffle, arrested Oswald, less than ninety minutes after he fired the fatal shots that killed Kennedy.
Two days later, Oswald was set to be transferred from Dallas Police Headquarters, now the Dallas Municipal Building, to the county jail. At 11:21 a.m., while Lee was being escorted to a waiting car located in the basement of the headquarters building (in the area directly behind the metal door pictured below), a nightclub owner with underworld ties named Jack Ruby walked into the space unnoticed and shot him, supposedly to spare Jackie Kennedy the ordeal of going through a trial. (Yeah, sounds suspicious to me, too.) Following in Kennedy’s footsteps from almost exactly 48 hours prior, Oswald was rushed to Parkland Memorial Hospital and pronounced dead at 1:07 p.m. On March 14th, 1964, Ruby was convicted of murder with malice and received the death sentence. That conviction was later overturned and, a little over three years after the Oswald killing, while he was awaiting a retrial, Jack Ruby passed away of a pulmonary embolism at – you guessed it – Parkland Memorial Hospital.
Big THANK YOU to my dear friends/fellow stalkers Lavonna and Kim for providing the photographs and information that appear in this post and for sharing their experiences of being at Dealey Plaza.
I just finished reading a fabulous book about one of Hollywood’s first and biggest controversies titled Room 1219: The Life of Fatty Arbuckle, the Mysterious Death of Virginia Rappe, and the Scandal That Changed Hollywood by Greg Merritt. Prior to reading the tome, I knew little about actor/comedian Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, but had always been fascinated by his rape and murder trial, which rocked Tinseltown to its core. I had actually previously stalked two of Fatty’s former West Adams homes after finding their addresses thanks to fellow stalker E.J., of The Movieland Directory, and his book Hollywood Death and Scandal Sites. My original intent was to blog about them during the month of October, but once I discovered that the pads aren’t reported to be haunted and that the Roscoe scandal did not actually take place on either premises I decided to hold off until November. So here goes!
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The tale of Fatty is a sad one. The robust comedian became Hollywood’s golden boy and one of its highest paid stars in the 1910s, after toiling penniless for years on the Vaudeville circuit. Cut to Labor Day weekend 1921, when Roscoe made the fateful decision to go to San Francisco with two friends. He stayed in Room 1219 of the Saint Francis Hotel (a location that I hope to stalk in the near future) and threw a raucous party. A young actress name Virginia Rappe was in attendance. She drank quite a bit at the soiree and, at some point, ruptured her bladder, dying four days later from peritonitis in a nearby sanitarium. One of Rappe’s friends falsely accused Arbuckle of raping Virginia and causing her death. Despite the fact that doctors found no evidence of a rape, Fatty was arrested for murder. The media had a field day denouncing the comedian and his films were soon banned in most states. His first two trials resulted in hung juries and he was finally acquitted – and given a written apology from the jury – at the third in April 1922. His career never recovered, though, and he was forced to work mostly behind the scenes under a pseudonym for the remainder of his life, which was not long. Roscoe passed away from a heart attack in 1933 at the age of 46.
According to E.J., Roscoe rented the Vienna Secessionist-style mansion pictured below in the late 1910s (although I’ve also heard reports that he lived there after his trials ended). The residence had been commissioned by businessman/real estate developer Lycurgus Lindsay (love the name!) in 1908 and was constructed of hollow hard-burned terra cotta from Western Art Tile Works, a company Lindsay owned. The property was designed by Charles Frederick Whittlesey, who also devised the original Wentworth Hotel in Pasadena, which was later re-built as the Huntington Hotel. In 1908, the home’s grounds measured over four acres, stretched from West Adams Street all the way to West 27th Street, and included three large terraced-pieces of land and a greenhouse. The dwelling, which was considered fire- and earthquake-proof, boasted three stories, a large reception hall with an art-glass window depicting a waterfall, a formal dining room, a butler’s pantry, servants’ quarters, leaded glass windows, a conservatory, and quarter-grain oak and Peruvian mahogany detailing.
According to the Los Angeles History blog, Lindsay lived at the residence, which is a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument, from the time it was completed in 1910 to 1913.
At some point, the property was obtained by the Our Lady of the Bright Mount Roman Catholic Polish Church and a parish was subsequently constructed in the front yard area, almost completely obscuring the mansion from view. In fact, when the Grim Cheaper and I first went to stalk it, we drove right by the place without even realizing it was there.
It is so sad to me that such a gorgeous edifice has been so obscured. Thankfully though, one of the priests who happened to be on the premises noticed us taking photographs and invited us behind the gates for a better view.
In 1919, Roscoe leased another West Adams-area mansion located about three miles east. The property had originally been commissioned in 1905 by United States Navy Commander Randolph Huntington Miner and his wife, shipping heir Tulita Wilcox Miner. The two-story, twenty-room Tudor revival-style dwelling boasted a drawing room that could hold two hundred people, a gabled roof, a Japanese meditation garden, a koi pond, and stained glass windows. In 1917, the Miners migrated to France and leased out their home to silent film siren Theda Bara. When Theda moved out in 1919, Roscoe and his then-wife Minta Durfee moved in. A short time later, they purchased the pad from the Miners for $250,000.
According to Merritt, Arbuckle spent copious amounts to decorate the place. He writes, “He imported an intricately carved front door from Spain (cost: $12,000) and bought and bought and bought: ornate mahogany paneling, gold-leafed bathtubs, crystal chandeliers, Oriental rugs, marble counters, fine-art paintings, antique china. The red lacquer dining room table with golden-clawed feet was from China. The lanai featured a Hawaiian royal chair. There was a Japanese bridge over the pond. Forever fascinated by technical gadgetry, Arbuckle had his closets and dressers wired with lights that came on when a door or drawer was opened.” The home’s humongous detached garage had space for all six of Roscoe’s luxury cars, including his beloved custom-built Pierce-Arrow. (You can see the spire of nearby St. Vincent de Paul Church, which I blogged about here, on the right-hand side of the top photo below.)
The Virgina Rappe scandal and Roscoe’s ensuing unemployment left the actor virtually destitute. To pay for the trials (which it is rumored cost him $750,000 – and that’s 1920s money!), he deeded his mansion to Joseph Schenck. He continued to live on the premises, though, leasing the property back from the legendary producer. By June 1922, Fatty’s manager Lou Anger and his wife had rented the residence for themselves, allowing Arbuckle, whose own wife had since moved out, to stay there as well. By December of that year, the broke – and broken – comedian was living by himself in a small bungalow in Hollywood. Today, the property serves as a rectory for Congregation of the Mission and is known as the Amat House, named (I believe) in honor of the first bishop of Los Angeles, Thaddeus Amat y Brusi.
Stalk It: Fatty Arbuckle’s former homes are both located in the West Adams District of Los Angeles – the Lycurgus Lindsay house can be found at 3424 West Adams Boulevard and the Amat House is located at 649 West Adams Boulevard.
On the November 4th episode of Dancing with the Stars, which featured singer Cher as a guest judge, contestants Leah Remini and Tony Dovolani danced a Viennese Waltz that adorably reenacted Cher’s first encounter with Sonny Bono to the 1965 hit “I Got You Babe.” In the segment showing Leah and Tony prepping for the performance, Leah mentioned that Sonny and Cher first met at a coffee shop in L.A. Well, believe you me, those words were hardly out of her mouth before I had my phone in hand to try to track down the location of that coffee shop. Through a simple Google search, I quickly learned that the name of the shop was Aldo’s, but I could not seem to find an address for it anywhere. So the following morning I emailed fellow stalker E.J., of The Movieland Directory, to see if he might be able to help and he responded just a few minutes later with two possible addresses. From there it was not too hard to figure out the right one. Sadly, the building that once housed Aldo’s was demolished around 1991 and the site today is just a vacant lot (I think – but more on that later). I still ran right out to stalk it, though, this past week while the Grim Cheaper and I were in L.A.
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To find the address for Aldo’s Coffee Shop, E.J. scanned through old Los Angeles phone directories and came up with two results – 6413 Hollywood Boulevard and 6721 Hollywood Boulevard, as you can see below. Cher mentioned in her autobiography, The First Time (which I checked out from the library the day after the Dancing with the Stars episode aired), that the Aldo’s where she met Sonny was located next door to the KFWB radio station studio. From there, I tracked down the station’s location in 1962, the year Sonny and Cher met, which turned out to be 6419 Hollywood Boulevard, meaning that the correct Aldo’s was the one at 6413. Eureka!
Cher, who was 16 at the time, met Sonny thanks to her then-boyfriend, record-promoter Red Baldwin. Of their first encounter, Cher writes, “One day Red told me, ‘I have a great friend who just split up with his wife. He’s a weird guy, but he’s a lot of fun, and everyone loves him. Maybe you could introduce him to your roommate, and we could double-date.’ So we all decided to meet. One afternoon at Aldo’s Coffee Shop, a hangout for radio people and disc jockeys who worked next door at KFWB, Red and I sat down at a table with Melissa, my roommate. Then someone came in, and everybody turned around. The room started buzzing – ‘Sonny’s here! ‘Hey, Son!’ – and that’s when I got my first look at Salvatore Phillip Bono. I will never forget it, because everyone else in the room disappeared, just washed away into some fuzzy soft focus, like when Maria saw Tony at the dance in West Side Story.” She later states, “And I actually thought to myself, Something is different now. You’re never going to be the same.” And while she broke up with Red the following morning, it took a bit more time for Sonny to feel the fireworks, initially telling Cher, “I don’t find you terribly attractive.” LOL
Sadly, I cannot find any photographs of Aldo’s online. You can check out a picture of what the KFWB building, which was demolished in 1991, looked like in 1972 here, though. The photo below was taken from virtually the same angle. While comparing the storefronts that appear in the 1972 image to the listings in the 1973 Los Angeles phone directory, I noticed that some things did not seem to add up and have come to the conclusion that Aldo’s was most likely located in the western-most space of the building denoted with a pink arrow below, which is currently addressed 6411 Hollywood Boulevard. I believe that structure was also torn down at some point and rebuilt (and its address subsequently changed from 6413 to 6411), as it does not match the building that stands in that spot in the 1972 photo. Without seeing actual images of Aldo’s, though, I cannot be certain.
The site does boast a fabulous view of the Hollywood Sign, so at least there’s that.
You can watch Leah and Tony’s adorably sweet “I Got You Babe” dance by clicking below.
Back in early October, upon returning home from doing some That Thing You Do! stalking in Orange (you can read my posts on the locations I stalked here, here and here), I popped in my DVD of the 1996 flick to re-watch it for the first time in years. I was absolutely shocked – and floored – to discover in the course of the viewing that The Stuart at Sierra Madre Villa, an architecturally-stunning Pasadena apartment complex that I toured while house-hunting in 2006, had been featured in the movie. Because I had not taken any photos of The Stuart during the tour, I ran right out to re-stalk the place while I was in L.A. last week.
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The Stuart at Sierra Madre Villa was originally constructed as the Stuart Pharmaceutical Company’s (they created Mylanta!) main manufacturing facility and office headquarters in 1958. The New Formalist-style structure, which is set back 150 feet from Foothill Boulevard and which was originally known as the Stuart Company Building, was designed by architect Edward Durell Stone and took two years to complete. (Stone also fashioned Radio City Music Hall in New York and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.) The Stuart’s 9.4-acre grounds were designed by legendary landscape architect Thomas Dolliver Church.
The flat-roofed building, which boasts a cast concrete block screen façade and a large linear reflecting pool with fountains, won the National First Honor Award from the American Institute of Architects and was featured on the cover of Time magazine the year it was completed.
Arthur O. Hanisch, the Stuart Company’s forward-thinking owner, sought comfort for his employees in the construction of the building and assigned several recreational areas to the 35,000-square-foot site, including an atrium with a gorgeous open staircase, a garden court, a dining lounge, a pool, a pool house, a large terrace, and an outdoor shade pavilion. As you can see below, the two-story atrium is pretty darn striking! There’s a reason I remembered it all these years later while watching That Thing You Do!
In 1990, the Stuart Company, which had been named in honor of Arthur O. Hanisch’s son, was purchased by Johnson and Johnson/Merck Pharmaceuticals Co. The Stuart Company Building was shuttered shortly thereafter and, in 1993, was put on the market for $16 million. A year later, it was purchased by the Metropolitan Transit Authority, who intended to bulldoze it and construct a metro station on the property. Thankfully, the Pasadena Heritage group immediately stepped in and nominated the Stuart for National Registry status to protect it from demolition. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1998. During the interim, while its fate was being decided, the building sat vacant and, sadly, fell victim to vandals and transients. Then, in 2002, the site was purchased by a development company named BRE Properties and a multi-million dollar restoration project was begun. BRE also started construction on an upscale 188-unit apartment complex directly behind the Stuart Building, which became known as The Stuart at Sierra Madre Villa. Today, the arresting atrium serves as a leasing office and communal space for residents.
In That Thing You Do!, the Stuart Company Building’s atrium masqueraded as the Play-Tone Records headquarters where The Wonders – Guy Patterson (Tom Everett Scott), Jimmy Mattingly (Johnathon Schaech), Lenny Haise (Steve Zahn), and T.B. Player (Ethan Embry) – posed for publicity photos upon first arriving in Los Angeles.
The Stuart Company Building was also featured in the 2000 made-for-television movie If These Walls Could Talk 2, in which it stood in for the fertility center visited by Fran (Sharon Stone) and Kal (Ellen DeGeneres). Several areas of the property were used in the filming, including the atrium;
Way back in June 2010, a fellow stalker named Nick emailed me to let me know he had tracked down the Malibu beach house that Lauren Conrad and her then boyfriend Jason Wahler leased for the summer in the Season 1 episode of The Hills titled “Timing Is Everything.” And while the location was one that I had been dying to find for ages, because I was knee deep in wedding planning at the time, I was unable to stalk it. Then, on a rather overcast morning this past March, I remembered the locale while out and about in The ‘Bu and dropped by. For whatever reason, though, the pad slipped my mind yet again shortly thereafter and I failed to blog about it. It was not until two Thursdays ago, when I received the November 18th, 2013 issue of US Weekly with its “Life After The Hills” cover feature, that I was reminded of the residence and that it was long overdue for a write-up. So here goes.
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The modern-style seaside pad, which was originally built in 2005 and sits just east of Las Tunas Beach, boasts three bedrooms, two and a half baths, 3,000 square feet of living space, a chef’s kitchen, a game room, Brazilian cherry wood flooring, onyx marble detailing throughout, and a master suite with an office, fireplace, dual walk-in closets (yes, please!), and a spa tub. According to Zillow, back in 2010 the property was available for sale for $4,195,000 or for lease at $13,000 a month. It later sold in November of that same year for $3,688,000.
In the “Timing Is Everything” episode of The Hills, which was the Season 1 finale, Lauren turned down a Teen Vogue summer internship in Paris in order to spend the season living with Jason in a rented Malibu beach house. The rental was shown twice in the episode, but very briefly each time.
The real life interior of the home was also featured in “Timing Is Everything.”
As was the rear of the property, which sits on stilts over the ocean and is, unfortunately, completely unstalkable, as you can see below.
The beach house also popped up briefly at the beginning of The Hills Season 2 premiere, which was titled “Out with the Old . . .” By the start of that episode, Lauren and Jason were, not surprisingly, broken up and Lauren had become known around the Teen Vogue offices as “The Girl Who Didn’t Go to Paris.” (While making screen captures for this post, I got COMPLETELY sucked in to watching both “Timing Is Everything” and “Out with the Old . . .” Man, The Hills was a great show! Why, oh why did it have to go off the air? For those who were as into the series as I was, this article is a fascinating read!)
On a side-note – While watching “Timing Is Everything” and “Out with the Old . . ,” I happened to spot my favorite blogger, Cupcakes and Cashmere’s Emily Schuman, who worked at Teen Vogue at the same time as Lauren, twice. Looks like Emily was even sporting her famous messy bun back then. Love it!
I would like to wish a very Happy Veterans Day to all of my fellow stalkers and I would also like to say a heartfelt thank you to all of those who have served our military, including the vast majority of my family members. I will be taking today off in honor of Veterans Day and will also be off the rest of the week, as well, as I will be visiting L.A. and have quite a few activities planned which will not leave much time for blogging. I hope you all have a great week and I will “see” you next Monday.
Another That Thing You Do! locale that I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to stalk while the two of us were in the city of Orange in early October was Watson Drugs and Soda Fountain, which popped up twice in the 1996 flick. And while I really wanted to grab a bite there, sadly the GC and I had just eaten prior to arriving in Orange. It was still extremely cool to see the place, which is Orange County’s oldest drugstore and the city of Orange’s oldest continually operating business, in person, though.
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The pharmacy portion of Watson’s was originally founded on Glassell Street by a pharmacist named Keller E. Watson, Sr. in 1899. Two years later, K.E. Watson’s, as it was then known, was moved around the corner to a building on East Chapman Avenue where it has remained ever since (although it has occupied various different storefronts). In 1915, Keller added a soda fountain to the site and Watson Drugs and Soda Fountain was born. When Keller retired in the 1930s, his son, Keller E. Watson, Jr., took over the operations until he, too, retired in 1965. The shop subsequently went through a succession of different owners and then, in 1971, Scott Parker, a pharmacist from Utah, purchased a portion of it. Scott took over the site completely in 1986 and, while the pharmacy section was closed in 2011, the Parker family still runs the establishment to this day.
As you can see below, walking inside the eatery is like taking a step back in time. Besides serving up hamburgers, shakes and its famous malts, the place also sells gifts and cards, so, of course, I just had to do a little shopping while I was there.
Watson Drugs first popped up in That Thing You Do! in the scene in which Guy Patterson (Tom Everett Scott) informed Faye Dolan (Liv Tyler) that he had just accidentally hit her car, which was parked outside. As you can see below, both the exterior and the interior of the shop were dressed heavily for the shoot.
Watson’s later appeared in the scene in which Guy gave Faye and his fellow Wonders – Jimmy Mattingly (Johnathon Schaech), Lenny Haise (Steve Zahn), and T.B. Player (Ethan Embry) – portable radios so that they would be able to keep an ear out for their song at all times.
Thanks to its old-fashioned charm, Watson Drugs and Soda Fountain has long been a favorite of location managers. In the 1987 made-for-television movie The Stepford Children (which looks pretty good, shockingly!), the diner was where Laura Harding (Barbara Eden) told her husband, Steven Harding (Don Murray), that she wanted to leave Stepford and move to a new town.
In 2004, the interior of Watson’s masqueraded as two different Massachusetts-area locales in the Season 1 episode of Medical Investigation titled “Progeny.” It first stood in for the soda shop where a child named Joey White (Adam Taylor Gordon) had a seizure and collapsed. The space was dressed heavily for the shoot, though, and is not very recognizable in the scene.
And, for whatever reason, producers chose to use a different location to stand in for the shop’s exterior, as you can see below.
Later in the episode, Watson’s popped up as the diner where Dr. Stephen Connor (Neal McDonough) and his team – Dr. Natalie Durant (Kelli Williams), Dr. Miles McCabe (Christopher Gorham), Eva Rossi (Anna Belknap), and Frank Powell (Troy Winbush) – discussed what might be causing Joey’s ailment.
Once again, a different location stood in for the coffee shop’s exterior. That exterior, which was also used as Rosalita’s Bar on the television series Happy Endings, can be found on the Paramount Studios backlot.
In the 2006 comedy The Benchwarmers, Watson Drugs was where Gus (Rob Schneider) met his new statistician, Sammy Sprinkler (Alex Warrick). Both the exterior . . .
. . . and interior of the diner were used in the scene.
According to the Filmed in Orange website, Watson’s appeared in Fallen Angel, but, unfortunately, I could not find a copy of the 1945 production with which to make screen captures for this post. And while the eatery’s website asserts that the spot was featured in the 1981 comedy The Cannonball Run, I scanned through the flick and did not see it anywhere. Watson’s website also states that Don Knotts, Shelley Hack and Jimmy Smits have all shot commercials on the premises and that George W. Bush made a stop there to pick up a malt while campaigning for the presidency in 2000.
After stalking the downtown Orange spot where the That Thing You Do! mailbox scene was filmed (which I blogged about yesterday), I dragged the Grim Cheaper just a few feet south to stalk the storefront that was used as Patterson’s Appliances, drummer Guy Patterson’s (Tom Everett Scott) family’s shop, in the 1996 flick. Thank goodness for the Seeing Stars website and its That Thing You Do! filming locations page, which had the address of Patterson’s Appliances listed, because, as I mentioned yesterday, my trip to Orange was completely unexpected and I, therefore, had not done any prior research. Which is a shame, too, because, as it turns out, the town, which is easily one of the cutest places I have ever visited, has appeared in countless productions over the years, many of them favorites of mine. (Check out this amazeballs list of the various movies and televisions shows that have been filmed in Orange and the corresponding addresses used. I wish every city would compile a database like that! LOVE IT!) Ah well, it looks like I will just have to make another stalking expedition to Orange someday.
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Patterson’s Appliances was one of the main locations used in That Thing You Do! and the supposed 1960s-era Eerie, Pennsylvania storefront popped up repeatedly throughout the movie. While Orange does have a very old-fashioned feel to it, production designers heavily dressed the area for the shoot, as you can see below. Even without the extra dressing, though, the site is still very recognizable from its onscreen appearance. In fact, being there brought me right back to when I first saw the flick in 1996, which I could NOT have been more excited about.
At the time of the filming, the Patterson’s storefront was vacant, which allowed designers to thoroughly transform it into a 1964 appliance shop, complete with old-fashioned dishwashers, radios and television sets.
Today, the space houses a toy store named Tiddlywinks Toys and Games. Thankfully, the exterior still looks much the same today as it did in November and December 1995 when That Thing You Do! was filmed.
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