In February, I received a challenge from a fellow stalker named Jill who wanted to know about the home belonging to Melissa Burke (Melissa Joan Hart) on the ABC Family sitcom Melissa & Joey. The residence looked familiar to her and she was fairly certain that it had been used previously in another series. She was not alone in that belief. One quick Google search of “Melissa & Joey house, same as” led me to several message boards in which commenters queried about where they had seen the property before. I had never actually watched an episode of Melissa & Joey, but was immediately intrigued, so I streamed the show on Netflix. The Burke residence did not look at all familiar, though. Thus began the mystery of the Melissa & Joey house. And y’all know how much I love myself a good mystery! Fellow stalker Geoff, of the 90210Locations website, did manage to track the dwelling down shortly after Jill posted her challenge and while I ran right out to stalk it, I have yet to figure out why the place looks so familiar to so many viewers.
Several of the message boards I came across featured commenters asking if the Melissa & Joey house was the same property used in Reba, Step by Step or Boy Meets World. As you can see in the collage pictured below, though, the Melissa & Joey residence bears virtually no resemblance to the Reba or Boy Meets World house. And while it does look similar to the Step by Step house, they are clearly not one and the same.
To me, the Melissa & Joey house is reminiscent of both the Mama’s Family and Old School homes, but, again, is obviously not either one.
So I will put it out there to my fellow stalkers. Do any of you recognize the home from another production?
Melissa & Joey is set in Toledo, Ohio, but the Burke residence can actually be found in Hancock Park. Of the property, series’ executive producer Boy Young said, “Her house is a house here in Los Angeles that we selected because it’s architecturally believable from Toledo. Our production designer basically surveyed architectural styles of Toledo and tried to find something here in L.A. that resembled that.”
In real life, the picturesque, two-story dwelling, which was originally built in 1914, features four bedrooms, three baths, 3,005 square feet of interior space, and a 0.22-acre plot of land. It last sold in April 2008 for $1.795 million.
Several message board commenters also stated their beliefs that the interior set – which exists inside of a soundstage at CBS Studio Center in Studio City – was recycled from another series, as well, although it does not look at all familiar to me. So I will once again put it out there to my fellow stalkers – does anyone recognize the interior of the Melissa & Joey house from another production?
On a side-note – I am BEYOND excited to announce that I wrote a small article about the Double Indemnity house for the April 2014 issue of Los Angeles magazine, which is on newsstands now.That’s me buying out the Palm Desert Barnes & Noble of every copy of the magazine that they had on Saturday.
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 Jill for challenging me to find this location and to Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, for tracking it down!
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: The Melissa & Joey house is located at 102 North Norton Avenue in the Hancock Park area of Los Angeles.