Let’s be honest – remakes are rarely, if ever, good. Especially if they’re of the made-for-television movie variety. Despite that fact, when I heard that the house from the 1991 made-for-television remake of Shadow of a Doubt was located right across the street from the pad featured in the 1943 original, I just had to stalk it. (I blogged about the residence from the original film. located at 904 McDonald Avenue in Santa Rosa, yesterday, for those who are interested.) As you can see above, the property is currently undergoing a major renovation, but, in the interest of being thorough, I figured it was worthy of a post.
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The 6-bedroom, 2-bath, 5,016-square-foot dwelling was originally built in 1878.
The two-story Stick Eastlake-style residence, which sits on 0.43 acres, was constructed for Dr. and Mrs. Augustus Wright. Amazingly, the property has only gone through two ownership changes throughout its 138-year history.
In the 1991 Shadow of a Doubt remake, the residence portrayed the home of the Newton family. Unfortunately (but not surprisingly), I could not find a copy of the flick anywhere. All I was able to track down was this 14-minute clip of it on YouTube, so the screen captures in this post are limited. As you can see below, though, the house looks very much the same today as it did onscreen 25 years ago.
I was rather surprised that producers went to all of the trouble to shoot on the same street as the original film, but did not use the same house. According to a 2002 SFGate article, though, the production team did, in fact, want to shoot at 904 McDonald Avenue. Unfortunately, Hitchcock, apparently already foreseeing the possibility of a sequel or remake, had included an exclusivity clause in his agreement with the homeowners, which, almost fifty years later, barred the 1991 movie from doing any filming on the premises. Producers of the remake liked the look of the neighborhood from the original so much, though, that they found a similar-looking property located on the same street and lensed the flick there instead.
Per the SFGate article, the home’s real life interior was also used in the filming. Though, as evidenced by my photos, that interior is currently being drastically changed and will likely be completely unrecognizable when renovations are complete.
As I learned from the Dear Old Hollywood website, the dwelling also made an appearance in the 1948 noir All My Sons as the residence of Jim Bayliss (Lloyd Gough) and Sue Bayliss (Arlene Francis).
I absolutely love that you can see the home’s 815 address number in the film.
Though the number placards are no longer in the same position, they look to be the exact ones that were in place in 1948 when the movie was filmed!
Sitting on a quiet corner on an idyllic street in Santa Rosa is a home with quite a scary movie pedigree. Not only did the Italianate Victorian-style abode appear in a Hitchcock classic, the 1943 thriller Shadow of a Doubt, but in my favorite horror flick of all time, Scream! (While the residence has also been credited with bringing about one of the best known horror movie costumes of all time, that information is actually incorrect, as I learned while writing this post. More on that later.)
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Shadow of a Doubt, which is reported to be Hitchcock’s favorite of all his films, tells the story of a young girl named Charlie Newton (Teresa Wright) whose favorite relative/namesake, Uncle Charlie (Joseph Cotton), comes to stay with her family in their picturesque Santa Rosa home. Despite the younger Charlie’s initial excitement over the visit, she soon begins to suspect her uncle of being a serial killer whom the police and media have dubbed the “Merry Widow Murderer.”
According to IMDB, when scouting Santa Rosa for a location to portray the Newton home, Hitchcock advised his production team to find a pretty residence that was a bit worn down, so as to portray the family’s normalcy and middle-class stature. The group found exactly what they were looking for at 904 McDonald Avenue. Photos of the house were sent to The Master of Suspense and he gave the go-ahead to secure the location. When cast and crew showed up a few weeks later to begin filming, Hitch was shocked and dismayed to discover that the homeowners, ecstatic over their dwelling’s big screen debut, had repainted the exterior and made several repairs. Set designers had to subsequently come in and add effects to the property to reverse the improvements the owners had made and return the site to its former aged and slightly weathered state.
Amazingly, little of the home has been altered in the 73 years since filming took place.
The front doors even appear to be the same ones that were in place when the movie was shot in 1943!
I was especially enamored of the wraparound porch, which made several appearances in Shadow of a Doubt. I think I need a front porch in my life!
The stately residence was originally built way back in 1876. You read that right – the home celebrated it 140th birthday this year! It also has the distinction of being the oldest house on the street.
The 2-story pad boasts 6 bedrooms, 2 baths, 3,272 square feet, and a detached garage.
According to a 2002 SF Gate article, the inside of the home was also used in Shadow of a Doubt. A 2009 The Press Democrat column disputes that claim, though, as do Turner Classic Movies’ notes on the film. The latter both contend that all interiors were shot on a soundstage in Hollywood. Honestly, I am not sure who to believe and unfortunately I could not find any interior photos of the residence to compare to what appeared onscreen. I was leaning toward sets being used until I read The Press Democrat’s mention that there was a $5,000 ceiling in place on all set building at the time per the War Production Board, so I’m really unsure. I’ll let my fellow stalkers be the judge. Areas of the house that were utilized per SF Gate include the bedroom;
the stairway;
the parlor (though it has since been remodeled);
and the dining room (also since remodeled).
The Newton’s kitchen also made several appearances in Shadow of a Doubt, though SF Gate does not specify if what appeared onscreen was the home’s actual kitchen.
The room was featured in Scream, though! In the 1996 flick, it masked as the kitchen in Tatum Riley’s (Rose McGowan) house. The residence used for exterior shots of Tatum’s home can be found next door at 824 McDonald Avenue (a locale I will be blogging about soon). The scene in her bedroom was also shot at that property.
I was hoping that in comparing screen captures from Scream and Shadow of a Doubt, I could discern if filming of the Hitchcock thriller did indeed take place inside 904 McDonald Avenue. Per SF Gate, the kitchen was remodeled in the 1970s, so my prospects did not look good. I still had faith, but, sadly, nothing matched up at all. While I was thrilled to see that both kitchens boast antique stoves (the Shadow of a Doubt house appears to have two of them, actually) . . .
. . . outside of pipes running up to the ceiling, the stoves don’t resemble each other in the slightest.
As I mentioned above, there is some erroneous information about the Shadow of a Doubt house floating around in the media. As was reported in Scream: The Inside Story (which you can watch here), while scouting locations for the movie, the production team toured 904 McDonald Avenue. At the time, Wes Craven was struggling to find the perfect scary mask for the Ghostface killer to wear. Fate stepped in during the location scout when executive producer Marianne Maddalena spotted a mask hanging from a bedpost in one of the residence’s rooms. She immediately knew it was the perfect Ghostface mask and sent images of it to Wes, who agreed, and (after a bit of wrangling to secure the rights), the rest, as they say, is history. Only problem is, the mask was not actually found in the Shadow of a Doubt house.
While taking a closer look at the original location photo shown in Scream: The Inside Story, I noticed that the bedroom where the mask was found bore a strong resemblance to Tatum’s bedroom from Scream.
Comparing screen captures to the photo proved my hunch correct, as you can see above and below. The fireplace, slanted walls, positioning of doors, and curved staircase banister visible in the hallway in the original location photo all match Tatum’s room from Scream. Per some call sheets that the lovely Ashley, of the Drewseum website, shared with me (which I practically drooled all over while reading!) and as mentioned above, the bedroom scene was shot not at 904 McDonald Avenue, but next door at 824 McDonald. So that is the property we should be crediting for gifting the world with the now infamous Ghostface mask! As promised, I will be doing a post on that location soon.
Earlier this month, my mom and I flew to Northern California and embarked upon an epic stalking tour of Scream filming locations. And when I say epic, I mean epic! We hit up everything from the grocery store where Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) and Tatum Riley (Rose McGowan) shopped (the owner of the market gifted me with a bottle of champagne!) to the warehouse where the sets were built to the hotel where the cast and crew stayed during the shoot. I don’t think there’s any spot we missed – and we had a blast! It truly was a family affair, too, with my mom, my aunt, two uncles, my longtime bestie Nat, and her boyfriend, Tony (that’s him standing with me above), all along for the ride. Now none of them care at all about stalking, mind you, but it was so much fun being all together and getting to watch them experience firsthand this unique hobby that I love so much. I wish I could go back and do it all over again! The first spot we hit up during our Scream adventure was the Sonoma Community Center, which masked as Woodsboro High School in the 1996 flick.
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Prior to heading up north, I contacted the Sonoma Community Center to ask if it would be alright to come inside the building and snap some photos. The staff there could not have been nicer! I received an email back almost immediately from an employee who offered to accompany me around the property and show me the specific areas that appeared in the movie, which I took him up on. Scream’s use of the center was fairly extensive. Exterior filming included shots of the front of the structure . . .
. . . as well as its west entrance.
Most interior filming took place on the community center’s second floor. The spot I was most interested in seeing was the room that portrayed Sidney’s English class. I had read several differing reports online regarding which room appeared in the scene and I hoped our tour guide could put the mystery to rest. I showed him some screen captures from the movie I had saved on my phone and he pointed us to Room 208. Though he said he couldn’t be 100% sure it was the space where filming had occurred, as you can see below, I am pretty certain he was right on the money.
Today, Room 208 serves as the center’s Print Room.
The hallway located just outside of Room 208 also made an appearance in Scream.
Despite the fact that the walls have since been painted and the lockers that were brought in for the shoot are no longer in place, the hallway is still very recognizable from the movie.
The stairwell where Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich) and Sidney had an argument (“Stupid!”) is located at the western end of that same hallway.
I could not have been more excited to see this particular spot.
Amazingly, it looks exactly the same today as it did onscreen in Scream.
What might be my favorite scene from the entire movie took place on the community center’s first level, on the staircase just inside the main entrance. It is there that Deputy Dewey (David Arquette) tells Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox), “I’m 25. I was 24 for a whole year!” Their entire exchange during that scene is adorable, especially considering that Courteney and David later fell in love in real life and got married. It hurts my heart a little now each time I watch it thinking about the fact that they are no longer together.
The Sonoma Community Center’s use in Scream came about rather circuitously. In the Spring of 1996, Wes Craven and his production team began looking for places to shoot the then titled Scary Movie. They fairly quickly decided on Wine Country in Northern California, mainly due to the fact that they liked the look of Santa Rosa High School (pictured below – photo via Wikipedia). Not only did it have the aesthetic the group wanted, but the school was film friendly, having appeared in 1986’s Peggy Sue Got Married. The principal and other administrators okayed the plan to shoot on the premises and Wes and his team went into pre-production mode for the next few weeks. Shortly before filming was to take place, though, the school board requested to see the script and apparently didn’t like what they read. According to the 2011 documentary Scream: The Inside Story, board members felt the story glorified violence against children, which they were wary about, especially in light of the fact that the trial of Richard Allen Davis for the kidnapping and murder of 12-year-old Polly Klaas was taking place in the area at the time. A town hall meeting was held in which local citizens gave their various opinions on the filming and the school board ultimately decided that Scream could not shoot at Santa Rosa High.
In Scream: The Inside Story, Wes Craven explained that he understood board members’ trepidation given the violent crime that had rocked the city a few years prior. It was their implementation that angered him, as well as all those involved. At the last minute, scenes had to be rewritten, shooting schedules altered, and sets built to make up for the location loss, all of which cost precious time and money. You can read some articles on the debacle here and here. When the movie wrapped, Wes still wasn’t over the whole thing apparently and decided to put a special note in the “Thanks” section of Scream’s closing credits. It read, “No thanks whatsoever to the Santa Rosa City School District Governing Board.” The situation wasn’t a total loss, though. In fact, I think things worked out for the better.
During the SRHS brouhaha, the Sonoma Community Center’s then director heard about the situation and reached out to the production team to offer up the site as an alternative locale.
The center, which was originally built in 1915, served as Sonoma Grammar School until 1948 and definitely bears the look of a small town learning institution, which is exactly what Wes was going for.
The production team immediately jumped on board with the idea and, as a result, the Sonoma Community Center is now one of the most famous horror movie locations of all time. To me, the Santa Rosa High School debacle was a blessing in disguise as the community center is a much more charming and quaint location that fit in with Scream’s aesthetic better than SRHS ever could. It’s funny how things always seem to have a way of working out.
The change did require a few sets to be built, though, one of which was Principal Arthur Himbry’s (Henry Winkler) office and anteroom.
You can see an image of the set, which was featured in Scream: The Inside Story, below.
I am 99.9% certain that the Woodsboro High School bathroom was also a set as it definitely cannot be found at the Sonoma Community Center. I took a peek at both of the site’s restrooms during our visit and neither even remotely resembles the Scream bathroom. The upstairs restroom is a single stall space and, while the downstairs bathroom does have multiple stalls, it is nowhere near as large as the space that appeared onscreen. I also showed screen captures of the bathroom to our tour guide and he said that he does not believe there was ever a restroom like that on the community center premises. After I returned home, I contacted a crew member who confirmed that the bathroom was a set, as well. I still say I’m only 99.9% certain, though, as crew members have been known to misremember things like this.
Though the movie’s 2011 sequel Scream 4 took place once again in Woodsboro, filming did not return to Northern California. The flick was instead lensed in Michigan, with Woodworth Middle School at 4951 Ternes Street in Dearborn, standing in for Woodsboro High. While much larger in scale, the building does bear a striking resemblance to the Sonoma Community Center.
You can watch Scream: The Inside Story by clicking below. And you can read a great article about the documentary here. As it turns out, the special was produced by screenwriter Daniel Farrands, who not only went to Santa Rosa High School, but also penned Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers the year before Scream was filmed. Apparently, an area paper ran a local-boy-makes-good story on Farrands at the time celebrating his horror movie career. Why locals weren’t as accommodating to Wes just a short time later remains to be seen.
“What’s your favorite scary movie?” So asks Ghostface of Casey Becker (Drew Barrymore) at the beginning of Scream. Well, if Ghostface asked me that question, my answer would be Scream everyday of the week and twice on Sunday. I love, love, love that movie! Though I was not as big a fan of the film’s three sequels, I got on a kick recently of tracking down some of their unknown locales. The spot I most wanted to find was the gorgeous peaked-roof house where Casey (Heather Graham) lived in Stab, Scream 2’s movie-within-a-movie. Thanks to a lot of help from my friend Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, I was finally able to locate it!
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I knew from the Scream 2 production notes as well as the movie’s DVD commentary that the opening Stab sequence was shot in Malibu. Though the front exterior of Casey’s residence was never shown in the scene, enough of the backyard and pool area was that I figured tracking the place down via aerial views would be a snap. I was wrong. I cannot tell you the countless hours I spent searching for the pad to no avail.
Enter Owen. On the verge of giving up, I emailed him to ask if he might be willing to help with the hunt and provided him with all of the necessary information. It was not long (minutes, really!) before I received an email back with an address. As Owen discovered, Casey’s house from Scream 2 is located at 5730 Busch Drive in Malibu.
While searching for the home, Owen had come across a mention that during the filming of the Stab scene, neighbors heard Heather Graham’s screams and, not realizing that a film shoot was taking place, called the police. Armed with that information, Owen began looking for more neighborhood-y areas of Malibu via aerial views and fairly quickly spotted the house in Malibu Park. (I should mention here that I had also seen the anecdote about neighbors calling the police during my search for the residence, but I did not think it was pertinent. Malibu is canyon-y and rather silent at night and I figured that the scene could have been shot at a remote property with Heather’s screams still easily heard by people in homes nearby. That was a major fail on my part. D’oh!)
According to a cached Zillow page, Casey’s Stab pad was originally built by architect Doug Rucker in 1961. Rucker also later updated the property in 1989. The contemporary dwelling boasts 10 rooms, 4 bedrooms, 3 baths, 4,148 square feet of living space, a driveway with parking for 8 cars, a swimming pool and spa, a putting green, a 1.01-acre plot of land, a garden, a 400-square-foot garage, vaulted ceilings, and skylights.
Quite a bit of the home was featured in Scream 2. The property’s sprawling backyard is where poor Casey met her grizzly demise in a scene that emulated Drew Barrymore’s death from the original movie.
As you can see in the aerial view below, the backyard still looks much the same today as it did when the flick was filmed in 1997.
Portions of the residence’s interior also appeared onscreen, including a bathroom . . .
. . . and the living room.
It is while standing in the house that Casey utters one of the franchise’s most well-known lines – “You know, I don’t even know you and I dislike you already.”
Thanks to the residence’s wide expanse of sleek glass walls, much of the interior can be spotted in the backyard scenes, as well.
Though not much of the dwelling is visible from the street, especially not the areas used in Scream 2, I was absolutely floored to catch a glimpse from the road of the rear side of the fireplace that Casey walked by in the movie.
The house also made a brief appearance in Scream 4, during the Stab-a-Thon segment in which the opening scene from Stab was shown.
Another day, another request – this one also from my friends Lavonna and Katie regarding The Craft. (You can read yesterday’s post about HarborPlace Tower from the movie here). During a recent group texting session, Katie asked if I knew the location of the home where Sarah Bailey (Robin Tunney) lived with her dad, Mr. Bailey (Cliff De Young), and her step-mom, Jenny (Jeanine Jackson), in the flick. Well, not only did I know the location, but I had actually stalked it! Though I was never a huge fan of The Craft, Sarah’s rambling Spanish-style home made an impression on me when I first watched the film back in 1996. So when I came across its address a couple of months ago thanks to an anonymous commenter on the Movie Locations and More website (who tracked the pad down all the way from Australia!), I immediately jotted it in my stalking notebook and headed on over there a few weeks later.
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At the beginning of The Craft, Sarah and her family move from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Their new home first pops up in one of the film’s opening scenes . . .
. . . and is then seen regularly throughout the rest of the movie.
Thanks to Google Street View, I knew prior to stalking the residence that it was set far back from the road and that virtually none of it was visible.
You can just barely catch a glimpse of the dwelling in the images below.
Thankfully, aerial views provide a better look at the property. As you can see below, the house still looks much the same today as it did back in 1996 when The Craft was filmed.
Per Zillow, the 1927 home boasts 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, 3,429 square feet of living space, and a 0.58-acre plot of land.
Quite a bit of the residence was shown in the movie, including the pool, which was left dry for the shoot.
The property’s extensive driveway also made an appearance, though it looks substantially different today than it did in 1996 due to some massive foliage growth and the addition of a large detached garage.
Though the interior of Sarah’s home is said to have been built on a soundstage, I am guessing that it was closely modeled after the property’s real life interior. Unfortunately, I could not find any photographs of the inside of the residence with which to verify that hunch.
Today’s location is a special request from my good friends Katie and Lavonna, who, in a group text, both suggested I blog about some sites from The Craft as part of my Haunted Hollywood postings. Now the 1996 horror flick is not one of my favorites and its locales have been pretty well documented elsewhere online, but I am never one to turn down a stalking plea from friends. So Katie and Lavonna, this one’s for you! Thankfully, I already had a few sites from the film stockpiled, ahem, stalkpiled. Back in May 2015, a fellow stalker named Nathan wrote to me asking for some help in tracking down two locales from the movie, the occult shop (I told the story behind that search here) and the building where Nancy Downs (Fairuza Balk) lived with her mom, Grace Downs (Helen Shaver). Lucky for me, that spot was an easy find thanks to a notation on IMDB which stated that The Craft had done some filming at Long Beach’s HarborPlace Tower. Though Nathan didn’t think that was the right place, one look around the property on Google Street View told me it was. I finally made it out to see the structure in person this past May.
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Construction on HarborPlace Tower (and no, that’s not a typo – per the building’s official website, the name is spelled “HarborPlace” with no spacing) began in 1990 and was completed in September 1992.
The modern, Art Deco-ish building is comprised of 225 luxury condos.
The structure boasts 22 floors, though there is no 13th, which I thought was quite fitting being that I am covering HarborPlace as a Haunted Hollywood locale.
Building amenities include a pool, a spa, his-and-hers saunas, concierge service, a gym, an underground garage with parking for 600 cars, a 24-hour security guard, a sun deck, a park with artwork designed by sculptor Ned Smyth (some of those pieces are pictured in the images above and below), an expansive lobby, ocean views, and meeting rooms.
In The Craft, teen witch Nancy places a spell on her abusive step-father causing him to have a heart attack and die. Thanks to his extensive life insurance policy, Nancy and her mom are subsequently able to move from the trailer park where they live to more upscale digs at HarborPlace Tower.
In the scene in which Sarah Bailey (Robin Tunney), Bonnie (Neve Campbell), and Rochelle (Rachel True) visit Nancy’s new apartment for the first time, the girls enter the property on its East Ocean Boulevard side. The buildings visible in the background (located at 555 East Ocean and 455 East Ocean) still look much the same today as they did in 1996 when The Craft was filmed.
The interior of one of HarborPlace’s actual units stood in for Nancy’s apartment in the flick.
While it was under construction, the building appeared as itself in the Season 10 episode of Columbo titled “Columbo and the Murder of a Rock Star,” which aired in 1991.
And in the 1995 action flick Heat, Lt. Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino) ambushed Hugh Benny (Henry Rollins) at HarborPlace Tower.
Growing up, I absolutely loved Murphy Brown. This was largely due to the antics of zany housepainter/nanny Eldin Bernecky, played by actor Robert Pastorelli. I adored Eldin so much in fact that when Pastorelli left the show in 1994, I stopped watching. I was heartbroken to learn of his death a decade later and was even more heartbroken when news came to light that he was being investigated as a suspect in the 1999 killing of his then girlfriend, Charemon Jonovich, at the time. Not surprisingly, the case fascinated me, so when I came across a Curbed LA article back in 2009 about the Hollywood Hills house where both deaths occurred, I immediately added the address to my To-Stalk List. And while I made it over there shortly thereafter, somehow in all of this time I never managed to blog about it. I had actually forgotten about the place until a couple of weeks ago when I sat down to look through all of my old stalking photographs in order to compile a database of yet-to-be-blogged Haunted Hollywood locales. As soon as I spotted the images, this one was moved right to the top of the list!
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The story of Robert Pastorelli’s life is a sad one. Born in New Brunswick, New Jersey in 1954, Robert set out on a path to become a professional boxer. A near-fatal car accident at the age of 19 derailed those plans and he began battling a drug problem shortly thereafter. During his twenties, Pastorelli moved to New York and became involved with the theatre scene. He eventually relocated to L.A., where he found success with small movie and television roles before finally hitting the big time when he landed the part of Eldin in 1988. He got clean around that same time, but just two years later tragedy struck when his then girlfriend died of AIDS, apparently the result of repeated drug use.
When Murphy Brown creator Diane English left the show in 1994, Pastorelli followed suit. Though he landed a starring role in another English sitcom, Double Rush, almost immediately, it was cancelled after only 12 episodes. Robert continued to work in Hollywood in the ensuing years, though not very successfully. Then in 1999 things really got bad. According to reports, at approximately 9:50 p.m. on March 15th of that year, Pastorelli’s 25-year-old live-in girlfriend Charemon shot herself in the head during an argument with the actor while in the master bedroom of their shared home. She died instantly. Their one-year-old daughter was asleep in another room. Pastorelli cooperated with authorities and the coroner ruled Charemon’s death “undetermined.” That ruling was later changed to “homicide,” though, according to Inside Edition which cited “staging of the crime scene and scientific evidence the firearm was handled after discharge” as the reasoning behind the adjustment. Pastorelli became the police’s number one suspect.
According to numerous articles, including this one from the Daily News, Pastorelli knew he was being investigated and that detectives were closing in and an arrest was likely imminent. He began using drugs again and on March 8th, 2004 the actor was found by an assistant, slumped over on his toilet with a syringe in his arm, dead from an accidental heroin overdose at the age of 49. It’s a sad story all around.
Pastorelli purchased his Hollywood Hills home in 1989 for $487,000. After his death, it was sold to a PR exec, who, in turn, put it on the market for $1.095 million in 2009. Per the listing from that year, the gated contemporary 1962 pad boasts 2 bedrooms, 1 ¾ baths, 1,726 square feet of living space, an open floor plan, a remodeled kitchen with stainless appliances, a fireplace, 360-degree views of the Hollywood sign and Griffith Observatory, and an “oversized party shower with direct access to the outdoor deck.” I’m not really sure what an “oversized party shower” is, but I’m guessing it’s not something I want. The residence wound up selling for $976,000 in May 2010. The photos below are from the 2009 MLS listing. You can check out some more images of the house here (and yes, the master bedroom, bathroom, and oversized party shower are pictured).
Though I have not been inside the house, I can attest to the fact that the views are stunning. The Hollywood Sign is literally right there!
“The next time you check into a deserted hotel on the dark side of Hollywood, make sure you know just what kind of vacancy you’re filling. Or you may find yourself a permanent resident… of TheTwilight Zone.” So says Rod Serling at the end of Disney World’s popular The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror attraction. The design of the ride, located at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, was inspired by several California locales, one of which was Hollywood Tower, a luxury apartment building situated alongside the 101 Freeway in Tinseltown. The looming structure is such an icon and area landmark that it has become synonymous with the landscape of L.A. It is also consistently cited as one of the city’s most haunted locations (along with The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, the Hollywood Knickerbocker Apartments, and the Millennium Biltmore Hotel Los Angeles), so I figured what better time to blog about it than now?
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Hollywood Tower was originally built in 1929 as “La Belle Tour,” a luxury apartment house. The French Normandy-style building, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, was designed by architects Cramer and Wise.
The 8-story property, which rises to 110 feet at its highest point, boasts rooftop gardens, a subterranean garage, and 52 units, including 3 penthouses.
As the plaque on the front door tells you, the location served as “Sophisticated living for film luminaries during the ‘Golden Age’ of Hollywood.”
Renamed Hollywood Tower in 1942, such stars as Humphrey Bogart, Errol Flynn, Robert Patrick, George Raft, Eugene Pallette, William Powell, and Colin Clive (aka Dr. Henry Frankenstein – love it!) all called the place home at one time or another. Carmen Miranda was even married on the premises.
Rumors of hauntings at Hollywood Tower are prevalent online. The Rock Photographer blog, penned by a building resident, mentions the hauntings (including a “shadowy, floating figure” who stalks the fourth floor), as well as suicides, murders and mob hits that have taken place on the property in this post, though no specifics are given.
Whether or not the building is actually haunted remains to be seen, but being that the structure has a decidedly looming presence, it is no surprise that it influenced the Disney Imagineers who created The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror. (Check out Scouting LA for a fabulous write-up on the various SoCal properties that served as inspiration for the ride.)
As you can see below as compared to this image, the ride’s signage is very similar to that of Hollywood Tower. The overall design of the two structures is also somewhat similar, though Tower of Terror bears a distinct Southwestern element that cannot be found at Hollywood Tower.
Hollywood Tower is also a filming location! In the 1948 crime drama Devil’s Cargo, Margo Delgado (Rochelle Hudson) calls the building home.
Jake Scully (Craig Wasson) briefly stays with his friend at Hollywood Tower in the 1984 thriller Body Double.
The real life interior of one of the apartment units was also used in the movie, though very little of it can be seen.
Hollywood Tower is also where Leon (Alan Solomon) lived and gathered five students together to invite them to compete in the “Great All-nighter,” an all-night scavenger hunt through Los Angeles, in the 1980 comedy Midnight Madness.
After what amounted to a nearly two-year stalking hiatus, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, is finally back! Let me reverse a bit and explain. Over the past couple of years, Mike has been busy working in production (yep, he actually toils away on movie sets now!), which hasn’t left much time for tracking down locations. I was having some trouble with a locale this past week, though, and on a whim decided to see if he could lend a hand. Mike was game and, lo and behold, the two of us were on the hunt once again, just like old times! The story of our quest, which is a bit of a long one, is detailed below.
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While doing some research on Say Anything . . . locations back in January, I came across a 1990 Los Angeles Times article which made mention of an old Victorian house in Monrovia that had been featured in an episode of The Twilight Zone. Perfect for my Haunted Hollywood postings, right? Though the exact episode was not named, the column stated that parakeets were flown through the residence during the shoot, so I assumed it would not be hard to figure out. I did a little digging, pinpointed the address of the property, headed right on over to Monrovia to stalk it shortly thereafter, and did not think much more about it until sitting down to write this post. As it turned out, even armed with such specific information regarding parakeets, identifying the episode proved arduous. My first course of action was to Google “The Twilight Zone episode” and “parakeets,” which yielded nothing. Then I literally spent hours scanning through old TTZ episodes and reading recaps, but came up with nada. Enter Mike. Literally five minutes after I texted him and told him of my quest in tracking down the “parakeet episode,” he texted me back with an answer. As he discovered, the episode was Season 1’s “Still Life,” which originally aired on January 3rd, 1986. I felt like a complete blonde when he told me his search process, which involved inputting the sentence “Which episode of The Twilight Zone filmed in Monrovia, CA?” The third result to be kicked back was a synopsis of “Still Life” on The New Twilight Zone website. Actor Robert Morris had provided the site with a behind-the-scenes photograph of the shoot which was posted with the caption, “ . . . the episode was shot in Monrovia, California in this beautiful home.” D’oh!
In real life, the dwelling is known as the Burr House and it was originally built in 1893 for Frank W. Burr and his family. The 18-room Queen Anne-style residence was constructed entirely of redwood at a cost of $2,800. At the time of its inception, it did not have heating, electricity, or even indoor bathrooms. Yep, the Burrs had to use an outhouse! That outhouse is still currently located on the property. The Burr family owned the site until 1975, which explains how so much of the home’s original detailing remains intact today, 123 years after it was built.
In 1979, Mary Ann and Ramon Otero purchased the residence and began an extensive renovation and restoration process. Today, the property boasts 5 bedrooms, 4,700 square feet of living space, several bathrooms (there are 4.5 to be exact), a pool, extensive gardens, a detached garage, and a half-acre plot of land.
In “Still Life,” the Burr House belongs to photographer Daniel Arnold (Robert Carradine), who, after visiting an estate sale, brings home an antique trunk which he later discovers has a secret compartment containing a camera that was last used during a 1913 National Geographic Society expedition to the Amazon River Basin.
As Daniel soon learns, during the expedition the camera captured the souls of several Curucai Indian tribesmen whom he inadvertently brings back to life.
The Burr House was used extensively in the episode.
The home’s actual interior was also featured throughout.
You can watch “Still Life” by clicking below.
As was noted in the Los Angeles Times (as well as in this Monrovia Patch article), the Burr House has appeared in countless movies, TV shows, and commercials over the years. In 1988, it was used as the Boon residence in a scene in Sweet Hearts Dance. Because most filming of the Boon home took place at a similar looking Victorian dwelling located at 113 Eden Street in Hyde Park, Vermont, I am guessing that the Burr House segment might have been part of a reshoot.
Mike Donnelly (Chris Farley) voted – and got stuck in the voting booth – outside of the property’s garage in the 1996 comedy Black Sheep.
I am always on the lookout for new thrillers and scary movies to watch, especially during this time of year. While researching Baltimore locations in preparation for our recent trip to the Old Line State, I came across information about the brownstone apartment featured in The Bedroom Window. I had never seen the 1987 crime flick before, but remembered hearing good things about it. So, figuring the locale would fit in perfectly with my Haunted Hollywood posts, I added the address to my To-Stalk List and ventured right on over there while in town. I finally sat down to watch the movie this past week and found it really held up against the test of time, despite being almost thirty years old. The Bedroom Window is thoroughly frightening and suspenseful. For those who haven’t seen it, the film centers around businessman Terry Lambert (Steve Guttenberg) who starts up an affair with his boss’s wife, Sylvia Wentworth (Isabelle Huppert). Never a smart move. On the evening of their first tryst, Sylvia witnesses an attack on a woman in the park located just outside of Terry’s apartment. She, of course, can’t come forward as a witness, so Terry agrees to call the police and pretend as if he saw the assault. Not surprisingly, things do not go as planned and not only does Terry become a suspect in the crime, but the real culprit comes after him and Sylvia.
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In The Bedroom Window, Terry lives in an apartment located in a handsome four-story brownstone.
Amazingly, the property still looks much the same today as it did in 1987 when the movie was filmed.
The picturesque Federal-style building was originally built in 1900.
It is situated in the Mount Vernon Place Historic District, an area that surrounds Baltimore’s Washington Monument. The entire neighborhood is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The brownstone, like those that surround it, was likely originally constructed as a single-family home.
It was subdivided at some point in time and today the building is made up of individual condo units.
In The Bedroom Window, Terry is shown to live on the second floor in Unit 4. His window, from which Sylvia witnesses the attack, obviously figures prominently in the story.
I am fairly certain that the interior of Terry’s flat was a set built on a soundstage and not one of the building’s actual units – which is unfortunate because it was a fabulous place. It reminded me a bit of the New York loft where Josh (Tom Hanks) lived in Big.
