Pasadena Elks Lodge from “Veep”

Anyone who has visited Pasadena has likely taken note of the sprawling pillared building situated on the southeast corner of Colorado and Orange Grove Boulevards.  As the many signs adorning the structure indicate, it serves as Elks Lodge #672.  I passed the site regularly during the 15+ years I called Crown City home and knew of its frequent use as both a filming location and production basecamp (Star Waggons are ubiquitous in the massive parking lot out front), but because the lodge is private and only accessible to members, I never set foot on the premises.  When I learned, thanks to this Instagram photo posted by Veep executive producer David Mandel, that the property had been featured extensively in the popular HBO series’ Season 6 episode “Georgia,” though, I became a wee bit obsessed with changing that.  So, while in L.A. a couple of weeks ago, I decided to stop by to see if I could possibly be given a tour.  Thankfully, the member who answered my knock could not have been nicer and immediately invited me in to see all the areas that appeared on Veep and to regale me with a brief history of the lodge and the Elks organization itself.

The Benevolent and Protective Order of the Elks of the United States of America (B.P.O.E.) was initially founded in 1867 by singer Charles Algernon Sidney Vivian as a drinking club for Manhattan performers, of all things.  Originally dubbed the “Jolly Corks,” per the Elks official website the main function of the organization was “to circumvent a New York law that closed saloons on Sundays.”  The group’s focus eventually became far more altruistic and service-oriented, leading to its name change.  According to the website, the order chose their eponym based upon a “number of attributes that are deemed typical of those to be cultivated by members of the fraternity.  The Elk is distinctively an American animal.  It habitually lives in herds.  The Elk is the largest of our native quadrupeds, it is yet fleet of foot and graceful in movement.  It is quick and keen of perception; and while it is usually gentle and even timorous, it is strong and valiant in defense of its own.”

Today, the Elks organization boasts a million members with 2,000 lodges dotted across the U.S.

Lodge #672 was erected in 1911.  Designed in the Colonial Revival style by architect Myron Hunt (who also gave us Thornton Gardens, Occidental College, Wattles Mansion, the Langham Huntington Hotel, and the Huntington Library, Art Collection, and Botanical Gardens), the 31,000-square-foot structure has served as the Pasadena headquarters of the B.P.O.E. ever since.

Though a Bennett-and-Haskell-designed annex was added to the property in 1928 and a restoration took place in 2010, little of the lodge has changed over the course of its 107-year history.

You can check out some early photos of it here.

Though Lodge #672 appears quite large from the street, I was shocked at the sheer size of the place upon entering.  The structure is huge with myriad meeting places, event venues and ballrooms, each of them prettier than the next.

The Main Ballroom, pictured above and below, was being dressed for an event while we were there.

Our tour guide informed us that the Veep production team altered the Main Ballroom’s bar for the “Georgia” shoot . . .

. . . adding in the mirrors and shelving you see below for a scene that ultimately wound up on the cutting room floor.

A few faux maroon pillars, like the one pictured below, were also installed for the filming of the deleted scene . . .

. . . and the walls surrounding the bar were painted with the faces of Old Hollywood stars.  While the Elks chose to leave the paintings intact, I was not able to view them, unfortunately, due to the fact that they were temporarily covered over with the faux stone walls you see below by yet another production that filmed on the premises just prior to us stalking the place.

The room below, which I believe is named the Fireside Room, is situated off the lodge’s main entrance.

The formal space boasts a fireplace . . .

. . . and a perimeter of decorative columns.

It is the Lodge Room, though, that is the most impressive.

The venue, which is situated on the second floor and boasts plush seating along the two side walls, serves as the Elks’ meeting room.

Calling it grand would be an understatement.

Though the room is original to the property, the stage was added in 1945 and a remodel took place in 2000.

You can check out some more images of the lodge’s interior here.

The Pasadena Elks Lodge portrays two different locations in “Georgia.”  The Lodge Room masks as Georgia’s Election Monitoring Headquarters where Selina Meyer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) flip-flops on which candidate she is backing (based upon which of them happens to be offering to donate the most money to her presidential library at the time) in the county’s first free and democratic election.

The lodge’s Fireside Room portrays the lobby of the Tbilisi Grand Hotel, where Selina and her team stay while in town.

A prop elevator was set up in the corner of the room for the shoot, as you can see in the background of the images below.

In reality, that area serves as a doorway to Lodge #672’s front office.

The image below is the only view we get of the Main Ballroom in the episode.  It appears in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment as the Tbilisi Grand’s restaurant in the scene in which Jonah Ryan (Timothy Simons) discovers that his fellow congressmen are dining without him.

Only the interior of the Pasadena Elks Lodge is featured in “Georgia.”

For exterior shots of the Tbilisi Grand, producers used a mash-up of locations both near and far.  The establishing shot of the hotel is of an actual Georgian lodging – the Ambassadori Tbilisi Hotel and Casino located at 17 loane Shavteli Street.  You can check out some images of it here.

All on location exterior filming took place much closer to home at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel located at 506 South Grand Avenue in downtown Los Angeles.

The hotel was significantly roughed up for the shoot, with graffiti added to the walls and strewn furniture discarded on the sidewalk out front.

The Pasadena Elks Lodge has been host to many filmings over the years.

In the 1992 comedy The Distinguished Gentleman, the EPA oversight hearing of the Committee on Power and Industry takes place in the Lodge Room.

Senator Bob Rumson (Richard Dreyfuss) campaigns in the Lodge Room in the 1995 comedy The American President.

Though no part of Lodge #672 can actually be seen, per the book Twilight: Director’s Notebook, Bella’s (Kristin Stewart) bedroom set was rebuilt on the premises for a reshoot of the scene in which she and Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) kiss for the first time in 2008’s Twilight.

Ron Donald (Ken Marino) caters his own reunion at the Pasadena Elks Lodge in the Season 1 episode of Party Down titled “James Rolf High School Twentieth Reunion.”

As you can see, when the episode was shot in 2009, the Main Ballroom’s bar was in its original state and looked much different than it does now after the alterations made by the Veep crew.

In the 2010 comedy The Back-up Plan, Nana (Linda Lavin) marries Arthur (Tom Bosley) in the lodge’s Fireside Room.

Thanks to my buddy Mikey, from the Mike the Fanboy website, I learned that the lodge masked as Elder & Massey Auction House, where Doug Wilson (Kevin Nealon) attended a NASA inventory liquidation auction and almost won a flight-worn suit of Captain Jim Wetherbee, in the Season 8 episode of Weeds titled “Unfreeze,” which aired in 2012.  Mikey was actually on set the day filming took place and got to meet and take a photo with Kevin.  You can read about his experience here.

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Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Pasadena Elks Lodge, from the “Georgia” episode of Veep, is located at 400 West Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena.  You can visit the lodge’s official website here.  Please keep in mind that the club is private and not accessible to the public.