Author: Lindsay

Granville Towers – Portia de Rossi’s Former Home

I just recently finished reading Portia de Rossi’s new memoir Unbearable Lightness and I have to say that it was easily one of the best books I have ever read in my entire life! I literally could NOT put it down. The memoir is a harrowing account of the actress’ long-time eating disorder which consumed her life during the years she portrayed Nelle Porter on the hit television series Ally McBeal. Besides being a fabulous read, the book’s topic really hit home with me as I was once told by an acting teacher that I was “stocky” and needed to lose weight if I wanted to make it in this business. I was a size two at the time. Needless to say the notion of “there is no such thing as too thin” is alive and well in Hollywood. Thankfully I had a strong foundation to fall back on at home and was able to blow off my acting teacher’s words – and eventually her class. But it is easy to see why someone like Portia, who was already deeply insecure over the fact that she was gay and whose family lived a world away in Australia, would falter in that sort of environment. Her story is both heartbreaking and fascinating and I honestly cannot recommend reading it enough. Anyway, in the book, Portia talks about living in a penthouse unit at the legendary Granville Towers in West Hollywood, so as soon as I finished reading the tome, I immediately ran right out to stalk the place.

[ad]

The Granville Towers, which was originally an apartment building named The Voltaire, was built in 1930 in the French Revival style by architect Leland Bryant, who also designed one of my favorite hotels in Southern California – the Sunset Tower Hotel on Sunset Boulevard. The 7-story, 40-unit property was a celebrity magnet from the very beginning and such stars as Ann Sothern, Jack Lord, Arthur Treacher, Janet Gaynor, and Rock Hudson called the place home. My girl Marilyn Monroe even stayed there for a brief while after her divorce from Joe DiMaggio in 1954. In the 1980s, the property was transformed into a luxury hotel at which point it was renamed The Granville. A few years later it was transformed yet again, this time into an upscale condominium building, and Hollywood luminaries once again began calling the place home. Just a few of the celebrities who have lived there in more recent years include Nicole Scherzinger, Ashley Greene (her boyfriend Joe Jonas is a frequent visitor), Mickey Rourke, Brendan Fraser, David Bowie, Amy Locane, and Michael Michele.

Portia de Rossi lived in the building’s north tower penthouse from the late 1990s through mid-2002. Of first seeing the penthouse apartment, she said, “I felt as though I had been transported to an artist’s loft in a city like Philadelphia, which was much more exciting to me than where I actually was. Where I was, was predictable. But the apartment made me think there was more to life than being an actress on a David Kelly show.” She signed the papers on the spot and immediately set about transforming the upstairs attic loft into a workout room. Of her makeshift gym, she says, “The treadmill was really the only thing up there and was perfectly centered in the attic, between the wall of windows that showcased the industrial city that was the roof of the Sunset 5 and the east windows through which I could see all the way downtown. The wall opposite the smokestacks acted as a bulletin board where I had taped pieces of paper. Mostly the pieces were exaggerated to-do lists. I say ‘exaggerated’ because they said things that were more like goals that I wanted to achieve than things that needed to be done. The largest piece of paper with the boldest writing stated ‘I WILL BE 105 POUNDS BY CHRISTMAS’.” She also fastened a list of cards to the wall just to the left of her to-do list. Each card featured a number, beginning at 111 and running backwards. Portia was 111 pounds at the time and each time she lost a pound, she would remove a card. Of her weight wall, she says, “It helped keep me focused and it helped me to remember that once I’d achieved the new lower weight and the card stating my previous weight was gone, that I could never weigh that much again; that the old weight was gone. It was no longer who I was. It was getting more difficult to lose weight as I got thinner, so I needed all the incentive and motivation I could muster. Putting my weight on the wall was a clever thing to do as it always needed to be in the forefront of my mind, otherwise I might’ve forgotten and walked on the treadmill instead of run, sat instead of paced. I once saw a loft where a famous writer lived, and all over the wall was his research for the novel he was writing. He described the book to me as his life’s work, his magnum opus. I felt like controlling my weight was my magnum opus, the most important product of my brain and was worthy of devoting a wall to its success.” See what I mean? Absolutely riveting – and harrowing – stuff!

The Granville is a truly beautiful building and features a 24-hour doorman, valet parking, a lobby with a piano, an indoor pool and spa, and a large garden patio area complete with statuaries and fountains. You can view some great interior photographs of the building here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Granville Towers is located at 1424 North Crescent Heights Boulevard, just south of Sunset Boulevard, in West Hollywood.

December 14, 2010
Our Movie Locations-Themed Scavenger Hunt

My good friend/party planner extraordinaire Natalie Drees has become famous in our circle over the past few years for creating absolutely amazing customized scavenger hunts. She plans one for pretty much every event she hosts and not only are they insanely fun, but they also provide a fabulous way for people to get to know each other. So, once it was decided that our rehearsal dinner would take place at POP Champagne & Dessert Bar in Old Town Pasadena and that all of our family and friends would be invited, I asked Nat if she wouldn’t mind creating a movie locations-themed hunt to cap off our evening. And, thankfully, she said yes! Because Nat lives in San Francisco and therefore does not know the Pasadena area all that well, though – nor is she particularly into this thing that we call stalking – she enlisted the help of fellow stalker Owen to carry out the endeavor. And I have to say that the two pulled it off beautifully!

[ad]

Natalie figured that most of our guests wouldn’t be quite as into filming locations as I am, so she based the scavenger hunt not around finding where a specific production was filmed, but around finding particular restaurants and bars in Pasadena that also happened to be filming locations. If teams could subsequently figure out what was filmed at each particular restaurant or bar – by talking to their servers or using their iPhones – extra points would be awarded, but filming location knowledge was not in any way required to participate. Besides figuring out which location each clue referred to, teams would also be required to obtain specific items from each location in order to complete the hunt. As always, each team was given a set of pens, a bag to collect all of our scavenger hunt items, and a book detailing our assignment, the rules of the game, and the clues.

The booklets were handed out at the end of the rehearsal dinner at POP Champagne Bar and my best friend Kylee, who was managing the hunt, gave all of the teams five minutes to read them over, before yelling out “On your mark . . . get set . . . go!”. At that point our entire group of fifty literally RAN out of the restaurant! It was like a mass exodus and I can only imagine what our fellow diners were thinking! LOL The scavenger hunt clues read as follows:

Clue Number 1 –

It’s been said “men want

a lady on the street . . .”

Perhaps women want

An “uomo” who can take the heat.

Once they find him,

They’ll take some “pane”.

Bring it back to the judge

And you’ll “vincere”.

The solution to Clue Number 1 was the restaurant Il Fornaio, which was featured in the 2000 movie What Women Want and was actually the very first movie I ever saw being filmed upon moving to Los Angeles. Before purchasing a house, my parents and I lived in an apartment in Old Town Pasadena and we would walk down to Il Fornaio to grab a bite to eat at least once a week. We got to know quite a few people who worked at the eatery and one night one of the servers let us know that Mel Gibson was going to be filming a movie at the restaurant the very next day. So, my mom and I, of course, headed back there bright and early the following morning to watch! It was an extremely cool experience for both of us and while we did not get to meet Mel Gibson, he did wave to us and say ‘hi’ several times while on his various cigarette breaks. Anyway, Nat came up with the brilliant idea of using foreign words in each clue which correlated to the type of food served at the restaurants we were supposed to visit. In the case of Il Fornaio, which is Italian, she used several Italian words – “uomo” translates to “man”, “pane” to “bread”, and “vincere” to “win”. Well, once I read the words “women want”, I knew exactly which restaurant the clue was referring to and my team (which consisted of me and the GC, my best friend Robin and his girlfriend Steffi, and Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and his fiancé Ame) immediately headed on over there. Unfortunately though, my mom, of course, also immediately figured out the answer to the clue and was right on our heels! In the movie, Il Fornaio appeared in the scene in which Nick Marshall (aka Mel Gibson) has lunch with his daughter Alex Marshall (aka Ashley Johnson) after buying her a prom dress.

One of the rules of the game was that all teams would have to purchase a round of drinks at each and every bar, so as not to anger the various managements by having large groups of people running in and out of the restaurants, causing a disruption. When we arrived at Il Fornaio, Mike suggested that we each get a shot as we could drink them quickly and then be on to our next location. Well, I am a complete and total lightweight and typically do not drink anything other than champagne and I really did not want to be doing shots at each and every bar we went into the night before my wedding, so I quickly ixnayed that idea. But the next thing I knew, my friend Steffi had six full shot glasses lined up in front of her. I immediately said, “No, I can’t drink a shot!” to which she replied, “These are champagne shots!” I had no idea what on earth a champagne shot was, but she informed me that she had asked the bartender to pour a bit of champagne into six shot glasses. The bartender at first balked at the idea, but when Steffi explained that I was a soon-to-be bride who only drank champagne, she agreed and poured us our “champagne shots”. We are holding them in the above photograph and I can honestly say that that particular moment was one of my favorites of the entire wedding. So incredibly cute!!!!!!

Clue Number 2 –

Don may ride a white horse

To get to this filmed bar.

If he were in gay Paris

This would be more on par.

Once he arrived

A “serviette” he’d obtain.

In Pasadena it’s this,

Hopefully without a stain.

The solution to Clue Number 2 was Cheval Blanc Bistro, which I blogged about back in December of last year and which was used in the original Father of the Bride movie as the spot where George Banks (aka Steve Martin) takes Bryan MacKenzie (aka George Newbern) for a drink. Because there are not many French restaurants in Old Town Pasadena, this was an easy one. Also tipping me off to the clue’s answer was the fact that Don is my dad’s name, aka the name of the “father of the bride”. Amazingly enough, my mom and her team were hot on our tail upon arriving at this particular bar, as well! My aunt Lea, who was on my mom’s team, had asked the bartender at Il Fornaio if she knew of any French restaurants in the area and the bartender told her that the only place she could think of was Cheval Blanc. My mom’s best friend, who speaks fluent French, immediately said “Cheval Blanc means white horse! That’s the place!” and they took off for the restaurant. At Cheval Blanc we were required to obtain a “serviette”, aka a “napkin”.

Both my team and my mom’s team spent quite a bit of time at this restaurant and ordered a round of drinks and relaxed since we were so far ahead of all of the other groups. And amazingly enough, my mom’s team happened to meet an actor while at Cheval Blanc and they got his autograph for an extra 50 points! He wasn’t anyone famous, but he did have his own IMDB page, so he counted as a “star”.

Clue Number 3 –

You can get a roll

In California’s 91105.

This filming location

You may not recognize.

You won’t need a fork,

But two pieces of wood

To experience

Lindsay’s favorite hood.

The answer to Clue Number 3 was, of course, Maikobe Japanese Restaurant – aka the former Ruby’s Diner which stood in for the Peach Pit on my favorite show of all time Beverly Hills, 90210. For anyone who knew anything about me or anything about the city of Pasadena for that matter, this clue was a no-brainer. In an unfortunate twist of bad luck, though, Maikobe had unexpectedly closed its doors just a few days before our rehearsal dinner, so when we showed up there for the scavenger hunt, we could not go inside to obtain our “two pieces of wood”, aka a set of chop sticks. Mike immediately started looking around for other sushi restaurants in the area and noticed one directly across the street from Maikobe (perhaps this is why the place went out of business! ) and ran right on over to grab some chopsticks. BUT, amazingly enough, my mom’s team had happened to grab a set of chop sticks at Sushi Roku near Il Fornaio earlier during the hunt (they had gone in to collect matchbooks for extra points and the hostess had, for whatever reason, also given them chopsticks!), so as soon as her team realized Maikobe was closed, they immediately started running to the last stop on the hunt and ended up coming in first place! So, yes, even though Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I were on the same team, we LOST the scavenger hunt!!!!! Unbelievable!!!! But at least now you can see where I get my stalking skills from! In our family, the apple definitely does not fall far from the tree! On a side note – you can see a great picture of what Maikobe looked like back when it was Ruby’s Diner here.

Clue Number 4 –

At this Latin lounge with a fitting name

Their life together they can star living

Before their honeymoon, as husband and dame.

Ask for this in your drink-o.

Tie it in a knot with your tongue

To get an extra cinco.

The solution to Clue Number 4 was Vive Lounge, where fave movie A Lot Like Love was filmed. At the time the movie was filmed, the place was a Chinese-Malaysian fusion restaurant named Nonya, but that eatery closed down back in 2006 whereupon Vive moved in. Amazingly enough, very little of the décor was changed upon the transition and the restaurant still looked almost exactly the same as it did in the movie. Because there is only one Latin-themed lounge in Pasadena, my mom and her team were easily able to figure out what location the final clue was referring to. Especially once they realized that “vive” translates to “live” in Spanish. For winning the hunt, each member of my mom’s team was awarded with a bag of microwave popcorn and a pass for a free movie at any AMC Theatre. So incredibly cool! All in the all, the scavenger hunt turned out FABULOUS and all of our guests, even those who seriously lagged behind, absolutely LOVED it. It was the perfect end to a perfect evening. On a sad side note, though – the GC and I walked by Vive this past Friday night and discovered that it had closed it doors! I can only hope that the new owners also choose to keep the original Nonya’s décor so that all of us stalkers can still appreciate it.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Natalie Drees can create customized scavenger hunts for parties and corporate events based upon any and all sorts of themes. You can contact her via her event planning website Pop Planning. Il Fornaio, from What Women Want, is located at 24 West Union Street in Old Town Pasadena. You can visit Il Fornaio’s website here. Cheval Blanc Bistro, from Father of the Bride, is located at 41 South De Lacey Avenue, also in Old Town Pasadena. You can visit the Cheval Blanc website here. The former Maikobe restaurant, aka the Peach Pit from Beverly Hills, 90210, is located at 45 South Fair Oaks Avenue in Pasadena, but is currently vacant. Vive Lounge, the former Nonya restaurant from A Lot Like Love, is located at 61 North Raymond Avenue in Pasadena, but is also currently vacant. You can visit the former Vive Lounge website here.

December 13, 2010
Our Rehearsal Dinner at POP Champagne & Dessert Bar

As I’ve mentioned many times before on this blog, POP Champagne & Dessert Bar in Old Town Pasadena is my very favorite restaurant and, even though I wasn’t even engaged at the time, when I first walked through its front doors over a year and a half ago, I immediately knew it was the place where I wanted to hold the rehearsal dinner for my wedding. The only problem was that the Grim Cheaper and I had long been planning on getting married in Malibu and having a rehearsal dinner at a restaurant located over fifty miles away from the wedding venue wasn’t exactly the most viable of options. After the GC finally proposed, though, and we sat down to begin our wedding planning, my mom suggested that we hold the actual wedding rehearsal in the backyard of my parent’s Pasadena home, which is located just about two miles from POP, and an idea was born – our nuptials would be a two-city celebration! Much to the GC’s chagrin, I had long before decided that all of our wedding guests would be invited to our rehearsal dinner. Because weddings seem to go by in such a blur and because the vast majority of our guests were from out of town, I did not want the time spent with our closest loved ones to be limited to one short evening. I was a little worried, though, that our family and friends might be upset over the fact that each night’s festivities would be held in a different city, which would entail everyone having to rent a car AND moving hotel rooms from one night to the other. As it turned out, though, people absolutely LOVED the idea! Because most of our family and friends were not from the area, many of them told me afterwards that they loved getting to experience two very different parts of Southern California over the course of our wedding weekend. YAY!

Holding the rehearsal in my parents’ backyard actually turned out to be very memorable for my family, because just two weeks after the wedding my mom and dad put their beloved house up for sale – the same house they had lived in for the better part of a decade. So, it was nice to make one last and very significant memory there before we had to say good-bye. And yes, as you can see in the above photographs, during the rehearsal I did wear the Carrie Bradshaw veil that my best friend, Kylee, made for my Sex and the City-themed bachelorette party.

[ad]

Because fifty people would be attending, I did not want our rehearsal dinner to be a formal, sit-down event. I wanted our friends and family to be able to mingle and get to know each other and a formal sit-down dinner would not have been very conducive to that. So, we asked Kristin and Matt, the owners of POP Champagne Bar, if they could create a cocktail party-type atmosphere for us and they ended up pulling it off beautifully! In fact, they couldn’t have facilitated it better had I given them a roadmap! They wound up giving us the entire front portion of the restaurant and had several different groupings of tables and chairs set up for people if they wanted to sit down, while servers walked around with tray-passed food. There was also a buffet table set up with wine and champagne and a sampling of the food so that guests could also help themselves. The evening turned out perfect! Not only did the GC and I get to walk around and talk to all of our closest friends, but most of our guests also spent the evening mingling and speaking with different groups of people, so, by the time the wedding rolled around, everyone had really gotten know each other, which was so incredibly cool! And while I realize that it is a (large) added expense, if you can swing it, I honestly cannot more highly recommend inviting all of your guests to the rehearsal dinner. Doing so made our special day that much more memorable.

Not to mention the food was ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE – and almost unbelievably reasonably priced. There are several different special events menu choices available at POP and we chose the most expensive one, which was only $12 per person! Included in that price were seven different menu items of our choosing. We ended up picking the deviled eggs with chive truffle, bacon onion, and blue cheese flavoring (my favorite), POPcorn chicken (pictured above to the right), chorizo and Anaheim chili meatballs, sliders with three different toppings including bacon-gorgonzola mayonnaise, Pasilla chili-chorizo, and goat cheese & date (the GC’s favorite), the flatbread pizza du jour, wild mushroom and goat cheese bruschetta, and olive, mushroom, and sun-dried tomato flavored tapenade crostini (pictured above to the left). And there was no shortage of food! Amazingly enough, after two and a half hours of being there, Matt informed us that we hadn’t even eaten fifty percent of the food we had paid for! LOL For dessert we picked the three-item menu at $6 per person which included chocolate-covered strawberries, a trio of homemade cookies, and the house-made churros served with three different dipping sauces – spiced warm chocolate, Dulce de leche, and creamy strawberry. Because the bottles of wine and champagne offered at POP are all on the pricier side, Matt offered to special order some lower-priced options for our rehearsal dinner. We told him the amount we wanted to spend per bottle and gave him free reign to choose the brands he thought best and he ended up picking out some spectacular options for us. So not only was the party absolutely fabulous – all of our guests were raving about both the atmosphere and the food – but it was also completely affordable! And while not yet a filming location (although it was almost chosen to be in the soon-to-be released No Strings Attached movie, which would have been just about the coolest thing ever!), POP has become something of a celebrity hangout as of late. Such stars as Mila Kunis, Denzel Washington, Marc Curry, and The Bachelor’s Jason Mesnick and Molly Malaney have all been spotted there and ’80s pop star Tiffany even threw herself a birthday party at the restaurant! Love it!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: POP Champagne & Dessert Bar is located at 33 East Union Street in Old Town Pasadena. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.

December 10, 2010
La Quinta Resort & Club

Brace yourselves, my fellow stalkers, ‘cause today’s post is going to be a long one! As I mentioned yesterday, the Grim Cheaper and I spent this past weekend in Palm Springs and we came to do so thanks to an extremely serendipitous course of events. Last Wednesday night, I was curled up on my couch reading the December issue of fave publication Los Angeles Magazine when I came across an advertisement for La Quinta Resort & Club which stated that Frank Capra had written the screenplay for It’s A Wonderful Life while staying at the legendary hotel. In honor of the iconic movie, the resort was featuring an It’s a Wonderful Life-themed Christmas celebration each night throughout the month of December. I, of course, just about had a heart attack upon reading those words and immediately informed the GC that we would be making a trip out to the desert in the coming weeks. Well, not five minutes later, my mom called to inform me that she and my father were heading to Palm Springs for the weekend and that she had booked a room at . . . you guessed it – La Quinta Resort! Talk about the stars aligning! She asked if the GC and I would like to join them for the weekend and I started packing my bags pretty much right then and there.

The resort, which was originally named Hotel La Quinta meaning “country retreat”, was first opened in 1926 by Walter H. Morgan, heir to the Morgan Oyster Company fortune. Morgan had moved from his native San Francisco to the Palm Springs area in 1921 after purchasing 1,400 acres of land in what was then known as “Happy Hollow”. He decided to use that land to build an intimate and exclusive hotel where his rich and famous friends could be pampered while escaping the hustle and bustle of the city. He enlisted Pasadena-area architect Gordon Kaufman, who is most famous for constructing the Santa Anita Racetrack in Arcadia and the L.A. Times Building in Downtown Los Angeles, to design the hotel, which was to be modeled after a Spanish hacienda. The retreat, which consisted of 20 individual casitas, a restaurant, a lobby, and a nine-hole golf course (the Coachella Valley’s first golf course, in fact!) was constructed at a cost of a whopping $150,000. The resort officially opened to the public in January of 1927 – although Morgan had hosted a select group of his friends there in December of the previous year – and became enormously popular over the next decade and a half, mostly due to word of mouth among Los Angeles’ elite, and counted such stars as Greta Garbo, Clark Gable, Ginger Rogers, Bette Davis, Robert Montgomery, and Erroll Flynn as its guests. World War II sadly took its toll on the hotel, though, thanks to gas rationing which prevented people from traveling long distances. In 1942, the property closed its doors at which point the US Army took over and the Army Tank and Army Air Corps Division made use of the premises. After the war ended, the resort was sold and once again became a popular getaway for the rich and famous, as it remains to this day. A private airstrip even had to built on the property to accommodate those guests traveling by air. In 1982, the City of La Quinta was incorporated, becoming one of only two cities on the West Coast to be named in honor of a hotel. The other? Beverly Hills, which became incorporated in 1914 and was named after the Pink Palace, aka the Beverly Hills Hotel.

Today, La Quinta Resort & Club, which is a part of the Waldorf-Astoria Collection of hotels, is an absolutely BEAUTIFUL retreat consisting of 796 different rooms and suites, most of which are individual single-story dwellings or “casitas” situated around sprawling courtyards and pools. And even though the resort is staggeringly HUGE – besides having 796 rooms, it also currently boasts 23 tennis courts, 4 restaurants, a 23,000-square foot spa, 41 pools, 53 Jacuzzis, and 5 golf courses – somehow the property has managed to maintain an intimate, small hotel-feel. Because the rooms are spread across a vast 45 acres of land, the grounds are extremely quiet and private. So private, in fact, that it almost felt as if my parents, the GC, and I were the only people on the property the entire weekend. So love it!

[ad]

Upon check-in, we were given a booklet which not only detailed the hotel’s legendary history, but also listed many of the luminaries who have stayed there over the years. It was at that moment that I knew that La Quinta was my kind of place! Just a few of the stars who have vacationed there at one time or another include Drew Barrymore, Danny DeVito, Jim Belushi, Annette Bening, Sean Connery, Clint Eastwood, Kevin Costner, Simon Cowell, Casey Kasem, Diane Keaton, Ben Kingsley, Ginger Rogers (who got married on the property in 1953), Harvey Keitel, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Ray Charles, Harry Connick Jr., Neil Diamond, Cyndi Lauper, Justin Timberlake, Al Pacino, Matthew Perry, Tom Hanks, Katherine Hepburn, Adam Sandler, Katie Holmes, Gregory Hines, Shirley Temple, Mark Wahlberg, and Bruce Willis. I could literally go on and on and on! Several presidents have also checked into the hotel over the years, including George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Gerald Ford, Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, and Calvin Coolidge. And numerous sports stars have also stayed there, including Andre Agassi, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Roger Clemens, Roger Federer, Wayne Gretzky, Ken Griffey Jr., Magic Johnson, Joe Montana, Bruce Jenner, Michael Jordan, Jack Nicklaus, and Arnold Palmer. I was most excited to find out, though, that the King of Pop himself, Michael Jackson, had once visited the hotel!

Well, let me tell you, once I heard that MJ had vacationed there, I became ABSOLUTELY OBSESSED with finding out exactly which room he had stayed in. So, I immediately sought out the resort’s concierge and ended up speaking with a woman who literally could NOT have been nicer. Truth be told, though, EVERYONE at the hotel was INCREDIBLY nice! Anyway, the concierge told me that she was fairly certain the hotel had a detailed list of what particular rooms various celebrities had stayed in over the years and that she would try to track it down for me. And track it down she did! And even though Michael Jackson was not named on the list, due to the fact that it hadn’t been updated in quite a few years, the concierge did some research and managed to find out exactly where he had stayed during his visit – Room 735, otherwise known as Hacienda Grande. YAY!



So, I, of course, immediately dragged my parents right on over to stalk it. According to the concierge, Hacienda Grande is the resort’s largest room and boasts its own living room with a fireplace, an entertainment center, a dining room, kitchen area, a separate master bedroom, a private pool, a private Jacuzzi, a carport, and a private walled patio. Oh, how I wish we could have seen the inside of it!



The concierge also told us that Britney Spears had stayed in Room 225 – El Presidente – while at the resort. El Presidente is the resort’s presidential suite and it consists of a one-bedroom casita AND a one-bedroom guest house, along with a parlor room, a dining room, a kitchen area, two bathrooms, a fireplace, and a private patio, pool, and spa. Actors Jerry Lewis and Cliff Robertson have also stayed in Room 225 in the past.

The concierge also told me that in each room where a celebrity has stayed, the hotel has put a replica of that celebrity’s star from the Hollywood Walk of Fame on display. How incredibly cool is that? (And yes, you can call up and ask to stay in the “Drew Barrymore” or “Mark Wahlberg” room, for example.) My mom happened to book Casita Number 936 for our stay and I just about died upon opening the front door and seeing the above-pictured star on the wall. As it turns out, Robert Wagner had once stayed in our room! SO INCREDIBLY COOL! Especially since my grandma had gifted me with his autobiography Pieces of my Heart: A Life last Christmas and I absolutely LOVED it.



Casita 936 was absolutely gorgeous and consisted of a king bed and a queen-sized sleeper sofa, a fireplace, a HUGE bathroom . . .

. . . and an absolutely ENOURMOUS private walled patio which boasted gorgeous pool and mountain views. I seriously did not want to leave!

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, Frank Capra wrote It’s A Wonderful Life while staying at the resort. The legendary director/screenwriter first came to La Quinta in the late 1920s while writing the screenplay for It Happened One Night. After the movie won a staggering five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Screenplay, Capra became superstitious, calling the hotel his “Shangri-La for script-writing”, and returned there to pen many of his subsequent screenplays, including Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Lost Horizon, You Can’t Take It With You, and, of course, It’s A Wonderful Life. Frank, and his wife Lucille, always stayed in the same room while vacationing at the resort – Suite 136 in the San Anselmo Casita – and their room is now marked with both a memorial placard and a memorial bench. According to one of the staff members that I spoke with, the very typewriter that Frank used to write those famous scripts is still on display inside of the room! So incredibly cool! The staff member even offered to take me on a tour of Frank’s former casita and to show me the typewriter, but when he radioed to get a set of keys brought to him, was told it was occupied. Such a bummer!

As you can see in the above picture, the theme of the resort’s month-long winter celebration is apparent as soon as one sets foot on the property!

As you turn into the resort’s long, palm tree-lined driveway, you are immediately greeted with a large saying “You are now in Bedford Falls”, which looks EXACTLY like the sign that was featured in the movie It’s A Wonderful Life. So incredibly cool!

The resort’s Plaza area is awash with Christmas decorations . . .

. . . which, thanks to thousands of Tivoli lights, only gets more spectacular at night!

The pathway leading to the Plaza is decorated with hundreds of candle-lit luminarias, as you can see in the above photograph.

And there is also a HUGE, 43-foot white fir tree flanking the front of the property.

Best of all, though, is the fact that the hotel projects It’s A Wonderful Life onto the wall of the Plaza’s Salon de Fiesta each evening!

Oh, and the front of the resort is also rigged to “snow” each night, which you can kind of see in the above photograph. SO INCREDIBLY COOL!

Legend has it that Irving Berlin also penned the song “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas” while staying at the historic hotel and, as fate would have it, we happened to walk to into the lobby on Saturday night while some carolers were singing that very song. I cannot tell you how cool it was to be sitting in front of the resort’s roaring fireplace, hearing Berlin’s famous words being sung while looking out at the very landscape that inspired them!

I am fairly certain this goes without saying, but I honestly cannot recommend stalking La Quinta Resort & Club enough! It is a truly magical, truly unique place and I loved every minute of being there!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: La Quinta Resort & Club is located at 49-499 Eisenhower Drive in La Quinta. You can visit the hotel’s official website here. Frank Capra stayed in Room 136 in the San Anselmo Casita, Robert Wagner stayed in Room 936, Britney Spears stayed in Room 225 – El Presidente – and Michael Jackson stayed in Room 735 – Hacienda Grande.

December 9, 2010
The Kaufmann House – One of the World’s Most Famous Houses

I thought I’d take another break from my wedding blogging today to write about a location that has occupied a spot at the very top of my “To-Stalk” list for over two years now, but had, for whatever reason, eluded me up until this past weekend when the Grim Cheaper and I headed to Palm Springs for a little pre-Christmas getaway. While we were there, I made it a point to finally, finally stalk what is known as one of the most iconic and, perhaps, most famous houses in the entire world; a residence that is as well-known, if not more so, than the White House, the Playboy Mansion, Neverland Ranch, and Fallingwater all put together, architecturally speaking at least – Richard Neutra’s legendary Kaufmann house.

[ad]

The Kaufmann house was originally built in 1946 by world-renowned mid-century modernist architect Richard Neutra. Amazingly enough, the residence was commissioned by Edgar J. Kaufmann Sr., the very same man who also commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright to construct another of the world’s most famous houses – the property known as Fallingwater in Mill Run, Pennsylvania. It is amazing to me that two of the most iconic dwellings in the entire world were constructed for the same man, especially since they were designed by different architects. I can’t even imagine owning one of the residences, let alone both of them! But I digress. Anyway, Neutra designed the International-style Kaufmann House, or Kaufmann Desert House as it is also known, out of steel, aluminum, glass, and stone at a cost of $295,000. Famed photographer Julius Schulman’s 1947 images of the home turned the place into an architectural landmark virtually overnight, but, sadly, after Kaufmann’s death in 1955, the property sat vacant for several years. In the time period that followed, the pinwheel-shaped dwelling went through a succession of different owners – singer Barry Manilow even occupied the place for a few years – and a slew of unsightly renovations. In 1993, the Kaufmann House was purchased for a cool $1.5 million by an architectural historian named Beth Harris and her husband, an investment manager named Brent. The two quickly set about a massive painstaking and costly restoration of the entire property, bringing it back to its original glory. In a mind-boggling-bit of trivia, though, according to an October 2007 New York Times article, at the time the duo bought the residence, it had not only been on the market for over three and a half years, but was being listed as a “teardown”!

The Harrises had not actually originally set out to buy the home, but had been stalking the property (so love it!) when Brent noticed a “For Sale” sign situated among the overgrown foliage. The purchase turned out to be a fateful one, though, being that the couple’s decision to restore the residence is largely credited with setting into motion the massive mid-century modernist restoration movement that Palm Springs is now known for.

The Kaufmann House is not only considered to be one of Richard Neutra’s finest designs, but also one of the most important examples of mid-century modernist architecture in the entire world and one of the most publicized homes in architectural history. The property has been featured in countless magazines and periodicals over its 64-year history, including Palm Springs Life, Time, and Life Magazine, as well as in numerous architectural books. In 1996, it was designated a Class 1 Historic Site by the Palm Springs Historic Site Preservation Board.

When the Harrises divorced in 2007, they decided to sell their beloved property. But a unique house deserves a unique sale, so it was put up for purchase via an auction at Christie’s. Most unusual about the sale, though, was the fact that Christie’s categorized the home not as a residence or a piece of property, but as a work of art! The house sold at auction for a whopping $19.1 million, but fell out of escrow shortly thereafter. It hit the market once again a few months later, this time as a regular real estate sale, for just under $12.9 million, but I don’t believe it ever sold and it looks as if it has since been taken off the market.

The 5-bedroom, 6-bathroom, 3,200-square foot home, which sits on over 2 full acres of land, features floor-to-ceiling sliding (or “disappearing”) glass walls, indoor-outdoor living space, a wall of moveable aluminum sheets that can either be closed to keep out the sun or opened to take advantage of the mid-afternoon breeze, a second-story “gloriette” or outdoor sleeping area, a separate viewing platform, a large pool, a tennis court, and striking mountain views. You can check out some fabulous interior photographs of the Kauffman House here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Kaufmann house is located at 470 West Vista Chino in Palm Springs.

December 8, 2010
Brenda Leigh Johnson’s House from “The Closer”

I thought I’d take a little break from writing about my nuptials today as I figure there are more than a few stalkers out there who are not at all interested in reading about wedding planning, even when there is a filming location element tied in to it. Anyway, a few days ago I was going through some old photographs on my computer when I came across a location that I stalked way back in November of 2008, but for whatever reason had completely forgotten to blog about – the adorable Craftsman-style house where Deputy Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson (aka Kyra Sedgwick) lived during the first three seasons of the TNT drama The Closer. When my dad and I saw the series being filmed in Pasadena back in October of 2008, I happened to ask one of the crew members if he knew where Brenda’s house was located. And while he couldn’t remember the exact address, he did tell me that the property could be found on Gramercy Place in Hollywood, not too far from Raleigh Studios where the series is lensed. Even with that detailed information, though, it took me quite a while to track down the house.

Gramercy Place actually begins at Marathon Street, just one block north of Melrose Avenue where Raleigh Studios is located, so I decided to begin my search there. Because I happened to be in the area at the time, this particular stalking venture took place in person in my car, rather than via Google Street View. Armed with a screen capture of the house, I drove south on Gramercy Place keeping my eyes peeled for the brown bungalow and was quite shocked to discover that, after only three blocks, the street ended – and, sadly, the property was nowhere to be found. I immediately called up Mike, from MovieShotsLA, to ask if there happened to be two streets in Hollywood with the name Gramercy, but he said there were not. He also informed me that Gramercy was a long street, which only added to my confusion, as I was ON Gramercy at the time and could only drive three blocks. So, a bit deterred, I returned home and set about doing some cyber-stalking on my computer. What I soon discovered was that Gramercy WAS, in fact a fairly long street, as after it stops at Maplewood Avenue it picks up again four blocks later at Beverly Boulevard. Because I am absolutely TERRIBLE with directions (my mom says I couldn’t find my way out of a paper bag), that thought had never even occurred to me! And, yes, I really am that blonde! Anyway, once I figured out that bit of information, it didn’t take me long to locate Brenda’s house and I dragged the Grim Cheaper right out to stalk the place just a few days later.

[ad]



Brenda moved into the Craftsman-style home pictured above in the Season 1 episode of The Closer titled “The Big Picture”, after the previous owner was found dead inside of it. After deciding that she and her fiance, Fritz Howard (aka Jon Tenney), need a larger abode a few seasons later, she moved out of this location and into a duplex located two miles away.

While we were stalking Brenda’s house, some people happened to be standing outside and I asked them if they were the owners. They weren’t, but, as it turns out, they knew the owner quite well.  I, of course, immediately started asking them all sorts of questions about The Closer being filmed on the property and, amazingly enough, not a one of them had any idea what on earth I was talking about. Then, one of the guys said, “Oh wait, a couple of years ago a TV show did film here, but I have no idea what it was.” Then as the group walked away I heard one of the ladies say to the other, “What in the heck is The Closer ?” LOL Some people, I swear!!!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Closer house is located at 133 S. Gramercy Place in Hollywood.

December 3, 2010
Our Wedding Photographer – Rob Greer

Deciding the order in which to publish the various blog posts that I am planning to write about the different movie/filming location elements of my wedding has proved to be a bit of a challenge for me. Today’s entry was originally going to be about our invitations, but then I realized that I can’t very well write about them without first blogging about our wedding photographer, as he took the photograph that wound up serving as the inspiration for those invitations. So, while it may seem as if I am doing things a bit out of order, please bear with me, as I promise there is a method to my madness. Anyway, I have always been someone who has believed in the notion of fate, that things happen for a reason, that there are invisible strings in the universe that tie random people together for very significant, if sometimes unknown, purposes. And the way we found our wedding photographer definitely upheld that belief. Back in early 2009, I was doing some cyber-stalking of fave show CSI: Miami when I came across this blog post written by Rob Greer, a photographer who was lucky enough to have had the Season 7 episode of the show titled “Smoke Gets in Your CSI’s” film in his photography studio. Because that particular episode was one of my very favorites of the entire series, I just about had a heart attack upon reading his post and immediately dragged the Grim Cheaper out to stalk the studio where filming had taken place. Well, amazingly enough, Rob happened to find the post I that I ended up writing about his studio and must have enjoyed it, because he continued to check in and read my blog from time to time. So, a few months later, when I announced that the Grim Cheaper had finally proposed, Rob posted a comment on my site asking if we would consider him as our wedding photographer. Well, I was absolutely FLOORED over that comment and immediately called him up to make an appointment.

[ad]

Our meeting with Rob took place inside the studio where CSI: Miami had been filmed, so, as you can imagine, I was in absolute heaven! And not only did he take us on a tour of the space and show us exactly where filming had taken place, but he also played parts of the episode for us on his television so that we could see exactly what had appeared on the show. So incredibly cool!! Well, right then and there I became convinced that he was the photographer for us. Not only were his wedding pictures phenomenal, but my parents and I ended up just really hitting it off with him. And incredibly enough, so did the Grim Cheaper! In typical GC fashion, he had originally been appalled at the idea of hiring a wedding photographer and had suggested that we just have my father take pictures that day. I’m not kidding! But once he met Rob and saw his work, his mind immediately changed. At that time, the GC had just become interested in photography and Rob was kind enough to show him all of his various high-end lenses, teach him some camera tricks, and even gift him with a certificate for a free photography class! Most importantly, though, for whatever reason, the GC just felt comfortable with Rob. He typically does not like to have his photograph taken, but when Rob was behind the camera he really loosened up. Rob’s rates were also reasonable, which only added to the GC’s appreciation of him. So, without so much as even perusing through another wedding photographer’s website, we hired Rob on the spot. And I am so glad we did! His photographs turned out phenomenal! And one of the engagement session pictures that he took wound up serving as the inspiration for our save-the-date cards, our invitations, and our programs. But more on that tomorrow!

In the “Smoke Gets in Your CSI’s” episode of CSI: Miami, Rob’s studio stood in for the loft/black-market organ transplant operating room belonging to Dr. Donald Phelps (aka Peter Lavin). Both the exterior . . .





. . . and the interior of the property were used in the filming, although the interior was dressed to appear very dark and dreary in the episode.

In reality, the 4,635-square foot loft is BEAUTIFUL, although my photographs don’t really do it justice. You can see some much better pictures that Rob took of his studio here. At the time of the filming, Rob actually lived in the loft, but has since moved to a house in Pasadena. Besides CSI: Miami, three AT&T commercials were also filmed in the space.

I will be posting many of Rob’s photographs throughout the next few weeks as I blog about the wedding, but for today I thought I’d publish one of my favorites from that day – the one in which we recreated the famous Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston wedding photograph. And while Rob wasn’t actually too keen on taking the above picture of us (he didn’t want people who saw it to think he was a copy-cat artist), he really worked hard to make sure it turned out exactly as I wanted, even going so far as to print out a copy of the Brad and Jen picture to bring with him on the day of the wedding and then tweaking my veil to make sure it went over my shoulder just like hers did in the photograph. Love it!

Our wedding was actually quite a bit frustrating for Rob because he typically prefers to take all of the bride and groom and wedding party photographs prior to the ceremony, but I was adamant about not seeing the GC on our wedding day until I walked down the aisle. Call me old-fashioned, but I think that moment of first seeing each other at opposite ends of the aisle is a magical one and I wasn’t going to give it up for anything. Because I wanted to wait, though, our “posed” photography time was limited to the cocktail hour (which in reality was only set to last 45 minutes) and Rob had concerns that, when all was said and done, I would be unhappy over the fact that there quite possibly would not be enough photographs taken of the event. He was also concerned that, due to the time constraint, he would not be able to produce the same caliber of pictures that he is typically known for. For me, though, it was far more important to have the memory of seeing my husband for the first time as I walked down that aisle than to have fabulous photographs of my wedding day, so Rob agreed to wait to take the posed pictures until after the ceremony. And, as it turned out, he really needn’t have worried. Not only do we now have more photographs of that day then we know what to do with, but they are literally ALL fabulous. Shortly after the wedding, Rob asked the GC and me to pick out our 60 favorite images to put in the album that was included in our photography package, but today, over three months later, we still cannot narrow down our favorites to a mere 60! I’m not kidding! The GC and I keep trying to go through the images, but we absolutely CANNOT decide. We love all 750 of them! But, trust me, that is a good problem to have! And I am SO incredibly glad that I waited and did not see the GC before the ceremony. The above photograph was taken of him just as I began my walk down the aisle and the look in his eyes is absolutely priceless. Not only is that look a memory that I will carry with me for the rest of my life, but Rob also magically managed to capture it on film, so I pretty much got the best of both worlds. Thank you, Rob! You can see the entire gallery of the photographs Rob took of our wedding on his website here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: You can visit Rob Greer’s wedding photography website here. His former studio is located at 678 South Avenue 21 in the Brewery Lofts complex in Los Angeles. The complex is a private, gated community, so please do not trespass.   If you are interested in stalking the location, there are several public art walks held on the premises each year that are open to the public. You can find more information about the art walks here.

December 1, 2010
Paramount Studios as a Wedding Venue

Well, I guess it is finally about time that I start blogging about my wedding, but I can’t very well do that without first writing about the place where I got almost all of my wedding planning inspiration – the Studios at Paramount Pictures in Hollywood. When Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I embarked on our very first VIP tour of the historic lot back in September of 2008, our fabulous tour guide, Ian, who sadly no longer works at the studio, mentioned that sections of Paramount could be rented out for parties, weddings, and other special events. And even though at that point in time I already knew without a doubt where I wanted to get married, the thought of tying the knot at Hollywood’s oldest continuously operating studio definitely piqued my interest. Especially once Ian told us that it was possible to rent out the New York Street backlot area, which is quite possibly my very favorite place in all of Southern California. So, pretty much immediately after the Grim Cheaper proposed, I called up the Paramount Studios Special Events Department and scheduled a tour of the lot’s various event venues. And, let me tell you, it was an amazing experience! The special events tours are actually very similar to the VIP Tours in that all of the same areas of the studio are shown. The main difference, however, is that the event tours are private, so ours consisted of only four people – my two parents, the Grim Cheaper, and me – which was absolutely INCREDIBLE! The special events coordinator who we dealt with, a super nice man named Craig who I believe no longer works for Paramount, was extremely knowledgeable about the history of the lot and where various filming had taken place over the years, so the entire two-hour affair pretty much became a private, walking tour of the lot which was customized just for me! And, as you can imagine, I absolutely loved every single minute of it!

Events at Paramount can pretty much be held in any section of the 65-acre lot, making the party possibilities absolutely endless. Available venues include empty soundstages, each of which can hold up to 1,500 guests and can be completely decorated and customized based on each particular event;

the B-Tank, which is a 914,023 gallon water tank that can be filled and dressed to resemble any sort of water setting one can imagine;

any of the studio’s park areas, including Production Park;

and Lucy Park, which I’ve blogged about previously;

any of the lot’s theatres, including the historic Paramount Theatre;

and the smaller Gower Theatre;

the famous Bronson Gate and water fountain area, which can accommodate up to 500 people;

and, of course, New York Street.

As luck would have it, a huge breast-cancer awareness fundraiser was being set up in the New York Street section of the lot during our tour, so we were actually able to see firsthand what an event in that space would look like. And I have to say that it was absolutely AMAZING! I honestly don’t think I’ve ever been more inspired in my life than I was when I set foot onto New York Street that day and witnessed the extravaganza pictured above.

[ad]

Because the fundraising event incorporated three of the things that I love most in this world – New York, Hollywood, and filmmaking – I was completely in awe of the whole thing and my brain immediately started working on overload. All of sudden, idea after idea started pouring into my head and it was at that moment that I decided that the Grim Cheaper and I would be having a movie-themed wedding. Which in retrospect really seems like a no-brainer, but for whatever reason, up until we visited Paramount, the thought had never occured to me.

The most inspired wedding idea that came to me while at Paramount was that we could name each of the reception tables after various movies that had been filmed on New York Street and that, upon arrival, each guest would be given a card with a movie line written on it. Each line would correspond to one of the tables and our guests would have to figure out which movie their particular line came from in order to find where they would be sitting during the reception. And even though we didn’t end up getting married on New York Street, we did use that idea for our tables and our guests absolutely LOVED it, but more on that in a future post.

Even though I absolutely loved the idea of getting married on New York Street, the GC and I ultimately decided against it. As my best friend Kylee said after viewing the above pictures of the breast cancer fundraiser, a wedding – especially one as small as ours (we only invited 80 people) – would wind up getting lost in the spectacle of the space. The venue is much better suited for a party – a ten-year anniversary party, perhaps – rather than a wedding ceremony. Oh, and there was also the little matter of cost! Renting New York Street will run you $12,500, which may sound like a lot, but is, amazingly enough, a fairly average venue rental rate for the L.A. area. (According to msn.com, Los Angeles is one of the most expensive cities in the US to get married!) The New York Street backlot area measures a whopping five acres and can accommodate up to 5,000 people and while it, according to the Paramount Special Events website, can now be customized to suit smaller groups, that wasn’t actually the case when we were thinking about getting married there. Even though we only wanted to utilize a small portion of New York Street, we would have been required to rent the entire five acres, which is actually fine – I expected that. What I didn’t expect, though, and what we were not told until we received the actual proposal, was that we would also have to pay to light the entire backlot as well – at a cost of $12,000!!!! – even if we were, in actuality, only going to light a small section of it. And, mind you, that $12,000 only covered “washing” the street in light, so that the space wouldn’t be pitch black during the reception. If we wanted any sort of specialty lighting, that would, of course, be an additional cost. There was also a fee of $3,500 just to power the event. I’m not kidding! And because Paramount hires only in-house employees for its events, you also have to pay union wages for absolutely everyone who works it – from the lighting technicians to the catering staff to the parking attendants. Besides paying union wages, you also have to adhere to union regulations, the most maddening of which was the fact that every employee must be paid for a minimum of six hours of work, whether they worked a full six hours or not. So, while I knew that getting married at Paramount would be pricey, I had no idea it would be as exorbitant at it actually was. Our proposal came to a whopping $41,000 for a pretty bare bones wedding – no open bar, no appetizers, no specialty food. The GC literally almost choked when that email came through! And keep in mind that that $41,000 did not include a DJ, a photographer, ceremony musicians, a dance floor, flowers, or the mashed potato bar that I had my heart set on. As the old saying goes, though, you get what you pay for, and a party at Paramount would have, no doubt, been nothing short of incredible!

Even though we did not ultimately choose to tie the knot at Paramount, I am so incredibly thankful that we considered it. Our wedding would have been a very different event had we not. And now at least I know where I want to hold our ten-year anniversary party.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Paramount Studios is located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. If you are interested in hosting an event on the lot, you can visit the studio’s special events page here or you can call (323)956-8398.

November 30, 2010
Taking the Day Off . . . Again

I hope all of my fellow stalkers had a fabulous Thanksgiving holiday!! I just returned from Lake Arrowhead last night and, unfortunately, did not have time to write a new blog post during my weekend away. Have no fear, though, as I did manage to get some stalking in while I was there and will be blogging about those locations soon. And I promise to be back tomorrow with a whole new post, so. . .

. . . until next time, Happy Stalking!

November 29, 2010
Happy Thanksgiving!

I would like to wish a very happy Thanksgiving to all of my fellow stalkers! I hope you are all enjoying a fabulous turkey dinner with your loved ones and reflecting upon all the good in your lives that you have to be thankful for! I will be taking today and tomorrow off, as I am spending the holiday weekend in Lake Arrowhead with my family, but I will be back on Monday with a whole new post.

So . . . until that time, Happy Stalking!

November 25, 2010