Category: Haunted Hollywood

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Bugsy Siegel’s House

Just around the corner from the Witch’s House in Beverly Hills is one of the most famous crime scenes in Hollywood history – the home where legendary mobster Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel was murdered on June 20, 1947. This home is often cited as being owned by the famous mobster at the time of his death, but in reality it was leased by his girlfriend, actress Virginia Hill. Born on February 28, 1906 to a poor Brooklyn family, Bugsy, who by all accounts absolutely loathed his nickname, went own to become one of the most notorious and cold-blooded mobsters in history.

On that fateful night in 1947, Bugsy returned home from a dinner with friends and retreated to his living room with two friends. The living room area of his house is located to the right of the front door and the windows of that room are pictured above.

At 10:45 pm, while Bugsy sat on his couch reading the Los Angeles Times, his murderer crept up a neighbor’s driveway and fired off nine rounds from a 30/30 shotgun through a side window of Bugsy’s house. Four of those rounds hit Busgy in the head, killing him immediately and sending one of his eyeballs clear across the room. YUCK! The cold-blooded mobster, who is often credited with “creating Las Vegas” was dead at 41. His murder has never been solved.

On an interesting side note, about a year before Bugsy’s death, on July 7, 1946, Howard Hughes crashed one of his airplanes into two homes located across the street from Bugsy’s death house, almost killing himself in the process. One of the homes he crashed into is pictured above.

Bugsy’s death was famously re-enacted in the movie Bugsy, starring Warren Beatty and Annette Benning. But, for reasons unknown, producers did not use the real life home where his murder took place for the filming of the biopic. Instead a home in Hancock Park was used (pictured above).

A HUGE thank you to E.J. from The Movieland Directory for sharing with me a chapter from his book, Hollywood Death and Scandal Sites , and a wealth of information on the life and death of Bugsy Siegel for this post. When I first started writing this entry, I asked E.J. if he had any good stories about Bugsy’s home to share with me. About twenty pages of reading material from E.J. later, this post was born. 🙂 Thanks, E.J.!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Bugsy’s real life former home and death site is located at 810 North Linden Drive, in Beverly Hills. Howard Hughes’ crash site is located just across the street at 903 and 905 North Linden Drive. The home where Bugsy dies in the movie about his life is located at 425 S. Plymouth Boulevard in the Hancock Park area of Los Angeles.

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The Video Store from “Scream”

On a recommendation from E.J. over at The Movieland Directory, I recently purchased a GREAT book called “The Worldwide Guide to Movie Locations“. I was completely floored to discover an entire section in the book dedicated to one of my favorite movies of all time – a little horror flick called Scream. Now, while I have admitted before that I was always too much of a scaredy cat to watch horror movies, Scream came out when I was in college, so I was pretty much past my scaredy cat stage by then. Scream was actually the very first scary movie I ever watched and I have to admit that I became a bit obsessed with it. The majority of Scream was filmed on location in Northern California and I actually stalked a few of the filming sites many, many years ago. But my new book listed some locations that I previously hadn’t known about. I usually don’t like to blog about locations that I haven’t visited myself, but since I don’t live in Northern California anymore, I enlisted my Aunt Lea to do some Scream stalking for me. Her first assignment – to stalk the video store where the movie-obsessed character of Randy works.

In real life the video store is called Bradley Video and it was was featured in only one scene in Scream as the location where all the high school kids rent scary movies after school is shut down for the day. In Scream, only the interior of Randy’s video store is shown and I actually had to send my aunt back to Bradley’s to stalk it a second time as the first time she didn’t get any interior shots. LOL Ah, the thing’s we’ll do for family! It was at Bradley’s Video that Randy, while talking about Sidney’s dad, tells Stu about the formula of scary movies. He says, “His body will come popping up in the last reel somewhere. Eyes gouged out, fingers cut off, teeth knocked out! See, the police are always off track with this shit! If they’d watch Prom Night, they’d save time! There’s a formula to it. A very simple formula! Everybody’s a suspect!” This conversation is shown in the above screen captures.

A BIG THANK YOU to my Aunt Lea for stalking this location for me.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Bradley Video is located at 3080 Marlow Road in Santa Rosa, California.

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Ray’s Pumpkins

Last week, thanks to Mike over at MovieShotsLA, I was able to stalk the pumpkin patch that was owned by Ray Pruit’s family on the original Beverly Hills, 90210. I was shocked when Mike told me that the property where filming took place is the location of an actual pumpkin patch in real life. I had been convinced that producers just dressed an empty lot for the filming of 90210, but in reality they rented out a real pumpkin patch that has occupied the same corner in Sherman Oaks for over fifteen years.

When I drove up to the patch I just about keeled over with excitement as there was a large sign out front which read “Ray’s Pumpkins”. I naively thought the owner named the patch after Ray Pruit because of the filming that took place there, but it turns out that the actual owner’s name is Ray! How cool is that!

Ray really could not have been nicer and spoke to me about the filming of 90210 for a good 15 minutes. He said that everyone on the cast and crew was very nice and very professional. Even though the pumpkin patch scene lasted only about four minutes and was shown in only one episode (the Season 5 episode entitled “Homecoming”), the filming took a full two days to complete. Ray told me that during the filming, some construction was being done on an apartment building located across the street from the patch. At one point the construction noise got too loud, so the producers of 90210 actually paid to have all construction shut down for the remainder of the shoot! LOL The cast and crew of 90210 returned to Ray’s later that same year and the real Ray’s Christmas tree lot stood in for the one owned by the Pruit Family in a Christmas episode of the show. Ray said there is always some sort of filming taking place at the patch. He couldn’t remember all of the productions that had filmed there, but he did say that Dancing With The Stars featured the patch in a brief segment last year.

Ray’s Pumpkin’s is a very cool pumpkin patch and I highly recommend stalking it. There are hundreds upon hundreds of pumpkins to choose from and tons of cute Halloween merchandise and decorations for sale. Ray told me that he also gets quite a few Valley celebs visiting his patch each year, so you just might get to rub elbows with the stars while pumpkin shopping. 🙂 Unfortunately I visited Ray’s after it was already dark outside, so my pics didn’t turn out very well and don’t really do the patch justice. But a BIG THANK YOU to Mike for providing the top pic. 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Ray’s Pumpkins is located at the corner of Hazeltine Avenue and Moorpark Street in Sherman Oaks. Ray also owns the Peterson Ranch Fruit Stand located at 3402 Los Angeles Avenue in Somis, CA. The fruit stand is also a frequent filming location. It is most often used in commercials and was featured recently in a car ad.

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The Witch’s House from “Clueless”

One of my favorite sites to stalk in all of Beverly Hills is known simply as “The Witch’s House” and it just so happens to fit in perfectly with this month’s Halloween theme. Although not really a filming location, the house is a Beverly Hills landmark of sorts. Known formally as “The Spadena House”, after the Spadena family who lived there in the 1930s, the house did show up very briefly in fave movie Clueless, during the scene when Alicia Silverstone is “totally buggin'” about Ty’s crush on Josh (pictured in above screen capture).

The home was originally built on a silent film studio lot in Culver City known as Irvin C. Willat Productions and was used as an office/dressing room. It was designed by the very first art direction Oscar Winner, Henry C. Oliver, in 1921. Willat Productions was sold in 1926 and the house was purchased and later moved to its current location in the heart of Beverly Hills, where it was turned into a private home for the Spadena family. No one can say for sure how the house came to be called “The Witch’s House”, but mention the words to any Beverly Hills native and they will know exactly what you are talking about. Personally, I believe the house got its nickname due to its resemblance to the witch’s home in the fairy tale “Hansel and Gretel”.

In 1998, a real estate agent named Michael Libow was hired to sell the house. Apparently he became frustrated that all prospective buyers planned to demolish the property, so he took matters into his own hands and purchased the home himself for $1.3 million. He is currently restoring the property to its original state, along with the help of art director Nelson Coates. For the past few years the two have painstakingly rennovated the home, even re-creating the original moat which once surrounded the property. The Witch’s House is still currently under rennovation, so unfortunately a large chain link construction fence blocks some of the view from the street. But hopefully in a few years the rennovations will be complete and the house will be even more spectacular for us stalkers to view.

Because it is so truly unique, I am actually very surprised that the house hasn’t appeared in more Hollywood productions. Besides Clueless, the Witch’s House was also featured in the 1965 movie The Loved One, as the home of Sir John Gielgud’s character, and in the 1957 horror film The Undead. Supposedly, during its time on the Willat lot, the home also appeared in a quite a few 1920s silent films, as well.

The Witch’s House is simply a must see for all Beverly Hills tourists, especially during the Halloween season, and it is a beautiful example of Storybook style architecture.

You can read more about the history of the Witch’s House and see some fabulous photos of it here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Witch’s House is located at 516 N. Waldren Drive, at the corner of Walden Drive and Carmelita Avenue, in Beverly Hills.

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Halloween

Hi, my name is Lindsay Blake and I have never seen the movie Halloween. I know, I know – it’s like sacrilege or something, especially since Halloween is my favorite holiday. I’ve also never seen any of the Friday, the 13th movies. But I’ve always been kind of a scaredy cat, so as a teenager I was way too afraid to watch any sort of horror flick. I fully intend to rent and finally watch them this Halloween season, though. In the meantime, even though I have yet to see the movie, I did some Halloween stalking this past weekend. Halloween supposedly takes place in Haddonfield, Illinois, but in reality all of the filming was done in the L.A. area.

This weekend I set out to stalk Jamie Lee Curtis’ house from the movie, which is actually located in South Pasadena, not far from Michael Meyer’s childhood home and the Pretty In Pink house. In the movie, pretty much only a side view of the house is shown, so when we first drove up I didn’t recognize it at all. I actually thought we were in the wrong place, until I rounded the corner and saw the side of the house, which I am happy to report looks exactly the same as it did thirty years ago when filming took place.

The front of the home actually looks completely different than the side. The front of the house is a very cute, very typical South Pasadena style Craftsman home. The side of the house does not have any Craftsman features at all. It has more of a traditional American feel to it, so it was odd to see.

The next Halloween location I set out to stalk – the street where Jamie Lee Curtis and her friends walk home from school and Michael Meyes drives by in his station wagon – is also located in South Pasadena. The most recognizable part of the street where the girls walk is a large stone pillared half-wall located on a corner, which amazingly also looks EXACTLY the same thirty years later. Very cool!!! 🙂

Big THANKS to Mike from MovieShotsLA for the above screen captures! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Jamie Lee Curtis’ house is located at 1115 Oxley Street, at the corner of Oxley Street and Fairview Avenue, in South Pasadena. The stone wall the girls walk by is located on the corner of Fairview Avenue and Highland Street, also in South Pasadena, just around the corner from Lady Heather’s house on CSI .

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Celebrity Jury Duty

Last September I was called to report for jury duty at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in Downtown Los Angeles. As you can probably guess, I was not too excited for this venture. I perked up, though, when on my first day of service, I arrived at the courthouse to see a whole slew of paparazzi standing out front. Hoping BritBrit was there for a custody hearing, I asked one of the paps what news story he was covering and it turns out he was awaiting the verdict in the Phil Spector murder trial. Later that day I ended up being selected to serve on a jury for a brief four day trial and was floored to find out that the Phil Spector trial was actually taking place in the courtroom directly next door to mine! Due to jury deliberations, though, Phil was not actually at the courthouse. But a few days later, on September 26th to be exact, I returned from lunch to see Phil and his wife waiting outside the courtroom for his verdict to be read. Phil was definitely an oddball and didn’t seem as if he was entirely all there. And boy is he tiny!!!! He is probably about 5′ tall – while wearing platforms, no less! Seeing Phil during jury duty was definitely an “Only-in-L.A.” moment for me and really made the whole thing worthwhile. 🙂 Other “Only-in-L.A.” moments: looking at the hundreds of celebrity headshots on the jury waiting room walls detailing which stars have served their public duty at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center and our jury orientation including directions to the nearest Starbucks! I am not kidding!

So in keeping with my October theme of all things haunted in Hollywood, I had to drag my boyfriend out to stalk Phil’s mansion this past weekend. It was at this home on February 3, 2003, that actress Lana Clarkson was shot to death – whether by her own hand or by Phil’s has yet to be determined. I got the address of Phil’s house from my very favorite star map – “The Movie Star Homes and Crime Scenes Map”. But, map or no map, I don’t think the home would have been hard to locate, as there is a large sign at the front gate which reads “Phil Spector’s Pyrenees Castle”.  Apparently before Lana’s death the sign read simply “Pyrenees Castle, 1700 Grand View Drive”, but during his murder trial he had it changed to its current wording. I swear, this guy couldn’t be more of a douchbag.

From the front gate of the home there is not a whole lot to see, other than signs warning against trespassing and alerting stalkers that the property is under 24 hour camera surveillance. There was no way I was getting out of the car for a photo op at this location as I imagine Phil doesn’t take too kindly to people posing for pics outside of his house. Then again, maybe he doesn’t mind too much – I mean he did put that sign out front!

After seeing the front gate area, we drove around to Alta Vista Drive where there is a much better view of the home from the street.

After hitting up Alta Vista Drive, we headed over to Parkview Drive for yet another view of the house.

Sadly none of the streets offered an outstanding view of the home, but you can cyberstalk it on Zillow to see some better photos. Phil’s castle/mansion is actually located in a very modest, middle class neighborhood far from the lavish streets of Beverly Hills. Until reading this article, I was under the impression that Phil had actually built the home, but it turns out it was constructed in 1926 long before the “Wall of Sound” had been created. A very successful Frenchman by the name of Sylvester Dupuy spent about $250,000 to have the home built and he modeled it after a real chateau in France that he had admired as a child. The house was built on a three acre lot in the middle of a large expanse of vacant land. In 1936, ten years after the home’s construction, Dupuy died and left the property to his children. At the time of Dupuy’s death most of the fortune he had amassed from his successful agriculture business was gone. In 1946, Dupuy’s children sold the castle and it was converted into an eight room apartment building where Dupuy’s widow lived until her death. After a string of different owners, Phil Spector purchased the home in 1998 and had this to say about it, “I’ve bought myself a beautiful and enchanting castle in a hick town where there is no place to go that you shouldn’t.” I wouldn’t exactly call Alhambra a “hick town”, but I guess to a famous record producer and in comparison to Beverly Hills, the city might seem a bit “hickish”.

I couldn’t figure out where the name “Pyrenees Castle” came from until looking at the above map. I believe at one time the castle’s land butted up to nearby Pyrenees Road, hence the name. In the years since its construction, much of the land must have been sold off and the property’s boundary line scaled back to Grand View Drive.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Phil Spector’s Pyrenees Castle is located at 1700 Grand View Drive in Alhambra. The main gate and sign reading “Phil Spector’s Pyrenees Castle” can be seen at the Grand View Drive entrance. But for the best views of the home, head over to Alta Vista Drive and follow it to where it ends at Phil’s back gate. After that, follow Parkview Drive to where it curves for a side view of the home.

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Lady Heather’s House

On the second season of CSI: Las Vegas we were introduced to a character whom Grissom later became very fond of named Lady Heather. On the show Lady Heather, who was played by The O.C.’s Melinda Clarke, owns an S&M fetish club in Sin City which she runs out of her extraordinary home. Lady Heather first appeared as a guest star in an episode entitled “Slaves of Las Vegas” and has since reappeared on four separate occasions, becoming something of a cult favorite for CSI fans. Her unique home also appeared in all five of the “Lady Heather” episodes and, being that it is a pretty spooky house and fits in with my Haunted Hollywood theme for this month, I dragged my dad right out to stalk it.

Lady Heather’s house is an absolutely ginormous mansion (13,393 square feet according to Zillow!!) located on a large corner lot in South Pasadena. I found the home thanks to Scott’s LA Audio Driving Tour of Pasadena, which lists many great Pasadena filming locations. It is easy to see why producers chose to use this house for the filming of CSI, as it has a very looming and dark presence, most likely due to its sheer size. For the filming of CSI, producers brought in many Gothic decorations, like large candelabras, to create a more dark and spooky atmosphere. But when you see the home in person, it becomes obvious that not much had to be done in preparation for filming due to its naturally ominous look. In person, the home looks like it could be a real life haunted house. And it actually looks like it belongs on a bayou in New Orleans rather than in the middle of Suburban Pasadena. Unfortunately I don’t own CSI on DVD, so I couldn’t get very good screen captures of the home.

In the various Lady Heather episodes, the exterior of the home is shown numerous times, especially the front door and front porch area (which unfortunately I do not have any screen captures of).

A back porch area is also shown in a special 90 minute episode from Season 3 entitled “Lady Heather’s Box”. It is the location where Grissom and the dominatrix sit down for a cup of tea.

Lady Heather’s house is a very cool place to see in person. I highly recommend stalking it if you are at all a fan of CSI or if you want to conduct your own Haunted Halloween tour. 🙂

UPDATE – This very same house was also used as the haunted mansion in the recently aired Season 3 episode of The Mentalist entitled “Red Scare”.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Lady’s Heather’s house is located at 929 Buena Vista St., at the corner of Buena Vista and Meridian Avenue, in South Pasadena.

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Mr. Bones Pumpkin Patch

I cannot tell you how excited I am that October is finally here! Halloween has always been my very favorite holiday, most probably because I love nothing more than to dress up in costume. For the past three years during the month of October and in honor of Halloween, I have dragged my boyfriend out on my very own “Haunted Hollywood Tour”. Our tour consists of visiting houses from famous scary movies, sites of famous Hollywood deaths, and rumored haunted hot spots in the L.A. area. Since I have accumulated a fairly large list of scary spots from these yearly tours, last night I decided that, in honor of my favorite holiday, I would blog about all things spooky in Hollywood from now until October 31st.

But I can’t very well do that without first writing about my fave Halloween location – Mr. Bones Pumpkin Patch. I dragged my boyfriend out to Mr. Bones last October after seeing the West Hollywood patch appear countless times in US Magazine. For those of you who don’t read US, during the month of October Mr. Bones is THE place to be seen in L.A. and literally anyone who’s anyone makes an appearance at the famous patch. Last year Courteney Cox, David Arquette, Marky Mark, Tobey McGuire and his jewelry designer wife Jennifer Meyer, Sarah Gilbert, Harrison Ford and Calista Flockhart, Lisa Rinna, Corey Feldman, and Lindsay Lohan all got their pumpkin on at Mr. Bones. It is literally the Les Deux of pumpkin patches. So, of course, I had to stalk it!

Last year, as my boyfriend and I walked up to Mr. Bones, I was floored to see at least forty paparazzi standing around the perimeter of the fenced in patch, long lense cameras in hand. The paps were going absolutely agro – some standing on top of cars or on ladders trying to see over the patch’s high fences for the perfect photo op.

Due to the sheer amount of photogs stationed around the patch, I was absolutely convinced that TomKat and Suri or BritBrit and her kids were inside. But it turns out the paps were actually snapping photographs of Heidi Klum and Seal and their three children. This was actually Heidi and Seal’s second trip to Mr. Bones in less than a week and the two hung out at the patch with their kids and nanny for over an hour. They definitely seemed to be enjoying all of the attention, too, and were most certainly hamming it up for the cameras – kissing and hugging and what not. I could not have been more excited! 🙂

Mr. Bones Pumpkin Patch, which has been a family-owned and operated business for over 15 years, is the perfect place to get you in the mood for Halloween. I highly recommend stalking the patch as much for the celeb sightings as for the Halloween festivities. There are pony rides, face painting, great food, a Halloween store, and, of course, lots and lots of pumpkins. It is pricey, though. The pumpkins cost far more than they would at other local pumpkin patches – and there’s a cover charge! Yes, you read that right. Only in L.A., I swear! You will have to cough up $2 per person just to gain entry to the legendary pumpkin patch. But the entry fee can be applied to any pumpkin or Halloween merchandise purchase while there, so it’s not all bad. What you’re mostly paying for, though, are the Halloween spirit and atmosphere – which Mr. Bones definitely has in droves. You’ll love it! It’s the perfect place to get into the Halloween spirit. 🙂

And, of course, I just had to take a pic of me in front of all the paps. 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Mr. Bones Pumpkin Patch is located at 702 N. Doheny Drive in West Hollywood. This year Mr. Bones opens for business this upcoming Friday, October 10th, and they will remain open through Halloween day. Their hours are from 9am to 8pm daily. You can visit their website here. Another great place to get into the Halloween spirit is Lombardi’s Ranch. They are located at 29527 Bouquet Canyon Road in Saugus, near Santa Clarita. Their pumpkin patch is currently open for business. You can visit their website here. Lombardi’s has live music, a petting zoo, awesome pumpkin pie, a sunflower patch, and acres upon acres of pumpkins. It is a great place to spend a day with kids, though you probably won’t spot any celebs.