Tag: Beverly D’Angelo locations

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The Town House Motel from “Vacation”

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As I mentioned in last Wednesday’s post, fellow stalker Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, recently got on a kick of tracking down missing locations from his all-time favorite comedy, the 1983 classic National Lampoon’s Vacation.  One of the locales he managed to find was the Town House Motel in Glendale, where Clark W. Griswold (Chevy Chase) and his family – wife Ellen (Beverly D’Angelo), son Rusty (Anthony Michael Hall) and daughter Audrey (Beverly Hills, 90210’s Dana Barron) – spent the first night of their road trip from Chicago to Los Angeles.  [I also did some digging and pinpointed the gas station where Clark tried to fill the new Wagon Queen Family Truckster (it’s the Little America Hotel at 2515 East Butler Avenue in Flagstaff, Arizona) and the rest stop where he danced with a sandwich (it’s the Shaw Creek Rest Area near 25090 Highway 160, just east of El Dorado Lane, in South Fork, Colorado).]  And while Owen informed me that the Town House Motel was, sadly, no longer standing, I figured since I was already in the area stalking the car dealership from the film, I might as well drop by.

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Towards the beginning of Vacation, Clark and the gang spend the night at a roadside lodging somewhere outside of St. Louis, Missouri.  They wind up at the motel unexpectedly, after Clark, who has fallen asleep at the wheel, pulls in there accidentally.  In the scene, the Griswold’s Wagon Queen Family Truckster (newly-adorned with graffiti that spells out “Honky Lips” LOL) goes careening down West Campus Street, heading south.  It then veers across East Colorado Street and straight into the parking lot of the Town House Motel, losing a few pieces of luggage in the process.

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While watching the scene, Owen had spotted an address number of “1510” above the property’s front entrance.  From there, he did a Google search for “1510,” “motel” and “Los Angeles,” and one of the first results to pop up was an eBay sale for a 1950s matchbook from the Town House Motel located at 1510 East Colorado Street in Glendale.  As he quickly discovered via a Street View search of that address, though, the structure had been bulldozed and a new, much larger hotel was now standing in its place.  Sadness!  You can check out what the Town House used to look like here and here.

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The new property is named the Glendale Lodge and, as you can see below, it looks nothing at all like the former Town House.

National Lampoon's Vacation Motel (11 of 12)

National Lampoon's Vacation Motel (10 of 12)

I am fairly certain that one of the Town House’s real life rooms was also used in the filming, although the vibrating bed was most likely a prop.  Winking smile

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For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Los Angeles magazine online.  And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, for finding this location!  Smile

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Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Glendale Lodge, aka the former site of the Town House Motel from Vacation, is located at 1510 East Colorado Street in Glendale.

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Dolly Green’s House from “Eye for an Eye”

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Taking a break today from my many Gossip Girl posts, I thought I would write about a residence that I stalked with fellow stalker Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, way back in mid-July.  While he was in town for a little Southern California stalking vacay, the two of us, along with his super-sweet mother, Cynthia, headed out to the Los Feliz area to visit the tiny Tudor-style bungalow where Dolly Green (aka Beverly D’Angelo, who will always be “Ellen Griswold” to me) and her husband, Peter (aka Darrell Larson), lived in the 1996 revenge thriller Eye for an Eye.  Chas had somehow managed to track down the property – despite only a small portion of it ever being shown – as well as all of the other locations featured in the movie, a little over a year ago.  And while I actually could not even remember what Dolly Green’s abode looked like before we arrived there, let me tell you, I absolutely fell in love with the place on site!

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Dolly Green’s little fairy-tale-like dwelling, which was built over the side of a cascading cliff on the winding Glendower Avenue high up in the hills of Los Feliz, is absolutely ADORABLE in person.  The abode is so quaint and charming that it looks as if it jumped right out of a Disney cartoon.  I half expected the Seven Dwarfs to come walking out the front door, marching along to “Whistle While You Work”, while we were there.

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Although calling the home “little” is a bit misleading.  While it does appear to be small from the street, the residence is actually quite large.  According to fave website Zillow, the dwelling, which was originally built in 1926, boasts 3 bedrooms, 3 baths, and measures 2,972 square feet.  As you can see above, though, most of that square footage is located on the back side of the hill, below street level and out of view.

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And speaking of views, the home boasts some incredible ones!  We happened to stalk the residence on a smog-free day and were able to see all the way to Downtown Los Angeles!  Amazing!

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Dolly Green’s residence only appears in one brief scene in Eye for an Eye, in which Karen McCann (aka Sally Field) and her husband, Mack (aka Ed Harris), spend the night at their friends’ house immediately following the murder of their teenage daughter, Julie (aka Olivia Burnette).  Now that I have seen the property in person, I am shocked that only a small portion of it was shown in the movie.  I mean, talk about curb appeal!  This place has got it in spades!  Why more of it was not featured is beyond me.  But then again, I am not a filmmaker, so what do I know?  Winking smile

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Sadly, I was not able to find any photographs of the actual interior of the residence, so I am not able to say whether or not it was used in Eye for an Eye, but I would guess that it was.

Big THANK YOU to Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, for finding this location!  Smile You can check out Chas’ extensive Eye for an Eye filming locations page here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Dolly Green’s house from Eye for an Eye is located at 2757 Glendower Avenue in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles.  Quite a few other filming locations can be found nearby – the Doppelganger mansion is at 2421 Glendower Avenue; Donna Martin’s house from the B.Y.O.B. episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 is at 2405 Glendower Avenue; the so-called “Los Feliz Murder House” is at 2475 Glendower Place, and the legendary Ennis-Brown house, which I have yet to stalk, is at 2607 Glendower Avenue.