“Yes, Virginia, there is!” They are some of the most famous words ever written! Find out where young Virginia O’Hanlon penned the 1897 letter that led to the landmark New York Sun editorial in my latest Reel.
Ace and Avis Amberg’s House from “Hollywood”
There’s something about filming at a real place instead of a set that lends authenticity to a production, especially a period piece. As Jon Favreau said on the subject, “I came up through independent film, where you’re usually shooting on location. I hate when it looks like you shot on a set instead of on location.” Director Ryan Murphy must ascribe to the same filmmaking style as he chose to lens much of Hollywood at real spots. Doing so gave the Netflix miniseries a richness that otherwise would have been lacking. From Golden Tip Gasoline to the Deco Building to Henry Willson’s (Jim Parsons) office, the show truly brought Old Hollywood to Technicolor life, despite being shot in 2020. Nowhere was this more apparent than at the stately mansion belonging to Ace Studios head Ace Amberg (Rob Reiner), his wife, Avis (Patti LuPone), and their daughter, Claire Wood (Samara Weaving).
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The handsome estate, which sits on a tree-lined street in Windsor Square, was designed in 1921 by architect Frank Meline, who also gave us the Ruskin Art Club, aka Chief Irving’s (Lance Reddick) residence from the Amazon series Bosch.
Though it looks considerable in size from the street, it is actually much larger than the sprawling exterior would have you believe.
The massive pad boasts 6 bedrooms, 4 baths, an incredible 7,310 square feet (!), a marble entry canopied by a 2-story skylight, multiple fireplaces, painted ceilings, stained glass pieces, a detached 2-car garage, a pool, a 0.41-acre lot, and what a 1991 real estate listing described as a “Sistine Chapel-like ballroom.” You can check out some early photographs of the interior here.
In 1923, original owner Jefferson L. Byrne sold the property to prominent developer/theatre magnate Joseph Toplitzky. He promptly hired Morgan, Walls & Clements (who were behind the aforementioned Deco Building, also featured in Hollywood) to do some renovations, including adding a bath and enclosing a porch. Toplitzky commissioned the firm once again in 1927, this time to add a bedroom, bathroom, and dressing room to the home.
The exterior of the mansion is actually only featured once on Hollywood and very briefly at that. In the episode titled “Meg,” Avis and Claire wake up to a burning cross in their front yard, put there in protest of the controversial movie Ace Studios is producing.
Outside of the opulently-framed front door, we don’t get a very good look at the place. So how did I find it, you ask? Thanks to a page on OnLocationVacations detailing a January 14th, 2020 shoot for Hollywood at 415 South Windsor Boulevard, which I came across while researching the show’s various locales. One look at the address on Google Street View told me it was the Amberg residence.
The exterior may have been neglected a bit onscreen, but the breathtaking interior appeared numerous times throughout the limited series’ 7-episode run. I was stunned at the intricacy of it all. Every inch of the place seemed prettier than the last. They just don’t make houses like that anymore!
Shooting inside the palatial estate must have transported LuPone and her costars straight back to the 1940s, the period in which Hollywood was set. Being on location, in general, inspired the actress, whose Avis character was loosely based upon Irene Selznick, daughter of MGM co-founder Louis B. Mayer. In a move highly unconventional for the time, Irene separated from her husband, Selznick International Pictures head David O. Selznick, in 1945 and relocated to New York, where she went on to become a successful theatre producer. She even gave Marlon Brando his big break in A Streetcar Named Desire! Irene, like Avis, was a definite trailblazer. As part of her research, LuPone read Selznick’s 1983 autobiography, A Private View, which served to further immerse her in the world of historic Tinseltown. As she told Entertainment Weekly, “I became obsessed with Old Hollywood having read that book. Every time we were someplace, I’m looking around for what is left. And we were shooting at Paramount one day and the driver took us from Paramount back to our studio and I passed the Hollywood Dream apartments and just the idea of people’s lives . . . Now when I look at the old movies and I see the girls that are, you know, sort of the t*ts and a** in the background, what was their life? Was their life what we’ve heard their life was? Or, you know, was it legitimate? I mean, I’m still blown away!” Oh yes, the magic of Hollywood can definitely do that to you!
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Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: The Amberg residence from Hollywood is located at 415 South Windsor Boulevard in Windsor Square. Judge Crawford’s (Bob Gunton) house from Fracture is two doors down at 435 South Windsor.
Jill’s Doctor’s Office from “Picket Fences”
Hindsight being 20/20, I really should have studied architecture in college. Expertise in that area would have served me well, not only in my hunts for various locations, but in writing about them, as well. I can’t tell you how many times a day I scour the internet and/or pester my friend/guest poster extraordinaire Michael, who does have a background in the subject, for help in identifying design terminology. (I remember “crenelated” being a particularly tough find while writing this post.) Needless to say, I’ve still got a lot to learn. Case in point – up until just recently I would have considered the property above to be Victorian in style. But it’s actually American Foursquare, which, per Curbed, is defined by a rectangular base, wide front porch, and lack of exterior and interior ornamentation. The latter characteristic is a “direct response to the heavy woodwork of the Victorian era,” so that shows you what I know! Style misidentification aside, I was thrilled to learn about the residence, which fellow stalker Brad recently identified as the office where Dr. Jill Brock (Kathy Baker) treated the zany townspeople of Rome, Wisconsin on fave show Picket Fences. Known as the Tillapaugh House in real life, it has quite an interesting history!
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Built in 1906 for New York transplant Gilbert Tillapaugh and his wife, Elizabeth, the stately property originally stood a couple blocks northwest of its current location at 129 South Primrose Avenue in Monrovia. It was moved – yes, picked up and moved! – in 1978 to make way for a new apartment complex. In looking at the photos of the home at its initial Primrose Ave. location here and here, namely the large drainage grates in the sidewalk visible on either side of it, as compared to current Street View imagery, I believe the dwelling was formerly situated in the spot where the white box is below.
In 1951, the Tillapaugh House wound up in the hands of the American Red Cross, who utilized it as the headquarters of their Monrovia chapter. It was amidst the group’s long tenure there that the property was relocated to 200 East Lime Avenue. You can check out some photos of it in the process of being set up at its new location here and here.
After more than four decades of occupation, the Red Cross moved out in 1995. Four years later, the Tillapaugh House was acquired by the Monrovia Redevelopment Agency and continued to be used as offices. The historic residence was then, sadly – and almost unbelievably – relegated to storage space when the State of California suspended such agencies in 2012. Without a proper use for it, the city eventually put the property on the market in 2016. At the time, it lacked a shower or bathtub and only featured a single half-bath on the lower level. Talk about a fixer-upper!
Some buyers with foresight snatched the place up and did a complete revamp, transforming it back to its original state as a single-family home. Today, the sightly pad, which is a City of Monrovia Historic Landmark, boasts 3 bedrooms, 3 baths (2 with standalone tubs!), a den, 2,331 square feet of living space, countless original details, a tiled fireplace, hardwood flooring throughout, chair and rail moldings, a 0.18-acre lot, and a detached 1-car garage.
You can check out some interior photos of it here.
The exterior of the Tillapaugh House appeared regularly on Picket Fences.
Despite a major change in color scheme and the addition of some foliage, the property still looks much the same today as it did on television screens in the mid-90s (minus the snow, of course).
Not only was the home utilized in establishing shots of Jill’s office on the series, but some on-location filming took place there as well, in episodes such as “Rights of Passage” . . .
. . . and “Sugar & Spice.”
Only the exterior of the Tillapaugh House was featured on Picket Fences. Beginning with the pilot episode, all interior scenes involving Jill’s quaint and homey office were shot on a studio-built set.
Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Brad for finding this location! 
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine, and Discover Los Angeles.
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: The Tillapaugh House, aka Jill’s office from Picket Fences, is located at 200 East Lime Avenue in Monrovia. The Brock residence from the show is just about a mile away at 211 Highland Place.
The Brock House from “Picket Fences”
I was recently asked how I come up with new material to write about. My answer? I am a huge consumer of content! All content – movies, television shows, magazines, books, blogs, websites, podcasts, documentaries, etc. etc. etc. I eat them all up! (In fact, I was tipped off to two Haunted Hollywood locations via old newspaper articles while doing research for this very post!) Many times, too, inspiration comes from fellow stalkers. Case in point – a longtime reader named Brad recently messaged to ask if I had ever done any stalking of the David E. Kelley series Picket Fences, which ran on CBS from 1992 to 1996. The quirky family drama/small-town police procedural, largely shot in Monrovia, was one of my favorite shows back in the day, but somehow I hadn’t thought about it in years! I had actually stalked the main house from the series when I first moved to Los Angeles in 2000, years before I had a blog. It was so long ago, though, that I no longer had the address listed in any of my files. Brad was kind enough to provide it to me, along with a few others, which I was thrilled to run out and stalk. I was even more thrilled to discover shortly thereafter that Season 1 is currently available for streaming on Amazon Prime and promptly settled in for a watch. Despite being almost three decades old, Picket Fences really holds up! I’m enjoying it just as much today as I did when I was a teen. And being so familiar with the L.A. area this time around has made revisiting the show even more of a joy! You can expect quite a few PF locations to be popping up here in the coming weeks. And what better spot to kick things off with than the supposed Rome, Wisconsin home where Sherriff Jimmy Brock (Tom Skerritt) lived with his wife, Dr. Jill Brock (Kathy Baker), and their three children, Kimberly (Holly Marie Combs), Matthew (Justin Shenkarow) and Zachary (Adam Wylie), on the whimsical series.
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In real life, the handsome 1924 Colonial sits on a leafy street just north of Old Town Monrovia. The 4-bedroom, 2-bath, 2,844-square-foot property last sold in 1971, which is a lucky break for us stalkers as the lack of changeover has resulted in very few alterations to the exterior. Outside of two large trees which have since been removed from the front yard, the place is a virtual time capsule from the Picket Fences days!
In an atypical move for a television show, no location changes were made by the network once Picket Fences got picked up by CBS. The Brock house remained the same from the pilot through the end of the series, as did the police station, Jill’s office, and the town courthouse – all of which I will be reporting on soon, don’t you worry!
Not only did the property appear regularly in establishing shots of the Brock residence, but some on-location filming took place there as well, including in the Season 1 episode titled “Thanksgiving” (pictured below).
The pad actually seems a bit of an odd choice to portray the main house on the show considering there’s not a picket fence in sight (then or now), as many readers have pointed out. You’d think at the very least the production crew would have temporarily installed one on the various shoot days that took place there.
Though I have not been able to track down any interior photos of the dwelling, I am fairly certain it was never utilized on Picket Fences, not even in the pilot. From the outset, the Brock house appears to have been nothing more than a set built inside of a soundstage, first at Santa Clarita Studios and then Ren-Mar Studios Hollywood (now Red Studios Hollywood).
Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Brad for reminding me about this location! 
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine, and Discover Los Angeles.
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: The Brock residence from Picket Fences is located at 211 Highland Place in Monrovia.
The “Blossom” House
The Blossom house has been found! I can’t tell you how long I’ve been wanting to write that sentence! Fans of the show are likely looking at the photo above, though, thinking ‘That doesn’t look anything like the Blossom house.’ And they’re right. Sadly, the pad has been remodeled past recognition. So how the heck did I identify it as the home where spunky teen Blossom Russo (Mayim Bialik) lived with her father, Nick (Ted Wass), and brothers, Joey (Joey Lawrence) and Anthony (Michael Stoyanov), on the popular NBC series, which ran from 1991 to 1995? I have fellow stalker Chris (whom you may remember from the posts here, here and here) to thank for that. Somehow, with no address number or background clues to guide him, he was able to pinpoint the property above, located at 3941 Ethel Avenue in Studio City, as the Russo residence with about 99% certainty! I then enlisted my friend Michael (guest-poster extraordinaire) to join the endeavor and we were able to eradicate the remaining 1% doubt. Read on for the story behind our hunt.
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I began my search for the Russo residence a good three years ago. Along the way, I brought some fellow stalkers in on the quest, but none of us were successful. Our failure wasn’t all that surprising considering Blossom aired almost three decades prior and the only clue we really had to go on was the fact that the home was situated on a street with no sidewalk or curb. Then in mid-May, after Chris identified the Victorian from Hangin’ with Mr. Cooper, I asked if he might help in the pursuit and he was all too happy to do so! It was not long after that he wrote back with the 3941 Ethel address! Flabbergasted, I inquired how in the heck he had IDed it so quickly. He explained, “I found the Blossom house just by browsing around Studio City on Street View and making a list of potential streets/houses, with the intention of then looking at them in more depth later on using the historic aerials on Google Earth. I found a lot of roads in Studio City seemed to have no sidewalks, so I always thought it was the most likely place. Eventually, I came to Ethel Avenue and spotted this house, however initially it was more the background, lack of sidewalk and white fence that looked similar rather than the house itself, so I made a note of it and carried on. I then went into the next street, Mary Ellen Avenue, and it was this street that made me convinced I was in the right area as many of the houses had similar features – in particular, 3942 Mary Ellen Avenue, which had the same style fence, same shaped pathway and lantern as the Blossom house. For a while, I was convinced that it was somewhere on this road, but after being unable to match any of the houses, I went back to Ethel Avenue. Immediately after doing so, I noticed the roof of the house next door to 3941 had a similar shape to the one next door to the Blossom house and from that point on, started to notice more and more features that matched.” The neighboring roofline Chris mentioned is denoted with fuchsia arrows below. As you can see, its unique shape, as well as the placement and style of the chimney are direct matches to what appeared on Blossom.
Chris went on to explain, “I then learned that 3941 had been renovated in 1996 and after looking at building permits for the property, I found a sketch of the original house that also matched the shape of the Blossom house.” Chris was kind enough to outline the shape of the original dwelling in red on the drawing, which paints a pretty clear matching picture. As you’ll notice, the placement of the bay window, wings that jut out on either side, and indented front door outlined in the sketch all mirror those of the Russo residence.
He also noted that 3941 boasts a hedgerow and spider plants along the right side of the driveway, both of which were evident in Blossom establishing shots.
I was in awe at Chris’ findings! Talk about some elite-level detective work! Everything I saw gave me a strong feeling that he had correctly identified the right place. But you know me – I like to be 100% certain in my reporting. So I brought in Michael, who uncovered a slew of additional matching details. His email to me included the aerial below. As he noted, “The clincher for me is in looking at the blurry Historic Aerial from 1980 you can make out some important features that all match up with Blossom: uniquely angled front walk, bay window sticking out, two tiny dormers, and left roofline that stops short where it turns into a hipped roof.” It was all compelling evidence, but seeing that angled walkway gave me chills! I knew we most likely had the right spot! But still, we pressed on.
Michael furthered, “Also, on the Blossom cap there are crawlspace vents along the foundation of the house. You can more easily make out one of them on the right corner, and there’s another one slightly visible behind the shrubs centered with the window. The Blossom siding stopped even with the landing of the front entry. The current siding goes one slat lower (overlapping the vents). If you draw a line across them from the front landing, the vents are located in the right spots and at the right level.” Michael even provided the fabulous graphic below to illustrate the point.
As if that wasn’t enough, Michael zeroed in on the front yard, as well. He said, “The yard seems to slope down to the right. In the Blossom cap, taller plantings seem to be covering higher foundation on the right side of the house, compared to the left side. This is also true for the Ethel Ave location.” And he noted, “On the Blossom cap taken from the left of the house, you can see the corner of something boxy to the right of the gable on the right side of the house. I think this might be the brick chimney of the right-side neighbor.” Though that chimney is blocked from view a bit by 3941’s new roofline and portico, it is still partially visible looking much like what appeared onscreen.
Here’s a closer view.
I also spotted a trench running along the street in front of the Russo residence, an element that exists in front of 3941 Ethel, as well.
That 1% doubt still lingered in my mind, though. I know, I know. I can be relentless! But, thankfully, certainty soon hit. A couple of weeks later, a fellow stalker posted some screen captures of the Russo house from a Blossom DVD in a Facebook group. The imagery was much clearer than what was being streamed on Amazon Prime, so I promptly ordered a DVD set for myself and waited not-so-patiently for it to arrive. As soon as it did, I got my clarity! In the commentary featured on the pilot episode, Blossom creator Don Reo announced that the Russo residence was located in Studio City in real life. And in the shot below, the house number is pretty clear (even more so when watching on a TV). It definitely looks like “3941” to me!
The clearer caps also led Michael to notice the double-hung window situated on the right side of the Blossom house. He said, “There’s a window in that exact spot in your present-day photos. Also behind the trees past the gate on the caps you can sort of make out a straight vertical line. I think that’s a second window—which is also still in that location.”
But what really clinched things for me was the establishing shot below in which I spotted a stacked stone fence post attached to the property to the left of the Russo pad. Google Street View imagery shows that very post next to 3941 (denoted with fuchsia arrows in both pictures below), though it is not visible in any of my photos due to foliage that now stands in front of it. Not only that, but I saw that the edge of the neighboring house in the Blossom cap was covered in the same stacked stone. That is also true of the property next to 3941 (denoted with blue arrows below)! And there’s more! I also noticed a white fence attached to the left side of the Blossom house. 3941 has that same white fence (marked by purple arrows below)! All of this adds up to tell me that 3941 Ethel Avenue is, indeed, the Russo residence from Blossom! Eureka! Thank you, Chris and Michael!
The timing of the 1996 remodel also adds up being that Blossom went off the air in ‘95. Seems like the owners, who purchased the place in 1987, waited until the series ended before altering the house, which makes sense. They likely didn’t want to risk losing out on any possible filming revenue. Per the building permits, the remodel included a “2,130-square-foot addition” that added on a second level, expanded the first story, and included a new “irregular-shaped porte-cochère.” All of that gibes with the differences we see of the house as it appeared on Blossom compared to how it looks now. Post remodel, the dwelling, which was originally built in 1948, boasts 5 bedrooms, 5 baths, and 5,057 square feet. The decades-old renovation, completed so shortly after the show went off the air and long before internet-sleuthing was a thing, explains why the Russo home has not been identified until now.
Only the exterior of 3941 Ethel Avenue appeared on the series. The interior of the Russo pad was just a set built on a soundstage, first at Ren-Mar Studios Hollywood (now Red Studios Hollywood), then Sunset Gower Studios, then Fox Television Center (now Helen Bernstein High School). The production moved around quite a bit during its five-year tenure on the air.
As Michael pointed out, the Russos’ kitchen has a very Golden Girls feel. He said, “After looking through a few episodes trying to find establishing shots, it was funny how obvious it was that they used the same production designer as The Golden Girls. A cheesecake certainly wouldn’t have seemed out of place in that kitchen.” Certainly not, Michael!
The property in its original state was utterly charming – in my “opinionation,” at least! It really is sad, not just for us stalkers but in general, that it has been altered so.
So there you have it, the sad saga of the Blossom house and the long quest to track it down!
Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Chris for finding this location and to fellow stalker Michael for helping with the verification process. 
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine, and Discover Los Angeles.
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: The Russo residence from Blossom is located at 3941 Ethel Avenue in Studio City. It has, sadly, been remodeled beyond recognition. Drew Barrymore’s childhood home is across the street at 4002 Ethel.
The “Gimme a Break!” House
Though I definitely consider myself a child of the ‘80s, somehow I never watched Gimme a Break!, which aired on NBC from 1981 to 1987. So when my friend Owen emailed in April asking if I had any intel on the supposed Glenlawn, California residence where widowed police chief Carl Kanisky (Dolph Sweet) lived with his three daughters, Katie (Kari Michaelsen), Sam (Lara Jill Miller) and Julie (Lauri Hendler), and their housekeeper, Nell Harper (Nell Carter), on the series, I was at a loss. Owen isn’t actually a huge Gimme a Break! fan either, but bored during quarantine, caught an episode on YouTube and quickly zeroed in on the traditional-style pad shown in the opening credits. As he wrote to me, “I’m guessing this is one of the few remaining popular ’80s sitcom houses that has yet to be found.” I was, of course, intrigued. One look at its stately architecture told me the property was likely in Hancock Park. I did some digging in the area, but came up empty. It was not until the end of May that the home was finally identified thanks to fellow stalker Chas, of the It’s Filmed There website. As it turns out, my hunch about Hancock Park was right on the money! The Kanisky residence can be found at 515 South Norton Avenue in Windsor Square, looking pretty much exactly as it did during the Gimme a Break! days almost four decades ago!
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In real life, the 1910 home boasts 4 bedrooms, 3 baths, 3,022 square feet, a fireplace, a 0.16-acre lot, and a detached 2-car garage with what appears to be an in-law unit upstairs.
It really is a handsome property, with plenty of Anywhere, U.S.A. appeal. So it’s no surprise it found its way to the screen.
Said to be at 2938 Wells Drive in the fictional town of Glenlawn, the pad popped up in Gimme a Break!’s Season 1 and 2 opening credits, which you can watch here. Like me, Chas had a feeling the property was most likely located in Hancock Park and its environs. He began his search at Beverly Boulevard and Manhattan Place at the very eastern edge of Windsor Square and, using Street View, worked his way south on Manhattan until he hit Wilshire Boulevard. He then ventured back toward Beverly on North St. Andrews Place and continued on that way in a grid-like fashion, moving west. And there, on the sixth street he searched, was the Kanisky house. Thank you, Chas!
It truly is a feat that so little of the property has been changed considering 39 years have passed since Gimme a Break! first hit the screen, not to mention how prevalent remodels are in L.A.
Only the exterior of 515 South Norton appeared on the series. The interior of the Kanisky house was just a set located on a soundstage at the now-defunct Metromedia Square in Hollywood, where Helen Bernstein High School now stands.
Gimme a Break! is not the pad’s only claim to fame!
Thanks to On Location Vacations, I learned that Jack Pearson (Milo Ventimiglia) took Rebecca (Mandy Moore) to an open house there in the Season 3 episode of This Is Us titled “A Philadelphia Story,” which aired in 2018. Only the interior of the property was shown in the episode.
On Location Vacations also tipped me off to the residence’s stint as the home of Marisol (Veronica Osorio) and Richard Onsted (Peter Mark Kendall) on the television series Strange Angel, which aired from 2018 to 2019.
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine, and Discover Los Angeles.
Big THANK YOU to Chas, from the It’s Filmed There website, for finding this location and to Owen for initiating the hunt! 
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: The Kanisky house from Gimme a Break! is located at 515 South Norton Avenue in Windsor Square.
Henry Willson’s House from “Hollywood”
Just when you thought I was done blogging about locales from Hollywood, here I am with a new spot! A couple of months back, an anonymous reader informed me that the Buck House, an architecturally famous pad in the Mid-Wilshire area, portrayed the residence of lecherous powerhouse agent Henry Willson (Jim Parsons) on the popular 2020 Netflix miniseries. Even though the exterior was never shown, I was intrigued and promptly headed over to Google to bring up images of the place. Doing so only intrigued me further! Featuring clean lines, windows galore, and unique Streamline Moderne built-ins, the Buck Residence is stunning! To the top of my To-Stalk List it went and I made it over there for some socially-distant stalking a few weeks later.
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The 1934 International-style stunner was constructed by architect R.M. Schindler for clothing store designer John J. Buck.
The sprawling L-shaped property, which surrounds a rear courtyard, boasts 2 bedrooms, 2 baths, 2,500 square feet, a brick fireplace, sliding glass walls, varying ceiling heights, clerestory windows (defined by Architectural Digest as “a row of windows well above eye level”), a 0.17-acre corner lot, and an attached 3-car garage with an upstairs apartment featuring its own private entrance.
In 1977, the dwelling was slightly remodeled, with one of the three original bedrooms opened up and combined with a breakfast nook. The kitchen and a bathroom were also updated at the time. Otherwise, the Buck House looks much as it did when Schindler completed it almost nine decades ago.
Today, the property, which is Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument #122, operates as the Country Club art gallery.
You can check out some great interior images of it here.
The Buck House only appears once on Hollywood. After a rather tense dinner at The Prince in the episode titled “Outlaws,” Henry forces his client Rock Hudson (Jake Picking) to come back to his home to watch him perform the Dance of the Seven Veils.
The scene, which you can watch here, is insanely cringeworthy and perfectly showcases Willson’s eccentric and predatory personality, but I was more taken with the striking surroundings than anything else.
The production utilized a couple of areas of the house including the living room (above) and a den/office that was transformed into Henry’s bedroom.
As you can see in the MLS images from a recent listing as compared to the screen captures above and below, though some artwork and mid-century décor were added to the premises for the shoot, the place is still very recognizable from its onscreen stint.
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine, and Discover Los Angeles.
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: The Buck House, aka Henry Willson’s home from the “Outlaws” episode of Hollywood, is located at 805 South Genesee Avenue in Mid-Wilshire.
The “Zathura” House
It is no secret that the San Gabriel Valley is chock full of gorgeous Craftsman homes. Never have I come across a neighborhood more saturated, though, than Oaklawn, the tiny enclave in South Pasadena that I blogged about on Wednesday. The 0.2-mile curved street, made up of 27 stunning houses, features some of the prettiest Arts and Crafts properties I have seen, including the one at 216 Oaklawn Avenue, which portrayed the residence of the Browning family in Zathura: A Space Adventure. My friend/fellow stalker Owen alerted me to the home last December, saying it was basically a main character in the 2005 family film and would make for a good post. I had never seen the movie at the time, but one look at the screen caps included in his email and I knew I had to stalk the place! I finally made it out there a couple of weeks ago in what amounted to a stalking twofer as Mary’s residence from Why Women Kill is right next door. Just a few days later, my mom and I sat down to watch Zathura. Owen was right. Though the movie is just OK (it’s basically a mediocre version of Jumanji set in space), the house is undeniably the star and definitely worthy of a post.
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There seems to be quite a bit of confusion floating around online regarding the residence’s provenance as well as its amenities.
From what I have been able to gather, though, the Craftsman boasts 4 bedrooms, 4 baths, 3,805 square feet, wood detailing throughout, a fireplace, an upgraded kitchen, French doors, a pool, a hot tub, and a 0.45-acre lot.
Per some documents on the City of South Pasadena website, 216 Oaklawn was a speculative home constructed for builder G. W. Stimson in 1908 at a cost of $6,800. Known as the F.N. Finney Residence, the property is said to have been designed by prolific architects Charles and Henry Greene. Other sources, though, assert that the home is known as Villa Dora and that it was built in 1912 by architect G. Lawrence Stimson.
Regardless of its history, there’s no debating the pad is architecturally incredible!
It is not hard to see how it got chosen to appear in Zathura. The house belongs on the screen!
Even the driveway is picturesque!
And the tree out front? Come on!
In Zathura: A Space Adventure, two young brothers, Danny (Jonah Bobo) and Walter Browning (Josh Hutcherson), discover a retro board game packed away in their basement while being babysat by their inattentive older sister, Lisa (Kristen Stewart). They, of course, start to play the game, which immediately rips their house from the ground, sending it into outer space where they have to battle various otherworldly adversaries. The actual exterior of the Oaklawn home is only shown twice, in the movie’s opening and closing scenes.
The residence in the Chris Van Allsburg book on which the film is based is much more traditional in style, as you can see here. But for the movie, producers zeroed in on using a Craftsman to keep the story visibly compelling. The production notes state, “Since Zathura: A Space Adventure takes place in one location, the house had to be as visually interesting and integral to the film as any of the characters. This was a major challenge for [production designer J. Michael] Riva who worked closely with the filmmakers to select just the right style and look for the house. After much discussion, they decided to go with a classic California Craftsman-style home. ‘We didn’t want the audience to feel trapped in a house for the whole movie,’ says [director Jon] Favreau. ‘So we decided to make it as interesting to look at as we could, something so spectacular than when it comes apart in the course of the film, you really feel like it’s a tragedy that this beautifully restored Craftsman-style house is being destroyed.’” They certainly succeeded to that end. My heart broke a little each time a piece of the residence was damaged.
An exacting scale model was constructed for the scenes in which the Browning residence is shown floating through space.
You can see images of the model on the Hooked on Houses website.
The miniature is also featured on the movie’s poster.
The interior of the Browning residence was nothing more than a studio-built set – an exquisite and elaborate studio-built set – which becomes quite obvious as it gets destroyed into virtual oblivion throughout the film. The actual inside of the Oaklawn house is much smaller and much less Craftsman-y than its big-screen counterpart, as you can see in these interior images.
Of the set, the production notes state, “The filmmakers also wanted the house to stand out against the coldness of deep space and the metallic materials used for the spaceship. The Craftsman style lent itself perfectly to that end and Riva was also able to fashion a welcoming interior. ‘The idea was to create a hospitable environment, using warm tones and colors with lots of wood,’ explains Riva, ‘in direct counterpoint to the coldness of space — a womb-like environment that the characters could all survive in. As that got destroyed, like an island being swallowed up by the high tide, the world they inhabited became smaller and smaller, as if the life-giving sustenance of the house, which protects them from oblivion, was diminishing. We just loved the contrast in the colors to suggest that.’” Riva did a spectacular job! The set was so intricate, it truly had the look and feel of a real home, which is exactly what Favreau was going for. He says, “I came up through independent film, where you’re usually shooting on location. I hate when it looks like you shot on a set instead of on location.” So realistic was the set, in fact, that until the destruction began, I was convinced filming had taken place inside the Oaklawn property.
Inspiration for the set came from some real residences. Favreau explains, “We really wanted the house to feel like something, and feel old, and like it had some character. All the details were chosen from different famous houses, even the fireplace and the fixtures.” Well I, of course, read those words and got right to identifying exactly which pads in particular inspired the design. It was not too hard to pin things down. The production team looked no further than two of Pasadena’s most famous Craftsmans – the Gamble House and the Blacker Estate, both of which I am very familiar with. The Brownings’ two fireplaces were modeled after one at the Gamble House. You can see an image of it here.
The front door was likely inspired by that of the Gamble House, as well, though it was built on a much smaller scale.
And the staircase is a copy of one at the Blacker Estate, which you can see here.
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine, and Discover Los Angeles.
Big THANK YOU to my friend/fellow stalker Owen for telling me about this location! 
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: The Browning residence from Zathura: A Space Adventure is located at 216 Oaklawn Avenue in South Pasadena. Mary’s house from Why Women Kill can be found right next door at 224 Oaklawn Avenue.
Mary’s House from “Why Women Kill”
Today marks the third time I’m blogging about Why Women Kill, which is a bit surprising considering I’ve barely watched any of the 2019 CBS All Access series. But while scanning through episode 6, “Practically Lethal in Every Way,” making screen captures for my recent post on Bistro Garden, the image of a massive Craftsman home came into view, and my heart was set aflutter! I stared in awe at the home, which belongs to Mary (Analeigh Tipton) and her abusive husband, Ralph Vlasin (Scott Porter), on the 1963 portion of the show, and decided to track down it right then and there. Thanks to its Arts and Crafts architecture, I had a feeling the pad was located in the Pasadena area, though I had never come across anything quite like it in all my years living there. I did a Google search for “Why Women Kill,” “filming,” and “Pasadena,” which garnered no fruitful results. Firm in my assertion that the house was in Crown City and knowing that productions sometimes shorten or abbreviate longer titles, I did a second search for “WWK,” “filming,” and “Pasadena,” and, sure enough, an article came up which stated that in June 2019 the series spent two days shooting on the 200 and 400 blocks of Oaklawn Avenue in South Pasadena. I headed right on over to the 200 block via Street View, dropped down the little yellow man, and there was Mary’s Craftsman at 224 Oaklawn!
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I had never visited the street before and, in fact, only first heard about it last December thanks to my friend/fellow stalker Owen who emailed to alert me to another of its famous Craftsmans – 216 Oaklawn, aka the Browning residence from Zathura: A Space Adventure. (I’ll be covering that property in a later post.) The enclave, which consists of a small 0.2-mile curved stretch of road with a smattering of about thirty dwellings at South Pasadena’s northern edge, was established in 1904. Oaklawn was the brainchild of the South Pasadena Realty and Investment Company and Henry and Charles Greene, the prolific architects responsible for the vast majority of the area’s landmark Craftsmans. The brothers designed the layout of the street, which was initially centered around a large oak tree that no longer stands (hence the name), as well as a reinforced concrete footbridge leading to Fair Oaks Avenue (where residents could access local streetcars) and a waiting station. Lots were sold undeveloped. The subdivision was referred to in early advertisements as “Suburb de Luxe” and the homes eventually built there certainly lived up to the hype! I was flabbergasted wandering the neighborhood, gawking at the massive, architecturally stunning properties surrounding me. From Craftsman homes to Tudors to mid-century manses, each one is more spectacular than the last! Two that caught my eye during my visit are pictured below.
As Owen pointed out to me last December, Oaklawn also boasts a striking entrance feature. He wrote, “When making screenshots, I noticed something in the background that I couldn’t ID. I was like, ‘What the hell are boulders doing on a residential street?!’ I went to Google’s street view to check it out, and I came across something interesting and unusual that I had never known about. You may be well aware of it, of course, but at the end of Oaklawn Avenue in South Pasadena, near the Zathura house, are rustic portals on each side of the street. These picturesque portals, which look like something straight out of a lifestyle magazine, were also designed by Greene and Greene.” I had not been aware of the portals – as I said, I had never even heard of the street before! – but was intrigued and had to take a look while stalking the neighborhood.
The elaborate stone structures, initially designed to frame the central oak, were constructed long before any homes lined the street and, per the South Pasadena Preservation Foundation, “served as advertisements to the undeveloped lots.”
Today, they welcome visitors to the picturesque idyll.
Despite their substantial influence on Oaklawn, there’s no concrete evidence that Greene and Greene designed any of the enclave’s homes (though one resident speculates the street boasts as many as four properties that can be attributed to the brothers). The majority of the lots were sold off in 1907 to various builders, including G.W. Stimson. His son, architect G. Lawrence Stimson, is credited with designing many of the houses, including Mary’s from Why Women Kill.
In real life, the 1910 home features 5 bedrooms, 4 baths, 3,930 square feet, a dining room with a cast aluminum ceiling, a carriage house designed by Frederick L. Roehrig, a fireplace with Grueby Faience Company tile, intricate Craftsman detailing, hardwood flooring, built-ins galore, a butler’s pantry, a 0.45-acre lot, and a backyard pond.
You can check out interior photos of the massive abode here.
The property pops up numerous times on Why Women Kill, first in the scene in which Beth Ann Stanton (Ginnifer Goodwin) introduces herself to Mary and Ralph, her new neighbors, in episode 6, “Practically Lethal in Every Way.” The residence is said to be situated across the street from Beth Ann’s supposed Pasadena estate, so it is rather ironic that neither property is actually in Crown City. Mary’s pad is, of course, in South Pas and Beth Ann’s, the mansion at the center of the series’ storyline, is a good 15 miles away at 113 Fremont Place in Hancock Park.
Mary’s house goes on to appear in the episodes “I Was Just Wondering What Makes Dames Like You So Deadly” and “Kill Me as if It Were the Last Time.”
The home is just as incredible in person as it is onscreen.
The interior, namely the living room with the Grueby tile fireplace, is also featured on the show, as you can see in the screen capture below as compared to the MLS image from 2012, when the pad was last on the market.
On Why Women Kill, Mary’s staircase (which is visible just beyond the front door) is very Craftsman in style with a natural wood finish, but, per the listing photos, at the time it was on the market it was painted white.
I am not sure if the new owners changed the coloring back to the original wood or if the show’s production team did, but either way, it was a good move! The natural wood is so much more appropriate to the architecture of the home, not to mention infinitely prettier.
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine, and Discover Los Angeles.
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: Mary’s house from Why Women Kill is located at 224 Oaklawn Avenue in South Pasadena. The home from Zathura: A Space Adventure can be found right next door at 216 Oaklawn.
The “Maude” House
I am a true television aficionado, even when it comes to series that were before my time, like Soap, which began airing just a few months after I was born. Yet when fellow stalker Brad emailed back in August 2017 asking if I knew the whereabouts of the home belonging to Maude Findlay (Bea Arthur) and her husband, Walter (Bill Macy), on Maude, I was at a loss. Sure, I’d heard of the 1970s sitcom, but had never so much as seen even a portion of an episode. Regardless, I accepted the challenge of IDing the place, which Brad informed me was said to be in Tuckahoe, New York, and was only seen in Maude’s opening and closing credits. After some unsuccessful digging, though, I pushed the hunt to the back burner and promptly forgot about it. Flash forward to June 9th of this year. Brad wrote to me once again inquiring if I had ever managed to find the Maude house. Coincidentally, my friend Owen had just embarked upon a massive endeavor to pinpoint all of the key yet-to-be-found locations from popular television shows that aired from the early 1970s through the early 1990s. I emailed him to see if Maude was included on his list. It wasn’t, but he was kind enough to look into the matter for me and, on June 10th, just one day later, wrote back with an address! The Findlay residence from Maude can be found at 1011 Harvard Avenue North in Claremont.
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How did he do it, you ask? I asked the same thing! As it turns out, a curb led him to the location. But first, while viewing the opening credits, Owen spotted an address number of “101” above Maude and Walter’s front door, something I had failed to notice during any of my searches for the place!
As he explained, “Because some of the intro was filmed in NY — and there are 100 blocks there — I started looking in Tuckahoe. I was coming up empty, and I was starting to wonder if a fourth digit was hidden behind the tree branches, so I turned my focus to that very distinctive curb, which I had never seen before.” He’s talking about the unique curb with embedded stonework visible in the screen capture below.
Owen next headed over to Google and performed a slew of different keyword searches. One finally led him to page 111 of the book Claremont (Images of America), which detailed the city’s unique stone curbs typically referred to as “elephant toes.” The curb pictured in the tome indeed resembled the one visible in the Maude credits. Owen furthered, “I pretty much knew right away that I was on the right track. I did a “Maude Claremont” Google search and quickly found this page. The answer presented itself at the very bottom of the replies section, thanks to a Mark Z. Mystery solved. P.S. If you blog about this place — and you should blog about this place — I’d mention those ‘elephant toes’! I think that’s such an elephant-astic description of that curb style.” Your wish is my command, Owen!
I was dismayed to find the place undergoing a renovation when I showed up to stalk it a few weeks later.
At least the fabulous elephant toes were still intact and visible, though!
Despite the extensive scaffolding, certain elements of the house are still recognizable. At the time Maude was filmed, the front porch was screened in, giving it quite a different look, but as you can see, the fluted pillars, rock wall flanking the front steps, and peak-roofed portico all remain the same.
Thankfully, Google Street View provides us with some pre-renovation imagery of the home that shows some additional matching detail.
As Owen noted, “The crumbling portion at the corner of the driveway that is visible in the opening credits is still like that! Love it!”
The residence appears throughout both the opening and closing credits of Maude, which ran on CBS from 1972 through 1978.
The American Foursquare-style property was originally designed in 1905 for land developer and Claremont pioneer C.C. Johnson. It is one of the city’s oldest houses. In real life, it boasts 5 bedrooms, 3 baths, 2,920 square feet, coved ceilings, crown moldings, a tiled wood-burning fireplace, a formal dining room, and 3 lots totaling 0.48 acres. The pad last sold in March 2018 for $1.2 million. A real estate listing from the time even mentions the home’s use on Maude!
Only the exterior of the property appeared on the series. The interior of the Findlay home was just a set, built first at CBS Television City and then at Metromedia Square, the two studios where Maude was lensed.
As you can see in the MLS images as compared to the screen captures above and below, the set does not resemble the inside of the actual house in the slightest. Maude’s home boasted a much more open floor plan than that of the Claremont residence. You can check out some more interior images of 1011 Harvard here.
Per the plans submitted to the Claremont Architectural Commission, only the rear of the home is being significantly altered during the renovation. Here’s hoping that when all is said and done the front is left largely intact for stalkers to enjoy for years to come.
Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Brad for asking me to find this location and to my friend Owen for tracking it down! 
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine, and Discover Los Angeles.
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: The Findlay house from Maude is located at 1011 Harvard Avenue North in Claremont.