Famous houses – Page 5 – IAMNOTASTALKER

March 13, 2019March 12, 2019

Noodles’ House from “A Star Is Born”

News outlets are reporting that Lady Gaga can’t seem to let go of her A Star Is Born character. Well, I am apparently having a hard time letting go of the movie’s locations because here I am yet again with yet another site from the film (you can read my other ASIB posts here, here, and here) – a film that I did not even enjoy, oddly enough. Yes, I did finally sit down to watch it recently, but found myself bored and wound up turning it off about ninety minutes in. I don’t know if my apathy was completely legitimate or had to do with the fact that I was dreading the sad ending, but either way, the portions I did see were just “meh.” The only time I did perk up was when the supposed Memphis home belonging to George ‘Noodles’ Stone (Dave Chappelle) came onscreen as I was fairly certain it was a spot I had stalked long ago. A quick visit to my website verified my hunch – Noodles’ pad is none other than the Teen Wolf party house! Researching further, I was shocked to discover that the property boasts yet a third notable claim to fame! So, even though I already blogged about it back in 2011, I figured it was definitely time for another go-around.

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Per a couple of commenters on my 2011 post, in real life Noodles’ house was built in 1915 for a man named Dr. Hubert Shearin, who was the head of the Occidental College English Department at the time. A distinguished member of the community, Dr. Shearin also served as director of the Eagle Rock School Board and director of Eagle Rock Bank, as well as belonging to countless local clubs. Considering his prominence, it should come as no surprise that when Eagle Rock became part of the City of Los Angeles in 1923 and many roads were required to be renamed, the street his former residence is on was dubbed “Shearin Avenue” in his honor.

Hubert passed away suddenly on August 12th, 1919 at the age of 41, leaving behind his wife, Ruth, and their two children. Ruth continued to live in the 4-bedroom, 1-bath, 2,346-square-foot property (which you can see interior photographs of here) until 1952, at which time she moved to Glendale. In the ensuing years, the house went on to become quite famous cinematically.

It is there that Scott Howard (Michael J. Fox) and his friends attend a raucous high school party in the 1985 classic Teen Wolf.

A woman named Valerie who grew up in the house and lived there during the Teen Wolf shoot wrote a comment on my 2011 post informing me that the closet where Scott kissed his BFF Boof (Susan Ursitti) was not real, but a set piece built specifically for the filming on the home’s rear deck, which is what I had suspected upon first viewing images of the interior. In actuality, the closet doors seen in the movie are French doors that lead from the dining room to the backyard. You can check out an image of the spot where the prop closet was built here.

It was thanks to my obsessive study of the closet and dining room area while writing my original post that I recognized the pad in A Star Is Born. Actually, what I recognized were the unique arched built-ins situated on either side of the home’s French doors. I had spent quite a bit of time scrutinizing them, so when they popped up in A Star Is Born, I immediately took note. You can check out some actual images of the residence’s dining room, which was massively repainted for the ASIB shoot, here and here.

Along with the dining room . . .

. . . the kitchen (which you can see a photo of here) also briefly appeared in A Star Is Born . . .

. . . as did an upstairs bedroom (matching photo here) . . .

. . . the side yard (matching photo here) . . .

. . . and the street out front (matching Google Street View image below).

As I mentioned earlier, along with Teen Wolf and A Star Is Born, the dwelling boasts yet another Hollywood connection. On the television series This Is Us, it serves at the supposed Pittsburgh residence of the Pearson family. It is this home that burns down in the much-maligned episode titled “Super Bowl Sunday.” For whatever reason, the property was only utilized on the show starting in Season 2.

During the series’ inaugural season, a different home at 1960 Fletcher Avenue in South Pasadena appeared as the Pearsons’.

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Noodles’ house from A Star Is Born, aka the Teen Wolf party house, aka the Pearson residence from This Is Us, is located at 5223 Shearin Avenue in Eagle Rock. Rachel’s (Chloë Grace Moretz) home from (500) Days of Summer can be found right next door at 5231 Shearin Avenue.

February 20, 2019February 14, 2019

Carlotta’s House from “Hail, Caesar!”

Today’s locale involves something I’ve never come across in all my years of stalking! Last June, a reader named Molly posted a comment on my Challenge Lindsay page asking for some help in tracking down the house where Carlotta Valdez (Veronica Osorio) lived in the 2016 Coen Brothers comedy Hail, Caesar! She mentioned that two places had actually been used to portray the exterior of the residence and that while she had found one, she was still looking for the other. Somehow I had never heard of the film (and I love a good Hollywood farce!), but was fascinated by the query. A Google search led me to an L.A. Weekly article chronicling a few of the movie’s sites which backed up Molly’s claim – the segment taking place outside of Carlotta’s pad was indeed lensed in two different spots. Though location trickery is old hat in Hollywood, this was the first I’d heard of a scene shot in two entirely different places, then stitched together to appear as one. Appropriately intrigued, I set out to help Molly on her quest.

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Carlotta’s house pops up in one brief scene in Hail, Caesar! in which the starlet, who was inspired by real life “Brazilian Bombshell” Carmen Miranda, is picked up by cowboy actor Hobie Doyle (Alden Ehrenreich) to go to a movie premiere. In the bit, the two characters are shown standing outside of Carlotta’s pad on a picturesque street greeting each other and making small talk. In reality, the two sides of the segment were lensed miles apart. Watching the illusory scene, which you can can do here, is quite jarring. Despite knowing the logistics, the whole thing was done so seamlessly that I could hardly believe it was not all shot in the same spot.

Though Molly had already tracked down the Hollywood Hills street where Hobie’s portion of the segment was lensed, she was looking for the gorgeous Spanish Colonial Revival that served as the backdrop for Carlotta’s.

As denoted in the L.A. Weekly article (and as Molly informed me), Hobie’s side of the scene was filmed at the intersection of Grace and Whitley Avenues in the Hollywood Hills. Location manager John Panzarella, who also worked on L.A. Confidential, explains, “Joel and Ethan [Coen] are not shy about cheating reverses; they really embrace it. They want the visual they have conceived.” That visual consisted of Hobie performing a dazzling array of lasso tricks while waiting for Carlotta on a sleepy street corner. Panzarella says, “Whitley Terrace was perfect for that, with the view of Hollywood in the background.” The only trouble was, there was no dwelling in the vicinity that matched the Cohens’ vision of Carlotta’s pad.

The directors instead found a place that fit the bill about three miles away in Los Feliz. While the L.A. Weekly article did not denote the home’s exact location, it did mention that the pad was designed by famed architect Paul Revere Williams in 1927. So I headed over to Google, where a quick search for “Paul Williams,” “Los Feliz,” and “1927” led me to this page on the Paul Revere Williams Project website about a dwelling at 4791 Cromwell Avenue. One look at the images posted told me it was the right spot!

The stunning 5,211-square-foot, 4-bedroom, 4-bath property looks much the same in person as it did onscreen, though the film definitely showcased it through a 1950s-style Hollywood filter which muted its color palette a bit.

In real life, the home is known as the Blackburn Residence in honor of its initial owners Bruce and Lula Blackburn, who hailed from Missouri, but moved to Los Angeles in the early 1900s. Initially settling in West Adams, once Bruce found financial success thanks to his invention of a roll-up window screen, he commissioned Williams to design the large Los Feliz estate.

Williams (who also gave us Johnny Weissmuller’s Bel Air home, the famed Perino’s restaurant, and Sloane’s house from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off) incorporated Bruce’s innovative screens into his design. They made such an impression on the prolific architect that he used them in many of his later works, as well.

The sprawling Blackburn Residence also boasts 12 rooms, 2.5 stories, an elevator, a triple fireplace, ornate tile work, wrought iron detailing throughout, vaulted ceilings, a grand 2-level arched entry, and a lush 0.35-acre plot of land.

The home continued to be owned by the Blackburn family until 1978, when it was offloaded by Bruce and Lula’s daughter, Elizabeth. The property, which is Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument #913, last sold in November 2003 for $2,199,000 and, per Zillow, is worth a whopping $4.5 million today!

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Big THANK YOU to Molly for challenging me to find this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Blackburn Residence, aka Carlotta’s house from Hail, Caesar!, is located at 4791 Cromwell Avenue in Los Feliz. The portions of the scene featuring Hobie were filmed at a different spot – on Grace Avenue in the Hollywood Hills. More specifically, Hobie’s car was parked in front of the entrance to the condominium complex at 1979 Grace Avenue and he practiced his rope tricks at the intersection of Grace Avenue and Whitley Avenue.

January 18, 2019January 17, 2019

Jerry’s Condo from “Jerry Maguire”

Location hunts can take some strange, circuitous paths. Case in point – during my laborious, years-long search for the condo where Jerry Maguire (Tom Cruise) lived in the 1996 classic of the same name, I headed down a fairly deep rabbit hole in an attempt to identify the onetime beach home of actress Suzanne Somers and her husband, Alan Hamel. What in the heck do Somers, Hamel and their former beach house have to do with Jerry Maguire? Let me explain.

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My quest to find Jerry’s condo actually began many moons ago, around the time I first met Mike, from MovieShotsLA. During one of our initial stalking outings, Mike mentioned that he had worked in Marina Del Rey for years and would often walk by a house on the Strand that had a unique rock sculpture displayed on its beach side. Upon seeing Jerry Maguire years later, he noticed a rock sculpture visible outside of Jerry’s windows and knew it was the same one he had regularly passed. Unfortunately though, other than it being on the Strand in MDR, he could not remember exactly where it was located. As soon as I got home that day, I spent more than a few hours searching the area’s coastline. Being that the exterior of Jerry’s place was never actually shown in the film, I had my work cut out for me and came up empty. Figuring the rock statue had long since been removed, I abandoned any hope of ever pinpointing the site. Then, in 2016, while on a Jerry Maguire kick, I sat down to watch the video commentary featured on the film’s Special Edition DVD and just about fell over when Renée Zellweger mentioned that Suzanne Somers lived next door to the location used as Jerry condo’s. Hope restored, I began hunting for the Somers/Hamel residence, which both Zellweger and Cuba Gooding Jr. said was in Manhattan Beach and which I figured would be a snap to find.

A Google search led me to a 1999 Los Angeles Times article chronicling the sale of the Three’s Company actress’ longtime Marina Del Rey home, which was described as a “beachfront townhouse” with three levels, three bedrooms, a rooftop sundeck, and 3,500 square feet. According to the blurb, Somers and Hamel had owned the pad since 1977. While the Marina Del Rey part did not gibe with Renée and Cuba’s recollections, it did gibe with Mike’s, so I figured I was on the right track. Hope was soon dashed, though, when I came across a 1982 People feature that catalogued all of the Hamel/Somers’ homes, noting that their coastal property was “a seven-level beach-fronter” in the “expensive section of Venice.” Though I knew that one of the articles had to be incorrect in its reporting, I couldn’t find an address for the couple in either MDR or Venice, nor could I find a seven-level property anywhere along the Speedway! The hunt for their pad was proving just as difficult as the search for Jerry’s! So I reversed course and sat down to scour the entire coastline from Venice down to Manhattan Beach. Using Google Street View (which amazingly chronicles the beach side of the Strand!) and some serious elbow grease, I finally came across the infamous rock sculpture outside of the property located at 3811 Ocean Front Walk in Marina Del Rey. Eureka!

I promptly did an internet search of the address to see what else I could dig up on the locale and was flummoxed when the first result kicked back was a 2015 real estate listing with this sentence in the description, “Residence offers Hollywood pedigree, as it was the home of Jerry Maguire in the popular movie of the same name.” Face palm! Had I just simply Googled “Jerry Maguire” and “Marina Del Rey” upon revisiting my quest for the house, I would have saved myself a lot of time! Ah, well. I ran out to stalk the place just a few days later and was saddened to see that the rock statue that had figured so much in the hunt was no longer in place.

I’m assuming the sculpture was removed when the place sold in 2015 (for a cool $2,754,000, mind you!) because it was still on display in the MLS photos.

As was depicted in Jerry Maguire, 3811 Ocean Front Walk houses condos in real life – two condos to be exact. Unit 1, a one-story space, is situated on the lower level and Unit 2, a two-story spread, comprises the second and third floors. It was the lower level unit that was utilized in the film.

The site pops up several times in the movie. Though the master bedroom was not utilized (Jerry’s bedroom was a set built on Stage 21 at Sony Pictures Studio), the rest of the condo’s interior was used prominently in the film.

Areas of the pad that appeared onscreen include the kitchen;

the living room;

the dining room, which served as Jerry’s home office;

and the media room. (Notice that the shutters and shelving visible behind Kelly Preston below are identical to those pictured in the listing photo! I think the couch might actually be the same, too!)

One room in the condo was also apparently utilized as the office of Cardinals General Manager Dennis Wilburn (Glenn Frey) in the movie, but I was unable to find anything that resembled it in the listing photos.

In real life, Unit 1 features 2 en-suite bedrooms, 3 baths, 2,368 square feet, a private beachfront terrace, a fireplace, an open kitchen, a media room, flagstone flooring throughout, and granite countertops. Or, at least, it did.

Sadly, as you can see in recent Google Street Views and in this image, the second and third floors appear to be undergoing massive renovations.

It is heartbreaking that the locale remained virtually frozen in time from its onscreen stint all the way up until its recent sale, only to then be completely gutted. What a shame.

For those wondering, I did end up finding Suzanne Somers’ home, but not until I sat down to write this post. Once I finally pinpointed Jerry’s condo, I was so excited, I completely forgot to see if the Hamel/Somers residence was actually located next door. As Zellweger noted, though, it does indeed neighbor Jerry’s place at 3819 Ocean Front Walk! I wound up identifying it thanks to a set of photos published on Alamy of a fire that took place at the property in 2009 which ran with captions stating the locale was once owned by Somers.

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Jerry’s condo from Jerry Maguire is located at 3811 Ocean Front Walk #1 in Marina Del Rey. Suzanne Somers and Alan Hamel’s longtime former home is right next door at 3819 Ocean Front Walk.

January 4, 2019January 3, 2019

Harry Bosch’s House from “Bosch”

I contemplated chronicling the best movie and television productions I discovered in 2018 as my first post of the new year. Had I done so (and I still might later this month), Bosch would have topped the list. As I mentioned in my recent write-up on Demitasse café, the Grim Cheaper and I started watching the Amazon original series just a few months ago and were immediately hooked. A police procedural with a sarcastic and fabulously deadpan leading man set in Los Angeles – what more could this crime-obsessed, L.A.-loving stalker ask for? The locations used are seriously phenomenal, by the way – none more so than the cantilevered hilltop home of titular character Detective Hieronymus “Harry” Bosch (Titus Welliver). The pad couldn’t be more quintessentially Los Angeles if it tried. So I, of course, ran right out to stalk it shortly after viewing the first episode.

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Bosch is based upon a bestselling series of novels by author Michael Connelly. I have never read any of the books, but have been able to piece together the various info written about Harry’s house in them thanks to a detailed forum on MichaelConnelly.com. In the novels, Detective Bosch is said to live on Woodrow Wilson Drive in the Hollywood Hills, though his specific address varies from “next to” 7203 Woodrow Wilson in 2010’s The Reversal to 8620 Woodrow Wilson in 2018’s Dark Sacred Night. Per a commenter on the forum, Connelly has apparently stated that Harry’s pad doesn’t exist in real life, but that the site where he placed it in his stories is a burnt-out foundation of a former cantilevered residence that the author stumbled upon in 1992. Additional commenters did some massive legwork on the subject and surmised that the location of said foundation is 7207 Woodrow Wilson Drive. And they’re right – I came across a video of Connelly showing the exact spot where he imagined the home (a still of which is pictured below) and compared it to Street View imagery of that address (again, pictured below) and, sure enough, it’s the spot! You can check out some photographs of the foundation and the land it sits on here.

In Blue Neon Night: Michael Connelly’s Los Angeles, a special limited edition DVD released in 2004 in which, as Amazon notes, the author “provides an insider’s tour of the places that give his stories and characters their spark and texture,” a house located at 7143 Woodrow Wilson is shown to be Harry’s and Connelly describes it as such, “Bosch’s home was fourth from the end on the right side. His home was a wood-frame, one-bedroom cantilever, not much bigger than a Beverly Hills garage. It hung out over the edge of the hill and was supported by three steel pylons at its mid-point.”

When it came time to start shooting the series in November 2013, producers found an even more perfect embodiment of that Blue Neon Night description at 1870 Blue Heights Drive in Hollywood Hills West.

Sitting high atop a hill, the architectural stunner, which was built in 1958, boasts 2 bedrooms, 2 baths, 1,513 square feet of living space, and a 0.26-acre lot.

Per Zillow, it is currently worth a whopping $2,130,000.

The striking pad first popped up in Bosch’s pilot and has gone on to appear in pretty much every episode since. It is the rear of the residence – its cantilevered side, which stands on a cliff overlooking the Sunset Strip, Culver City and beyond – that is regularly shown on the series.

The street side of the house, which is much less spectacular than the rear, was featured briefly in Season 4’s “Devil in the House.”

While situated on a private cul-de-sac, that side of the property can be viewed from a portion of Blue Heights Drive that is open to the public – though there is not much to see.

Just west of the home’s front entrance, though, in an area that is also publicly accessible, is an open expanse of land where views matching those of Harry’s pad can be gleaned.

And let me tell you, those views are absolutely incredible!

I mean, come on!

Last one, I promise.

We know – thanks to this video – that the actual interior of the Blue Heights Drive residence was utilized in Bosch’s pilot. And I am fairly certain that a few additional early episodes were shot on location inside the home, as well (quite possibly all of Season 1). At some point, though, a set re-creation was built on a studio soundstage that has since been used for all subsequent seasons.

How does a cop afford such a stellar pad, you ask? Per the storyline of both the books and the series, Paramount made a movie based upon one of Harry’s cases, for which he was paid handsomely.

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Harry Bosch’s house from the television series Bosch is located at 1870 Blue Heights Drive in Hollywood Hills West. The best views of the structure can be seen from the 1600 block of Viewmont Drive and the 8800 block of Hollywood Boulevard.

December 12, 2018June 14, 2019

“The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” Christmas House

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas – well, as much as it can in SoCal – which means it’s time to start posting holiday locales! I’m kicking off the season with the pad that portrayed the Banks family residence in the Season 1 Yuletide-themed episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air titled “Deck the Halls.” Now you’re probably thinking, ‘But you’ve blogged about the Fresh Prince house already, years ago.’ And you’d be correct. Way back in 2008, I did write about the massive Colonial manse that regularly appeared as the home of Will (Will Smith), Carlton (Alfonso Ribeiro), Uncle Philip (James Avery), Aunt Viv (Janet Hubert), Hilary (Karyn Parsons), and Ashley (Tatyana Ali) on the popular series. (Spoiler! It’s actually in Brentwood, not Bel-Air!) But . . .

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. . . as a fellow stalker named Ashley informed me in August 2013, for whatever reason a different home was utilized as the family’s pad in the “Deck the Halls” episode. Thinking it would make for a great Christmas post, I set out to find the place, which turned into quite a long and tedious affair. I started by scouring the Colonial section of every online location database, then spent hours poring over Google Aerial Views looking for any large properties with a rounded portico – all to no avail. I once even thought I saw the house pop up in the Instagram story of a friend who was attending a holiday soiree at a Colonial-style dwelling. I quickly figured out the name of the party’s hosts and searched property records to find their address, only to discover upon getting a better look at the residence via Street View that it was not, in fact, the right place. Oh, the (admittedly crazy) lengths I go to to bring filming location information to the masses! It was not until this past February (almost five years after my search began!) that an unexpected source came to my rescue.

That month, upon the (very emphatic) recommendation of Miss Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog, the Grim Cheaper and I started watching Barely Famous, VH1’s fake reality series about the lives of sisters Erin and Sara Foster, daughters of music producer David Foster (who just so happens to be the man largely credited with discovering Michael Bublé – but I digress). While viewing the pilot episode, I just about screamed as an establishing shot of Erin and Sara’s home came into view. In an instant, I knew it was the pad from “Deck the Halls.” Thank you, Pinky!

Barely Famous not only provided much more expansive views of the residence, but an address placard was also visible in several episodes. Though I couldn’t quite make out the number displayed, it was apparent that said number was five digits, which meant the property was located somewhere in the Valley. Up until that point, I had only been searching the Hollywood/Hancock Park areas and their environs, near Hollywood Center Studios (now Sunset Las Palmas Studios) where The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’s first season was lensed, as sitcom location managers typically don’t veer far from the lot when choosing locales. Oops!

Knowing the place was actually in the San Fernando Valley gave me a whole new lease on the hunt! Armed with the information, I headed over to Google Maps and found the Banks’ Christmas house/Barely Famous residence fairly quickly at 10436 Kling Street in Toluca Lake.

The 2-story, 17-room American Colonial Revival-style estate is definitely fit for a king – or the Banks family, as the case may be – with 5 bedrooms, 4 baths, 3,898 square feet of living space, a master suite with a massive walk-in closet, multiple fireplaces and built-in bookcases, a 0.42-acre yard, a pool, a spa, a putting green (!), a detached 3-car garage, and a gazebo. You can see some interior photos of the pad, which was originally built in 1941, here.

In the “Deck the Halls” episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, which aired in 1990, Will laments the fact that Aunt Viv and Uncle Phil are less than traditional when it comes to decorating for Christmas. So Viv gives him free reign to adorn their mansion – and soon comes to regret that decision. The Toluca Lake pad was shown a few times in establishing shots of the Banks’ home in the episode.

The property does bear a strong resemblance to the Brentwood estate typically used on the show, as you can see below, but not so much so that eagle-eyed viewers wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.

All of the interiors from the “Deck the Halls” episode were, of course, shot on a studio set.

The property was only utilized for establishing shots on Barely Famous, as well.

All interiors were filmed elsewhere – I believe at an actual house and not on a set, though I am unsure of exactly where.

The pad is also where Juanita Solis (Madison De La Garza) attends a princess-themed birthday party in the Season 5 episode of Desperate Housewives titled “You’re Gonna Love Tomorrow,” which aired in 2008.

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Ashley for asking me to track down this locale and to Pinky Lovejoy, from the Thinking Pink blog, for providing the key that finally helped me find it.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Banks mansion from the “Deck the Halls” episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, aka Sara and Erin’s house from Barely Famous, is located at 10436 Kling Street in Toluca Lake. The estate regularly used as the Banks home on Fresh Prince can be found at 251 North Bristol Avenue in Brentwood.

October 4, 2018October 16, 2019

Olivia, Markie and Penelope’s House from “Truth or Dare”

If Ghostface from the Scream franchise ever called me to inquire “What’s your favorite scary movie?”, things might get a little confusing because the only answer I’d be able to give would be Scream. It’s honestly the sole flick in the genre that I truly love. I did recently watch Truth or Dare, though, and found it to be pretty enjoyable – as well as downright terrifying. I was on the edge of my seat throughout! And yes, it is a bit on the dumb side, but it made for a fun watch – up until the end that is, which was sorely disappointing. Regardless, I thought it would only be appropriate to stalk and blog about a couple of its locales this month in honor of my Haunted Hollywood theme. First up is the Craftsman-style home where doomed college student Olivia Barron (Lucy Hale) lives with her similarly-doomed roommates, Markie Cameron (Violett Beane) and Penelope Amari (Sophia Ali), in the 2018 film. Thankfully, the pad was an easy find.

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In an early scene in which Olivia, Markie, Penelope and their friends leave home to head to Mexico for Spring Break, not only was it apparent that their residence was located on a corner and that the backyard was situated on the side of the property and not the rear (two incredibly helpful identifying markers) . . .

. . . but the signage of an adjacent street, Gramercy Place, was visible.

I ventured right on over to Google to search aerial views for a corner home with a large side yard abutting Gramercy. I decided to start my hunt at the 10 Freeway and first work my way north. If I had no luck in that direction, I’d switch gears and head south. As soon as the aerial imagery came into focus, though, I just about fell out of my chair because there was the Truth or Dare house staring me right in the face, literally one block north of the 10 at 2233 West 21st Street.

The handsome dwelling pops up numerous times in Truth or Dare, though it is never quite explained how three college kids can afford such spacious, fancy digs.

For whatever reason, we are not given a full view of the house in the movie.

Instead, the property is only ever shown in tight, abbreviated shots.

The best glimpse we get of the place is via the rather harrowing scene in which Penelope is dared to walk along the edge of the second-story roofline until she finishes drinking an entire bottle of vodka.

The speared side gate that figures so prominently in the segment isn’t actually there in real life, but was a set piece brought in for the filming.

In actuality, a wooden fence stands in that spot. I could not get a great shot of it due to the car parked in the driveway, but you can just make it out to the right of the pad in the images below.

In another rather fortuitous bit of luck, when I headed over to Image Locations’ filming library to see if I could dig up some photos of the inside of the Truth or Dare house, I was thrilled to discover that the place was actually the very first listing under the Craftsman category! One look at the pictures posted told me that the interior was definitely utilized in the flick. As you can see, the screen shot of the girls’ living room below is a perfect match to this image of the home’s real life living room.

As is this shot of Olivia’s bedroom to this photo of the property’s master suite.

The pad’s actual dining room parallels what was shown onscreen, as well . . .

. . . as does the built-in buffet.

In real life, the 1905 abode boasts 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, 3,126 square feet of living space, and a 0.18-acre lot.

Though a gorgeous example of Craftsman architecture, it is not surprising that the dwelling wound up in a horror film. The place just has a very looming quality about it.

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Olivia, Markie and Penelope’s house from Truth or Dare is located at 2233 West 21st Street in Los Angeles’ Harvard Heights neighborhood.

September 5, 2018September 4, 2018

Jack Ryan’s House from “Clear and Present Danger”

The Grim Cheaper was anxiously awaiting last Friday’s premiere of the new Amazon series Jack Ryan. There was practically a countdown going on in our house. When we finally viewed the first episode, though, my only thought was ‘I want that hour and four minutes of my life back.’ Needless to say, we were not impressed. The show is a bit of a snoozefest. And being that it was lensed outside of L.A. (mainly in Canada and Morocco), I did not even have its locations to distract me. Watching the pilot did remind me of a related site that I stalked back in November 2012 – the Hancock Park pad used for interior shots of the residence belonging to Jack Ryan (Harrison Ford) and his family in the Tom Clancy franchise’s third installment, 1994’s Clear and Present Danger. I first learned about the home thanks to a Los Angeles Times article published in February 2012, shortly after the property was put up for sale for the first time in almost thirty years. Though I promptly added the address to my To-Stalk List and hit the place up later that same year, I somehow forgot to blog about it. With all the interest in the new series, I figured it was the perfect moment to amend that.

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In real life, the massive 3-story Southern Colonial-style home, which was built in 1925, boasts 7,480 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 6.5 baths, a master suite with a fireplace, his-and-her baths and his-and-her walk-in closets, a library/den, a gourmet kitchen, a wine cellar with space for 900 bottles, hardwood flooring and crown moldings throughout, a detached 1-bedroom guest apartment, a pool house with its own kitchen, a large veranda, a rose garden, a fountain, a pool, a spa, a tennis court, a 4-car garage, a motor court, and a 0.86-acre lot. Holy amenities, Batman!

Sadly, thanks to the fact that its entire perimeter is lined with large trees, virtually none of it is visible from the street.

It doesn’t help matters that the residence sits perpendicular to the road, as you can see in the Bing Maps aerial view below. It is a very unique orientation (I have never seen a house situated sideways like that before) which, unfortunately, blocks most of the place from sight.

The views below are the best that can be gleaned of the home’s spectacular Antebellum façade.

Per the Los Angeles Times, Harrison Ford took such a liking to the property during the ten days spent filming on the premises that he offered to buy it. The owners, who purchased the pad in 1983 for $800,000, were not interested in selling, though. Their minds didn’t change until January 2012, when they placed the home on the market for $5.295 million. The real estate agent used the residence’s cinematic clout as a selling point, which is how it wound up being featured in the Times. It sold that same July for $4.32 million. You can check out the MLS photos here.

The dwelling appears numerous times throughout Clear and Present Danger. The kitchen first pops up in a beginning scene in which Jack learns that Admiral Greer (James Earl Jones) is in the hospital. Though the MLS photo below was taken from a slightly different angle than the one from which the segment was shot, you can see that very little of the kitchen had been altered from its onscreen state at the time of the sale in 2012.

Even the home’s highly unique copper and stainless steel range hood appears to have remained untouched. You can just barely see it to the right of Jack’s head in the screen capture below.

The master bedroom is then featured in a later scene in which Jack watches President Bennett (Donald Moffat) being interviewed on TV while getting ready for work. The MLS image below is, again, taken from a different vantage point, but it is still apparent how little of the room has been changed since the shoot.

In the segment, you can even see one of the room’s walk-in closets through the door in the background.

Near the end of the movie, the living room makes an appearance in the scene in which Ryan learns of Admiral Greer’s death. That space, too, looks much the same as it did when Clear and Present Danger was shot in 1994.

The Los Angeles Times article also states, “In another scene, Ford is preparing to go to South America and was filmed packing the homeowners’ actual clothes. The suitcase ended up in a prop truck, and the owners later had to retrieve their belongings from the prop department.” I scanned through the flick twice, though, in preparation for this post and did not come across a scene like that anywhere. There is one segment in which Ford is shown carrying a suitcase down the residence’s sweeping staircase just prior to his trip to Bogota, but no packing scene. I guess that bit wound up on the cutting room floor.

Only the interior of the property appears in Clear and Present Danger. The exterior of the Ryan home is a different location entirely – one I have not been able to track down as of yet.

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Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The house used for interior shots of Jack Ryan’s residence in Clear and Present Danger can be found at 615 South Rossmore Avenue in Hancock Park.

August 31, 2018August 30, 2018

The “Secrets and Lies” Brothel

I found the second season of Secrets and Lies abysmal – which is surprising being that, on paper, it contained several elements that should have made it a sure-fire hit in my book. Murder mystery premise? Check! Shot in L.A.? Check! And it starred both AnnaLynne McCord (from my beloved 90210) and David James Elliott (one of my all-time favorite cuties). Considering I couldn’t have loved the first season more, especially its locations, Season 2 turned out to be a major disappointment. There was one locale I became fairly obsessed with, though – the Cape Cod-style dwelling from which Melanie Warner (McCord) ran a high-class brothel. The house not only figured prominently in the season’s storyline, but was extremely idyllic and picturesque. So I, of course, immediately set about tracking it down, which wound up being a more fruitful venture than watching Secrets and Lies through to the end. (What the heck was that finale, amirite? I was not at all shocked to hear the series was given the ax a few months after its airing. But I digress.)

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On Secrets and Lies, Melanie’s brothel is said to be at 8686 Mint Hill Drive in Charlotte, North Carolina. A fake “8686” address placard was even placed on the exterior of the residence for the shoot.

While watching the episode titled “The Statement,” though, I noticed that “4735” was painted on the curb of a neighboring house barely visible in the background. I had an inkling the brothel was most likely located in Encino, thanks to its seemingly new construction (the city has been a hotbed of new home activity as of late, especially Cape Cod-style properties which pop up on the regular), so I did a search for residences numbered 4735 in the area and was led to a pad at 4735 Yarmouth Avenue. When I dropped Street View’s little yellow man in front of that address and turned him around, there was the Secrets and Lies brothel staring me in the face. In reality, it can be found at 4720 Yarmouth.

My hunch about the pad being newly constructed turned out to be correct. The massive estate was custom-built in 2013 for its then owner. The residence previously situated on the premises (pictured in the Google Street View image from 2012 below) was much more modest in both size and style.

The new house consists of 5 bedrooms, a whopping 7 baths (one is resort-style with a standalone tub), 6,347 square feet of living space, a chef’s kitchen, a walk-in pantry and a butler’s pantry, a double Calacatta marble island (because one is never enough), both cathedral and coffered ceilings, a formal dining room, a breakfast room, multiple fireplaces (including one outside), a master suite with a sitting room and his-and-her walk-in closets (why, oh why, do the Grim Cheaper and I not have those?), a gym, guest/maids’ quarters, and a 0.45-acre lot with a covered patio, a fire pit, a pool (with a slide!), a spa, a BBQ, a sport court, a putting green, and a covered pool pavilion with three – count ‘em! – three TVs. Talk about amenities goals!

The sprawling estate last sold in July 2016 for $3,950,000.

You can check out some interior photos of the place here. And yes, they’re straight up real estate porn!

The brothel popped up numerous times during the second season of Secrets and Lies, beginning with the episode titled “The Detective” in which Melanie’s husband, Patrick Warner (Charlie Barnett), first finds out about his wife’s illicit business venture.

We don’t get a great view of the pad until “The Statement,” though, in the scene in which Patrick’s brother, Eric Warner (Michael Ealy), stops by the property to investigate what has been going on there. As you can see, the residence is currently much more covered over with foliage than it was when filming took place in late 2015.

While the real interior also appeared in “The Statement,” as well as in the episode that followed titled “The Racket,” the shots were far too tight and contained too much movement for me to be able to get any useable screen shots.

Thanks to IMDB, I learned that the same house was utilized as the residence of Roger Murtaugh (Damon Wayans) and his family during Season 2 of the Lethal Weapon television series. (In Season 1, a different home at 3816 Longridge Avenue in Sherman Oaks portrayed the Murtaugh pad.)

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Melanie’s brothel from Secrets and Lies is located at 4720 Yarmouth Avenue in Encino. Ali’s (Elisabeth Shue) house from The Karate Kid can be found right around the corner at 4072 Alonzo Avenue.

August 27, 2018August 29, 2018

“The Princess Diaries” Firehouse

My friend Nat is a definite hostess with the mostest. When I last visited her in San Francisco in October 2016, she not only had champagne chilling in the fridge, but an itinerary of area stalking locales she thought might interest me compiled and mapped out on her phone. The spot on the list I was most excited about seeing was former Engine Company No. 43, where Mia Thermopolis (Anne Hathaway) lived with her mom, Helen (Caroline Goodall), and cat, Fat Louis, in 2001’s The Princess Diaries. This stalker loves herself any adaptive reuse and in person, the firehouse-turned-home did not disappoint. Somehow I forgot to blog about the place after returning home from my trip, though, and was not reminded of it until last Thursday when Mandy Moore, who played meanie cheerleader Lana Thomas in the film, posted a #tbt image of The Princess Diaries July 2001 premiere on Instagram. Seeing the photo brought me right back to the day I stalked the firehouse and I figured there was no time like the present to finally blog about it.

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The Mission Revival-style Engine Company No. 43 was originally built in 1911, back when firemen were still fighting blazes via horse-drawn carriages.

Following its decommission, the 4,800-square-foot wood frame structure was sold to a private buyer at a surplus auction in 1976 and subsequently transformed into a residence.

Today, the unique homestead boasts 8 rooms, 2 stories, a 340-square-foot outbuilding that initially housed Company No. 43’s kitchen, a double 0.11-acre lot, parking for 4+ cars, and original detailing throughout including a fireman’s pole.

The residence last hit the market in late 2014 with an asking price of $2.6 million (at the time it was being utilized as a 2-unit rental property) and was sold the following March for $1.85 million. That’s quite a bargain to call The Princess Diaries firehouse home, if you ask me!

Engine Company No. 43 pops up numerous times throughout the film.

In person, the place still looks much the same as it did onscreen 17 years ago.

Only the front exterior of the structure is featured in the movie.

The home’s massive side staircase also makes a couple of appearances.

Because those scenes were shot from the backyard, I was, obviously, unable to snap any photos matching the angle shown in the flick. But I was thrilled to see that the staircase is visible from the street.

The interior of Mia and Helen’s pad was nothing more than an elaborate set built inside of a soundstage a good 350 miles away at Walt Disney Studios in Burbank. You can check out some fabulous photos of it on art director Caty Maxey’s website.

Engine Company No. 43’s actual interior (which you can see here) is a far cry from its onscreen counterpart. While Mia and Helen’s home is colorful and lovingly cluttered, the firehouse’s real life inside is sophisticated and minimalist. I honestly can’t decide which I like better.

Interestingly, while The Princess Diaries was set in San Francisco, not much of the movie was shot there. Along with Engine Company No. 43, the Anthony R. Grove High School exterior (which Nat took me to stalk many moons ago) can also be found in the City by the Bay at 2601 Lyon Street in Cow Hollow. The school’s courtyard scenes were lensed a bit closer to home, though, at Alverno Heights Academy in Sierra Madre, which I blogged about here.

Big THANK YOU to my friend Nat for telling me about and taking me to this location!

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Engine Company No. 43, aka The Princess Diaries firehouse, is located at 724 Brazil Avenue in San Francisco’s Excelsior District.

August 17, 2018August 16, 2018

Hope and Michael’s House from “thirtysomething”

I think Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick are two of the greatest television producers ever to walk the face of the earth. Oddly though, while I am obsessed with both My So-Called Life and Relativity (as evidenced here and here), I was never a fan of thirtysomething, one of their earliest forays into the small screen. The 1987 series’ failure to resonate was likely due to its focus on parenting – the subject matter was just a little too adult being that I was ten when the show debuted. I did stalk the large Craftsman home belonging to Hope Murdoch Steadman (Mel Harris) and her husband, Michael (Ken Olin), on it upon first moving to Southern California almost twenty years ago, though. I never got around to blogging about the place, but while recently listening to My So-Called Podcast (a My So-Called Life re-cap show hosted by the creators of fave podcast True Crime Obsessed), I started thinking about the property and figured not only was it high time I dedicate a post to it, but to also give the series it starred on another chance.

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Open up any Pinterest board of famous houses and the Steadman residence will inevitably be pictured. The pad is also documented in pretty much every single Hollywood tour book ever written, is talked about regularly in the comments sections of filming location blogs (especially over at Hooked on Houses), and will definitely go down in the annals of history as one of the best-loved TV homes. Oddly though, the exterior of the dwelling was rarely featured on thirtysomething. I scanned through dozens upon dozens of episodes to make screen captures for this post and only came across a few instances of it being shown. I guess Herskovitz and Zwick weren’t big fans of establishing shots in their early days.

Said to be at 1700 Bryn Mawr Avenue in Philadelphia on the series, the home can actually be found at 1710 Bushnell Avenue in South Pasadena.

As chronicled in a 1997 People magazine article titled “That’s My House!”, homeowners Dennis and Donna Potts were first approached about the use of their residence on the series via a location scout who knocked on their door in the summer of 1987. The couple wound up being paid $1,500 for each day of filming that occurred on the premises during the show’s four-year run. I would consider that a heck of lot of money today, but back in the late ‘80s? Dang! According to People, production designer Brandy Alexander keyed in on the property because of its age, saying “We wanted an older house so we could have the characters do renovations.”

The home was utilized solely for exterior sequences on thirtysomething. The interior of the Steadman residence was nothing more than a set (a roofless one, at that) built inside of a soundstage at CBS Studio Center (then called CBS/MTM Studios) in Studio City. Per a 1996 New York Times article, the set was based upon the real life interior of two different Pasadena-area Craftsmen – one of which, I came to discover, is definitely the Bushnell house. As you can see in this image of the property’s built-in buffet, it matches what was shown onscreen perfectly.

The dining room is also a pretty direct match, as you can see in this photo as compared to the screen capture below. You can check out some additional images of the actual inside of the Bushnell house here.

Interestingly, audiences considered the set a bit too upper-crust for the middle-class Steadmans, which proved to be an ongoing source of consternation for thirtysomething producers. As author Elisabeth Bumiller states in the New York Times article from 1996, “Even though the creators let the set deteriorate, making the house look dirtier and more lived in, few people bought it.” Herskovitz extrapolates, “No matter what we did, people thought it was a rich, expensive house.” Considering the property’s wood detailing and plethora of built-ins and the fact that Zillow currently pegs its value at $2.23 million, I’m going to have to side with the fans on this one.

In real life, the 1902 pad boasts 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, 2,760 square feet, a fireplace, stained glass windows, original detailing, a detached garage, a covered patio, 0.17 acres of land, and a garden.

The same property also appeared in the 1990 comedy Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael as the residence of Denton (Jeff Daniels) and Barbara Webb (Joan McMurtrey).

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Hope and Michael Steadman’s house from thirtysomething is located at 1710 Bushnell Avenue in South Pasadena. Elliot (Timothy Busfield) and Nancy Weston’s (Patricia Wettig) pad from the series is one street over at 1700 Fletcher Avenue. Countless other famous homes are located on Bushnell. The Hopper residence from Ghost Dad is at 1621 Bushnell. Joan’s dwelling from the movie is next door at 1615. The Lambda Epsilon Omega fraternity house from Old School is at 1803 Bushnell. The property located at 1727 Bushnell played both Scott Howard’s (Michael J. Fox) house in Teen Wolf and Lorraine Baines’ (Lea Thompson) 1955 home in Back to the Future. George McFly’s (Crispin Glover) 1955 residence from Back to the Future can be found at 1711 Bushnell, while Biff Tannen’s (Thomas F. Wilson) from Back to the Future Part II is at 1809.