Little Fires Everywhere – IAMNOTASTALKER

May 4, 2020May 1, 2020

First Church of Christ, Scientist from “Little Fires Everywhere”

Though I stalked and blogged about Little Fires Everywhere locations ad nauseam, amazingly there is still one spot I have yet to cover – Pasadena’s First Church of Christ, Scientist, which masked as the Shaker Heights courthouse on the new Hulu series. I recognized the building as soon as it came onscreen in episode 7 (though, truth be told, I often get it confused with the similar-looking Second Church of Christ, Scientist in West Adams). Not only did I used to live just a few blocks from the temple and pass by it regularly on my thrice daily walks to Starbucks, but I am very familiar with it thanks to its appearance in Scream 2. I was sure I had taken pictures of the place for my October 2016 write-up on the horror flick’s Los Angeles locales, but when I went to look, I couldn’t find any in my photo library. So onto my To-Stalk List it went. Then, late last week, my friend Kim sent me a text asking about must-see places in Pasadena. Turns out she was heading to Crown City for a little (socially distant) stalking trek the following day. Thrilled, I asked if she might pop by First Church of Christ, Scientist to snap some pics for me, which she gladly did. Thank you, Kim!

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First Church of Christ, Scientist was designed by Franklin Pierce Burnham beginning in 1909. The Classical Revival building was one of the architect’s last works and he, sadly, didn’t live to see it completed. Burnham passed away unexpectedly in December 1909, at which point Marston & Van Pelt (who also gave us Arden Villa from Vacation, the Gilmore mansion from Gilmore Girls, the S.S. Hinds Estate from Beaches, and the A.L. Garford House from Twins) took over.

The structure’s most notable feature is its central dome, inspired by the Church of Christ, Scientist in Boston, aka the religion’s “mother church.”

When it was completed, First Church of Christ, Scientist had the distinction of being Pasadena’s largest building. Though that is no longer the case, it remains one of the city’s prettiest. As such, it is no shock that it found its way to the screen.

The church first pops up as the Shaker Heights courthouse in the seventh episode of Little Fires Everywhere, titled “Picture Perfect,” as the custody battle for Mirabelle McCullough/May Ling Chow (I cannot find the name of the actress who plays her anywhere!) gets underway.

The building also appears a couple of times in the Little Fires Everywhere finale, titled “Find a Way.” It is first shown as in an establishing shot as the McCullough/Chow trial continues.

And then later, after the verdict is announced, the McCulloughs’ lawyer, Bill Richardson (Joshua Jackson), holds a press conference on the front steps.

Only the exterior of the building was used on the series. Interiors were shot elsewhere, though I am unsure of where.

As I mentioned earlier, First Church of Christ, Scientist is also featured in Scream 2. Though little of it can be seen, it is outside of the building that Ghostface gets into a car crash and kills Hallie McDaniel (Elise Neal) in the 1997 horror flick. In the caps below, Hallie is standing at the eastern end of the church’s Green Street side, with the camera facing west.

Jax Teller (Charlie Hunnam) shoots August Marks (Billy Brown) in front of First Church of Christ, Scientist in the series finale of Sons of Anarchy, titled “Papa’s Goods,” which aired in 2014.

That same year, the building posed as Washington, D.C.’s United States Department of Justice at the top of the Season 1 episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. titled “Nothing Personal.”

Huge THANK YOU to my friend Kim for stalking this location for me and taking all of the photos that appear in this post!

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: First Church of Christ, Scientist, aka Shaker Heights courthouse from Little Fires Everywhere, is located at 80 South Oakland Avenue in Pasadena.

April 24, 2020April 23, 2020

The Lemonade Stand from “Little Fires Everywhere”

The Little Fires Everywhere finale left me flabbergasted! Maybe I paid too much attention to the series’ locations and not enough to its character development because I was rather shocked when (spoiler alert!) Elena Richardson (Reese Witherspoon) was painted as the story’s villain. Were we supposed to hate her from the outset? I liked her! Sure she’s high-strung, misguided, and a touch overbearing, but until the end of episode 7, when she revealed Mia Warren’s (Kerry Washington) secret, I never thought of her as bad, per se. In fact, I thought the series was about two very different mothers trying to do their best with the hands they were dealt. Never did I think that audiences were supposed to view Elena as evil and Mia, who stole a baby away from its father (which, to me, is unforgivable), as the show’s heroine. To be fair, I never read the book so I am probably missing some backstory, but wow, that ending was a real disappointment! Even the locations left me wanting, especially the house where the Richardson youngsters set up a lemonade stand at the episode’s opening. I was tipped off to the locale shortly after filming took place thanks to a reader who lives in the area. All I was told about the shoot was that it involved a lemonade stand. I stalked the pad shortly thereafter, was taken by its beauty, and have been eagerly awaiting its appearance ever since. So I was thrilled when the finale opened on a close-up of a lemonade pitcher. That thrill quickly became disappointment – and shock – when I saw that, thanks to extremely tight camerawork, the house in the background wasn’t visible at all! What the what? Despite that, because the residence is so picturesque, I deemed it worthy of a post.

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Built in 1925, the stately 2-story abode boasts a whopping 5,999 square feet of living space, 6 bedrooms, 6 baths, a fireplace, a pool, and a 0.43-acre lot.

But none of it appears in the Little Fires Everywhere finale, titled “Find a Way.”

The episode opens with a flashback scene of the Richardson children in their younger days setting up a “fat-free” lemonade stand. Only a portion of the curved front exterior staircase, a large hedge, and the sidewalk are shown in the segment.

Had the camera panned up a bit, audiences would have been given a pretty great view. Along with the house not being visible, one thing that seems a bit strange is the fact that the Richardson kids set up a lemonade stand in front of a home that is not their own. When I was a kid, my lemonade stands were always in front of my residence or on a street corner, neither of which is the case here. You might be thinking ‘Maybe the segment was supposed to take place in front of the Richardson pad, but for whatever reason, they had to shoot elsewhere, which explains the background not being shown.’ But at one point Lexie Richardson (Jade Pettyjohn) tells her sister, “Run back to the house,” so that’s not it. I don’t really know what the story is with this one.

Considering its beauty, I thought for sure the pad would have been featured in other productions, but I was unable to dig up any additional cameos.

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: The lemonade stand, from the “Find a Way” episode of Little Fires Everywhere, was set up in front of 533 South Muirfield Road in Hancock Park. The Richardson mansion from the series is just two houses away at 511 South Muirfield.

April 17, 2020April 18, 2020

Fair Oaks Burger from “Little Fires Everywhere”

I have never been a burger girl (I know, I know), but I’ve long been familiar with Altadena staple Fair Oaks Burger. The veteran eatery sits at the northern end of Fair Oaks Avenue and, though I never popped in for a bite, I passed by it countless times throughout the 15+ years I lived in the area. So I was thrilled when a reader informed me the place would be making an appearance in the new Hulu series Little Fires Everywhere and promptly ran out to stalk it while in L.A. in January prior to my dad’s surgery. I have been anxiously awaiting its appearance ever since and was happy to finally see it pop up in last week’s episode titled “Picture Perfect.” Though its cameo was brief, I figured the locale was still worthy of a post.

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While it seems like Fair Oaks Burger has been around forever, from what I’ve been able to gather, the restaurant was actually founded in 1984.

The burger stand was the brainchild of the Lee family. Though it always operated under the Fair Oaks Burger name, the Lees leased the restaurant out to a different party in 1998 before ultimately returning to take over the reins again in 2008.

Today, the eatery is run by Jung Ja Lee and her daughter, Christy.

As the name suggests, Fair Oaks Burger serves up standard American fare like hamburgers and onion rings, but there are also a plethora of Mexican and Chinese offerings on the diverse menu.

Unfortunately, the restaurant was closed when I showed up to stalk it, so not only was I unable to sample any of the dishes (which I’ve heard are stellar!) . . .

. . . but I was only able to take interior photos through the front windows.

It is in the drive-thru of Fair Oaks Burger that Lexie Richardson (Jade Pettyjohn) and Brian Harlins (Stevonte Hart) get into a heated discussion concerning race in the “Picture Perfect” episode of Little Fires Everywhere. The burger stand looks much the same in person as it did onscreen, minus the snowy detritus, of course.

Though I learned about the restaurant’s appearance on the show long before it started airing, it wouldn’t have been hard to ID the place had I not. As you can see below, the name “Fair Oaks Burger” was visible on the uniform of the cashier in the scene.

Fair Oaks Burger actually has a slew of appearances on its resume! The restaurant poses as Haddonfield Char-Broiled Burger, where Dr. Samuel Loomis (Malcolm McDowell) first meets with Sheriff Lee Brackett (Brad Dourif), in the 2007 Halloween remake.

It pops up as Big Joey’s, where John (James Brolin) and Joan (Dianne Wiest) painstakingly attempt to grab a milkshake, in the Season 1 episode of Life in Pieces titled “Burn Vasectomy Milkshake Pong,” which aired in 2015.

Javon Beard (Sam Adegoke) also takes his girlfriend for a date at the restaurant, which masks as a fried chicken joint, in 2017’s Michael Jackson: Searching for Neverland. Only the interior of the space was utilized, though.

The establishing shot shown is of Southwest Diner at 761 Nevada Highway in Boulder City, Nevada, which I learned from fellow stalker Walter.

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: Fair Oaks Burger, from the “Picture Perfect” episode of Little Fires Everywhere, is located at 2560 North Fair Oaks Avenue in Altadena. You can visit the eatery’s official website here.

April 8, 2020April 7, 2020

The McCullough Residence from “Little Fires Everywhere”

I knew I would love Little Fires Everywhere long before it premiered. One look at the trailer had me drooling! A confounding mystery at its center, Reese Witherspoon at the helm, a setting that is almost a character, and two of my favorite cuties, Joshua Jackson and Geoff Stults, in lead roles. What’s not to like? (Though I have to say I really could have done without seeing Jackson in those tighty-whities in episode 1. That’s an image I’ll never be able to get rid of!) The fact that the new Hulu series is lensed in Los Angeles is just the cherry on top! I was fortuitously given intel on several of its locales late last year, months before its March 18th debut. So I, of course, did some major LFE stalking while I was in L.A. in January for my dad’s many pre-surgical doctor appointments. One of the spots I hit up was the massive brick estate belonging to Mark McCullough (Stults) and his wife, Linda (Rosemarie DeWitt).

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Though set in the real-life town of Shaker Heights, Ohio, the McCullough pad can actually be found at 120 South June Street in Hancock Park. It is just a few blocks away from the series’ central locale, the Richardson residence, an oft-shot dwelling at 511 South Muirfield Road that is most famous for having portrayed the Tate mansion on the 1970s television series Soap.

The two properties bear an uncanny resemblance to each other, as you can see below – so much so that I am surprised they were both chosen for use on the series. Shaker Heights is repeatedly noted as being “the first planned community in America” on Little Fires Everywhere (in reality, it’s just one of the first), so I guess it somewhat makes sense that two residences would be similar. But from what I’ve seen online of the real town, while all the homes are stately and handsome and quite a few are even Tudor in style, they seem to have fairly distinct looks. So I definitely find the utilization of two such similar spots odd.

The McCullough house initially pops up in the third episode of Little Fires Everywhere, titled “Seventy Cents.” In it, Linda and Mark throw their adoptive daughter, Mirabelle, a first birthday party, which winds up going horribly wrong when (spoiler alert!) her birth mother unexpectedly appears at their door.

The residence is also featured in episode 4, “The Spider Web,” though as was the case in “Seventy Cents,” we only see a very tight shot of it.

Even when Linda is hounded by news crews outside of the house in the episode, we aren’t shown much other than the driveway.

It is a pretty fabulous pad, so it is surprising that we have yet to get a full shot of it.

In real life, the 1927 residence boasts 6 bedrooms, 8 baths, 2 stories, a whopping 6,177 square feet of living space, 2 fireplaces, a 0.40-acre plot of land, a tennis court, a pool, a hot tub, and a detached 3-car garage with what looks to be an in-law unit above it.

As shown in the police report detailing the birthday party fiasco, which Elena Richardson (Witherspoon) reads in “The Spider Web,” the McCullough’s house is said to be at 120 Brighton Road, so the property’s real life address number is being utilized on the series.

I am fairly certain that the actual interior of the home is also being used.

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: Mark and Linda McCullough’s house from Little Fires Everywhere is located at 120 South June Street in Hancock Park. Melanie Cave’s (Elizabeth Perkins) home from Truth Be Told is just up the road at 509 North June Street. And the Richardson residence from Little Fires Everywhere (aka the Tate mansion from Soap) can be found a few streets over at 511 South Muirfield Road.

April 6, 2020April 9, 2020

Hotel Barclay from “Little Fires Everywhere”

Not only do The Morning Show and Little Fires Everywhere share a leading lady, Reese Witherspoon, but the two new series also seem to be sharing locations! Both made use of The Wolves, an insanely beautiful downtown Los Angeles bar that I blogged about in December, as well as Hotel Barclay, a historic and oft-filmed DTLA lodging that I covered way back in 2011. Considering the latter’s recent screen cred, though, I figured it was worthy of a redo.

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Hotel Barclay, which is also referred to as the “Barclay Hotel,” began life in 1897 as the Van Nuys Hotel.

Commissioned by businessman Isaac Newton Van Nuys, the Beaux Arts-style property was designed by the Morgan & Walls architecture firm.

During its early days, the 6-story hotel was the epitome of luxury, boasting a light-filled lobby lined with stained glass windows, a Ladies’ Parlor, a 150-seat formal dining room, a casual grill, a bar, a billiard room, a cigar stand, a newsstand, a buffet, a barbershop, and 160 rooms, each with both a long-distance and local telephone, as well as electric service. Per the Los Angeles Conservancy, the Barclay was, in fact, the first hotel in the city to provide those last two luxuries.

In 1929, ownership changed hands, the fancy dining room was closed and the property re-dubbed Hotel Barclay. The move kicked off a decline not only in the building’s exclusivity, but also its patronage.

Though it fell into some disrepair in the years that followed, eventually becoming a residential hotel (you can read up on the more sordid parts of its history here), the Barclay’s original interior somehow remained intact and still, miraculously, looks much as it did on opening day over 120 years ago!

During my 2011 stalk of the place, the manager invited me inside for a look at the lobby, which is where the interior photos in this post come from. I was practically giddy walking around snapping pictures of all of the historic enclaves! The hotel is like a time capsule come to life!

The Barclay, which, again per the Los Angeles Conservancy, is the city’s oldest continuously operating hotel, was put on the market in 2016 for $40 million and eventually sold in 2018 for $21 million. There are currently plans in the works to turn it into a luxury boutique lodging, though it does not appear as if that project has gotten off the ground yet.

In the “Duo” episode of Little Fires Everywhere, Hotel Barclay stands in for the exterior of New York’s fictional Varick Hotel, where Elena Richardson (Witherspoon) stays while visiting Manhattan.

Interiors were shot at The Mayfair Hotel, another historic DTLA lodging that has been completely revamped since my 2012 post on it, meaning I have to get back out there stat!

On The Morning Show, the Barclay also portrays a New York locale – the Manhattan apartment building where Hannah Shoenfeld (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) lives, said to be at 103 Wooster Street in SoHo. The site initially appears at the end of episode 7, “Open Waters,” in a scene that continues into episode 9, “Play the Queen,” in which Mitch Kessler (Steve Carrel) asks Hannah to come forward and say that the network bosses were complicit in his predatory behavior.

The Barclay is also featured in The Morning Show’s Season 1 finale, “The Interview” in which (spoiler alert!) Claire Conway (Bel Powley) shows up to discover than Hannah has overdosed.

In the episode, it is apparent that a façade containing a fake set of stairs and an elevator was added just beyond the hotel’s front doors for the shoot.

In real life, the Barclay’s front doors open directly into the lobby, as you can see in the photo below.

Only the exterior of the Barclay was utilized on The Morning Show. I believe interior scenes involving Hannah’s apartment may have been shot at the Pan American Lofts, located at 253 South Broadway. You can check out what a unit in that building looks like here.

Hotel Barclay has quite an extensive film and television resume – so much so that it would be impossible for me to chronicle all of its appearances here. A few of the more notable include . . .

Way back in 1975, Det. Ken ‘Hutch’ Hutchinson (David Soul) and Det. Dave Starsky (Paul Michael Glaser) chased a suspect through the hotel in the pilot episode of Starsky & Hutch.

The lobby is used extensively as Café 24 Heures, where Carol Connelly (Helen Hunt) works and where Melvin Udall (Jack Nicholson) regularly dines, in 1997’s As Good As It Gets.

Frank Abagnale Jr. (Leonardo DiCaprio) gets kicked out of the place for writing bad checks at the beginning of Catch Me If You Can.

Hotel Barclay is the Columbian lodging where John (Brad Pitt) and Jane (Angelina Jolie) meet in 2005’s Mr. and Mrs. Smith.

The lobby masks as the café where Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and his friends hang out in the 2009 drama (500) Days of Summer.

Also in 2009, Detectives Flynn (Tony Denison) and Provenza (G.W. Bailey) dine in the hotel’s former restaurant, which sits vacant in real life, in the Season 5 episode of The Closer titled “Tapped Out.”

Leonardo DiCaprio visits the Barclay once again as Cobb in 2011’s Inception. This time it’s posing as a casino in Africa. (One of the hotel’s 2nd floor rooms is also where Cobb was dunked into a bathtub in an earlier scene).

Fellow stalker Anne informed me via a comment on my original post that a now-vacant anteroom at the lodging masked as Drake’s Magic Shop in the Season 3 episode of Castle titled “Poof, You’re Dead,” which aired in 2011. The show’s production team must really love the Barclay! The hotel was also featured in the episodes titled “Ghosts,” “Knockdown,” “Swan Song,” “Sleeper,” “XY,” and “The Blame Game.”

NYPD detectives interview a bunch of clowns outside of the Barclay in the Season 7 episode of CSI: NY titled “To What End,” which also aired in 2011.

In 2018, Hotel Barclay popped up as the supposed San Antonio, Texas-area Gunter Hotel in the Season 2 episode of Timeless titled “The King of the Delta Blues.”

And it portrays the supposed Lahore hotel where Bravo Team captures a terrorist in the Season 2 episode of Seal Team titled “Never Out of the Fight,” which aired in 2019.

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: Hotel Barclay, aka the Varick Hotel from the “Duo” episode of Little Fires Everywhere, is located at 103 West 4th Street in downtown Los Angeles.

April 3, 2020April 2, 2020

Le Petit Paris from “Little Fires Everywhere”

Reese Witherspoon is deserving of a major ‘thank you’ from me! Per the actress’ recent productions, I have been introduced to two fabulous downtown Los Angeles restaurants! The first, The Wolves, popped up twice on her Apple TV+ series The Morning Show. And now, via Little Fires Everywhere, I’ve discovered Le Petit Paris, a striking French brasserie situated on the ground floor of the El Dorado Lofts building. I was actually tipped off about the eatery and the filming that took place there last year by a fellow stalker who works in the area. Though I had never heard of the place, one look at Google images had me transfixed! I was fairly certain I had never come across a more gorgeous space in my life. So my mom and I headed out there for happy hour mid-January while in town for one of my dad’s pre-surgical doctor appointments. We returned the following week for dinner after a long day at the hospital just prior to my dad’s surgery. Neither time did it disappoint.

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The El Dorado Lofts building was originally constructed as the Hotel Stowell in 1913. The 12-story, 264-room lodging, commissioned by financier Nathan Wilson Stowell, was designed in the Art Nouveau and Gothic Revival styles by architects Frederick Noonan and William Richards. You can see what the exterior looked like in its early days here.

Upscale and ornate, the hotel catered to wealthy businessmen called to the area for work, though some celebrities also checked in. Charlie Chaplin even lived there for a time, though, surprisingly, per the Paradise Leased blog, he later described it as “a middle-rate place but new and comfortable.” It sure looks like it was pretty fancy to me! Constructed with all locally-sourced materials, the sweeping two-level lobby boasted a grand staircase, gold leaf columns, and a plethora of Batchelder tilework.

Patronage declined during the Great Depression resulting in the building being sold in 1938. It eventually became a low-budget residential hotel known as the El Dorado. The place continued to deteriorate in the years that followed and by the 1980s, it sat abandoned and remained so for the next two decades. The Gilmore and Associates development team finally stepped in, purchasing the building in 2000 and transforming the former hotel rooms into luxury condos, a project that was completed in 2010. (You can check out images of two of the revamped units here and here.) The once-grand lobby was made available as a possible restaurant space and it was then that David and Fanny Rolland set their sights on it. (You can see what it looked like at the time here.)

The husband and wife duo, who hail from France and previously founded two eateries in Cannes, began transforming the 8,000-square-foot space into a magical Parisian-inspired oasis.

Le Petit Paris opened its doors in September 2015.

To say that the 300-seat restaurant is striking would be a gross understatement.

I mean, come on!

With massive skylights, sparkling crystal chandeliers, two bars, a large patio, a fireplace, a towering split staircase, subtle pink and red accents, and a spectacular mosaic floor, Le Petit Paris is easily one of L.A.’s most gorgeous spots!

I especially loved the painting of Leonardo DiCaprio as Jay Gatsby hung near the bar.

Had to do it!

The food at Le Petit Paris is as delicious as the place is beautiful! Both the executive chef and the executive pastry chef hail from France and all of the menu items are homemade on the premises. During our initial happy hour visit, I had a glass of champagne (natch!) and my mom ordered the carpaccio, which she was thoroughly obsessed with. She talked about it for days afterward! So on our second visit, in which we grabbed dinner in the dining room, she was seriously bummed to discover that the carpaccio was only available on the happy hour menu. (She did love the French onion soup she wound up ordering, though.) The following morning, when we arrived at the hospital, my dad asked how our dinner was. When my mom expressed her extreme dismay at not being able to order her beloved carpaccio, my dad looked down at his hospital gown and many IVS, turned to her and said, “Yeah, I feel so sorry for you.” We laughed about that one for days afterward. Smile

In Little Fires Everywhere, Elena Richardson (Reese Witherspoon) meets up with her former boyfriend, Jamie Caplan (Luke Bracey), at Le Petit Paris, which is said to be in New York, in the episode titled “Duo.”

During our first visit, I asked the bartender about the filming of Little Fires Everywhere and he informed us that while he did not work at the restaurant at the time, ironically he was an extra in the scene that shot on the premises! When he applied for a job at Le Petit Paris months later, he did not realize it was the same place. It was only when he showed up for his interview that he made the connection.

Sadly, Le Petit Paris is currently closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. When the world gets back to normal (oh, what a fabulous day that will be!), I am very much looking forward to sipping a glass of bubbly in one of the restaurant’s plush chairs, soaking up the magical ambiance of the place.

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: Le Petit Paris, from the “Duo” episode of Little Fires Everywhere, is located at 418 South Spring Street in downtown Los Angeles. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here. Please be advised that the eatery is temporarily closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Check its website for any updates.

March 27, 2020March 25, 2020

Mia’s House from “Little Fires Everywhere”

Reese Witherspoon certainly is the darling of streaming TV! First Big Little Lies (that’s HBO, but still), then The Morning Show, then Truth Be Told (which she executive-produced) and now Little Fires Everywhere. The latter, which is currently airing on Hulu, is an adaptation of Celest Ng’s 2017 book of the same name. Centering around two very different families living in the upscale town of Shaker Heights, Ohio (where Ng grew up), the series had me hooked from episode 1. I only grew more obsessed when I learned that filming took place in L.A.! The opulent home where Elena Richardson (Witherspoon) lives is a locale I was familiar with and recognized on sight – it’s the Tate mansion from Soap at 511 South Muirfield Road in Hancock Park. But the charming duplex Elena rents to Mia Warren (Kerry Washington) in episode 1, “Spark,” said to be on Windsor Avenue, is a spot I had never seen before. So I promptly began hunting it down.

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An address number of 2008 was clearly visible next to the front door of the adorable property in several scenes. And thanks to an Architectural Digest article I came across, I knew that Mia’s rental was somewhere in Pasadena. I had an inkling it was actually in South Pasadena, which is often confused with Pasadena proper, so I began my hunt there. The first result kicked back when I searched “2008,” “Street” and “South Pasadena” was a listing for a home at 2008 Fremont Street, which Google Street View showed me was not the right spot. So I started popping the little yellow man over to the adjacent 2800 blocks and found Mia’s pad just 3 blocks over at 2008 La France Avenue. Being that I had no plans to head to L.A. at any point (stay home, people!), I enlisted my friend Anne, of The Drewseum, who lives in the area, to stalk the place (at an appropriate social distance, of course) on my behalf, which she did the very next day! Thank you, Anne!

In real life, Mia’s rental is a single-family home, not a duplex as depicted on Little Fires Everywhere. The reason that producers chose a house to portray the multi-family dwelling was actually derived straight from the script. As Elena explains to Mia upon first showing her the property, “Every house on Windsor has two families in it, even though it appears to only have one. It was actually designed that way to avoid any stigma of renting instead of owning.” On Little Fires Everywhere, Mia and her daughter, Pearl (Lexi Underwood), are said to live in the top unit.

Only the exterior of the house was used in the production.

The inside of Mia’s rental was a set. As production designer Jessica Kender told Architectural Digest, “Mia is more transient, and her house has a warm feel as they travel only with their clothes and her art supplies. The character found furnishings at the thrift shop and turned the sunroom into her art studio. She found natural objects like branches [and] feathers, and hung a fishnet from floor to ceiling and her artwork on the painted accent walls.” Kerry Washington also apparently had a hand in the design of Mia’s place. Kender furthers, “Kerry did not want a lot of furniture in the bedroom as it would feel too permanent. Her character’s space was a bed on the floor, a side table, and artwork above the bed. She didn’t even want incidental chairs to show that [her character] was staying.”

Originally built in 1923, the 2-story traditional-style home boasts 3 bedrooms, 1 bath, 2,160 square feet, a fireplace, and a 0.17-acre lot.

The pad has curb appeal for days, so it is not at all hard to see how it wound up on a drama set in the idyllic community of Shaker Heights.

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

Big THANK YOU to my friend Anne, of The Drewseum, for stalking this location on my behalf and taking the fabulous pictures that appear in this post!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Mia’s rental from Little Fires Everywhere is located at 2008 La France Avenue in South Pasadena. The Simpson house from She’s Out of Control is one block north at 1960 La France.

January 10, 2018April 15, 2020

The “She’s Out of Control” House – Part 2

One of my favorite parts of writing my blog each day is uncovering the various productions a particular locale has appeared in. Some spots are so prevalent on the big and small screen that I inevitably miss a role or two, though. Such was the case with the South Pasadena pad that portrayed the home of the Simpson family in the 1989 coming-of-age comedy She’s Out of Control, one of my very favorite flicks of the era. A couple of months after publishing my post on the property in 2011, I spotted it in Bruce Almighty (as I mentioned here). Then this past December, fellow stalker David, from The Location Scout, published a comment on my site alerting me to the fact that the dwelling had also been featured in Star Kid. When Mike, from MovieShotsLA, texted me not more than two days later to inform me that he had also noticed the place pop up in Little Fockers, I just about fell over and decided it was definitely time for a redux! So here goes!

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Considering the home’s vast Anywhere, U.S.A.-aesthetic and obvious curb appeal, it is not hard to see why location managers have flocked to it like moths to a flame.

Per Zillow, the 2-story 1908 pad boasts 4 bedrooms, 1 bath, 2,800 square feet of living space, and a 0.17-acre lot.

The picturesque property last sold in 1979 for $140,000 and today is worth an estimated $1.6 million, according to Redfin. Not a bad ROI, especially considering all the film income the place has generated over the years!

In She’s Out of Control, the residence is where newly-made-over teen Katie Simpson (Ami Dolenz) lives with her long-suffering father, Doug (Tony Danza), and smart aleck younger sister, Bonnie (Laura Mooney).

Amazingly, the property still looks exactly the same today as it did when the movie was filmed almost thirty years ago. Talk about being frozen in time! I mean, the trees don’t even appear to have grown in the past three decades!

Only the exterior of the residence was utilized in She’s Out of Control. The interior of the Simpson home was nothing more than a studio-built set.

I cannot even express what a shame it is that Katie’s famous staircase doesn’t exist in real life. If it did and I lived in that house, I’d so have Frankie Avalon’s “Venus” playing on loop! The dwelling’s actual staircase is much less impressive than its onscreen counterpart, sadly, and leads both upstairs and into the kitchen, oddly enough. Regardless, the residence is quite charming inside. You can check out some photographs of it here.

The backyard area also appears briefly in She’s Out of Control.

In the 1997 family flick Star Kid, the abode portrays the Griffith family residence, where Spencer (Joseph Mazzello) lives with his father, Roland (Richard Gilliland), and sister, Stacey (Ashlee Levitch).

Though interiors were filmed on a set, said set very closely resembled the actual inside of the house.

The pad also masquerades as the supposed Buffalo, New York-area home belonging to Debbie (Lisa Ann Walter), Grace Connelly’s (Jennifer Aniston) sister, in the 2003 comedy Bruce Almighty.

I absolutely love this candid shot of Jennifer Aniston and director Tom Shadyac taken out in front of the house during the shoot.

As I mentioned in my original 2011 post, the property serves as the Doyle residence, where Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor-Compton) babysits Tommy Doyle (Skyler Gisondo), in Rob Zombie’s 2007 horror flick Halloween.

In the 2010 comedy Little Fockers, the dwelling masks as the Chicago-area “American foursquare” (“also known as a prairie box”) that Greg Focker (Ben Stiller) and his wife, Pam (Teri Polo), are renovating.

The backyard area, which is undergoing a massive pool installation in the film, also makes an appearance.

And Izzy Richardson (Megan Stott) and April Jarvis (Isabel Gravitt) attend a party at the house in the recently-aired episode of Little Fires Everywhere titled “Picture Perfect,” though the exterior is only seen briefly.

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

Big THANK YOU to David, from The Location Scout website, for telling me about the home’s appearance in Star Kid and to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for alerting me to its role in Little Fockers.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Simpson house from She’s Out of Control is located at 1960 La France Avenue in South Pasadena.

March 15, 2017April 15, 2020

The Tate Mansion from “Soap”

I have a pretty amazing memory, especially when it comes to things most people find useless, such as filming locations and movie quotes. I’m like a vault. Or an elephant. Once something enters my brain, it locks in and I don’t forget it. So I was shocked when I received an email a couple of weeks back from a fellow stalker named Andrew who wanted some assistance in tracking down the mansion belonging to the Tate family on Soap. My parents and I watched the 1977 ABC series religiously during my childhood years and The Major (Arthur Peterson) is still one of my favorite television characters of all time. I mean, a guy who regularly walks around with a stuffed dog that he thinks is still alive tends to stay with you. Somewhere along the way, though, I inexplicably forgot about the show and upon moving to L.A., never thought to look for any of its locations. So I was thrilled to receive Andrew’s email and immediately told him I was up to the task!

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At the time I began the hunt, I had no recollection whatsoever of what the Tate residence looked like, so I did a Google search for “the Soap mansion” and was led to this image of a Tudor-style dwelling that someone had snapped on the Dearly Departed tour. Now Dearly Departed is run by my friend Scott Michaels and while I could have easily emailed him for the address, I figured finding the pad on my own would be a snap due to the fact that, because of its stately appearance, I was 99.9% certain it was located in Hancock Park. After quite a bit of time poking around the area, though, I came up completely empty-handed and started to doubt my instincts. So I sent a message to Scott and he wrote back immediately with an answer. As it turns out, the Soap mansion is located in Hancock Park – at 511 South Muirfield Road to be exact. While I was glad to know my hunch was correct, I was at a loss as to how I missed the place during my searching. So thank you, Scott, for leading me to the right spot!

The Grim Cheaper and I headed over to stalk the manse while visiting L.A. two weeks ago and I could not have been more excited to see it in person.

I was floored to discover that very little of the 8-bedroom, 6-bath, 7,426-square-foot property, which sits on 0.41 acres, has been altered in the 36 years since Soap has been off the air. (Please pardon the low-res screen captures featured in this post. I purchased the series on DVD, but unfortunately the discs will not play on my computer. They will play on my regular DVD player, though, so I was forced to snap photographs of my television screen in lieu of making screen grabs. Guerilla blogging at its finest!)

As you can see, the 1929 estate, which was said to be located in Dunn’s River, Connecticut on the series, aka a “neighborhood known as ‘Rich’,” looks exactly the same today as it did onscreen when the show first premiered in 1977.

Soap is not the only production to have been lensed at the handsome brick property. The site portrayed the home of Olivia McKenna (Melissa Newman) in the 1982 horror film One Dark Night. (Huge thank you to Scott Michaels for providing the screen captures below.)

Ian Gallagher (Cameron Monaghan) and Mickey Milkovich (Noel Fisher) robbed the residence in the Season 3 episode of Shameless titled “The Sins of my Caretaker,” which aired in 2012. The Tate mansion was only used for exterior shots in the episode, though. A house around the corner at 434 South Rossmore was utilized for interiors. You can check out what the inside of the Tate dwelling actually looks like here.

The property masked as a church in the Season 1 episode of Grace and Frankie titled “The Funeral,” which aired in 2015.

The residence’s interior was also featured quite extensively in the episode.

The interior of the mansion appeared very briefly as the home of Rose Brady (Rosemarie DeWitt) in the pilot of the new Amazon series The Last Tycoon, which is the only episode of the show that has yet to air.

According to OnLocationVacations, The Last Tycoon has filmed at the residence several times over the past few months, so you can expect to see it pop up regularly as future episodes are released.

In the Season 2 episode of the Netflix series Love titled “Back in Town,” which aired in 2017, one of the mansion’s rooms masqueraded as a therapist’s office.

The estate portrayed Denny’s (Donal Logue) house in the Season 1 episode of The Unicorn titled “The Client,” which aired in 2020.

And it is currently being featured as the home of Elena Richardson (Reese Witherspoon) and her family on Little Fires Everywhere. Of choosing the property for the Hulu series, production designer Jessica Kender told Architectural Digest, “We saw this big beautiful Tudor-esque house built in the 1920s. It was in this little pocket on top of a hill with a fountain in the middle. Everything about it read very old money, it has this beautifully moneyed perfection type of vibe.” And don’t worry – the mansion wasn’t really burned down for the shoot. Instead, producers had the facade re-created inside of a soundstage for the fire scenes.

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

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Andrew for asking me to track down this location and to Scott Michaels, of the Find a Death website and the Dearly Departed tour company, for finding it! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Tate mansion from Soap is located at 511 South Muirfield Road in Hancock Park.