Los Angeles filming locations – Page 5

June 25, 2009June 25, 2009

The National Lampoon’s Vacation House

And speaking of National Lampoon’s Vacation, last week fellow stalker Owen made it his mission to locate the Griswold home from the 1983 comedy flick. Amazingly enough, he ended up finding the house pretty much right away! For this particular movie location expenditure, Owen decided to “stalk outside the box”, so to speak, and started looking through Vacation’s IMDB message boards to see if they provided any clues as to the home’s locale. He ran across a thread entitled “Griswold House 2008″ where, lo and behold, someone had actually posted recent pics of the home. Owen ended up contacting the owner of those photos who told him that one evening, while stuck in traffic after attending a concert in Los Feliz, he happened to gaze to his left where he saw, and immediately recognized, the Griswold Family home. How this guy recognized the house from a movie filmed way back in 1983 while not actively looking for it, is beyond me. My hat is definitely off to him!!!! 🙂

So, Owen did a little bit of digging and ended up finding the house, exactly where the man told him it would be – in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles. In reality, the home is a long way off from Chicago, Illinois, where the Grisworlds supposedly lived in Vacation. 🙂 I am happy to report that the house looks EXACTLY the same today as it did back in 1983 when the movie was filmed there. Hallelujah! 🙂 It is absolutely AMAZING to me that in twenty-six years virtually nothing about the house has been changed.

Well, except for one thing. For some incredibly odd reason, the owners did make one major addition to the Griswold home. Since the filming, a large fence which surrounds the perimeter of the property and blocks the view of the house from the street, has been added. I wonder if the fence was installed to ward of potential stalkers, like myself. 😉 Either way, even with the addition of the fence, the home is still largely recognizable from the film.

Even the street out in front of the house, where we see Clark pull up in the Wagon Queen Family Truckster, seems to be exactly the same as it appeared in Vacation.

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The National Lampoon’s Vacation house is located at 2310 North Vermont Avenue in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles.

June 17, 2009August 17, 2009

The “Joey” Apartment Building

For quite a while now I have been begging Mike, from MovieShotsLA, to locate the apartment building where Joey Tribbiani lived with his nephew, Michael, on the Friends spin-off Joey. So, imagine my surprise when I came across the address randomly in The Ultimate Hollywood Tour Book. In the book, the address is listed as an almost after-thought, which is why it took me so long to notice it. LOL Apparently, most stalkers aren’t as interested in finding Joey filming locations as I am. 🙂 LOL Being that the show was canceled after only 14 episodes, I can’t say I’m all that surprised. But, because Joey was always my favorite Friends character (besides Rachel, of course!), I absolutely loved that show! “How you doin’?” 😉

On the show, Joey lived in a large apartment building named Monroe Manor, located directly beneath the Hollywood sign. Apparently, production designer John Schaffner chose the 50s style building because of its mid-century appeal. He said, “I didn’t want to do another Los Angeles show in a Spanish house or Craftsman cottage. I was more inspired by architects like Frank Lloyd Wright and Rudolph Schindler, who worked in natural materials that create a more casual feeling.” Monroe Manor definitely has a unique appearance to it and evokes a feeling of old time Hollywood.

The Monroe Manor complex was constructed in 1949 and is made up of ten terraced, duplex-type units built right into a Hollywood hillside. Each of the twenty apartments in the complex is entirely different in size and style. A side view of the building, which shows its tiered design, is pictured above. As you can see in the above photograph, the building is actually much larger than it’s front exterior would lead you to believe and much larger than it appeared onscreen in Joey. I read online that Monroe Manor was supposedly modeled after my girl Marilyn Monroe, but – call me crazy – I just don’t see the resemblance. 😉 LOL I think it is safer to say that the building was most likely just named after her. 🙂

In an interesting side note, after Joey was cancelled in 2004, a paramedics company in Charlotte, North Carolina purchased the entire set from the show (pictured above) to be used for their training simulations! Apparently, simulations are acted out on the former Joey set and recorded for later review and evaluation. How incredibly cool is that?? I so think I need to go work for that company!!!! North Carolina, here I come! 😉

In an even more interesting side note, when Matt LeBlanc first came to Hollywood, long before hitting it big with Friends, he actually lived at Monroe Manor!!!!! It was a complete coincidence years later when production designer John Schaffner chose the building to be used as the residence of struggling actor Joey Tribbiani. This was definitely a case of art imitating life! 🙂 Ironically, my good friend Maura has been asking me to find Matt LeBlanc’s house for some time now – so, Maura, this one’s for you. 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Joey apartment building, aka Monroe Manor, is located at 2232 North Beachwood Canyon Drive in Hollywood. Joey lived in Apartment #7. In real life, Matt LeBlanc lived in #16.

June 11, 2009June 10, 2009

The Bedtime Stories School

Last week, while searching for the Bedtime Stories house, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I decided to also try to find the school featured in the movie. We started our search by looking at street views of different elementary schools in the Los Angeles area, but pretty much came up empty-handed. So, I decided to once again ask my friend who had worked on the movie if she happened to remember where the school was located. She, of course, did not, but what she did remember was that the school from the movie wasn’t actually a school at all, but a public library. She said that the exterior of the library had been changed quite extensively for the filming and made to look a lot bigger than it actually is. Two whole wings were actually added to one side of the building to make it look more like an elementary school. So, armed with that little bit of information, off I went to search local libraries. And, sure enough, it wasn’t long before I found the right one! 🙂

In real life, Daniel Webster Elementary School is, in fact, the Los Angeles Memorial Branch Library which was constructed in 1930. It was built to honor twenty alumni of Los Angeles High School, which is located directly across the street, who had lost their lives in the first World War. Students had originally purchased a small parcel of land across the street from the high school in 1922 and turned it over to the Park Commission with the decree that a memorial park, in honor of all alumni who had fought in the war, would be built on the premises. Today, that park is known as L.A. High Memorial Park. The following year, students and alumni purchased an additional parcel of land adjacent to the park. In 1929, the City of Los Angeles decided to build a library on that adjacent piece of land and commissioned the architecture firm Austin and Ashley, who had also designed the high school, to build it. The library was designed to match the English Tudor style architecture of the high school, which had been built twelve years beforehand. A stained glass window, designed by Judson Art Studio, with the names of the twenty alumni who had lost their lives, was installed in the adult reading room. The library officially opened to the public on April 29, 1930.

Sadly, the original Los Angeles High School building was badly damaged in the 1971 Sylmar Earthquake and was quickly condemned by the City of Los Angeles. Preservationists tried to stop the demolition of the beautiful building, but a mysterious fire gutted the school, thereby sealing its fate. The building was completely demolished later that same year and a huge blue and gold cement monstrosity was built in its place (pictured above). That monstrosity even pops up in Bedtime Stories, in the scene when Adam Sandler picks his niece and nephew up from school. You can see pictures of what Los Angeles High School used to look and pictures of its demolition here and here. So sad!!!!

Ironically enough, the original Los Angeles High School building was a frequent filming location, showing up in A Kiss Before Dying (1956), Compulsion, and the television series Room 222. You can watch the intro to Room 222, in which the school is featured prominently, here.

As you can see in the above screen capture and photographs, the Los Angeles Memorial Branch Library looks much different and much smaller in person than how it appeared onscreen. You can also see the wing that was added to the right side of the building.

The front door of the library is very recognizable from the film, though. 🙂

Because the real interior of the library looks nothing like an elementary school, the interior scenes were shot about 20 miles away at McKinley School in Pasadena. And, according to the librarian who I talked to while stalking the place, the interior of the Memorial Branch Library, but not the exterior, was featured in the 1987 movie Baby Boom. Go figure. 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Bedtime Stories school is really the Memorial Branch Library located at 4625 West Olympic Boulevard in Los Angeles. The interior school scenes were filmed at McKinley School located at 325 South Oak Knoll Avenue in Pasadena.

June 4, 2009June 3, 2009

The Cellular House

Back in September of last year, while stalking the house from fave 80s movie License to Drive, I just happened to stumble upon another famous movie home – Kim Basinger’s residence from the 2004 flick Cellular. Well, truth be told, “stumble upon” isn’t exactly the terminology I should be using here. 🙂 The real story is that while taking pictures in front of the License to Drive house, the owner came outside and struck up a conversation with me. And while he had no idea that he was living in a famous home, he did tell me that the movie Cellular had been filmed on the street directly behind his! So, of course, off I went to stalk that house! But somehow, in all this time, I never got around to blogging about it. So, here goes. 🙂

In the very beginning of Cellular, Kim Basinger, aka Jessica Martin, is kidnapped out of the large, traditional style home pictured above. Her only hope for rescue lies in reluctant hero – and total cutie – Chris Evans, whose cell phone accidentally intercepts a 911 call Jessica is trying to make.

In the movie, we are told that Jessica’s home is located at 3270 Bonhill Road in Brentwood. And, while a Bonhill Road in Brentwood does actually exist, the street numbers there don’t go higher than 800. In actuality, the home where filming took place is located about three miles east of Brentwood.

And, as you can see in the above screen capture, producers even went so far as to paint the number 3270 on the curb in front of the home! Which would have made locating this house extremely difficult for stalkers!!!!! So, I definitely owe a big THANK YOU to the owner of the License to Drive house. 😉 If you haven’t seen the movie Cellular yet, I highly recommend doing so! While the campy thriller has to be one of the cheesiest movies ever made, I have to say that I absolutely LOVED it! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Cellular house is located at 527 Loring Avenue in Los Angeles.

May 28, 2009August 12, 2009

The Taken Mansion

This past weekend, my fiance and I rented the movie Taken – which was phenomenal, by the way!!!! – and I immediately recognized a home featured in it that was originally used in a Season One episode of fave show Beverly Hills, 90210. I have been dying to stalk the home for the past few years, but, unfortunately, it is located inside of a gated community and I haven’t been able to get past the guards. Yet!!! 🙂 But that’s why God created real estate websites – which is where I got the above photo. 🙂 The home, which was built in 1915 and is located inside of the exclusive Fremont Place complex in Hancock Park, has been featured in DOZENS of productions over the years. It has five bedrooms, four and a half bathrooms, boasts 8,240 square feet, and sits on almost two acres! Besides being featured on the silver screen, the home was also lived in by both Mary Pickford and Mary Miles Minter at different points in time.

In the movie Taken, the mansion stood in for the home of Liam Neeson’s ex-wife, Lenore, and her new uber-wealthy husband, Stuart. The mansion shows up several times in the movie, most notably as the site of Liam’s daughter’s birthday party.

Way back in 1990, the mansion was featured as the home of Brenda’s shoplifting pal Tiffany Morgan in the Season One episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 entitled “Every Dream Has It’s Price”. Ironically enough, though, no actual filming of Beverly Hills, 90210 took place at the home. A very brief establishing shot of the mansion was used in the episode, but all of the actual filming took place in the backyard of an Altadena home located directly across the street from Casa Walsh.

The same house also showed up in the Season 7 episode of CSI: Miami entitled “Dead on Arrival”. In the episode, the mansion was used as the setting of the fictional Bachelor-esque reality series “The Marrying Kind”.

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The mansion was also used in the Season Six episode of Cold Case entitled “November 22” as the present day home of pool shark Baltimore Red. And, as if all of that was not enough, in 2008 alone the home was featured in an infomercial, a DiGiorno pizza commercial, and episodes of Prison Break, Monk, Numbers, and the episode of The Mentalist entitled “Ladies in Red”. How cool would it be to own that place?!?!? Oh, I would be in heaven!!!! 🙂

According to The Ultimate Hollywood Tour Book, the movie War of the Roses was also filmed in the Fremont Place community, just a few houses down from the Taken mansion. But, if you compare the above screen capture to the aerial image of the property supposedly used, the two houses don’t quite seem to match. So, unless some major renovations were done to the home since the filming of War of the Roses took place, I don’t think The Ultimate Hollywood Tour Book’s information is correct. 🙁 Supposedly, the house from the Rocky movies is also located on the same street, but I haven’t been able to verify that yet. You can see photographs of some of the Fremont Place homes that have been used for filming and a really cool schedule of the 2007 and 2008 productions that filmed there here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Taken mansion is located at 56 Fremont Place in Los Angeles. The supposed War of the Roses home is located just down the street at 119 Fremont Place West. Please keep in mind that both of these houses are located inside of a gated, private community and trespassing is not allowed. 🙂

May 13, 2009May 13, 2009

My Day on the Set of Chelsea Lately!

As I mentioned in Monday’s post, this past weekend was a complete whirlwind for me!! But getting engaged wasn’t the only exciting thing that happened. No, the excitement of the weekend for me actually started on Friday when I got to spend a day on the set of my new favorite show, Chelsea Lately!!! A few weeks back while my friend Blaze and I were waiting in line to watch a live taping of Chelsea’s show, one of her Production Assistants came outside to tell us about a new bit that was being added to the show that they needed volunteers for. The new segment involves Chelsea pretending to be a detective who solves weird and obscure mysteries. The P.A. wanted to know if any of us in the audience had any mysteries in our life that needed solving. Now, mind you, Blaze had spent that entire morning while in line complaining about the fact that his agent never sends him out on acting auditions. So, I immediately raised my hand and yelled out, “My friend here has a mystery that needs solving! He needs to know why he never has any auditions!” 🙂 The P.A. really liked Blaze’s “mystery” and took down his information and said she might be calling to book him for a segment. Sure enough, last week he got a call saying they would be filming his mystery on Friday if he was available!!!! And, being the nice guy that he is, Blaze asked the P.A. if I could tag along. She said that while I couldn’t watch the actual taping, I could hang out in Chelsea’s green room all day. So, of course, I did! And, let me tell you, I could not have been more excited!!!! I literally didn’t sleep a wink the night beforehand!!!!! LOL

Blaze and I arrived at the Digital Media Center, where Chelsea Lately is taped, at around 10:30 a.m. on Friday morning and were led immediately to the green room. For those of you not familiar with industry lingo, a “green room” is a sort of waiting room for performers. It’s a place where actors or musicians can hang out and relax before going on stage. Chelsea’s green room is not actually green, but silver, and I could not have been more FLOORED to be seeing it in person!!! I couldn’t help but think about all of Chelsea’s famous guests who had sat in that room at one time or another. The fact that I was now sitting there was mind-boggling to me! I mean, who in the heck am I to be in the green room of the Chelsea Lately show????

Since I knew beforehand that I would not be able to watch the actual taping of Blaze’s segment, the two of us decided to really live it up while waiting in the green room! And, of course, I just had to take pictures of absolutely EVERYTHING! 🙂

Sitting in the make up chair;

modeling with the celeb photographs on the wall;

a super cute pic of Chelsea and Chuy;

the green room door with Michelle Trachtenberg’s name on it (she was the celebrity guest the previous evening);

and just hanging out. 🙂

But my favorite part of the green room had to be Chelsea’s “guest book” – a little book which all of the celebrity guests sign before going on air to be interviewed.

I cannot tell you how much fun I had going through that book and reading all of the messages that celebs had written to Chelsea. Included in the book were messages from Jamie Kennedy, Roselyn Sanchez, Dr. Drew, Jenny McCarthy, Perez Hilton, Khloe Kardashian, Kris Kardashian, Taryn Manning, former Spice Girl Mel B, Vivica A. Fox, and, my personal fave, The Hills’ Lo Bosworth (pictured above).

At one point during the day, frequent round table guest and Chelsea Lately “Staff Homosexual” Guy Branum walked by the green room and I just about died of excitement!!!! I was too scared to talk to him, so Blaze ran outside and asked him to pose for a picture with me. YAY! Guy was super nice in person and actually ventured into the green room quite a few times during the day. 🙂

But the biggest highlight of the day for me was when Chuy, Chelsea’s assistant, visited the green room to introduce himself to everyone. Chuy was dressed up in a little policeman outfit for the segment they were taping and looked absolutely adorable!! Not only did he give me a hug, but he also kissed me on the cheek and I could not have been more excited! He seemed like such an incredibly sweet man! All in all, I had an ABSOLUTE blast spending the day at the Chelsea Lately show!! Ironically enough, though, Chelsea ended up running out of time and wasn’t able to tape Blaze’s segment. But you know what that means, don’t you??? Yes sir, we get to go back another day to do it all over again! YAY! My fingers are crossed that this time I’ll get to meet Chelsea!!!!!! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Chelsea Lately is filmed at the Digital Media Center, which is located at 12312 West Olympic Boulevard in Los Angeles. You can get tickets to watch a live taping here. You can catch the Chelsea Lately show weeknights at 11 p.m. on E!

April 30, 2009December 14, 2009

The Chelsea Lately Show!

My celeb obsession as of late is the E! Channel talk show Chelsea Lately and its comedienne host Chelsea Handler. I only discovered the late night show about a month ago and I’d say it took me, oh, maybe one episode to become absolutely, one hundred percent addicted! I honestly do not understand how I was not watching this show from the very beginning!!! As Liz Smith recently stated in the New York Post, “Where have I been all of Chelsea Handler’s life?” She is HILARIOUS! I have never laughed out loud in my entire life the way I do while watching her show. In fact, one of my good friend’s husbands has banned her from reading Chelsea’s books in bed at night, because she cracks up so much that she shakes the bed and keeps him up. LOL LOL LOL I’ve even made it a goal to be a guest on the round table portion of Chelsea’s show before the end of the year. Hey, if Perez Hilton can do it, I sure can! Trust me, I’m a lot funnier than he is! Anyway, when I heard that audience tickets for Chelsea Lately were available online, I just had to sign up for some so I could stalk it! I enlisted my good friend, Blaze, to come along with me to the taping, as he is also a huge fan of the show. I mean, honestly, who isn’t?

So, bright and early Tuesday morning, Blaze and I headed out to West L.A. for the show. The taping was scheduled to begin at 1:30 p.m. and we were informed to arrive at the studio early to ensure getting a seat. So, having the type-A personality that I have, I made sure Blaze and I arrived at the studio with plenty of time to spare. In fact, when we parked our car in the audience parking lot at approximately 10:30 a.m., I was afraid we were in the wrong place as there was no other car in sight (empty parking lot pictured above)! LOL As we walked into the studio lobby (three hours early), the guard on duty looked at us with confusion on his face. “You do know that you’re extremely early?” he asked us. “Usually people don’t start lining up until around 12:30 p.m.” LOL LOL LOL True to his word, Blaze and I were the only people in line until just around that time.

At just about 1:30 p.m., the security guard led us through a metal detector and then into the studio. Unfortunately, no cameras of any kind are allowed in the studio, so I had to settle for taking some pictures outside while waiting in line. 🙂

The studio is SUPER TINY, but otherwise looks pretty much exactly as it does on TV. There was only room for what looked to be about 75 audience members, so the whole thing was a pretty intimate affair. Every audience member had a great view of the stage, no matter where they were sitting. Because we were the first people in line, Blaze and I were seated in the second row. The first row is reserved for VIPs. Even though all of the seats in the studio are pretty much great, I was FLOORED to be sitting so close to the front. The show pretty much got started immediately after the audience was seated, which I was shocked about. It’s a VERY fast taping without a lot of waiting around, which is very different from how live tapings are usually done. I’ve sat in the audience of quite a few sitcoms in my day and the filming of those can take up to eight hours!!!!! The taping of Chelsea’s show took all of about 25 minutes. I’m not joking! Love it!

Chelsea’s round table for the evening consisted of comedians Sarah Colonna, T.J. Miller, and Josh Wolf and they were all brought out first .

Then, Chelsea’s assistant, Chuy, whom I LOVE, was introduced. Of course, Chuy is ADORABLE in person!!

Then, my girl, Chelsea walked out. In person, Chelsea is tall, but very thin, which I was actually surprised about as she is constantly joking about her weight. I thought maybe there was something we weren’t seeing on TV, but she’s actually quite thin in real life. And super cute! After Chelsea was introduced, she performed her opening monologue which she nailed in just one take! As an actress, I was really impressed with this, as I know sometimes it can take up to 30 takes to get a shot right.

After the monologue, Chelsea walked over to the round table and began filming the portion of the show where she and her comedian guests make fun of celebrities and pop culture. Which, in my opinion, is the best part! 🙂 The taping of Chelsea Lately is pretty much done in real time, as if it was being broadcast live. It was so weird to see. There were no “Cuts!” or re-shoots – Chelsea and her guests were pretty much just left alone to do their thing. And they were HILARIOUS! There was actually a comedian/emcee on duty, whose job was to tell us what was going on during the taping and also to tell us when to laugh. Before taping began, he said about a hundred times, “You really have to support Chelsea and her guests and laugh even if you do not think something is funny.” Does he not realize what show he is working for? It’s ALWAYS funny! Literally every time anyone made a joke, the emcee would mime laughing so that we would know what to do. LOL I really wanted to tell him, “Look, this is Chelsea Lately – trust me, we’re gonna laugh! You don’t need to do ANYTHING!” And that’s pretty much exactly what happened. Everyone in the audience was cracking up the entire time, but it sure wasn’t because of the emcee. 🙂 Note to the Chelsea Handler staff – if you ever need to cut costs, the emcee job is pretty much irrelevant. LOL

During the commercial break before the celebrity guest was introduced, Chelsea came out into the audience to sign books for anyone who brought one. Which I, of course, did! 🙂 Chelsea signed my book and was very nice, but sadly it was over too fast. I didn’t even get to tell her how much I love her show. 🙁 Blaze said to me “That’s the fasted I’ve ever seen anyone sign an autograph in my life!” LOL

Chelsea’s celebrity guest during our taping was My Name Is Earl’s Nadine Velazquez and, sadly, I wasn’t really impressed with her at all. I got the impression that she really thought a lot of herself and, to be honest, she was a boring interviewee. : ( Such a bummer!! Chelsea was hilarious, as always, but I wish we had gotten to see a better guest.

After what was about a six minute interview with Nadine, Chelsea performed her closing monologue (again, only one take!) and that was it. The show was over. As always, at the end of the taping, Chuy came out into the audience to shake everyone’s hand, including mine. 🙂 Chuy really seemed like a sweet, sweet man. I absolutely loved him! One girl in the audience asked if she could have a hug instead of a handshake and he happily obliged. It was really cute. 🙂

I HIGHLY recommend stalking the Chelsea Lately show if you are in the L.A. area!!!! Not only is it a great show to watch live, but the taping moves extremely fast, so it doesn’t take up your whole day, as the taping of other shows do. I would recommend booking tickets at least six weeks in advance, as it took me about ten attempts before I was actually able to book them.

You can barely see the back of my head in the above screen capture. LOL 🙂

UPDATE – This blog post was written over six months ago and I have heard that Chelsea Lately’s audience has grown significantly during that time. So, to be on the safe side, if you are attending a taping, I would show up at least three hours prior to showtime to ensure yourself a seat.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Chelsea Lately is filmed at the Digital Media Center, which is located at 12312 West Olympic Boulevard in Los Angeles. You can get tickets to a Chelsea Lately taping here. I’d recommend showing up about 1 and 1/2 hours prior to the taping to ensure yourself a seat. If you don’t live in the area you can still catch Chelsea weeknights at 11 p.m. on E!

April 23, 2009April 23, 2009

The Knots Landing Cul-De-Sac

The first time I heard about the wildly popular 80s primetime soap opera Knots Landing was when it was referenced in the Season 2 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 entitled “Wild Fire”. In the episode, after getting into a fight with Brenda over Dylan McKay’s affections, Emily Valentine announces “This isn’t Beverly Hills, it’s Knots Landing! When I got to school they should have given me a scorecard instead of a class schedule so I could keep track of everyone’s boyfriends.” LOL Love it! But for my good friend and fellow stalker, Kerry, during her teenage years Knots Landing was her 90210. She loved the show so much, in fact, that one day she actually called up the production company and asked where the famous cul-de-sac from the series was really located. And they told her! See why we’re such good friends? 🙂 So, since I was in the area this weekend, I decided to stalk it!

The Knots Landingseries, which has the distinction of being one of the longest running primetime dramas in the history of television, centered around the happenings of a group of families living in a beachside cul-de-sac named Seaview Circle. In real life that cul-de-sac is known as Crystalaire Place and it is not located anywhere near the beach. It’s actually in Granada Hills in L.A.’s San Fernando Valley. Producers actually edited the beach into the series opening credits to make it appear as if the cul-de-sac overlooked the ocean. LOL

Even though I’ve never seen even one episode of the series, I was still super excited to be stalking the famous Knots Landing cul-de-sac. All I could think about while I was there was how cool it would be if Wisteria Lane from TV’s Desperate Housewives was a real life residential street that fans could visit. 🙂 I realize that people can stalk the Wisteria Lane set at Universal Studios, but somehow it’s just not the same.

All in all, five houses on Crystalaire Place were used in the filming of Knots Landing, including the Ewing house;

the Mackenzie house;

the Cunningham house;

the Avery house;

and the Ward house.

I am happy to report that aside from some minor changes like paint color, all of the houses are very recognizable from the series. 🙂 If you were at all a fan of Knots Landing, I highly recommend stalking Crystalaire Place. And please excuse some of my photos. I stalked the cul-de-sac on a very bright day and in some of the pictures my camera picked up quite a glare. 🙁

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Knots Landing cul-de-sac is really Crystalaire Place in Granada Hills. Gary Ewing’s house is at 16966 Crystalaire Place. Karen Mackenzie’s house is at 16972. The Avery house is number 16975. The Cunningham house is at 16969. And the Ward home can be found at 16961.

April 17, 2009March 11, 2018

“Smoke Gets In Your CSIs”

A few months ago while doing some cyberstalking, I came across this fabulous blog post about a photographer named Rob Greer who was lucky enough to have my fave show CSI: Miami film right in his studio. So, of course, I just had to stalk the place. 🙂 Especially since the episode which was filmed at the studio, entitled “Smoke Gets In Your CSIs”, was one of my favorite episodes from this season! In the episode, which aired in February of this year, the team investigates a physician who performs illegal organ transplant surgeries right in his own home. The episode was pretty much a thrill a minute and I was literally on the edge of my seat the whole time – especially when Eric Delko finally professed his love to Calleigh Duquesne. I have been waiting for those two to get together for YEARS! 🙂

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In “Smoke Gets In Your CSIs”, Rob Greer’s photography studio was used as the Miami home of the episode’s renegade doctor. Filming took place in both the interior and the exterior of the studio. I actually find it odd that they chose this location to stand in for a physician’s home, as neither the interior nor the exterior look much like a home at all. The place actually looks more like a warehouse than anything else. But, due to the illegal surgeries that the physician was performing in the episode, I am guessing that the producuers wanted his home to have a cold, urban, industrial feel to it. You can see some great photos of the photography studio here.

Rob Greer’s photography studio is located in the Los Angeles Brewery Arts Complex. The complex, which can best be described as a sort of compound or artists’ enclave, is an eclectic mix of buildings, warehouses, and offices. Apparently, the buildings house mostly live/work units and are available for lease to artists only – ie. graphic designers, painters, photographers. The complex is located in an industrial part of town, out in the middle of nowhere, which led me to wonder how in the heck a location scout would even find out about it. But my boyfriend said since the compound has such a unique look, it is probably used in productions all the time and therefore is well known in the scouting world. The entire area is gated and not usually open to the public, but luckily when I showed up to stalk the place it was open for an art gallery showing. 🙂 Yay! I can’t really recommend stalking the complex, though, because besides the fact that it is normally closed to the public, there also just isn’t really that much to see.

Rob Greer’s blog post about the CSI: Miami filming is a great read with tons of pictures and I highly recommend giving it a glance. According to Rob, set dressers came to his studio the day before the filming and spent quite a few hours dressing the space with living room furniture and a large chandelier so that it would look more like a home. But the following morning, when the director arrived on set, he took one look at the living room set-up and wanted it all removed! LOL Only in Hollywood! Rob Greer’s experience with the cast and crew of CSI: Miami was exactly on par with my encounter with them a few months back. He said they were incredibly nice and friendly, especially David Caruso, whom he describes as “really warm and genuine”. 🙂 I’m telling you, the CSI: Miami cast is like no other!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Rob Greer Photography is located at 678 South Avenue 21 in Los Angeles. Be careful not to trespass on the property, though, because, as I mentioned above, the area is not usually open to the public.

April 13, 2009November 24, 2013

The L.A. Confidential Liquor Store

Got an email a few weeks back from fellow stalker Tracey who gave me the address of a film location that Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I had been trying to find for months – the liquor store from the 1997 movie L.A. Confidential! Mike and I had known from doing some online research that the liquor store featured in the movie was not actually real. Instead, producers had built a fake liquor store inside of a real storefront somewhere in the L.A. area. According to this film locations book, that storefront was located somewhere on Larchmont Avenue, but as so often happens with location books, that information was not correct. Mike and I had actually driven up and down Larchmont Avenue several times one day looking for the storefront without any luck. We even stopped in and spoke with the editor of the Larchmont Chronicle to see if she knew where the filming of the liquor shop scenes had taken place. LOL It wasn’t long before we figured out that the L.A. Confidential liquor store was not actually located on Larchmont Avenue and for a while the two of us put the liquor store quest on the back burner.

So you can imagine how excited I was to receive an email from one of my readers named Tracey, who, after several years of being on the prowl for the elusive liquor store, had finally located it! Turns out she had taken a surface street to work one morning hoping to avoid freeway traffic and, lo and behold, drove right past the liquor store and recognized it immediately! Yay! It’s amazing how often that actually happens. You spend hours upon hours seaching high and low for a location, only to randomly drive by it one day. In this city, you’ve just gotta keep your eyes open! 🙂 In real life the L.A. Confidential liquor store is a furniture repair store named Ramon’s Cane Shop. And it looks like it has been around forever. (In the above photo I am actually standing in front of the wrong storefront. I’m such a blond! Although in real life both storefronts are occupied by Ramon’s Cane Shop, in L.A. Confidential only the middle storefront was used.)

The liquor store shows up twice in L.A. Confidential. It is first featured in the scene when Bud White, while picking up some liquor for a Christmas party, first lays eyes on Veronica Lake lookalike Lynn Bracken.

After leaving the liquor store, Bud spots Pierce Patchett’s car with what appears to be a very beat up Susan Lefferts inside. A brief fight ensues before Lynn Bracken walks outside and explains that all is not as it seems. In the scene, Pierce’s car was parked in the driveway of a parking lot located just to the left of Ramon’s Cane Shop.

The liquor store pops up once again a bit later on in the movie, when Bud White stops by to try to dig up some information on Lynn Bracken.

I must say it was VERY cool to be stalking the L.A. Confidential liquor store, especially since – aside from the fact that it’s not really a liquor store – it looks pretty much exactly the same as it did onscreen. Sadly, though, the shop was closed when we were stalking it, and since the windows were completely covered, I didn’t get to peek inside. Looks like I’ll have to take another stalking trip out there!! Big, big THANK YOU to Tracey for tipping me off to this location. 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The L.A. Confidential liquor store, aka Ramon’s Cane Shop, is located at 1279 South Cochran Avenue in Los Angeles. The area where Pierce Patchett’s car was parked when Bud White confronts him is located just to the left of the cane shop.