movie homes – Page 3 – IAMNOTASTALKER

November 10, 2011October 18, 2011

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

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

October 31, 2011September 29, 2017

The “Mommie Dearest” House

Before I get started, I would like to wish all of my fellow stalkers a VERY happy Halloween! And while I will, of course, be posting pics of me and the Grim Cheaper in costume, because I always write my blogs at least one day ahead of time, I will not be able to do so until later this week. It is for that reason that I will be extending my Haunted Hollywood postings through Wednesday, which is a good thing as I am having an absolute blast writing them! But for now, on with today’s post! Another older movie that I watched in preparation for my Haunted Hollywood theme was 1981’s Mommie Dearest, the alleged true story of the abuse of Christina Crawford at the hands of her mother, screen legend Joan Crawford. While watching the flick, I immediately recognized the house where Joan and Christina lived, as not only had it appeared in the pilot episode of Beverly Hills, 90210, but several tour books had also long ago incorrectly identified it as the Fresh Prince of Bel Air mansion. I had stalked and blogged about the Bel-Air-area property way back in April of 2008, but it was not until later that same year that I discovered that the actual Fresh Prince house was located in Brentwood (at 251 North Bristol Avenue – just a block and a half away from Christina Crawford’s actual childhood home, ironically enough). Anyway, because my 2008 write-up on the house was incredibly brief, I decided that it was most definitely worthy of a re-post. So here goes!

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In Mommie Dearest, the huge Colonial-style house pictured above is where Joan Crawford (aka Faye Dunaway) teaches her adopted daughter Christina (aka a phenomenal Mara Hobel) the perils of using wire hangers. And while the movie and Faye’s performance have largely been described as “camp”, I did not find them to be so at all. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie and all of the performances and became so fascinated by the story that I ran right out to my local library to check out the book on which it was based.

In real life, the Mommie Dearest house, which was originally built in 1942, boasts 5 bedrooms, 6 baths, 6,077 square feet, and a 1.5-acre corner plot of land. And, amazingly enough, as you can see above, it still looks almost exactly the same today as it did in 1981 when the movie was filmed! Only the front of the property appeared onscreen, though.

For all of the backyard scenes, producers chose to film at a different colonial-style mansion located in Beverly Hills. Remarkably, the backyard where filming took place looks almost identical to Joan Crawford’s real life backyard, which you can see a photograph of here.

I found the backyard location thanks to an old real estate listing which mentioned the property’s appearance in Mommie Dearest, so I, of course, just had to run right out to stalk it, as well!

And, as you can see in the above photographs from the listing, the backyard still looks EXACTLY the same today as it did onscreen in Mommie Dearest Even the backyard furniture is still the same! LOVE IT! LOVE IT! LOVE IT!

I am fairly certain that the interior scenes were all filmed on a soundstage and not at either of the actual homes.

As I mentioned above, the Mommie Dearest house was also used in the pilot episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 as the home of Marianne Moore (aka Leslie Bega), where the Walsh twins, Brandon (aka Jason Priestley) and Brenda (aka my girl Shannen Doherty), attended their very first Beverly Hills party.

The home’s hot tub area also appeared later on in the episode in the scene in which Marianne invited Brandon over for a date.

You can see that hot tub in the above aerial view.

And, oddly enough, a very brief establishing shot of the residence was used in another episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 – the Season 7 episode titled “All That Jazz”, in which it was used as the New Orleans hotel where David Silver (aka Brian Austin Green) took Donna Martin (aka Tori Spelling) for the night.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Mommie Dearest house is located at 417 Amapola Lane in Bel Air. The home used for all of the movie’s backyard scenes is located at 355 South Mapleton Drive in Beverly Hills.

October 19, 2011September 29, 2017

Laurie Strode’s House from “Halloween”

A couple of months ago, fellow stalker Mikey, from the Mike the Fanboy website, clued me into an INCREDIBLY cool little bit of Haunted Hollywood stalking information that I had not been previously aware of. Apparently, the real life owners of the home that stood in for the Strode residence in the 1978 classic horror film Halloween are so extremely stalker-friendly that they provide a supply of plastic pumpkins on their front porch all year long for fans of the movie to pose with in photographs. Well, as you can imagine, I was absolutely bowled over with excitement upon hearing this news and decided that, even though I had previously stalked the Strode house and blogged about it briefly way back in October of 2008, that it was most-definitely worthy of a re-visit. So I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to South Pasadena to do just that this past weekend.

And, sure enough, as soon as we arrived at the home, I spotted an assortment of plastic foam pumpkins sitting on a chair on the property’s front porch, along with a framed sign.

That sign reads, “Yes this is the scene with Jamie Lee Curtis from the 1978 Halloween. You may borrow the pumpkin. Have a good time.”

The sign also includes a still from the movie so that fans can refer to it while posing on the front walkway. How incredibly cool are these homeowners??? Big, huge, Andre-the-Giant-sized props go out to them for embracing the cinematic history of their residence and allowing stalkers to share in some of the fun. If I owned a famous movie home, you can bet your bottom dollar that I would be doing this same, exact thing. LOVE IT! LOVE IT! LOVE IT!

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The supposed-Haddonfield, Illinois Strode residence was featured several times in Halloween. It first appeared in the beginning of the movie in the scene in which Laurie Strode (aka Jamie Lee Curtis) is reminded by her father, Morgan Strode (aka Peter Griffith), to drop a key off at the “Meyer’s place”. According to the fabulous website The Cabinet, that particular scene was the very first of the entire movie to be shot. And according to IMDB’s Halloween trivia page, director John Carpenter hired Jamie Lee Curtis, in what was her very first movie role, as a sort-of nod to Alfred Hitchcock who had cast Jamie’s mother, Janet Leigh, in the iconic role of Marion Crane in Psycho. In another homage to the legendary Hitchcock classic, Carpenter also named the character of Michael Meyer’s psychiatrist “Sam Loomis” after Marion’s lover in Psycho.

The Strode residence next shows up in the scene in which Laurie returns home from school, after having been accidentally scared by Sherriff Leigh Bracken (aka Charles Cyphers).

And finally, it appears in the scene in which Laurie waits, pumpkin in hand, to be picked up by her friend Annie Brackett (aka Nancy Kyes) to go baby-sitting.

It is that scene that the homeowners allow you to recreate with their fake pumpkins. SO INCREDIBLY COOL!

Amazingly, the Strode residence looks pretty much exactly the same today as it did in 1978 when Halloween was filmed. The north-facing side of the house is the area that appeared in the movie.

For whatever reason, the east-facing side, which is pictured above, was not seen in Halloween. According to fave website Zillow, in real life the property is not a single-family home, but a multi-occupancy dwelling which features three separate units.

And while I cannot say for certain that the home’s actual interior was used in the filming, I am guessing that it was.

On a very random side-note – while doing some research on Halloween earlier today, I almost fell off my chair upon discovering that Kyle Richards (star of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, whom I loathe more than there are words in the English language to express – I honestly do not think there has ever been a bigger b*tch in the history of reality television, but I digress) had played Lindsey Wallace, the little girl whom Annie babysat, in the 1978 flick.

And on a Halloween side-note – as the GC and I were driving away from the Strode residence, we spotted a house that was decorated beyond belief for the upcoming holiday!

As you can see above, the amount of detail that went into the embellishment of the home is utterly incredible!

I was shocked to discover that the fence which runs along the perimeter of the property and reads “cemetery” above the gate was actually just a prop! I mean, I, of course, realized the “cemetery” part was decoration, but the entire fence? WOW!

And it was not until I was about to leave that I realized the home’s brick façade was also just a decoration! As you can see in the above photograph, the entire front of the residence has been wrapped in some sort of plastic covering. Talk about going all out!!! If I ever have a house, you better believe that this is what it is going to look like every year come Halloween! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Laurie Strode’s house from the original Halloween movie is located at 1115 Oxley Street in South Pasadena. The massively-decorated-for-Halloween home that we stumbled upon is located right around the corner at 1130 Diamond Avenue in South Pasadena.

October 10, 2011September 29, 2017

The “Double Indemnity” House

A couple of weekends ago I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to the Beachwood Canyon area of the Hollywood Hills to stalk one of the most famous macabre movie locations of all time – the Spanish-Colonial-Revival-style abode that was featured in Double Indemnity. Incredibly, up until a few weeks ago I had yet to see the 1944 film noir classic, which was directed by Billy Wilder, even though it is largely considered to be one of the greatest movies of all time. And I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised when I finally did sit down to watch it. Not only did the film not seem dated, but I was absolutely riveted to my chair for the entire 107 minute run time. Sure, some scenes were a bit cheesy – especially the love scenes between Pacific All Risk Insurance Company salesman Walter Neff (aka Fred MacMurray) and disgruntled housewife Phyllis Dietrichson (aka Barbara Stanwyck), not to mention Walter’s silly pronunciation of the word “baby” – but overall the film was incredibly well-done and thoroughly suspenseful, which is shocking being that it was made almost a full seven decades ago. If you have yet to see it, I cannot more highly recommend doing so!

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In Double Indemnity, the supposed-Glendale-area hillside abode pictured above is where Phyllis lives with her abusive oilman husband, Mr. Dietrichson (aka Tom Powers), and his daughter, Lola Dietrichson (aka Jean Heather). It is while walking up to the home at the very beginning of the film that Walter Neff utters what is arguably its most famous line. Of the residence, he says, “It was one of those California Spanish houses everyone was nuts about ten or fifteen years ago. This one must have cost somebody about thirty thousand bucks – that is if he ever finished paying for it.” It is at the house that Phyllis and Walter first meet and fall in love. The two later cook up a scheme to purchase an accident insurance policy for Phyllis’ unknowing husband and then murder him to collect on the claim. The “double indemnity” of the title refers to a clause in the policy which stipulates that in the case of certain more unlikely accidents, i.e. a death on a train, the amount of the insurance payout would double.

Amazingly enough, as you can see above, the house has remained virtually unchanged since 1944 when Double Indemnity was filmed. I simply cannot express how cool I think that is!

The only real difference is the garage door, which has since been modernized. Otherwise though, the home looks pretty much exactly the same in person as it did onscreen in all of its black-and-white glory.

The view has obviously changed a bit in the ensuing years, though. Winking smile

The screenplay for the movie, which was co-written by Raymond Chandler and Billy Wilder, was based on an 8-part serial written by James M. Cain that was first published in Liberty Magazine in 1936. Cain based his story on the real life 1927 murder of Albert Snyder by his wife Ruth Snyder and her lover Henry Judd Gray, the trial of which Cain had covered while working as a journalist in New York. And amazingly enough, it seems as if the house that wound up being used in the movie was the very same house that Cain had written about in his story. In the book he calls the abode the “House of Death” and, of it, he says, “I drove out to Glendale to put three new truck drivers on a brewery company bond, and then I remembered this renewal over in Hollywoodland. I decided to run over there. That was how I came to this House of Death, that you’ve been reading about in the papers. It didn’t look like a House of Death when I saw it. It was just a Spanish house, like all the rest of them in California, with white walls, red tile roof, and a patio out to one side. It was built cock-eyed. The garage was under the house, the first floor was over that and the rest of it was spilled up the hill any way they could get it in. You climbed some stone steps to the front door, so I parked the car and went up there.” Cain’s words could not be a more perfect description of the residence that appeared in the movie, which leads me to believe that the abode must have served as the inspiration for the home in the story and that Cain then later suggested the place to producers to use for the filming. So incredibly cool!

According to an October 17, 2009 Los Angeles Times article, an almost exact replica of the interior of the house was recreated on a soundstage at Paramount Studios in Hollywood for the filming.

As you can see above, in real life the home’s front door is much closer to the bottom of the central staircase than it was onscreen. The actual residence, which was built in 1927 and boasts 4 bedrooms, 3 baths, and 3,077 square feet of living space, currently belongs to interior designer/set decorator Mae Brunken. You can check out some fabulous photographs of the actual interior of the property here. (The photograph of the home pictured above does not belong to me, but remains the sole property of the Los Angeles Times and photographer Ricardo DeAratanha).

In an interesting twist, as you can see above, producers had the address number of the Double Indemnity house changed from “6301” to “4760” for the filming. I would not have thought that sort of thing happened back in the days before DVD players, pause buttons, and the internet, but all evidence to the contrary.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Double Indemnity house is located at 6301 Quebec Drive in the Beachwood Canyon area of the Hollywood Hills.

October 7, 2011September 29, 2017

The “Doppelganger” Mansion

Another location from the 1993 thriller Doppelganger that I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to stalk this past weekend was the mansion where Holly Gooding (aka Drew Barrymore) grew up in the flick. I found this locale, once again, thanks to Tony, my friend and fellow stalker who has the amazing Flickr photostream which I mentioned yesterday. Incredibly enough, Tony has somehow managed to track down almost every single location featured in Doppelganger and he was kind enough to share them all with me so that I could blog about them during my Haunted Hollywood month – well, every location that is except for the supposed-Arcadia-area Our Lady of Mercy Psychiatric Institute which I have now become just a wee bit obsessed with finding. But I digress. Anyway, last weekend, after stopping by the apartment building featured in the movie, the GC and I headed a short two miles north to Los Feliz to do some stalking of the mansion.

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The Doppelganger mansion is featured twice in the flick. It first pops up in the scene in which Holly and her new roommate, struggling mystery writer Patrick Highsmith (aka George Newbern), meet with Holly’s family lawyer, Mike Wallace (aka George Maharis), in order to get the keys to her former home which has been locked up and sealed since her father’s murder four years prior. While there, Patrick says that the abode is “right out of a Bette Davis movie” – a line which I, of course, loved. Winking smile

The large, English-country-style abode later pops up in the movie’s climactic, rather odd, and definitely spooky final scene in which Holly returns to her childhood home in the middle of the night to confront her evil doppelganger and finally end the nightmare in which she has been living.

Patrick, of course, follows Holly and, carrying a baseball bat, climbs up the side of the house and through a second story window in the hopes that he can save her.

I believe that the interior of the mansion that was shown in the movie was just a set and not the home’s real life interior.

According to fave website Zillow, the Doppelganger mansion, which was originally built in 1923, boasts 5 bedrooms, 2 baths, and 3,500 square feet of living space, although I would have guessed it to be much, much larger. And amazingly, the property still looks almost exactly the same today as it did 18 years ago when Doppelganger was filmed. Even the three large circular trees which flank the home’s front door and front window still look exactly the same. Love it!

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Tony for finding this location! You can check out Tony’s FANTASTIC Flickr photostream, which features countless filming locations, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Doppelganger mansion is located at 2421 Glendower Avenue in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles. Donna Martin’s house from the B.Y.O.B. episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 is located just two doors south of the Doppelganger mansion at 2405 Glendower Avenue. And the so-called “Los Feliz Murder House”, which I blogged about back in January, is located just around the corner at 2475 Glendower Place.

October 4, 2011September 29, 2017

The Stimson House from “House II: The Second Story”

After stalking Mills View, the Monrovia-area residence that appeared in the 1986 movie House, I started doing some online research on the flick’s 1987 sequel, House II: The Second Story, and came across information about the Stimson House, an incredibly unique, castle-like property located in Los Angeles’ West Adams District. I was immediately intrigued by the home and, because it has been featured in several spooky productions over the years, figured it would fit right in with my Haunted Hollywood theme and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the place a short time later. Incredibly though, thanks to the abode’s unusual beauty and prominent history, this was one location that he actually did not mind being dragged to!

The 3 1/2-story Stimson House was originally built in 1891 as a retirement home for Chicago lumberman/financier Thomas Douglas Stimson. The 12,800-square-foot, 30-room property was designed in the Richardsonian Romanesque style by architect Carroll H. Brown and featured an Arizona red sandstone façade, a 4-story octagonal corner tower, stained glass windows, gabled Gothic arches, Palladian windows, and brick chimneys. The interior, which was dubbed “a shrine to lumber” by Jake Doherty in a January 1994 Los Angeles Times article, consisted of oak flooring, hand-carved wood-paneled walls, beamed ceilings, custom-built china cabinets, and made use of over 8 different kinds of wood, including ash, sycamore, walnut, gumwood, birch, mahogany, oak, and monkeypod. Construction on the residence was completed in 1893 and cost approximately $130,000, making it, at the time, the most expensive home in all of Los Angeles. After Stimson passed away in February 1898, his widow, Achsah, continued to live at the residence until her death in 1904. The property was then sold and underwent several ownership changes until 1940, at which time it was purchased by the USC chapter of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity for $20,000. For the next 8 years, the Stimson House became the site of boisterous parties, elaborate pranks, and late-night frolicking.

At the time, Carrie Estelle Doheny, the widow of oil tycoon Edward L. Doheny, lived in the mansion located directly behind the Stimson House and was not at all happy with her rowdy neighbors. After filing countless complaints with the USC president, she decided to take matters into her own hands and offered the Pi Kappa Alphas $70,000 for the residence. They agreed, moved out, and Carrie promptly deeded the home to a much quieter set of neighbors, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet. The Sisters transformed the abode into a convent where they lived until 1969, at which point they allowed the neighboring Mount St. Mary’s College to use the property as student housing. In 1993, the Sisters returned to the house and set about an extensive $1 million restoration of the property. They continue to live there to this day and often rent the place out for filming in order to offset the mansion’s expensive upkeep and to finance their retirement fund. The Stimson House was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on March 30, 1978 and became Los Angeles’ 212th Historic-Cultural Monument on May 16, 1979.

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In House II: The Second Story, the Stimson house was the haunted residence inherited by Jesse (aka Arye Gross) and his girlfriend, Kate (aka Lar Park-Lincoln).

The Aztec-inspired interior appears to have been a set, though, as it does not match up with these interior photographs of the actual home.

In the Season 2 episode of The Bionic Woman titled “Black Magic”, the Stimson mansion was used as the island home of wealthy inventor Cyrus Carstairs (aka Vincent Price). Both the exterior . . .

. . . and the interior of the property were featured in the episode. And, according to the aforementioned Los Angeles Times article, Vincent Price became so enamored of the house’s echo-y acoustics during filming that he returned there later to tape a few productions of his own.

In the 1989 horror movie After Midnight, the Stimson house appeared in the segment titled “The Old Dark House” as the spot where Joan (aka Nadine Van der Velde) and Kevin (aka Marc McClure) sought help after getting two flat tires while driving late at night. Ironically enough, though, only the front porch and the interior of the Stimson house appeared in the flick.

As you can see above, for the wide angle shots of the mansion’s exterior another location altogether was used.

In the Season 1 episode of Pushing Daisies titled “The Fun in Funeral”, the Stimson House stood in for the Schatz Brothers Funeral Home in Couer d’Couers, where grave-robbing twins Lawrence and Louis Schatz (who were both played by Brad Grunberg) worked and also died.

The home’s real life interior was also used in the episode.

Two television mini-series, 1976’s Captains and the Kings, and 1977’s Testimony of Two Men, were also filmed at the mansion, but unfortunately I could not find copies of either of them to make screen captures for this post.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Stimson house, from House II, is located at 2421 South Figueroa Street in the West Adams District of Los Angeles.

September 15, 2011September 14, 2011

The “Beaches” Mansion

One location that I have been asked about repeatedly ever since I first started my blog almost four years ago (and I CANNOT even believe that it has been that long!!!) is the large Tudor-style mansion where Hillary Whitney Essex (aka Barbara Hershey) lived in the 1988 tearjerker Beaches. And while it had long been noted on various websites that the property was located somewhere in the Pasadena area, try as I might, I just could not seem to track the place down. Then this past January a fellow stalker named Alain who lives in France emailed me to ask about a mansion that had appeared in the Season 7 episode of Columbo titled “Try and Catch Me”. He mentioned that the same estate had also been used in Beaches. I explained to Alain that I had been trying to find that particular home for years, but had had absolutely no luck. Flash forward 9 months to this past Tuesday afternoon when I received another email from Alain, this one announcing that he had found the property! Whoo-hoo! How he managed to locate it while living thousands of miles away in France, when I failed to do so while living right here in Pasadena, is absolutely beyond me! My hat is most-definitely off to you, Alain!

So I, of course, ran right out to stalk the place early Wednesday morning. Sadly though, as you can see above, hardly any of the property is visible from the street.

But, as I have said before, that is why God created aerial views. In real life, the 7,479-square-foot, 8-bedroom, 4-bath home, which was built in 1916 by the noted Pasadena architecture firm Marston & Van Pelt (who also designed the Twins mansion), is known as the S. S. Hinds Estate. The property was named for one of its original owners, actor Samuel S. Hinds, who is best known for playing Peter Bailey, George Bailey’s (aka James Stewart’s) father, in the 1946 classic It’s A Wonderful Life. According to my buddy E.J. over at The Movieland Directory, Hinds lived in the home from the 1920s until the 1940s. Ironically enough, Hinds was originally a very prominent attorney who lost his fortune in the stock market crash of 1929. He was able to keep his Pasadena manse during that difficult time by renting it out to various boarders. Finding himself destitute at the age of 54, he decided to abandon law and try his hand at acting and it was not long before Hollywood came a’callin’. Hinds went on to star in over 200 films before his death in 1948.

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In Beaches, the S.S Hinds Estate stood in for the supposed Atherton-area residence where Hillary lived both as a child and an adult.

The house’s front gate was used quite prominently in the movie in the scenes in which Hillary checked her mailbox in anticipation of receiving letters from her lifelong best friend, Cecilia “CC” Carol Bloom (aka Bette Midler).

And while the gate is thankfully visible from the street and still looks EXACTLY the same today as it did in 1988 when Beaches was filmed, sadly, as you can see above, Hillary’s mailbox is not there in real life. I am guessing that it was just a set piece that was brought in solely for the filming.

The real life interior of the property was also used in the flick.

Thanks to fave website OnLocationVacations, I learned that the Season 3 episode of Mad Men titled “My Old Kentucky Home” was also filmed at the S.S. Hinds Estate. In the episode, the property stood in for the country club where Roger Sterling (aka John Slattery) and Jane Siegel (aka Peyton List) hosted their Kentucky Derby party.

As you can see in the screen captures above, one of the hallways that appeared in Beaches was also used in Mad Men as the spot where Betty Draper (aka January Jones) first met Henry Francis (aka Christopher Stanley).

I am fairly certain, though, that the club’s bar, where Don Draper (aka Jon Hamm) spent most of his evening, is not actually located inside of the Hinds Estate, but is a real life bar somewhere in Los Angeles.

And again thanks to OnLocationVacations, I also learned that the estate was used as the Turnbill Mansion, which Leslie Knope (aka Amy Poehler) fought to save, in the Season 2 episode of Parks & Recreation titled “94 Meetings”.

Amazingly, the very same hallway that appeared in both Mad Men and Beaches was also featured in Parks and Recreation.

As was the stairway from Beaches.

And the front gate, which Leslie Knopes barricaded herself to, thinking it opened in the middle, on Parks and Recreation. LOL

A large painting of the mansion was created for the filming of Parks and Recreation, as well. Being that I doubt the painting would ever be used again on the series, I am wondering if the owners of the Hinds Estate got to keep it. So cool if they did!

Unfortunately, I was not able to find a copy of the Columbo “Try and Catch Me” episode anywhere, so I could not make screen captures of the Hinds Estate’s appearance in it for this post.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Alain for telling me about this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Beaches mansion is located at 880 La Loma Road in Pasadena.

September 8, 2011September 7, 2011

Wattles Mansion from “Troop Beverly Hills”

After re-watching Troop Beverly Hills a couple of weeks back and subsequently stalking the mansion where the Nefler family lived, I became just a wee bit obsessed with tracking down some of the other locales featured in the 1989 flick. Thankfully IMDB had quite a few sites listed on its Troop Beverly Hills filming locations page, one of which was Wattles Mansion – a historic and oft-filmed at Hollywood estate that, amazingly enough, I had never before heard of. So I immediately dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the place the following weekend.

Wattles Mansion was originally built in 1907 by Myron Hunt and Elmer Grey, the legendary Los Angeles-area architects who were also responsible for designing the Ambassador Hotel, the Huntington Art Gallery, Pasadena’s Wentworth Hotel (now the Langham), Occidental College (aka California University from fave show Beverly Hills, 90210), the California Institute of Technology, and the Beverly Hills Hotel. The large Mission Revival-style dwelling was commissioned by a wealthy Omaha, Nebraska native named Gurdon Wallace Wattles to be used as his family’s winter residence. The estate, which sat on 49 acres and was called“Jualita”, featured 6,167 square feet of living space, seven bedrooms, seven bathrooms, a wood-paneled library with a hand-painted ceiling, black-and-white checkerboard marble flooring, a terracotta tile terrace, wood-beamed ceilings, and a full basement. The home’s extensive 5-acre formal garden area consisted of a Japanese Garden, an Italian Rose garden, a Spanish garden, an American garden, a palm court, sparkling ponds, and several fruit orchards. In an amazing show of generosity, Gurdon opened his beloved gardens to the public upon moving into his new home and it was not long before they became a wildly popular tourist attraction.

After Gurdon passed away in 1932, his widow, Julia Vance, and their son, Gurdon Wallace Wattles Jr., continued to live at the mansion. In 1968, they sold the property to the City of Los Angeles and the Department of Parks and Recreation subsequently took over. Sadly, the city lacked the money necessary to maintain the large estate and it quickly fell into a serious state of disrepair. Gurdon’s formerly glorious gardens were taken over by drug dealers, squatters, and vandals, and what they didn’t destroy, a series of mudslides in the 1980s did. Thankfully, in 1983 the Hollywood Heritage preservation group leased the property and began a massive restoration project before moving in and using the historic mansion as their headquarters. It was at that time that the abode, which is a City of Los Angeles Cultural Monument, became a popular filming location. For reasons that are not entirely clear, Hollywood Heritage was served with an eviction notice in 2008 and finally vacated the property in May of 2009. The mansion is currently being maintained by the Los Angeles Department of Parks and Recreation once again. (I snapped the interior pictures through one of the estate’s front windows.)

The piece of property, which you can see in the above aerial view, is now made up of three separate areas.

The section denoted with a pink square above, which measures 4.2 acres, was turned into a community garden in 1975 and has been continuously maintained by local residents. It is private and not open to the public. The middle section, which is denoted with a blue square, is a park known as Wattles Garden Park. It is open to the public daily from dusk until dawn. The mansion and formal garden area, which is denoted with a purple square above, is not open to the public, but is available for use as a special event and wedding venue.

And although the formal gardens are not accessible to the public, from what was visible from the park, that area once again appears to be in a sad state of disrepair. According to sign a posted on the premises, a restoration is currently in progress, so hopefully they will not look that way for long.

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Wattles Mansion actually stood in for two different locations in Troop Beverly Hills. It first appeared as the Beverly Hills Rest Haven where Phyllis Nefler (aka Shelley Long) and her group of Wilderness Girls performed their community service requirement.

While there, Phyllis and her daughter, Hannah (aka Jenny Lewis), taught a group of senior citizens how to do the “Freddy” dance, so I, of course, just had to do a little recreation of that scene while I was stalking the place. Winking smile

In a later scene, the northern-facing side of Wattles Mansion and the formal garden area were used as the location of the “khaki” fashion show that was hosted by Robin Leach and featured cameos by Pia Zadora and Dr. Joyce Brothers.

Wattles Mansion was also used extensively as the demon-haunted home inherited by Jonathan Graves (aka Peter Liapis) in the 1985 horror-comedy Ghoulies.

The real life interior of the mansion, including the kitchen area and the formal library, appeared in Ghoulies, as well. You can check out some great interior photographs of the place here.

Randomly enough, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit’s Mariska Hargitay made her feature film debut in Ghoulies. She is pictured in the grey sweater above. The actress was just 21 at the time that the movie was filmed.

Wattles Mansion also appeared in Diana Ross’ ultra-weird 1985 music video for her single “Eaten Alive”, which was co-written by none other than the King of Pop himself, Michael Jackson.

Eaten Alive Music Video–Filmed at Wattles Mansion

You can watch that video by clicking above.

In the 1989 movie Rain Man, Wattles Mansion stood in for the institution where the psychiatric evaluation of Raymond Babbitt (aka Dustin Hoffman) took place.

Wattles was where Jose (aka Jacob Vargas) first met Maria (aka Jennifer Lopez) in the 1995 flick My Family.

And finally, the mansion popped up in the Season 3 episode of The O.C. titled “The Man of the Year” as the supposed Montecito-area boarding school attended by Marissa Cooper’s (aka Mischa Barton’s) sister, Kaitlin (aka Willa Holland).

Until next time, Happy Stalking – and Happy Voting! Don’t forget to vote for me today to be the new face of About Me! Smile

Stalk It: Wattles Mansion, from Troop Beverly Hills, is located at 1824 North Curson Avenue in Hollywood. The interior of the mansion and formal garden areas are not accessible to the public, but Wattles Park is open daily from dawn until dusk. You can visit the official Wattles Mansion website here.

September 2, 2011September 2, 2011

Aunt Mitsy’s House from “Rumor Has It”

One location that I have been on the lookout for for what seems like ages now is the home where Aunt Mitsy (aka Kathy Bates) lived in the 2005 movie Rumor Has It. Even though I was never a particularly big fan of the flick, I pretty much fell in love with Aunt Mitsy’s adorable little bungalow – and her huge front porch – at first sight and have wanted to stalk it ever since. Especially being that my girl Jen Aniston had filmed a scene on the premises. Because no apartment number, street sign, or even a full view of the exterior of the property was visible at any point during the movie, though, I figured this was one locale that would be virtually impossible to track down.

Enter fellow stalker Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, who emailed me last week to ask for some help in locating the home where Grandma Bunny (aka Betty White) lived in the 2010 romantic comedy You Again. Well, I took one look at the screencap he sent me (pictured above) and realized that, while it was not the same house featured in Rumor Has It, the two properties looked amazingly similar – which got me to thinking that they might just be located in close proximity to each other, quite possibly even on the same street. So I immediately began searching for the You Again house and also got fellow stalkers Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and Owen on the case.

As fate would have it, Mike happened to recognize the yellow Victorian-style home located in the background of the Rumor Has It scene and when he looked at that property on Google Street View, sure enough, there was Mitsy’s house right across the street. Yay!

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Aunt Mitsy’s house was only featured in one very brief scene in Rumor Has It, in which Sarah Huttinger (aka Jennifer Aniston) asks Mitsy for information about her deceased mother. It is there that Mitsy first tells Sarah about her mother’s affair with Beau Burroughs (aka Kevin Costner), at which point Sarah realizes that her family served as the inspiration for the movie The Graduate. (Yeah, yeah – lame plot for a movie, I know.) From its appearance in Rumor Has It, I had assumed that the home was an extremely small, one-story dwelling and searched for it as such. As it turns out, I could not have been more wrong.

In real life the house looks nothing at all like how I had envisioned it to look in my mind. Not only is the place two levels, but it is also pretty darn huge!

And furthermore, the property is actually an apartment building – not a private residence as I had originally thought! As you can see above, the dwelling has several front doors and consists of at least three separate units. This is one location that I can honestly say I NEVER would have found on my own. Not in a million years.

Thankfully, the front porch area looks pretty much the same today as it did back in 2005 when Rumor Has It was filmed. There is currently much less foliage in place and the house is now painted blue instead of yellow, but otherwise little else has changed in that section of the property over the years and it still looks just as cute in person as it did onscreen. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to sit on that porch in the same spot that Jen sat to pose for a pic! Smile

The other houses on the street that appeared in the background of the scene look exactly the same as they did in the movie, as well. And, yes, we did also end up finding Grandma Bunny’s house from You Again – well, fellow stalker Chas found it – and I will be blogging about it soon.

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for finding this location and to fellow stalkers Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, and Owen for all of the time and effort they put into this search.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Aunt Mitsy’s house from Rumor Has It is located at 485 Ellis Street in Pasadena.

August 19, 2011August 18, 2011

Lucille’s House from “Bye Bye Love”

Another location that fellow stalker Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, had on his extensively detailed list of places to stalk during our day together in L.A. this past July (and there were over 30 locales on that list, by the way; as I said it was quite extensive!) was the residence where Lucille (aka Janeane Garofalo) lived in the 1995 film Bye Bye Love. And while I had never actually seen Bye Bye Love at that point in time, I absolutely fell in love with the house as soon as we drove up to it. So much so that I immediately added the flick to my list of movies to rent and finally did so this past week – which I think may have actually been a first for me. I do not believe that I have ever before watched a movie solely based on the fact that I liked a location featured in it. Ladies and gentlemen, I have reached a new level of stalking! Winking smile I have to say, though, that I was not too crazy about Bye Bye Love. While it was heartwarming, it was also extremely sad and, as I have mentioned before, I am not too keen on depressing flicks. Never in my life have I been more thankful that my parents never divorced than I was while watching that movie. And, surprisingly enough, while I typically cannot stand Janeane Garofalo – actually, to be completely honest, I absolutely abhor the woman; she’s right up there with Jessica Simpson on my list of least favorite celebrities – I LOVED her in Bye Bye Love. She had me laughing out loud on several occasions, especially when she continually tried to utilize the passenger controls in Vic Damico’s (aka Randy Quaid’s) Driver’s Education car. But I digress.

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Lucille’s house was only featured briefly in Bye Bye Love and, surprisingly, very little of the property was ever shown. You would think producers would have utilized more of the place being that it is so completely adorable. The residence first showed up in the scene in which Vic picks Lucille up for their blind date. Immediately after opening the door and meeting for the first time, Vic says to Lucille, “Nice place!”, to which she responds, “Yes, thank you. Buying this place was the only smart thing that son-of-a-b*tch ex-husband of mine ever did!” LOL

It later shows up when Vic drives Lucille home after suffering through a horrible dinner with her, only to discover that she has locked her keys inside the property and cannot get in.

And even though the house is absolutely ADORABLE in person, I actually prefer the blue color it was painted in Bye Bye Love to the yellow/red combination that it is painted now. The home, which was originally built in 1920, is not actually as small as its façade would lead you to believe. According to fave website Zillow, the residence boasts 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, and 1,596 square feet of living space.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, for finding this location. You can check out Chas’ extensive Bye Bye Love filming locations page here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Lucille’s house from Bye Bye Love is located at 1612 Courtney Avenue in Los Angeles.