movie homes – Page 4 – IAMNOTASTALKER

August 17, 2011April 14, 2013

Lance’s House from “Pulp Fiction”

Last month, fellow stalker Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, came to town, along with his super-sweet mom, for a little filming locations vacation, and the three of us spent a whole day together, stalking pretty much all of Los Angeles, from one end of the city to the other. For this adventure, Chas had compiled an extensively detailed list of various movie locales, along with maps to each and a driving timeline. I know – it was all so Monica Gellar of him. LOVE it! Smile Anyway, one of the locations on Chas’ list was the Craftsman-style residence where drug-dealer Lance (aka Eric Stoltz) and his wife, Jody (aka Rosanna Arquette), lived – and where Vincent Vega (aka John Travolta) saved Mia Wallace’s (aka Uma Thurman’s) life – in the 1994 black comedy Pulp Fiction. Chas found the house, thanks to a very helpful crew member, in early 2010 while attempting to track down all of the locations from the movie – an endeavor at which, I am very happy to report, he succeeded. You can check out Chas’ extensive Pulp Fiction filming locations page here.

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Because the Grim Cheaper and I had once dressed up as Vincent Vega and Mia Wallace for Halloween many, many moons ago, I was extremely excited to stalk Lance’s house. (Sorry for the poor quality of the above photograph – it was taken on actual film so I had to scan it in order to post it here.)

Lance’s house was featured in a very brief, but very memorable scene, during the “Vincent Vega & Marsellus Wallace’s Wife” portion of Pulp Fiction, in which after visiting Jack Rabbit Slims restaurant, which I blogged about back in March, Mia accidentally overdoses on some heroin that Vincent had stashed in his jacket pocket. When Vincent discovers Mia on the floor, unconscious and unresponsive, he drives her to his drug dealer, Lance’s, home in the hopes that Lance can help her. It is there that Vincent winds up giving Mia an adrenaline shot, saving her life.

In the scene, Vincent crashes his car into the front of Lance’s house, destroying the roof and part of the porch.

I am very happy to report that the residence’s roof and porch are currently intact and that, despite the property’s shabby appearance onscreen, as you can see above, it is actually quite adorable in person.

And while the apartment building across the street from Lance’s house still looks very much the same as it did in the movie;

there is now, sadly, a fence located on the eastern side of the property, which blocks the neighboring lawn that is pictured in the above screen capture from view.

And while I am fairly certain that the real life interior of the residence was also used in the filming, I, unfortunately, could not find any photographs online to verify that hunch.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Lance’s house from Pulp Fiction is located at 3519 La Clede Avenue in the Atwater Village neighborhood of Los Angeles.

August 11, 2011August 10, 2011

The “Eye for an Eye” House

A couple of months ago, my good friend and fellow stalker Lavonna asked me to track down the supposed Pacific-Palisades-area residence where the McCann family – Karen (aka Sally Field), Mack (aka Ed Harris), Julie (aka Olivia Burnette, who also played Dorothy Jane Torkelson on The Torkelsons, one of my very favorite television series ever, but I digress), and Megan (aka Alexandra Kyle) – lived in the 1996 revenge thriller Eye for an Eye. Amazingly enough, even though I absolutely LOVE me some revenge thrillers, I had never before even heard of Eye for an Eye, so the Grim Cheaper and I promptly headed out to rent it that very evening. And I have to say that we both thoroughly enjoyed it. Not as much as Taken or Man on Fire (which in this stalker’s never-to-be-humble opinion are the ultimate vigilante flicks ever made), mind you, but it was a good watch nonetheless.

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Like Lavonna, I, too, was immediately taken with the stately home belonging to the McCann family while watching the flick and was absolutely convinced that it was located somewhere in the Pasadena area. After a few hours of looking for the residence via aerial views, though, I came up completely empty-handed. So I did what any good stalker does in a situation like this – I called in the troops – i.e. fellow stalkers Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, and Owen. And, amazingly enough, Owen immediately sent me back a text informing me that he had tracked down the residence about four years beforehand! Duh! Note to self – always ask my fellow stalkers if they have found a location prior to looking for it myself!

In real life, the Eye for an Eye house is located at 456 South Arden Boulevard in the Hancock Park area of Los Angeles. As you can see above, though, the property was given a fake address number of “244” for the filming, so I have no idea how in the heck Owen managed to find the place! My hat is definitely off to you, buddy!

I finally made it out to stalk the residence a couple of weeks ago, along with Chas, who happened to be in town for a little Southern California stalking vacay. And while the Eye for an Eye house is very pretty in person, I must say that I much prefer the way it looked onscreen – painted grey and white and sans shutters on the upstairs windows.

I am fairly certain that the real life interior of the home was also used in the filming, but I was unfortunately not able to find any photographs of the property on any locations websites to verify that hunch.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Owen for finding this location! Smile And you can check out fellow stalker Chas’ in-depth Eye for an Eye filming locations page on the It’sFilmedThere website here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Eye for an Eye house is located at 456 South Arden Boulevard in the Hancock Park area of Los Angeles.

August 4, 2011December 6, 2013

Twin Palms – Frank Sinatra’s Former Palm Springs Estate

Another Palm-Springs-area location that the Grim Cheaper and I stalked two weekends ago while vacationing in the Coachella Valley was Twin Palms, the former desert home of legendary crooner Frank Sinatra and his then-wife Nancy Barbato. And while I have actually stalked – and even blogged about – this location once before (way back in April of 2008!), since it was in the very early days of my site, it was an extremely short post that did not include any of the property’s vastly fascinating history. So I decided that the estate was most definitely worthy of a re-write.

Apparently, on May 1, 1947, Frank Sinatra, who had just signed a highly profitable movie contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, wandered into the offices of newly-founded architectural firm Williams, Williams, & Williams. At the time, now-legendary architect E. Stewart Williams, who designed Frankie’s house from Alpha Dog which I blogged about last Thursday, was a novice who had just joined his father’s firm and had yet to design a private residence. Frank, who was holding an ice cream cone and wearing a sailor’s hat, informed the team that he wanted them to design and build a huge Georgian-style estate by Christmas, in time for a party the singer was hosting. And even though the desired finish date was only seven short months away, Williams, Williams, & Williams took the job. Apparently, Frank was a difficult man to say “no” to. E. Stewart came up with two designs for the singer, one in the Georgian-style that Frank had originally envisioned, and another in the mid-century-modern-style, which Stewart would later become famous for. Sinatra liked the modern design and the rest, as they say, is history. E. Stewart’s partner and brother, Roger, later said, “We’d have been ruined if we’d been forced to build Georgian in the desert.”

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The four-bedroom, five-bathroom, 4,500-square-foot estate, which was built fully air-conditioned at a cost of $150,000, was completed in time for Frank’s party. The property was nick-named “Twin Palms”, thanks to the two large palm trees which flanked the home’s piano-shaped swimming pool. The estate, which is currently used as a vacation rental and filming location, currently boasts authentic period furniture, countless Frank Sinatra memorabilia, the original Valentino sound system on which Frank used to cut his records, a pool house complete with his-and-her bathrooms, and a full library of the iconic crooner’s music.

Frank and Nancy divorced in 1948 and Frank’s mistress and future wife Ava Gardner subsequently moved in. Of her time in the house, Ava said, “It was the site of probably the most spectacular fight of our young married life, and honey don’t think I don’t know that’s really saying something . . . Frank’s establishment in Palm Springs, the only house we really could ever call our own, has seen some pretty amazing occurrences.” Indeed! According to the home’s rental website, one of the sinks in the master bathroom bears a crack from a champagne bottle that Frank threw at Ava during one of their legendary brawls. You can see a photograph of that crack here. Frank also reportedly once threw all of Eva’s belongings into the driveway of the home after she had attempted to catch him cheating on her with actress Lana Turner. It was also in this house that Frank kept a room for his friend and my girl Marilyn Monroe, who was a frequent guest. In 1957, after filing for divorce from Ava, Frank sold the property and moved to a new home in nearby Rancho Mirage. Today, Twin Palms is a Palm Springs Class 1 Historical Site and is featured regularly in photo shoots for fashion magazines, including Men’s Health, Town & Country, Palm Springs Life, Sunset, German Elle, and Vogue. And the dwelling is also a filming location! Apparently Frank allowed the exterior of the property to be featured in the 1950 movie The Damned Don’t Cry, which starred Joan Crawford. You can see some fabulous interior photographs of the estate on the Rearranged Design website here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Twin Palms, Frank Sinatra’s former desert home, is located at 1148 East Alejo Road in Palm Springs. You can visit the property’s official website here. Tours of the estate are conducted on a semi-regular basis and private tours, for a minimum of 20 guests, can also be arranged by clicking here.

July 29, 2011July 28, 2011

The Hartunian House from “Alpha Dog”

Another Palm-Springs-area locale that fellow stalker/location scout Scott Trimble, of the STS Locations website, helped me to find recently was the residence where Frankie Ballenbacher’s (aka Justin Timberlake’s) good friend/”Witness #11”, Susan Hartunian (aka Dominique Swain), lived with her utterly clueless and apathetic mother, Tiffany Hartunian (aka ER’s Alex Kingston), in the 2006 movie Alpha Dog. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post about the Koerner House , while I did not exactly love me some Alpha Dog, darn if the flick’s location scouts did not choose some FABULOUS and COMPLETELY UNIQUE locales to feature in it, one of which was the exquisite, mid-century-modern-style Hartunian abode. So I, of course, just had to drag the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the place while the two of us were vacationing in the Coachella Valley two weekends ago.

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As stated yesterday, Alpha Dog is based on the harrowing true story of the kidnapping and murder of 15-year-old Nicholas Markowitz, whose brother, Ben, owed $1,200 in drug debt to infamous West-Hills-area marijuana dealer Jesse James Hollywood. During the three-day-long ordeal, which more closely resembled a vacation than a kidnapping, Markowitz hung out and partied with Hollywood’s small group of low-life cronies in the Santa Barbara area and was seen by no less than 38 witnesses, none of whom reported – or for the most part even realized – that anything out of the ordinary was going on. In the movie, the character of Susan Hartunian, who was based on 17-year-old Santa-Barbara-resident Natasha Adams-Young, was the only one of those 38 witnesses who expressed any sort of concern over the fact that the boy, whose character was named Zack Mazursky and who was portrayed by Anton Yelchin, had been kidnapped. She was also the one who finally reported the involvement of the Jesse James Hollywood character, Johnny Truelove (aka Emile Hirsch), and his best friend Frankie to the police shortly after Zack’s body was found. Susan’s incredible house was featured several times in Alpha Dog and both the exterior . .

. . . and the interior of the property were used.

In real life, the Hartunian residence is known as the Burgess House or the Bougain Villa house, a play on the term “bougainvillea”, which is the name of a hearty, brightly-flowering plant that thrives in hot desert climates. The Burgess House, which was originally built in 1958 and boasts 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and 2,932 square feet of living space, is situated on a one-acre plot of land that is nestled into a rocky mountainside located about 200 feet above Downtown Palm Springs. The altitude of the lot affords for some amazing mountain and city views and architects Hugh Kaptur and William Burgess took advantage of the lot’s unique position by fashioning the home with huge, floor-to-ceiling windows made of mirrored glass which reflect the surrounding landscape. They also installed numerous sparkling pools and ponds, large boulders located both inside and outside of the residence, large open patios, and huge canopy overhangs, which protect the residence and its occupants from the desert’s intense heat. In 1986, Albert Frey, the legendary Swiss-born architect who is largely regarded as the father of the Desert Modernism Movement, added a large guest home to the property. Sadly though, as fabulous as the house is, as you can see above very little of it can actually be seen from the street.

But I did manage to spot the patio where filming took place for the scene towards the beginning of Alpha Dog in which Susan told her mother that she was heading off to a party at Frankie’s house.

Aerial views of the property, which are sadly not that great either, are pictured above. And you can check out some FABULOUS photographs of the place that Martha Stewart took – yes, that Martha Stewart – on a 2009 trip to the desert here. If you would like to read a more in-depth account of the Nicholas Markowitz murder, you can check out a fabulous LA Magazine article titled “The Last Ride of Jesse James Hollywood” here.

I would like to send out a very big HAPPY BIRTHDAY wish today to my dear friend and fellow stalker Kerry up in Anacortes, Washington. I hope you are having fabulous day! I love you, girl!

Big THANK YOU to Scott Trimble, from the STS Locations website, for finding this location! Smile You can follow Scott on Twitter, and learn all about his many location scout adventures, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Burgess House, aka the Hartunian residence from Alpha Dog, is located at 550 West Palisades Drive in Palm Springs. Palisades Drive is a private, gated road that is not accessible to the public, but you can catch some good views of the residence from West Tahquitz Canyon Way, just east of where it meets Palisades Drive.

July 28, 2011September 4, 2012

Frankie’s House from “Alpha Dog”

One location that I have been on the lookout for for what seems like forever now is the home belonging to Frankie Ballenbacher’s (aka Justin Timberlake’s) father, Juergen Ballenbacher (aka Chris Kinkade), in the ultra-dark and depressing movie Alpha Dog. As I have expressed a few times before on this blog, I was not at all a fan of the 2006 flick, which was based on the real-life kidnapping and murder of 15-year-old Nicholas Markowitz by Jesse James Hollywood and his group of drug-dealing cronies, as it was far too disturbing for my taste. But I did absolutely fall in love with the mid-century-modern-style abode where the teenaged kidnap victim, who was named Zack Mazursky (aka Anton Yelchin) in the movie, spent the majority of his imprisonment. I started looking for the Ballenbacher residence pretty much immediately after first watching the film and, even though I knew it was located somewhere in the Palm Springs area, try as I might, I just could not seem to find it. Then on June 1st, fellow stalker/location manager Scott Trimble, of the STS Locations website, wrote a comment on my post about the Caliente Tropics Resort, the motel featured in Alpha Dog, stating that he had actually worked on the movie. So I immediately wrote to him and enlisted his help in tracking the place down. And even though he had only worked on the portion of the movie that was filmed in Los Angeles and was therefore unsure of where the Ballenbacher home was located, he was instrumental in finally helping me to find it. Thank you, Scott! Smile So a couple of weekends ago, while out visiting my parents in Palm Springs, I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the place.

In real life, the Ballenbacher residence is known as the Koerner House and it boasts 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, 4,224 square feet of living space, and 1.1 acres of land. The abode was originally designed in 1955 by legendary mid-century modernist architect E. Stewart Williams, the very same man who constructed the Kenaston Residence in Rancho Mirage – the dwelling where Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie posed for their now-infamous July 2005 W Magazine photo shoot. As you can see above, the home is pretty darn incredible!

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In Alpha Dog, drug-dealing kingpin Johnny Truelove (aka Emile Hirsch) orders his friend Frankie to take Zack, whom Johnny is holding as a marker for a $1,200 debt Zack’s brother has incurred, to Frankie’s father’s house in Palm Springs to hide out for a few days. The vast majority of the movie was filmed at the dwelling and both the exterior . . .

. . . and the interior of the property were used in the flick.

And while the house is pretty darn incredible, it was actually the backyard area, which appeared quite frequently in Alpha Dog, that I became so enamored of. What an absolutely amazing piece of property! As you can see above, because it is so strikingly beautiful, it was rather difficult for me to narrow down which screen captures of the backyard to post.

While driving to stalk the Koerner House, the GC and I spotted several open house signs and, thinking that it might just be the Koerner House that was open and that I might just have the opportunity to go inside and see that amazing backyard in person, I almost had a full-blown heart attack! Sadly though, it was in fact a neighboring residence that was hosting the open house, so I guess, for the time being at least, I will just have to settle for looking at aerial views of the property.

Big THANK YOU to Scott Trimble, from the STS Locations website, for finding this location for me! Smile You can follow Scott on Twitter, and learn all about his many location scout adventures, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Koerner House, aka Frankie Ballenbacher’s home from Alpha Dog, is located at 1275 South Calle De Maria in Palm Springs.

April 12, 2011April 11, 2011

Trish’s House from “The 40-Year-Old Virgin”

Two weeks ago, on the recommendation of fellow stalker Owen, the Grim Cheaper and I finally sat down to watch the 2005 comedy The 40-Year-Old Virgin. I have no idea why we avoided seeing the flick for as long as we did, but I have to say that we both ended up absolutely loving it. It’s sweet, light-hearted, and laugh-out-loud funny. It seems that not everyone was a fan, though. A few months back, fellow stalker Lavonna, who is a major Steve Carell aficionado, told me an absolutely hilarious story about The 40-Old-Virgin that I just have to share! Apparently, and unbeknownst to her, Lavonna’s husband decided to watch the movie while he was home by himself one day. He never mentioned anything about it to Lavonna, but when their daughter Melissa went to watch the flick a few weeks later she opened up the DVD box to find a note taped inside which read, “I want that two hours of my life back! – Dad” LOL LOL LOL Love it! That so sounds like something my father would do!

Anyway, when fellow stalker Owen told me that he had tracked down the residence where Andy Stitzer’s (aka Steve Carell’s) girlfriend, Trish (aka Catherine Keener), lived in the flick – along with pretty much every other locale used in the movie – I dragged the GC right on out to stalk the place. Thank you, Owen!

Sadly, Trish’s house has become a bit run-down since the filming of The 40-Year-Old Virgin took place back in 2005. While the property was pretty adorable in the movie, the paint is now, unfortunately, faded and peeling, the front yard has become quite overgrown, and weeds are currently growing through the many cracks in the driveway. Such a shame! The residence was just sold this past November, though, so I am hoping that the new owner will give the place some much-needed TLC and restore it back to its onscreen condition.

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One VERY odd thing that I noticed after I returned home and scanned through the movie was that the home’s front door seems to have been moved since filming took place. As you can see in the above screen capture and photograph, in The 40-Year-Old Virgin the front door was located perpendicular to the street, facing the apartment building next door, but it has since been moved kitty-corner to where it used to be and is now situated facing the street. Very, very strange!

I think the inside of the house, which you can see photographs of here, was also used in the flick. Either that or producers modeled the set of Trish’s residence very closely to that of the home’s real life interior.

The home’s real life backyard also appeared in the flick during the montage scene which showed Andy and Trish’s first twenty dates.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Owen for finding this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Trish’s house from The 40-Year-Old Virgin is located at 4433 Cartwright Avenue in Toluca Lake.

April 8, 2011April 7, 2011

The Other “Catch Me If You Can” House

A few years ago during an acting class, my very favorite acting teacher, Annie, happened to mention that the Catch Me If You Can house was located just around the corner from where she then lived in Studio City. She said she had been walking her dogs one afternoon back in 2002 and had stumbled upon a scene from the movie being filmed at a large, Colonial-style house that producers had dressed in Christmas decor and covered with fake snow. Well, her story had me thoroughly confused as I knew that the large, Colonial-style house where Frank Abagnale Jr.’s (aka Leonardo DiCaprio’s) mother, Paula (aka Nathalie Baye), lived in the flick, which was dressed in Christmas décor and covered with fake snow for a scene, was located on East California Boulevard in Pasadena. Annie insisted, though, that the house was located in Studio City and that she had watched much of the filming take place. I didn’t think much of it at the time and figured it was just a case of producers scrapping one location for another mid-shoot, as has been known to happen sometimes during the course of a production. It wasn’t until I was scanning through Catch Me If You Can back in March to make screen captures for my post on the Barclay Hotel that I realized that, as incredible as it may sound, there were actually TWO large, Colonial-style homes that had been dressed in Christmas decor and covered with fake snow in the flick! As it turns out, the house Annie had told me about appeared briefly in the very beginning of the movie as the supposed New Rochelle, New York-area residence where Frank Jr. lived with his parents before they lost all of their money.

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Once I realized that the house that Annie had told our class about had, in fact, appeared in the movie, I immediately got to work in tracking it down. I knew where Annie’s former residence was located, so it was just a matter of searching around her neighborhood for the property. Thanks to the home’s distinct corner location, it was not very hard to find. And I dragged the GC right on out there to stalk the place this past weekend. The Catch Me If You Can house is quite charming in person and is situated on an absolutely HUGE corner lot which measures .38 of an acre. And while the landscaping in front of it has changed quite a bit since filming took place, it is still very recognizable from the movie.

The residence appeared in two scenes in the movie. It first popped up in the scene in which Frank Abagnale Sr. (aka Christopher Walken) and his wife Paula dance in their living room after attending an awards ceremony at the local Rotary Club.

And it later appears in the scene in which the family is shown moving out of the house after having fallen upon hard times.

And, as you can see in these photographs of the home, the real life interior, including the living room area . . .

. . .and one of the bedrooms, was used in the filming.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Frank’s parents’ house from the beginning of Catch Me If You Can is located at 12075 Valleyheart Drive in Studio City.

October 19, 2010October 18, 2010

The “Black Sheep” House

Another location that Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I stalked last Monday afternoon was the supposed Buckley, Washington-area home where Mike Donnelly (aka Chris Farley) lived in the 1996 comedy Black Sheep. Fellow stalker Owen tracked down this location – along with pretty much every other locale which appeared in the movie – quite a few months back and the place has been on my To-Stalk list ever since. But because I rarely make it out to the Eagle Rock area, I had yet to visit the place – nor had I ever watched Black Sheep before. So, after Mike and I stalked the house last Monday afternoon, I finally sat down to watch the movie. And I have to say that I was very pleasantly surprised. Even though I am a sucker for screwball comedies, for whatever reason I had not really expected to like the flick at all. I ended up laughing all the way through it, though, especially during the scene in which Mike gets pulled over for driving seven miles per hour on the freeway. LOL!

Owen found Mike Donnelly’s home thanks to one of the Black Sheep crew members who remembered that the residence was located somewhere in Eagle Rock. Even with that bit of information, though, I’m amazed that Owen was able to track the place down, because producers had installed a fake address number of 612 for the filming. UGH! I so hate it when they do that!

It takes a lot more than a simple change of address to fool us stalkers, though! As you can see in the above screen capture, a home with a 4-digit address number was clearly visible in the background of one of the scenes filmed at the Donnelly residence. Once Owen saw that four digit number, he knew that the Donnelly address had to be a fake. He then immediately set about using Google Street View to search all of the blocks in Eagle Rock with four-digit addresses. And sure enough, it wasn’t long before he found the right house. Yay!

In reality, the Donnelly residence, which features 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and 1,782 square feet of living space, is a lot cuter and far better maintained in person than it appeared in the film.

The house only actually appears twice in Black Sheep. It first shows up in the scene in which Steve Dodds (aka David Spade) first goes to meet Mike Donnelly. Later on in the movie, the house is featured briefly in the scene in which the two men discover that Governor Tracy (aka Christine Ebersole) has fixed the election.

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I am fairly certain that the real life interior of the property was also used in that particular scene.

After watching Black Sheep earlier this week, I became obsessed with stalking the Governor’s Mansion which appeared throughout the flick. Sadly though, fellow stalker Chas, from ItsFilmedThere, informed me that, while Owen had also found this property, it was torn down quite some time ago and another home built in its place, which is absolutely mind-boggling to me! How (or WHY!) someone would tear down such a large and stately piece of property just to build a new one is absolutely beyond me. Chas and I were discussing it yesterday, though, and he came up with a possible explanation. He thinks there quite possibly could have been a fire at the property, which would have forced the owners to demolish whatever was left standing and start anew. I searched for property records on the home, though, to see if I could dig up any further information, but came up completely empty-handed. UGH! The only thing I can say for sure is that the Governor’s Mansion from Black Sheep is no longer standing.

There is some good news, though! For whatever reason, the mansion is still visible via certain angles on Bing Maps. As you can see above, when the Bing aerial view is angled south, the image shows a vacant lot.

BUT when you angle the map east, the Governor’s Mansion magically appears.

AND if you then switch back to the south view once again, the front of the home will sometimes show up. So darn cool!

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Owen for finding these locations!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Mike Donnelly’s house from Black Sheep is located at 5158 Highland View Avenue in Eagle Rock. The Governor’s Mansion from the movie was formerly located at 874 West Potrero Road in Westlake Village, but has since been torn down and replaced with a new residence.

September 23, 2010September 23, 2010

The Schaffer Residence from “A Single Man”

A couple of weeks ago, I dragged my new husband out to stalk an architecturally and cinematically famous house located in Glendale at the base of the Verdugo Mountains – the John Lautner-designed Schaffer Residence which appeared in fashion designer Tom Ford’s directorial debut, A Single Man. I found this location thanks to fellow stalker Gary from England, who immediately set about cyberstalking the residence after watching the flick back in February of this year. And even though I’ve never actually seen A Single Man – I try to avoid any and all movies that have a depressing subject matter – because I am a HUGE fan of legendary architect John Lautner and because the house is simply gorgeous, I just had to stalk it.

The two bedroom, two bath Schaffer Residence, which was originally built in 1949, measures 1,698 square feet and sits on a heavily wooded quarter acre of land. The home was constructed entirely out of steel, glass, redwood, and concrete and boasts an open floor plan with glass walls, which several websites have described as “transparent”. Apparently being in the home makes one feel as if they are actually outside. The house is so spectacular, that according to the John Lautner Foundation website, both architects Frank Gehry and Frank Escher consider the Schaffer house to be among their most favorite abodes ever created. Sadly, though, as you can see in the above photographs, not much of the house is visible from the street.

Nor is much visible from Bing’s aerial views, either. 🙁

Thankfully though, the Schaffer Residence is currently for sale (for a cool $1,495,000 and as fellow stalker Gary said in his email to me, “I am saving as I type!!!!!”) and there are plenty of pictures of the property on its real estate website. You can also check out some fabulous photographs of the interior of the home on the Big Shed website here. As you can see above, the Schaffer house is a post-modern masterpiece, stunning in its detail, and with its wood, steel, and glass features, is very reminiscent of both the abode belonging to Sebastian Stark (aka James Woods) on the television series Shark and the residence where Ted Crawford (aka Anthony Hopkins) lived in the movie Fracture.

In A Single Man, which premiered last year, the Schaffer Residence stands in for the Santa Monica-area home of Professor George Falconer (aka Colin Firth), and both the exterior . . .

. . . and the interior of the property were used quite extensively in the filming. When I skimmed through A Single Man earlier today to make the above screen captures, I was actually surprised to see how the home was portrayed onscreen. In the movie, George’s house is very dark and dreary, which is ironic being that, in reality, a huge part of what makes the home so special and unique are the large plate-glass windows which bathe the interior of the property in an exorbitant amount of natural light. As depicted in the real estate photographs and in all that I’ve read about the dwelling online, in real life the Schaffer residence is bright and airy – not at all how it appeared in A Single Man. In fact, after seeing how it was depicted onscreen, I’m quite surprised that director Tom Ford chose to use the home at all in the movie. I would have assumed that he’d want to film at a house that, at the very least, had less windows. But what do I know? 😉

The Schaffer Residence also made an appearance in the ultra-strange 2005 dramedy Happy Endings as the residence where Charley (aka Steve Coogan) and Gil (David Sutcliffe) lived.

On a side note – If you want to see photographs of the house where Charley (aka Julianne Moore) lived in A Single Man, you can do so on MovieShotsLA.

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On another side note – A Single Man director Tom Ford also just so happens to be the designer behind my girl Jennifer Aniston’s favorite sunglasses – the “Tom Ford Jennifer sunglasses” (pictured above). Jen loves the glasses so much, in fact, that legend has it that Tom even named them after her. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to own a pair of those! 🙂

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Gary for finding this location! 🙂

Stalk It: The Schaffer Residence from A Single Man is located at 527 Whiting Woods Way in Glendale. You can check out the home’s real estate website here.

August 11, 2010August 11, 2010

The “Date Night” House

Last night, the Grim Cheaper and I sat down to watch the movie Date Night which FINALLY came out on DVD this week. We somehow missed seeing the flick in theatres when it first came out in April and I have been not-so-patiently waiting for it to be released on DVD ever since. Especially since Mike, from MovieShotsLA, tracked down the house which belonged to Phil and Claire Foster (played by Steve Carell and Tina Fey, respectively) in it over four months ago. Because I suffer from the need for immediate gratification, I actually stalked the place immediately after Mike told me its location and, as you can imagine, have been ABSOLUTELY DYING to see the movie ever since – even though the previews didn’t look especially promising. I have to say that I was very pleasantly surprised while watching it, too – despite what the reviews said, Date Night is a really cute movie! It’s heartwarming and sweet and laugh-out-loud funny. Not to mention the fact that Tina Fey and Steve Carell are exceptional in it! Loved it, loved it, loved it! But I digress!

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Mike tracked down the Date Night house pretty much immediately after seeing the movie in theatres. He knew from the get-go that the supposed New Jersey-area home was actually located somewhere in Pasadena thanks to these JFX Online paparazzi photos taken of Tina Fey and Leighton Meester during the filming. He also spotted an address number of “620” while watching the movie and from there used Google Street View to search all of the 600 blocks in the Pasadena area until he found the right residence. Thank you, Mike!

The Foster house actually shows up only a few times in Date Night, most notably in the ending scene in which Phil and Claire return home after their disastrous date in New York City.

And I am very happy to report that not only does the home look exactly the same in person as it did in the movie, but it is also ABSOLUTELY ADORABLE. In fact, it is almost too adorable. Had Mike not found the property’s real life location and had I not seen the place with my own two eyes, I would have been absolutely convinced that it was a fake house located on a studio backlot somewhere in Hollywood. The residence has that “studio” feel to it even in person and looks like it belongs on Wisteria Lane and not in the real world. 😉

As you can see in these photographs of the inside of the home, the real life interior of the property was also used in the filming.

And, ironically enough, the “Byzantine/Mediterranean” house that Claire tries to sell at the beginning of Date Night is located right next door to the Foster home, which makes things convenient for us stalkers.

On a Date Night side note – If you haven’t yet watched the bloopers reel featured at the end of the flick, you REALLY need to and can do so by clicking above. They are absolutely hilarious and really show how much fun the movie must have been to work on. It was actually watching stuff like this that first made me want to be an actor. Yes, the hours are long and the work is tedious, but in what other kind of career does one get to laugh as much as this??? 🙂

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for finding these locations! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Phil and Claire Foster’s house from Date Night is located at 620 Vallombrosa Drive in Pasadena. The home that Claire tries to sell at the beginning of the movie is located right next door at 608 Vallombrosa Drive.