Saved by the Bell – IAMNOTASTALKER

January 26, 2015January 31, 2015

South Fork Inn from “Revenge”

Finding today’s location had me feeling like a complete moron. Though my obsession with Revenge has waned in recent months (I have only watched three episodes from the current season), I remained hell-bent on tracking down the Colonial-style structure used in establishing shots of the South Fork Inn on the series. I figured the location was most likely a private home and scoured the internet for months looking for it, all to no avail. Then a couple of weeks ago, I decided to once again try my hand at finding it and proceeded to search through every location database that I knew of, comparing the Colonial-style homes listed with screen captures from the show. I found the right spot fairly quickly and could not believe my eyes once I did. Turns out the location is well-known to me – it was featured regularly and prominently on my favorite TV show of all time, Beverly Hills, 90210. South Fork Inn is none other than the Marion Davies Guest House at the Annenberg Community Beach House, aka the former Sand & Sea Club, aka the very same spot that stood in for the Beverly Hills Beach Club on 90210. (Insert facepalm here.) Granted, the property has changed quite a bit since 90210 filmed on the premises, but still, how I did not recognize it is beyond me.

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The five-acre beachfront property, which was originally known as Ocean House, was constructed in 1928 at a cost of $3.5 million for newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst and his mistress, Marion Davies. The lavish compound was designed in the Georgian Colonial-style by architects Julia Morgan and William Flannery. The site was comprised of a three-story main house featuring 55 bathrooms, 37 fireplaces, a theatre, a ballroom and a basement pub. The property also boasted three detached guest houses, as well as servants quarters, dog kennels, tennis courts, and two swimming pools. (Flannery designed the main estate, while Morgan was responsible for the pool, guest houses and other detached structures, as well as all interiors.) The parties held at the compound during Hearst and Davies’ tenure there were legendary and often included guest lists numbering in the thousands. Such luminaries as Howard Hughes, Clark Gable, Charlie Chaplin, Bette Davis, Carole Lombard, Cary Grant, Winston Churchill, and Gloria Swanson all spent time at the massive estate at one time or another.

Hearst and Davies vacated the mansion in 1946 in order to move to Beverly Hills. The couple took quite a loss on the place, selling it to a man named Joseph Drown for a measly $600,000. Drown immediately transformed the site into a hotel named Oceanhouse and a beach club named the Sand & Sea Club. The hotel was never a huge success, though, and in 1956, Drown had the main house and many of the original structures demolished. He then added three new buildings to the premises and continued to operate the property as the Sand & Sea Club.

For reasons that are a bit hazy, the land where the Sand & Seas Club stood was acquired by the State of California in 1959. The state in turn handed management of the land over to the City of Santa Monica. It was still being leased back by Drown, though, and the site run as a beach club. In 1964, Drown sold the club to Douglas Badt, who continued to operate it as the Sand & Sea Club until October 1990, when the city decided that a private club could not be situated on public land. It became a public club for a short time after that and was used often for filming. Then, the 1994 Northridge Earthquake rendered the site unsuitable for public use. It sat vacant and boarded up for several years following. (I took the below photo of the place in 2000.)

The city eventually started making plans to renovate the site and turn it into a public beach club, and renowned philanthropist Wallis Annenberg donated $28 million to the cause. Annenberg had been a member of the Sand & Sea Club as a child and wanted to see the once-great property resurrected. During the renovation, all of the remaining Ocean House structures were demolished, aside from one of the guest houses, which is currently known as the Marion Davies Guest House . . .

. . . and a 110-foot Italian marble swimming pool. Sadly, other than those two elements, no part of Hearst’s original compound, or the Sand & Sea Club remains.

The Annenberg Community Beach House opened on April 25, 2009. The site is open to the public daily and is also used as a special events/wedding venue – and, of course, for filming.

The Marion Davies Guest House pops up regularly as the South Fork Inn on Revenge.

The Guest House is only used for establishing shots, though. The interior of the Inn is just a set built inside of a soundstage at MBS Media Campus where the series is lensed.

In the pilot episode of Revenge, which was shot on location in North Carolina, the City Club of Wilmington was used as the exterior of the South Fork Inn.

Oddly, the interior South Fork Inn scenes from that episode were shot elsewhere, though.

As you can see in the images below, the property used for interior filming (which could very well be a private residence) is addressed “400.” That number does not match up to the address of the City Club of Wilmington, which is located at 23 South 2nd Street. UPDATE – A fellow stalker named Brian let me know that the interior scenes were shot at the Dudley Mansion located at 400 South Front Street in Wilmington. You can see some interior photographs of the place here.

Fellow stalker Glenn also just let me know that a different exterior was used as the South Fork Inn in the Season 3 episode titled “Homecoming.” That location is actually The Culver Studios at 9336 West Washington Boulevard in Culver City.

The Annenberg Community Beach House also popped up in the Season 3 episode of Revenge titled “Confession,” this time as a swanky beach club in the scene in which Nolan Ross (Gabriel Mann) first met Patrick Osbourne (Justin Hartley).

Filming of that scene took place on the patio overlooking the pool area.

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During the second and third seasons of Beverly Hills, 90210, which aired in 1991 and 1992, the Sand & Sea Club masked as the Beverly Hills Beach Club, where Brandon Walsh (Jason Priestley) worked and the rest of the West Bev gang hung out. The Marion Davies Guest House was not used in the filming of those episodes, though. [To make screen captures for this post, I had to re-watch several of the episodes in which Dylan McKay (Luke Perry) and Kelly Taylor (Jennie Garth) cheated on my girl Brenda Walsh (Shannen Doherty) and let’s just say it had me feeling all kinds of ragey! ;)]

During the third season of Saved by the Bell (or fifth, if you’re watching Netflix), which aired in 1991, the Sand & Sea Club masked as the Malibu Sands Beach Club, where Zack Morris (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) and the gang worked for a summer.

While the Marion Davies Guest House was not used in the filming of Saved by the Bell, either, it was briefly visible in the background of the episode titled “The Game,” as you can see below.

No interior filming of Saved by the Bell took place at the Sand & Sea Club. The interior of the Malibu Sands Beach Club was just a set built inside of a soundstage.

While doing research on the Sand & Sea Club for this post, I came across the photograph below. Apparently, Bethenny Frankel was a Production Assistant on Saved by the Bell during the early ‘90s and worked on some of the beach club episodes! How cool is that?

The Sand & Sea Club also made an appearance in the 1990 movie Side Out.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Marion Davis Guest House, aka South Fork Inn from Revenge, is part of the Annenberg Community Beach House, which is located at 415 Pacific Coast Highway in Santa Monica. You can visit the property’s official website here.

August 28, 2014August 28, 2014

New Scene It Before Post – About the “Saved by the Bell” School

Don’t forget to check out today’s Los Angeles magazine post – about Ulysses S. Grant High School from Saved by the Bell. You can read it here. My columns typically get published in the late morning/early afternoon hours.

July 11, 2014July 11, 2014

JW Marriott Desert Springs Resort & Spa from “Saved by the Bell”

This Labor Day, Lifetime is set to air The Unauthorized Saved by the Bell Story about the making of the Saturday morning classic which ran from 1989-1993. Um, YAY! (How did I not know about this, by the way?? Ordering it now!) While the show was admittedly as cheesy as they come, I loved it as a youngster and still find myself getting sucked in whenever I come across an episode on TV. Once I heard the news about the behind-the-scenes docudrama (thanks to my editor at Los Angeles magazine), I decided it was high time I did some stalking of the original series’ locations – especially being that one of them is right in my own backyard. (I blogged about it once before here.) During the show’s third season, Zack Morris (Mark-Paul Gosselaar), Kelly Kapowski (Tiffani-Amber Thiessen), Jessie Spano (Elizabeth Berkley) and the gang headed out to Palm Desert to attend the wedding of Jessie’s father, Mr. Spano (George McDaniel). In the two episodes, which were titled “Palm Springs Weekend: Part I” and “Palm Springs Weekend: Part II,” the group stayed at the JW Marriott Desert Springs Resort & Spa. Amazingly, despite an extensive remodel, the hotel is still recognizable from its onscreen appearance 23 years ago.

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The JW Marriott Desert Springs is one of my favorite hotels in the Coachella Valley and quite possibly the largest resort I have ever seen. The place is massive – like 450-acres massive.

The hotel originally opened in February 1987 and currently features 884 (!!) rooms, an eight-story atrium lobby (pictured below), four pools, a 38,000-square-foot spa, twenty tennis courts, an 18-hole putting green, basketball courts, a salon, two golf courses, five restaurants, and, most importantly, a Starbucks.

The resort’s most stunning feature, though, is its massive waterway system, which guests are able to view via manned gondolas.

The main boat launch is pictured below.

Sadly, the property underwent a $25-million renovation from 2007 through 2012 and looks quite a bit different today than it did in when Saved by the Bell was filmed in 1991. It is still, thankfully, somewhat recognizable, though. You can check out a photograph of the original lobby here.

In the “Palm Springs Weekend” episodes, Jessie’s dad is said to manage the J.W. Marriott Desert Springs and the property was featured extensively in the shows. Just a few areas that were used include the front exterior;

the main entrance;

the lobby doors;

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and the boat launch.

As you can see, the launch looks much different today than it did onscreen.

Mr. Spano’s wedding was held in the Marriott’s lobby, which also looks much different today, sadly. I have to say I prefer the hotel’s original design to the current one.

The resort’s Valley Golf Course also appeared in the episodes, but I did not venture out there to take any pics. (Cut me some slack – it was 110 degrees at the time. Winking smile )

One of the Marriott’s former restaurants was used several times on the shows, but, sadly, during the remodel that space was completely gutted and subsequently reopened as a different eatery named Rockwood Grill.

I am guessing that the Desert Springs’ actual fitness center was utilized in the episodes’ gym scenes. Unfortunately, the entire spa was gutted during the remodel and no longer looks anything like its previous self.

I was not able to pinpoint which of the Marriott’s pools appeared in the episodes. I did track down a photograph of the Saved by the Pool pool online and the caption states that it is located at the Desert Springs Villas II (a time share community that is part of the resort), but, oddly, I can’t find a pool on aerial views that matches up.

I would really LOVE to see it in person, too, being that it is where Zack and Kelly rekindled their romance in “Part I.”

The JW Marriott Desert Springs Resort has popped up onscreen several times since Saved by the Bell. In 2006, the hotel was where Kimberly Bryant got a little crazy while on vacation with her girlfriends in the third episode of The Real Housewives of Orange County’s first season.

In 2007, Chrissy Schwartz and her friends spent a couple of nights at the Marriott in the pilot episode of Newport Harbor: The Real Orange County, which was titled “Crush . . . Interrupted.”

Oddly, in the episode the group dines at Mikado, which is supposedly a restaurant in the O.C., prior to their trip. Mikado is actually located at the Desert Springs Resort, though, which means that the dinner scene was filmed during their vacation, not beforehand. So much for “reality” TV.

In 2009, Desert Springs was where Alexis and Jim Bellino spent a romantic weekend sans kids in the Season 5 episode of The Real Housewives of Orange County titled “Nothing Is As It Seems.”

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The JW Marriott Desert Springs Resort & Spa, from the “Palm Springs Weekend” episodes of Saved by the Bell, is located at 74-855 Country Club Drive in Palm Desert. You can visit the hotel’s official website here.

March 16, 2008February 13, 2009

Stalking Palm Springs Style

This weekend my boyfriend and I took a little road trip to Palm Springs for a relaxing weekend getaway – but there’s no resting for this stalker! Of course, I just had to do a little stalking while I was there! 🙂 Once again, the stalking gods were watching out for me, because we stayed at Desert Springs, A JW Marriot Resort and Spa in Palm Desert. Little did I know that the Desert Springs resort was an oft used filming location for Hollywood productions. While I did remember that Newport Harbor: The Real OC was filmed in the hotel a couple of years ago, I didn’t realize that The Real Housewives of Orange County, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, and Saved by the Bell were also all filmed at the resort.

Chrissy and the gang stayed at the Desert Springs Marriott in the pilot episode of the Laguna Beach spin-off Newport Harbor: The Real OC. Producers used the front entrance, the lobby and the pool area for filming. You might also remember the scene in the hallway outside of Chrissy’s hotel room when she gets into big trouble with her “daddy” for being in her room with Clay alone. You can watch the full episode of Newport Harbor at mtv.com.

The Desert Springs Marriott was also used in the episode of Saved by the Bell when Jessie Spano’s father gets married. As soon as the front desk clerk told me that episode had been filmed at the hotel many, many years ago, I immediately remembered it. The resort is surrounded by a huge lagoon complete with a fleet of boats to transport guests from one end of the hotel to the other. A pivotal scene in the episode (if anything from SBTB could ever be considered pivotal) takes place between Zack and Jessie at the boat launch in the lobby of the hotel. Unfortunately, the lobby just underwent a major renovation, so it looks very different than it did in the SBTB days, but you should recognize it all the same.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Desert Springs, A JW Marriot Resort and Spa is located at 74855 Country Club Drive in Palm Desert. You can make reservations here. While the hotel is beautiful with amazing grounds and landscaping, I wouldn’t exactly recommend it as a place to go to relax. The hotel definitely has a party vibe, complete with an in-house nightclub named Costas. It is a great place to grab a drink or dinner, though. My boyfriend and I have been long time fans of the Sea Grille restaurant inside the hotel.