Excited for the upcoming season premiere of Dead to Me? Head over to Dirt to read my latest post about the house where Jen Harding (Christina Applegate) lives on the hit series.
Toby’s House from “The Office”
Toby’s house from The Office just hit the market! You can read all about it in my latest post over at Dirt.
Karen’s House from “Californication”
Karen’s house from Californication is for sale! You can read all about it on Dirt.com.
Michelle’s House from “Dead to Me”
The TV gods have blessed audiences the past few months with a plethora of stellar new shows! Hollywood, Home Before Dark, Upload, Lincoln Rhyme: Hunt for the Bone Collector – the list goes on and on. The timing has been rather fortuitous considering the quarantine. Several sophomore series have also come back strong, namely Dirty John and Dead to Me. I was thrilled to recognize a few locations from the latter that I already stalked and blogged about, including Cindy’s Restaurant, where Jen Harding (Christina Applegate) and Judy Hale (Linda Cardellini) made a pit stop on the way home from Angeles National Forest in “Between You and Me,” and the Marriott Burbank Airport Hotel, which portrayed the Antelope Valley lodging the ladies checked into in the same episode. One spot that I wasn’t familiar with, but promptly set out to find was the house where Judy’s new girlfriend, Michelle Gutierrez (Natalie Morales), lived with her ex, Detective Ana Perez (Diana Maria Riva).
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Though Michelle’s residence pops up several times on Dead to Me, the first – and only – full shot of the exterior shown is in episode 8, “It Had to Be You.” Thankfully, an address number of “13113” was also visible in the scene. (Aren’t the number placards gorgeous? I love the Art Deco-themed font!) The unique cupola pitched atop Michelle’s roof, a common decorative feature of San Fernando Valley homes, told me that it could most likely be found in the Sherman Oaks or Van Nuys area. I hit up Sherman Oaks first, doing a Google search for properties with 13113 address numbers, and the top result kicked back was for 13113 Weddington Street. I was thrilled when I headed over to Street View and saw that it was, indeed, the right spot!
In real life, the dwelling, which was built in 1951 and is located in Sherman Oaks’ North Hidden Woods neighborhood, boasts 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, 1,900 square feet, an open floor plan, a living room with vaulted ceilings, crown moldings and hardwood flooring throughout, a barn door, a laundry room, a 0.15-acre lot, a large deck, a pool, a spa, and a carport.
Oh, and a swing in the front yard, which I found absolutely idyllic!
Completely remodeled in 2016, the abode is stunning inside, as these MLS images attest to. You can check out what the home looked like pre-remodel here. Quite a difference! Though the place was put on the market in August 2018, it did not sell and was delisted three months later.
As I learned from the real estate listing, Michelle’s house is Mellenthin Traditional, a style I’d never heard of before. It denotes what Antonio Pacheco in The Architect’s Newspaper describes as the “birdhouse ranch” properties built by William Mellenthin throughout the San Fernando Valley in the mid-20th Century, many featuring dovecotes or cupolas atop their peaked roofs. Though I may not have been familiar with Mellenthin’s name, nor did I know what a dovecote was (turns out it’s a structure that houses doves), I was highly familiar with his homes and their most prominent decorative element. I’ve even blogged about a couple of Mellenthin-style residences, including the pad where Oscar Martinez (Oscar Nunez) lived on The Office. In my 2010 post on that locale, I characterized the cupola feature as an “extra little roof gable above the garage.”
Though Mellenthin was responsible for over 3,000 homes in the SFV, the roof adornments can be found on countless more area properties thanks to the many architects who copied his style.
Calling the dovecotes in the region “ubiquitous,” Pacheco states, “Today there are hundreds of ‘Birdhouse’ homes throughout the Valley—many by builders who borrowed the cupola style. But there is only one original, and that is William Mellenthin.” Upon reading those words, I headed over to the City of Los Angeles Building and Safety website to look up the building permits for Michelle’s house. It turns out it is no imitator – the pad was, indeed, designed by Mellenthin!
As I mentioned earlier, we only get one full view of the outside of the residence on Dead to Me, though we do see the front door/carport in a scene that continues over from “It’s Not You, It’s Me” to “Where Do We Go From Here” in which Jen confesses to Detective Perez that she killed Steve Wood (James Marsden).
While the exterior shots are limited, the inside of Michelle’s home pops up several times. As you can see in the screen capture below as compared to the 2018 MLS image, the actual interior of 13113 Weddington was utilized on the series.
I am not sure if the tilework in the kitchen was redone after the MLS photos were taken or if the swap from white to blue was a change made specifically for the Dead to Me shoot. Otherwise though, the house looks much the same in the images as it did onscreen.
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine, and Discover Los Angeles.
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: Michelle’s house from Dead to Me is located at 13113 Weddington Street in Sherman Oaks.
Casa Vega from “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”
One of the things I most appreciate about Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is the lengths director Quentin Tarantino went to portray an authentic 1960s-era Los Angeles onscreen. To that end, he featured several local historic restaurants from the time that are, thankfully, still around today, including Musso and Frank Grill, El Coyote, and Casa Vega. The latter is a spot I am very familiar with. I’ve dined at the Sherman Oaks landmark several times over the years and even blogged about it once back in 2008. Due to its recent cameo, though, I figured a more current post was in order, so the Grim Cheaper and I headed out there for a bite last September.
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Initially founded in 1956, Casa Vega was the brainchild of Rafael ‘Ray’ Vega, who grew up helping his parents run their own eatery, Café Caliente, on downtown L.A.’s famous Olvera Street. He first set up shop in a small corner space at Ventura Boulevard and Mary Ellen Avenue. The place was such a hit that, within two years, Ray needed to expand and he moved Casa Vega to its current location, a larger site two blocks west at 13301 Ventura.
One of Los Angeles’ oldest continuously operating restaurants, today Casa Vega is run by Ray’s daughter, Christina, who began working on the premises in 1999 upon graduating from college. The eatery has remained just as popular as ever with her at the helm.
Little of the landmark site has been changed since opening day over six decades ago. The lighting remains dim, the same tufted red leather booths line the walls, and the kitchen still spoons out dishes based on Ray’s mother’s recipes. The fare is so delicious that Zagat even rated the place one of L.A.’s best Mexican spots!
Thanks to its stellar food and low lighting, Casa Vega has been a celebrity draw since the beginning. Just a few of the luminaries who have been spotted on the premises over the years include Marlon Brando, Dean Martin, Desi Arnaz, Sandra Bullock, Al Pacino, Jane Fonda, Dyan Cannon, Cary Grant, Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez, Mark Wahlberg, Heather Locklear, Avril Lavigne, Mariah Carey, Jennifer Aniston, Nick Lachey, Vanessa Minnillo, George Clooney, Michael Jackson, Gwen Stefani, Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, Nicole Richie, Joel Madden, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Jake Gyllenhaal, Justin Timberlake, Charlize Theron, Anthony Hopkins, and Emma Watson. Tarantino is also a huge fan of the restaurant, so it’s no surprise he chose to feature it in his latest flick.
Casa Vega actually pops up twice in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. It first appears as the supposed Almeria, Spain-area restaurant where Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) tells Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) that he can no longer afford to keep him on as his right-hand man.
That segment took place in the dining room that sits adjacent to the bar. As you can see below, Casa Vega’s rear door was swapped out with a more picturesque one for the shoot.
At the end of the movie, Casa Vega plays itself. It is there that Cliff and Rick dine as a last hurrah before going their separate ways.
That scene was filmed in the rear corner booth of the restaurant’s main dining room.
The front of the eatery was also shown in the segment.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is not the only production to shoot at the acclaimed restaurant. In the 1978 comedy The End, Wendell Sonny Lawson (Burt Reynolds) tracks his lawyer, Marty Lieberman (David Steinberg), down at Casa Vega and crashes his lunch.
Julie Richman (Deborah Foreman) and Randy (Nicolas Cage) walk by the eatery while on a date in the 1983 classic Valley Girl, though only its neon sign is shown.
Designer Jeff Lewis gives Casa Vega’s exterior and entrance a bit of a facelift in the fourth season of the reality show Flipping Out, which aired in 2010.
The Kardashians really like the place! Per the Reality Tea website, the family’s eponymous series, Keeping Up with the Kardashians, has filmed at the eatery no less than 6 times, including in the episodes “Kris’s Mother-in-Law,” “Design for Disaster,” “The New Normal,” “Cheers to That,” “Fire Escape,” and “Some Moms Just Wanna Have Fun” (pictured below), which aired in 2013. Please forgive me for not posting caps from each episode – it took all I had just to scan through the one!
Eden Sassoon and Lisa Rinna lunch at Casa Vega in the Season 7 episode of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills titled “Compromising Positions,” which aired in 2017. While there Eden tells Lisa, “We love it here cause of the lighting.”
Casa Vega also apparently made an appearance in the Season 1 episode of Barnaby Jones titled “See Some Evil . . . Do Some Evil” back in 1973, but, unfortunately, I could not find the show available to stream anywhere.
Sadly, Casa Vega is currently closed to the COVID-19 pandemic. Shuttering was not a move the restaurant took lightly. In fact, per a 2016 Los Angeles Times write-up, Casa Vega was one of the few area establishments that was open for business the day after the Northridge Earthquake in 1994. As Christina wrote on the eatery’s Instagram, “As soon as it is safe to welcome everyone to our bar and tables we will do so. The storm can’t last forever. The sun will come. Margaritas will flow again.” Cheers to that!
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: Casa Vega, from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, is located at 13301 Ventura Boulevard in Sherman Oaks. The eatery is currently closed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Check its official website for updates.
Jen’s House from “Dead to Me”
The Grim Cheaper and I admittedly become obsessed with a lot of shows. But it is a rare occasion (at least as of late) to find ourselves consumed by a series filmed entirely in L.A. (Bosch and Brooklyn Nine-Nine notwithstanding). Darn runaway production! So I was ecstatic to discover the thrilling, hilarious AND locally shot Dead to Me. A few sites from the new Netflix original I recognized immediately, like The Warehouse Restaurant which masked as Dana Point eatery Point Bliss, where Bambi (Olivia Macklin) worked. Other spots I set about tracking down as soon we finished binging it. At the top of my list of to-find places was the supposed Laguna Beach abode where widow Jen Harding (Christina Applegate) lived with her two sons, Charlie (Sam McCarthy) and Henry (Luke Roessler), and new BFF, Judy Hale (Linda Cardellini). Fortunately, it was a snap to pinpoint.
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While plowing through the series’ ten episodes (which the GC and I did in just two days), I noticed an address number of “3847” visible on the curb in front of Jen’s house in several establishing shots. I had an inkling the pad was located somewhere in the Studio City/Sherman Oaks/Encino vicinity and hit pay dirt when I entered “3847,” “house” and “Sherman Oaks” into Google. An address of 3847 Deervale Drive was kicked back and, sure enough, it was the right place!
Aside from the front door which was painted bright yellow for the production, the Cape Cod-style dwelling looks exactly the same in person as it did onscreen . . .
. . . right down to the script on the mailbox.
In real life, the charming property boasts 5 bedrooms, 4.5 baths, 4,909 square feet of living space, a kitchen featuring Carrara marble and Caesar stone counters, a breakfast nook, French doors throughout, multiple fireplaces (including one outside), a formal dining room, a media room, a butler’s pantry, a pool, a spa, and a covered backyard loggia.
The 1960 pad, which was heavily remodeled in 2010, last sold for a whopping $2.5-million in January 2011.
Only the exterior of the home appeared on Dead to Me. All interiors were filmed on a studio-built set.
Said set was modeled very closely upon the residence’s actual inside, as you can see in the screen captures as compared to the MLS images from the 2011 sale above and below. In fact, the home so closely resembles its TV counterpart that at first I thought filming had taken place on location there. Upon closer inspection, though, I noticed a few differences. In the actual kitchen, for instance, there is no spacing between the windows and the upper cabinets that frame them, but the set windows are surrounded by a perimeter of wall space. And while the actual home’s real life lower cabinets are made up of drawers, the set’s aren’t.
Other than that, though, Jen’s kitchen is a dead ringer for that of the actual house.
As is the breakfast nook area just beyond it.
The living room set also closely matches the actual living room, though I am unsure why production added that odd yellow window-like insert to the otherwise sleek built-ins.
Lacking wallpaper, curtains and a shelving unit, the home’s dining room is much less ornate than its television dupe, though its shape, layout and wainscotting are the same.
Jen’s master bedroom also bears a similar layout and window/French door schematic to that of the actual house . . .
. . . though her bedroom’s side wall has a cut-out, which the real residence does not.
While the interior of 3847 Deervale was not utilized for filming, its backyard was.
The pool got a lot of airtime . . .
. . . and the outdoor fireplace made an appearance in the pilot (although it was closed off with white cabinet doors and a television installed above it for the shoot).
Shockingly, the guest house where Judy lived is not a real element of the residence. Much like the Cohen family’s pool house on fave show The O.C., the structure was a just a façade built for the production in the area adjacent to the pool.
The spot where it was constructed is home to a patch of grass in real life.
As was the case with Jen’s residence, the interior of the guest house was a studio-built set.
Jen’s pad is not the only Dead to Me location to be found on Deervale Drive! The property belonging to her neighbor, Karen (Suzy Nakamura), aka the Mexican Lasagna Lady (who Redditors have some interesting theories about), is right next door at 3869 Deervale.
It, too, looks much the same as it did onscreen.
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: Jen Harding’s house from Dead to Me is located at 3847 Deervale Drive in Sherman Oaks. Karen’s home from the series is right next door at 3869 Deervale Drive.
New “L.A.” Mag Post – About The Coffee Roaster from “The Simpsons”
Be sure to check out my latest Los Angeles magazine article, about The Coffee Roaster from The Simpsons’ very first animated sequence!
New “L.A.” Mag Post – “The Gift” House
Be sure to check out today’s Scene It Before post for L.A.mag.com, about the house from the new movie The Gift. My articles typically get published in the late morning/early afternoon hours.
The “Black-ish” House
My good friend/fellow stalker Lavonna is obsessed with the show Black-ish. Von was supposed to fly out to L.A. for a visit along with our friends Kim and Katie this past June, but ended up not being able to. So in honor of her, during our trip we all went to stalk the home where the Johnson family – Dre (Anthony Anderson), Rainbow (Tracee Ellis Ross), Zoey (Yara Shahidi), Andre (Marcus Scribner), Jack (Miles Brown) and Diane (Marsai Martin) – lives on the ABC series.
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I found the Johnson residence thanks to Geoff from the 90210Locations website. He has a whole page dedicated to Black-ish locales on his site.
In real life, the two-story home, which was originally built in 1946, boasts 4 bedrooms, 4 baths, 4,820 square feet, and a 0.39-acre plot of land.
As you can see below, the dwelling looks much the same in person as it does on Black-ish.
The home is very picturesque and it is not at all hard to see how it came to be chosen for the series.
I have only seen a couple of episodes of Black-ish, but the few times I have watched I have been struck by its many similarities to Modern Family. More specifically, I have been struck by the Johnson family’s similarity to the Dunphy family. Both families have ditzy teenage daughters who pen popular fashion websites – on Black-ish, that daughter is Zoey; on MF it’s Haley (Sarah Hyland). (Well, truth be told, Haley pens a fashion blog, while Zoey runs her own YouTube channel about makeup, but similar enough.) Each family also has a no-so-bright son – on Black-ish it’s Andre; on Modern Family it’s Luke (Nolan Gould). The Dunphys and Johnsons also each have a smart daughter – Alex (Ariel Winter) on MF, Diane on Black-ish. Both series also have a parent obsessed with Halloween – on Black-ish, it’s Dre; on Modern Family, it’s Claire (Julie Bowen). Most striking of all, though, to me at least, are the aesthetic similarities of the two families’ homes. While the residences certainly have their differences, their overall look is very much the same.
Even the two families’ stairwells look extremely similar.
Interestingly, a different residence was used as the Johnson family’s home in Black-ish’s pilot episode – a residence that should look familiar to my fellow stalkers.
It is the same house that was used as the home of Nora Walker (Sally Field) on Brothers & Sisters.
One thing that I am not sure about is the inside of the Johnson home. While interiors are currently lensed on a set at ABC Studios in Burbank, I am unsure if that set was used for the pilot episode or if the pilot was filmed inside of the Brothers & Sisters house or another house altogether. Typically, when a pilot is shot, interiors are filmed at real life locations. Then if a series gets picked up, a set based on those real life interiors is built on a soundstage. In the case of Black-ish, though, very little of the inside of the Johnson home changed from the pilot episode (pictured below) to the second episode, which leads me to believe that a set was used from the very beginning.
On a side-note – The GC and I just became obsessed with Scandal. And I do mean obsessed. Our DVR is over 40% full right now due to the fact that our currently-airing nightly watches are being left untouched. Since viewing the Scandal pilot two weeks ago, we haven’t been able to watch anything else. We are mid-way through Season 3 right now and are still loving every minute of it. I’ve, of course, been researching the show’s filming locations like mad and, while doing so, came across this amazing blog about Scandal’s sets written by a member of the set department. If you are a fan of the series, it is definitely worth checking out.
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.
Big THANK YOU to Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, for finding this location.
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: The Johnson house from Black-ish is located at 4175 Stansbury Avenue in Sherman Oaks. The home used in the pilot episode can be found at 1640 Lombardy Road in Pasadena.
Hamburger Hamlet from “Parks and Recreation”
Halfway through writing this post, I realized I probably should have saved it until February. At that point, though, it was too late to start over, so I figured c’est la vie. Here goes. A few years ago, when I first saw the “Galentine’s Day” episode of Parks and Recreation, I recognized the restaurant featured in it as the Hamburger Hamlet in Pasadena. I used to dine at the eatery fairly regularly when I lived in the area and immediately recalled its signature red leather seating, brick walling and dark wood accents while watching P&R. It was not until a couple of a months ago that I decided to do any research on the locale, though, and when I got to comparing images of it to screen captures from the episode, I realized that, while similar, quite a bit did not match up. I quickly surmised that “Galentine’s Day” had most likely been lensed at another of the Hamburger Hamlet chain’s many outposts and, sure enough, eventually discovered that filming had taken place at the Sherman Oaks location.
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The Hamburger Hamlet chain was established by actor Harry Lewis and his wife, Marilyn, in 1950. The first outpost stood on the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Hilldale Avenue in West Hollywood and served comfort food and gourmet hamburgers. It was insanely popular from the get-go.
It was not long before HH outposts were cropping up all over Los Angeles, as well as in other states. In its heyday, 23 sister restaurants dotted the country. The L.A. locations were known as being celebrity hot spots, attracting such legendaries as Lucille Ball, Frank Sinatra, Diahann Carroll, Bette Davis, Danny Thomas, Mel Brooks, Warren Beatty, Ronald Reagan, Elizabeth Taylor, Sammy Davis Jr., Tony Curtis, Florence Henderson, Elton John, Betty White, Nancy Sinatra, and Dean Martin.
Harry and Marilyn sold the chain, as well as their Beverly Hills eatery Kate Mantilini, for a whopping $30 million in 1987. They later ended up buying Kate Mantilini back and subsequently opened up a sister location in Woodland Hills. Both were also insanely popular with celebrities (I once dined next to Reese Witherspoon at the Beverly Hills outpost) and non-celebrities alike, but have since, sadly, closed.
Recent years have not been kind to the Hamlet. Though the eateries were still bustling with business most days, news of closures popped up regularly. When the Pasadena outpost was shuttered in January 2014, the only HH left in the L.A. area was in Sherman Oaks. It, too, wound up closing in June of last year, but was, thankfully, acquired by Kevin Michaels and Brett Doherty, the restaurateurs behind Killer Shrimp in Marina del Rey – another popular filming location that I I blogged about here. The duo reopened the site, keeping many of the Hamlet’s menu staples intact, in September.
I have been a huge fan of the Hamlet ever since I first moved to Southern California and am happy to report that the re-opened Sherman Oaks location did not disappoint. As always, the food was great and the service friendly. Supposedly, the space will be undergoing a remodel at some point this year, though, so if you want to see it in its current state, I wouldn’t wait.
In the Season 2 episode of Parks and Recreation titled “Galentine’s Day,” which aired in 2010, Hamburger Hamlet was where Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) took her girlfriends out for their annual Galentine’s Day breakfast. For those who did not watch P&R and are confused as to what exactly Galentine’s Day is, I’ll let Leslie explain – “Every February 13th, my lady friends and I leave our husbands and our boyfriends at home and we just come and kick it breakfast-style. Ladies celebrating ladies. It’s like Lilith Fair, minus the angst . . . plus frittatas.”
Leslie and the girls returned to the Hamlet in 2012 to film another Galentine’s Day breakfast scene for Season 4’s “Operation Ann.”
Oddly though, a different place – Villa restaurant from Must Love Dogs, which I blogged about here – was used for the establishing shot of the restaurant in the episode.
Fellow stalker Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, also informed me that the Sherman Oaks Hamburger Hamlet was used in the Season 8 episode of The Office titled “The List” as the spot where Robert California (James Spader) took a select few Dunder Mifflin employees for lunch.
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online.
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: Hamburger Hamlet, aka the Galentine’s Day restaurant from Parks and Recreation, is located at 4419 Van Nuys Boulevard in Sherman Oaks. You can visit the eatery’s official website here.