The Fisher & Sons Funeral Home from “Six Feet Under”

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One location that I stalked well over a year ago, but for whatever reason have yet to blog about, is the Victorian-style residence which stood in for the supposed North Hollywood-area Fisher & Sons (and later Fisher-Diaz) Funeral Home on the immensely popular HBO series Six Feet Under.  Amazingly enough, up until yesterday morning, I had never seen even one episode of the show and, unfortunately, I have to say that after watching the pilot episode yesterday morning, I wasn’t all that impressed with it.  It’s a bit of an odd series.  The only part I enjoyed was one of the opening scenes in which David Fisher (aka a pre-Dexter Michael C. Hall) tells a supposedly grieving widower (played by Harper Roisman) that his wife is at peace now, to which the widower replies, “If there’s any justice in the universe, she’s shoveling sh*t in hell!”  LOL LOL LOL 

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But while I didn’t especially like the pilot, I did absolutely fall in love the main house featured in it.  In real life, the property is known as the Auguste Marquis Residence and it was originally built in the Queen Anne/Eastlake style (much like the “Thriller” house that I blogged about yesterday) in 1904 and is Los Angeles’ 602nd historic cultural monument.  The dwelling, which currently houses the Filipino Federation of America, boasts 5 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a whopping 6,324 square feet of living space, and sits on over half an acre of land.  The home was originally built for a Swiss native named Auguste Rodolphe Marquis, who worked for Death Valley’s Johnnie Consolidated Gold Mining Company, from which he made a considerable fortune.  The property was purchased shortly after the second World War by General Hilario Camino Moncado, a native of the Philippines and founder of the Filipino Federation.  His heirs still own the property to this day.

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The Auguste Marquis Residence was featured each week as the home where the dysfunctional Fisher Family – siblings David, Nate (aka Peter Krause), and Claire (aka Lauren Ambrose) and their mother Ruth (aka Frances Conroy) –  lived and operated their mortuary business on Six Feet Under, which ran from 2001 through 2005. 

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In real life, the Fisher & Sons Funeral Home sign is, of course, not there.

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And while the home was mostly just used for establishing shots, some occasional filming was also done onsite there throughout the series five year-run, as was the case with the pilot episode, screen captures of which are pictured above.

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The interior of the Fisher home was a set that was built on a soundstage at the Columbia/Sunset Gower Studios in Hollywood and, from what I’ve been able to discern online, looks nothing like the interior of the actual Auguste Marquis Residence.  A short film named Good Night was also filmed on location at the Six Feet Under funeral home in September of 2009 and Don Cunanan, the set photographer, snapped some pictures of the filming, in which you can see some of the residence’s real life interior.  You can take a look at those photographs here.

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On a coincidental side note – I was floored to spot Mountain View Cemetery, which I just blogged about this past Tuesday, featured quite extensively in the pilot episode of Six Feet Under, as the site of the funeral of Nathaniel Samuel Fisher (aka Richard Jenkins).

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And I’d like to wish all of my fellow stalkers a VERY happy Halloween!  Hope your holiday is fun and candy-filled!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: The Filipino Federation of America – aka Fisher & Sons funeral home from Six Feet Under – is located at 2302 West 25th Street in the West Adams District of Los Angeles.

The “Thriller” House

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Today, in honor of Halloween, I thought I’d blog about what is arguably the most famous haunted house of all time – the Victorian-style residence that was featured in the 1983 music video “Michael Jackson’s Thriller”.  Even though I’ve actually already blogged about this location once before (way back in December of 2007 when I first started my site!), because I mixed it in with a post about Halliwell Manor from Charmed which is located on the same street, I thought it was about time that the “Thriller” house was given proper recognition with its very own post.  Especially since my dad recently transferred our VHS recording of “The Making of Michael Jackson’s Thriller” onto a DVD so that we could finally watch it again, being that neither of us has owned a working VCR in about five years time.  I used to watch the “Making Of” special almost weekly as a child and was absolutely ENTRALLED with it.  And I am very happy to report that over twenty-seven years later, the behind-the-scenes special is JUST as enthralling.  🙂  I wish the Jackson family would release it on DVD as I’d love to have a copy that wasn’t taped off of television.

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In real life, the property is known as the Sanders House and it was originally built in 1887!  Yes, you read that right – the residence is over 123 years old!  It was commissioned by a man named Michael Sanders who ran a storage warehouse in Los Angeles at the time.  The Queen Anne/Eastlake-style home boasts 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, and 3,532 square feet of living space – which I was shocked to discover as the residence looks to be much smaller from the street.  The property was originally a single family residence, but has since been converted into a duplex-type dwelling, and has been undergoing an extensive restoration project for the past decade.  In 1971, the home was declared a cultural historic monument and the entire 1300 block of Carroll Avenue, where the “Thriller” house is located, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.  You can see some fabulous historic photographs of the “Thriller” house and its neighboring homes here.  And you can read a more in-depth write-up on the history of the Sanders House on fave website Big Orange Landmarks here.

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I was only at the “Thriller” house for about ten minutes yesterday and no less than three different groups of fellow stalkers showed up to take pictures of the place while I was there – and it was in the middle of the day no less!  Simply amazing!  I was really hoping that the “Thriller” homeowners would have decorated their abode for Halloween, but as it turns out they are not currently very thrilled about the publicity that their property’s famous history generates.  According to a SUPER nice neighbor whom I spoke with while I was stalking the place yesterday, shortly after Michael Jackson passed away in June of last year, a deplorable fan stole the mailbox from the “Thriller” house and the homeowner is still pretty upset about it – especially being that the mailbox was the original one which was installed when the residence was first built over 123 years ago!  I can’t even believe that a person would have the audacity to not only trespass on someone else’s property, but to then steal something from that property while doing so.  It is people like that who give us harmless stalkers a bad name and it makes me madder and madder the more I think about it.  Not only did that thief sour the residents on the magic of owning and living in the “Thriller” house, but they also destroyed part of a historic landmark in the process.  UGH!  Don’t even get me started! 
 
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The super nice neighbor also informed me that the 1300 block of Carroll Avenue is THE place to be on Halloween.  One year he counted over 2,000 trick-or-treaters knocking on his front door alone!  Halliwell Manor from Charmed (pictured above) is already decked out for the occasion, but the neighbor said that all of the houses on the block – not just the famous ones – typically have lines of about twenty to thirty people standing out in front of them all night long.  Amazing!  I would SO love to stalk the neighborhood on Halloween, but I already have plans to spend the holiday in Santa Barbara this year.  Ah well, there’s always next year.
 
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Only the exterior of the “Thriller” house was used in the filming of the music video.
 
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All of the interior scenes were shot on a soundstage somewhere in Los Angeles.
 

You can watch the video “Michael Jackson’s Thriller” by clicking above.

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The “Thriller” house was also used as the residence of Finn (aka Reynaldo Rosales) in the Season 4 episode of Charmed titled “Size Matters’”.

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And fellow stalker Angela from Florida alerted me to the fact that the dwelling was also used as the residence of Madam Serena (aka Zelda Rubinstein) in the 1989 movie Teen Witch. It is quite ironic that the house belonged to a woman named Serena in the flick, as the star of Teen Witch was none other than Robin Lively – real life sister of Blake Lively, who plays the famous Serena van der Woodsen on TV’s Gossip Girl.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: The house from “Michael Jackson’s Thriller” is located at 1345 Carroll Avenue in the Angelino Heights section of Los Angeles, just a few miles north of Downtown.  The Halliwell sisters’ house from Charmed is located two doors east of the “Thriller” house at 1329 Carroll Avenue.  And Holly’s Nashua house from the “Employee Transfer” episode of The Office is located just around the corner at 1347 Kellam Avenue.  If you stalk any of these locations, please, please do not trespass and, for God’s sake, do NOT steal, touch, or destroy ANYTHING while there!

The “Poison Ivy” Mansion

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Back in early August, Drew Barrymore aficionado Ashley, from the Drewseum website, challenged me to find the large pink mansion belonging to the  Cooper family – Sylvie (aka Sara Gilbert), Darryl (aka Tom Skerritt), and Georgie (aka Cheryl Ladd) – in the 1992 thriller Poison Ivy.  But because I was just a few weeks away from my upcoming wedding at the time, I didn’t get a chance to do any research on it.  Thankfully though, fellow stalker Terri stepped in and managed to track down the location for us!  Terri had discovered a message board thread on the IMDB Poison Ivy page on which a commenter had stated that the Cooper mansion was located in a “section of Los Feliz called the Oaks”.  She then used Google Street View and managed to track down the massively large residence, which amazingly enough looks very much the same today as it did back in 1992 when the movie was filmed!  Thank you, Terri!

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In real life, the 13,000-square foot, 5 bedroom, 9 bathroom home, which sits on over a half acre of land, was first built in 1926 and, according to my buddy E.J. over at The MovielandDirectory, belonged to Geena Davis in the early 90s, although that is a claim that the Thelma & Louise actress denies.  The Geena Davis rumor was actually featured in a small blurb in the September 1997 issue of Los Angeles Magazine, which states that the extensive property was purchased for $1.3 million in 1992 by the “Sav-On Trust” (believed to be created by Geena) and that an extensive remodel of the residence was subsequently begun.  After the roof, windows, and doors had been removed from the estate, though, the remodel was abruptly stopped and the property left in ruins.  At one point, squatters even moved into the residence, which is located in a very affluent neighborhood.  Sav-On Trust sold the decrepit property to a new owner in 1995 for $1,050,000, with the trust actually carrying the majority of the loan.  When the new buyer defaulted on his payments, the home went into foreclosure, with Geena still denying that she had anything to do with the property.  Why she didn’t want to be associated with the home, I don’t know, but she doesn’t have much of a leg to stand on being that the trustee of the Sav-On Trust is none other than Greg Kress – Geena Davis’ business manager.  Hmmmm.  Anyway, the remodel on the property was finally completed in the late 1990s and the mansion is absolutely beautiful today.  The home, which you can see some fabulous interior photographs of here, currently boasts a 1,000-bottle wine cellar, a private gym, a game room, an infinity pool, a movie theatre, TWO elevators, a cigar room, a grotto, a spa, a library, and striking views of Los Angeles.  Talk about living the high life!

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The Cooper mansion figured quite prominently in Poison Ivy and both the interior and the exterior of the property appeared in the flick.

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The mansion’s garage area . . .

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. . . and main balcony were also used repeatedly in the movie, although both look quite a bit different now.  An addition to the house has since been added on to the garage area and a turret has been added next to the balcony.

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The exterior stairwell that was formerly located next to the garage has also since been removed.

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And the stairs that led to the front of the property in the movie have now been replaced by a sloping driveway.  Even with all of those changes, though, the home still looks almost exactly the same today as it did in Poison Ivy.  And I so love that it is still almost the same color pink!

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Randomly enough, just a few days after stalking it, I spotted this very same location while watching the pilot episode of the new series Law & Order: Los Angeles.  The residence showed up in the very beginning of the episode, which was titled “Hollywood”, as the burgled home of teenaged actor Colin Blakely (aka Travis Van Winkle) .  Being that I had just stalked the place a few days beforehand, I literally just about fell over when I saw it. 

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Especially when I noticed the home’s real life address plaque pass by in the background of one of the scenes.  So darn cool!

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The real life interior of the estate was also used in the episode.

Big THANK YOU to Ashley, from the Drewseum website, for challenging me to find this location and to Terri for actually tracking it down!  🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: The Poison Ivy mansion is located at 2208 West Live Oak Drive in Los Feliz.

The “Grey’s Anatomy” House

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Another location that my good friend and fellow stalker Kerry took me to stalk while I was visiting the Pacific Northwest earlier this year was the Seattle-area home owned by Meredith Grey (aka Ellen Pompeo) on the long-running television series Grey’s Anatomy.  I’ve only actually ever seen one episode of the show – the Season 2 episode titled “Enough is Enough” in which my friend Lukas Behnken was a guest star – but since we were in the area and since Kerry knew the address, I figured I might as well stalk the place.  I have heard such amazing things about the series over the years, though, that I really do think I need to start tuning in.  Especially since the main house used in the series is such a cool one!  I was actually quite shocked to discover that the Grey’s residence was located in Seattle, as the show is taped for the most part right here in Los Angeles – at both Prospect Studios in Los Feliz and the Veterans Administration Sepulveda Ambulatory Care Center in North Hills.  But apparently, the cast and crew make a few treks each year up to the Seattle-area to shoot some exterior and establishing shots, including all of the shots of Meredith’s home.

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On the show, the house originally belonged to Meredith’s mother and while she announced in the pilot episode that she was planning on selling it, she later decides to keep it and live in it with her fellow Seattle Grace Hospital interns Izzie Stevens (aka Katherine Heigl) and George O’Malley (aka T.R. Knight).  The home has been featured regularly in all six seasons of the series.

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The address of the home on the series is said to be 613 Harper Lane, but in reality it is located in the Queen Anne Hill neighborhood of Seattle on Comstock Street.  The home, which was originally built in 1905 and according to fave website Zillow is currently worth about $1.2 million, boasts 4 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms, and 2,740 square feet of living space.

On a side note – I apologize for the short blog posts I’ve been publishing as of late.  My parent’s recent, and what has been on-going, move – which has taken place over the past four weekends and has involved packing up a 2,000 square foot residence, staging that residence for sale, moving my parents temporarily into their friends’ currently vacant home, putting 1/3 of their possessions into a storage facility, and the other 2/3’s into two portable POD moving containers – has really taken it out of me.  And it’s definitely been a group effort, too.  Mike, from MovieShotsLA, even pitched in to help us out!  Not many people I know would be willing to help their friends move, let alone their friend’s parents, but that’s just the kind of guy Mike is – and it is why he is one of my very best friends!  Anyway, escrow on my parent’s former house closes TODAY (halleluiah!), so the move is finally over – for the time being at least – and I can now get back to my normal life, normal routine, and normal blogging.  After a nice hot bubble bath and nice, tall glass of champagne, that is!  Thanks for bearing with me over the past few weeks, my fellow stalkers!

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Kerry for taking me to this location!  🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: The Grey’s Anatomy house is located at 303 Comstock Street in Seattle, Washington.

Oscar’s House from “The Office”

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Another filming location from The Office that I stalked recently was the ranch-style abode where accounting executive Oscar Martinez (aka Oscar Nunez) lives on the show.  I found this location, as always, thanks to fellow stalker Owen who, along with a bit of assistance from fellow stalker Chas, of ItsFilmedThere, has somehow managed to track down pretty much every single locale that ever appeared on the show.  Thank you, Owen!

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While watching the Season 2 episode of the series titled “The Secret” a few years back, Owen spotted an address number of 5232 in the background of a scene.  He immediately set about searching aerial views of neighborhoods near Chandler Valley Center Studios in Van Nuys, where the series is lensed, for homes with a 5232 address number, and, sure enough, it wasn’t long before he had found the right place.  YAY!  So, while I was in the area with my fiancé – ahem, my husband 🙂 – a few weeks ago, I dragged him right out to stalk Oscar’s abode!

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Oscar’s house actually only appeared in “The Secret” episode and has yet to show up again on the series.  In the episode, Oscar calls in sick to work on a Friday and his co-worker and part-time volunteer sheriff’s deputy Dwight Schrute (aka Rainn Wilson) becomes convinced that Oscar is not truly ill.  Dwight decides to investigate the matter further and, after first conducting interviews with everyone in the office to get their take on whether Oscar is faking or not, he heads over to “the perp’s” house to see if he is actually ill.  When he catches the not-yet-out-of-the-closet Oscar with another man in his driveway, he becomes ecstatic, drives up to the couple and proclaims, “Man, you are so busted!  Ice skates, shopping bags!  I think I know what’s going on here . . . you weren’t sick at all!”  Not realizing that he has stumbled upon a much larger secret, Dwight blackmails Oscar into owing him “one great, big, giant favor redeemable by me at a time and place of my choosing.”  Have I mentioned how much I love this show?  😉

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I am very happy to report that, minus a few trees in the front yard, Oscar’s house looks exactly the same in person as it did on the show.  Love it!

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Located less than a block away from Oscar’s house is the residence where Pam bought a lamp during “Michael Scott’s Dunder Mifflin Scranton Meredith Palmer Memorial Celebrity Rabies Awareness Pro-Am Fun Run Race For the Cure” (and yes, that was the race’s actual name) in the Season 4 episode of the series titled “Fun Run”.  During the race, Jim and Pam happen upon an estate sale at a local residence and instead of continuing on with the run in order to “prevent a disease that’s already been cured” (LOL), they decide to do some shopping.  I know this probably goes without saying, but I also found this location thanks to fellow stalker Owen.  And even though it only appeared very briefly in one episode of the series, because I was already in the area, I just had to stalk it!

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And it, too, looks much the same in person as it did on the series, even though very little of it was ever actually seen in the episode.

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Ironically enough, the “Fun Run” house looks like it could almost be a twin to Oscar’s house!  Many homes in the area actually have that extra little roof gable above the garage and, therefore look quite a bit alike, so it is truly a feat that Owen was able to track down the houses which were used on the show.

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding both of these locations!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: Oscar’s house from The Office is located at 5232 Longridge Avenue in Van Nuys.  The house where Pam buys the lamp in the “Fun Run” episode is located a few blocks north of Oscar’s house at 5306 Longridge Avenue.

Holly’s Nashua House from “The Office”

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Another location from The Office that I stalked recently was the supposed Nashua, New Hampshire-area house that Holly Flax moved into in the Season 5 episode titled “Employee Transfer”.  I found this location, yet again, thanks to fellow stalker Owen who went on a mission a while back to try to track down as many Office locales as possible.  So, thank you, Owen!  Ironically enough, though, I actually didn’t need his help on this one because as soon as I first saw the “Employee Transfer” episode, I was fairly certain that the Nashua house scenes had been filmed either on or near Carroll Avenue in the Angelino Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles – an area which boasts the city’s largest concentration of Victorian-era  homes.  I was already quite familiar with Carroll Avenue and its architecture as the haunted house from Michael Jackson’s Thriller video and the Halliwell residence from the television series Charmed are both located there.  And, sure enough, my stalking instincts were right on!  While Holly’s house is not actually located on Carroll Avenue, it can be found just around the corner from it.

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In the “Employee Transfer” episode, Michael Scott (aka Steve Carell) and Darryl Philbin (aka the hilarious Craig Robinson) move Michael’s girlfriend Holly Flax (aka Amy Ryan) into her new home in Nashua, after she has been transferred back to the Dunder Mifflin branch where she formerly worked.

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And I am very happy to report that the residence looks EXACTLY the same in person as it did on the show.  Holly’s house is absolutely GORGEOUS and it is not very hard to see why producers chose to film there, although, in my mind at least, it looks far more like a San Francisco-area home than one that would be found in Nashua.  I’ve never been to New Hampshire, though, so don’t quote me on that one.  😉 

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Holly’s Nashua house, which is known as the Jesse Hall Residence in real life, actually has quite a bit of history to it, as do most properties in the neighborhood.  The Hall Residence was designed by contractor John M. Skinner in 1887 for $6,000 and it is a carbon copy of the property located directly to the east of it, which is known as the Henry G. Hall Residence.  Because the homes are identical in appearance and were both owned by families with the last name of Hall, they are known in architectural circles as “the Hall Twins”.  And while the house was originally a single-family dwelling, in 1915 Jesse Hall’s son, Tracey, transformed the property into a duplex and it remains so to this day.  The Hall Twins were both designated Historic-Cultural Monuments in June of 1979.  You can read more about their history on the Big Orange Landmarks blog here.

On an Office side note – EW Magazine is reporting that Amy Ryan will be back for a whopping eight episodes during the show’s upcoming seventh season.  YAY!  You can watch a clip of Amy appearing on fave show Chelsea Lately in which she talks about how she landed her recurring role as Michael Scott’s love interest  Holly Flax.  Apparently, after she was nominated for an Oscar for the movie Gone, Baby, Gone, she told her agent that she wanted to use her newfound Hollywood clout to land a guest spot on The Office, which was her favorite show.  She ended up landing the part of Holly and when she arrived on the set the first day and told Rainn Wilson the story of how she booked the role, he told her “You really should aim higher.”  LOL  I first watched that interview long before I had ever seen an episode of The Office and remember being absolutely fascinated by the fact that Amy loved the show THAT much.  But now that I’ve become an Office devotee, I TOTALLY get it.  If I was nominated for an Oscar, I, too, would so try to use my clout to land a role on that show.  🙂

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Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location!  🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: Holly Flax’s Nashua house from The Office is located at 1347 Kellam Avenue in the Angelino Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles.  The house from Michael Jackson’s Thriller video is located just around the corner at 1345 Carroll Avenue and the Charmed residence is located at 1329 Carroll Avenue.

The “Party of Five” House

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Sunday night I returned home from my bachelorette party weekend, which turned out to be a surprise Sex and the City-themed soiree thrown up north in San Francisco.  Needless to say, I was absolutely FLOORED about it.  🙂  The celebration was, of course, held at a filming location, so I will, of course, be blogging about it, but I am still waiting on some pictures that my friends took before I can do so.  In the meantime, though, I thought I’d blog about a location that I have been wanting to stalk for what seems like forever now – the San Francisco home where the Salinger Family – Bailey (aka Scott Wolf), Charlie (aka Matthew Fox), Julia (aka Neve Campbell), Claudia (aka Lacey Chabert), and Owen (aka toddler twins Brandon and Taylor Porter) –  lived on the 90’s television series Party of Five.  For whatever reason, even though I’ve had the place on my To-Stalk list for ages now, every time I’ve visited San Francisco over the past two years, I haven’t been able to make it out to the house.  So, I begged my good friend Nat to take me there the morning following my party and, let me tell you, I could NOT have been more excited to finally be seeing it in person.

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Because I accidentally left my trusty stalking notebook at home, I didn’t have the address of the house with me this past weekend, so, before heading out there, Nat and I did a little cyberstalking to find the address online and as it turns out the property has its own listing on Yelp!  Love it, love it, love it!  

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I am VERY, VERY happy to report that the Salinger house looks EXACTLY the same today as it did back in 1994 when Party of Five was filmed.  Even the paint colors have remained the same!  YAY!  The home is absolutely GORGEOUS in person and so quintessentially symbolizes San Francisco that it is not at all hard to see why producers chose to use it as the main residence on the Bay Area-based series. 

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In real life, the three-story dwelling, which was built in 1900, features seven bedrooms, five and a half bathrooms, a whopping 6,705 square feet, cathedral ceilings, a four-car garage, an elevator, a gourmet kitchen, a greenhouse solarium, stained glass windows throughout, two decks, and views of the Golden Gate Bridge, the Palace of Fine Arts, and San Francisco Bay.  The property was sold to new owners earlier this year for $6,550,000.  I can’t even imagine owning an iconic piece of television history like that!  So darn cool! 

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The house was featured each week in the Party of Five opening credits and in establishing shots throughout the series’ six-year run.

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Because parts of the Party of Five pilot were shot on location in San Francisco, I assumed that the real life interior of the house was also used in the filming of that episode.  But if you look at this recent real estate listing for the home and compare it to the above screen captures, you can see that that was not actually the case.  But I am happy to report that the real life house does boast a small garden courtyard, much like its onscreen counterpart. 

 
 

You can watch the Party of Five opening credits, which feature the house, by clicking above.

Big THANK YOU to Nat for taking me to stalk this location!  🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: The Party of Five house is located at 2311 Broadway in the ultra-exclusive Pacific Heights neighborhood of San Francisco.

David Wallace’s House from “The Office” – Part II

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Another filming location from The Office that I dragged my fiance out to stalk two weekends ago was the large Colonial-style estate belonging to Dunder Mifflin Paper Company CFO David Wallace (aka Andy Buckley) on the show.  This is not the same Pasadena-area property that stood in for the Wallace residence in the Season 3 episode of the series titled “Branch Closing” that I blogged about two weeks ago, however.  For an unexplained reason, after shooting the “Branch Closing” episode, producers chose to use a different, but similar-looking home located in the Encino-area, to stand in for the Wallace residence.  I found this location, as usual, thanks to fellow stalker Owen, who tracked down a slew of Office filming locales long before I ever even watched the show.  So, thank you, Owen!
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Owen had warned me before I stalked the house that the property was not only gated, but set quite a ways back from the street and was most likely not at all visible to the public.  I am very happy to report, though, that the stalking gods were smiling down upon us when we arrived to stalk the house because miraculously the front gates were standing WIDE OPEN!  YAY!  I am also happy to report that the home looks exactly the same in person as it did on the show.
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I honestly can’t get over how large the Wallace residence is!  The place is absolutely gargantuan!  And it is currently for sale!  According to its real estate listing, the home, which is currently being offered at $4,998,000, boasts 6 bedrooms, 6.5 bathrooms, 6,000 square feet of living space, and sits on a whopping 3 acres of what the listing describes as “park-like” land.  The home also features a separate 700-square foot guest house, working horse stables, a tennis court, a pool, and a spa.
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The home first appeared in the Season 3 episode of the series titled “Cocktails”, in which David Wallace and his wife, Rachel, throw a party at their house for all of the Dunder Mifflin managers.
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And, as you can see in the above screen captures as compared to these interior photographs of the home, the real life inside of the house and even some of the actual furniture was used in the filming of that episode.
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I have to say here that I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE the scene in “Cocktails” in which Dwight Schrute (aka Rainn Wilson) turns to a party guest who is eating shrimp and says, “You know that line on the top of the shrimp?  That’s feces.”  LOL LOL LOL  That scene especially resonates with me because someone once told me that very same thing when I was a little girl and I have NEVER forgotten it and now can’t eat shrimp unless that “line” has been removed.
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One VERY odd anomaly that I noticed while watching the “Cocktails” episode today was that the trash cans pictured in the background of the scene in which Michael and Dwight trade shirts were all spray-painted with the number “1485”.  And while the home where that episode was filmed is numbered “5133”, the Pasadena residence that stood in for David Wallace’s house in the previous “Branch Closing” episode was in fact numbered “1485”.  I don’t even know what to make of this development, as that shirt-trading scene was obviously not filmed at the Pasadena location.  I guess I’ll just have to chalk it up to being a very, very bizarre coincidence.
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David Wallace’s house also appeared in the Season 6 episode of The Office titled “Sabre” in the scene in which Michael goes to David’s home to get some advice on how to deal with the new corporation that has just taken over Dunder Mifflin.
Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location!  🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: David Wallace’s (second) house from The Office is located at 5133 Louise Avenue in Encino.  You can visit the home’s real estate listing here.

Michael Scott’s Condo from “The Office”

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I am very sad to report that early last week I finally watched the Season 6 finale of The Office and am at this time all caught up on new episodes of the show.  I am not quite sure what to do with myself now and am seriously considering watching the entire series over again, even though it’s only been about three weeks since I began watching it the first time.  What can I say – I am absolutely obsessed!  Unlike me, though, my fiancé was extremely happy when I finished watching the series because as he said, “Yes, it’s a great show, but not when you are playing it on a 24-hour loop in our apartment.”  He was on so much Office-overload, in fact, that he had actually taken to watching random movies on his laptop computer every night while I commandeered our TV.  Poor guy.  Anyway, because there are no new episodes for me to watch, in order to satisfy my Office fix I spent this past weekend dragging my fiancé all over the Valley to stalk a bunch of locations from the show, the first one being the supposed Scranton, Pennsylvania- area condominium where Michael Scott (aka Steve Carell) lives.  I found Michael’s residence thanks, once again, to fellow stalker Owen who was able to track the place down via a lucky Google search.  Thank you, Owen!

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While watching the Season 5 episode of The Office titled “Dream Team”, Owen noticed the above-pictured “Exit on Laura Lane” sign displayed on a fence near the front of Michael’s house and figured it might just be an actual sign posted near the actual property.  He then simply used Google to search for a Laura Lane in Los Angeles and it wasn’t long before he stumbled upon one located in Reseda and, sure enough, just around the corner from it was Michael’s condo.  YAY!

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Before stalking the place, Owen had warned me that Michael Scott’s condo was located inside of a gated community and that it was most likely not visible to the public.  I am very happy to report, though, that Michael’s particular unit is the second house in from Wyandotte Street, which is a public road, and that it actually can be seen from the street!  YAY! 

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Sadly, Michael’s front door, which appears quite often on the series, is not visible, though.

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But, I was able to spy the front door of a different unit while I was there and I am very happy to report that it looks JUST LIKE Michael’s front door.  🙂

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Michael first purchased the condo in the Season 2 episode of The Office titled “Office Olympics”.  It is while he is buying the residence that he gives this sage piece of advice to the audience: “There’s a basic principle in real estate that you should never be the best-looking person in the development.  It’s just sort of common sense because, if you are, then you’ve got no place to go but down.”  LOL 

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In that same episode, when Michael first points out his new condo to Dwight Schrute (aka Rainn Wilson) he mistakenly shows him the wrong unit, which is located directly across the street from the one which he has actually purchased.   

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The condo has been featured in several episodes of The Office over the course of the series’ six-year run, including the Season 4 episode titled “Dinner Party”, in which Michael invites all of the office couples over to his house for dinner. 

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And, as you can see from these photographs of another residence in the same development, the real-life interior of the home was actually used in the filming of that episode.

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Michael’s condo was also featured in the Season 5 episode titled “Dream Team”, as well.

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My favorite part about this location is that if you look at it via Bing Maps, you can see several production trucks, star trailers, and craft services tents set up, which means that they were actually filming an episode of The Office when the aerial images were taken!!  SO DARN COOL!

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On a side note – I recently got a Brazilian Blowout treatment done to my hair and I have to say it was the BEST DECISION I EVER MADE!  While I’ve never had particularly difficult or unruly hair, it is very thick and very curly and because I’ve been growing it out recently for the wedding, it has become rather time-consuming to style.  My mom told me about the Brazilian Blowout treatment a few weeks ago after she heard it supposedly shortens the time it takes to straighten one’s hair.  I was leery to try it as not only is it very expensive, but I was afraid it might fry my locks.  I finally bit the bullet, though, last Wednesday, and, let me tell you, I am SO GLAD I DID!  It is no exaggeration to say that the treatment has been life-changing!    While it used to take me 90 minutes to blow-dry my hair straight, it now takes me 20!  NO JOKE!  And I no longer need to use any sort of product to style it – that’s right, no balm, no cream, no gel!  If you have been trying to decide whether or not to try the Brazilian Blowout, I honestly cannot recommend it enough!  I’ve gone from being so frustrated with my hair that I was ready to shave it all off ala Britney Spears to being a wash-and-go type of gal.  LOVE IT!!!!  LOVE IT!!!!   LOVE IT!!!!

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Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location!  🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: Michael Scott’s condo from The Office is located at 7303 Bonnie Place in Reseda.  The condo which Michael mistakenly thinks is his in the “Office Olympics” episode is located at 7302 Bonnie Place.  Both residences are located within a gated community, so please be respectful and do not trespass.

David Wallace’s House from “The Office”

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Fellow stalker Owen and I recently set out upon a mission to try to track down the Colonial-style residence belonging to David Wallace in the Season 3 episode of The Office titled “Branch Closing”.  This proved to be a rather difficult find for us, though, being that we had virtually nothing to go on – no house number or street sign was visible in the background of the episode and neither Owen nor I had any idea of which city the house might be located in.  We figured that unless we were able to get ahold of a crew member and gather some inside information, we would never be able to track the place down.  That is until last week, when I stumbled upon this fabulous filming locations database, which, lo and behold, had photographs of the exact property which we were looking for!  And not only did the database state that the house was located in Pasadena, but it also gave us an address number – 1485.  YAY!  I immediately emailed the link to Owen and the two of us set about using Google Maps to search every 1400 block in the Pasadena area.  Three minutes later I got a text from Owen with the address.  And while he says that this one was a team effort, my hat is definitely off to him because there is absolutely NO WAY I ever would have found the place as quickly as he did.  So, THANK YOU, OWEN!  🙂

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In the “Branch Closing” episode of The Office, Michael Scott (aka Steve Carell) and Dwight Schrute (aka Rainn Wilson) come up with a plan to save the Dunder Mifflin Paper Company’s Scranton branch by driving to New York to make a personal face-to-face plea to CFO David Wallace (aka Andy Buckley) at his home, the address of which Dwight has stolen off of the company Christmas card list.  Because Wallace is not at home when they show up to confront him “Michael Moore-style”, they are forced to wait outside on the sidewalk all day and into the night with only a bottle of Gatorade to sustain them.  And while Dwight and Michael never end up getting the chance to confront Wallace in the episode, the Scranton Branch does eventually get spared from closure.

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I am VERY happy to report that the Wallace residence looks much the same in person as it did onscreen.  In fact, the only difference I noticed was that the bronze eagle that was affixed to the round portico above the front door in the episode was not there in real life.  Otherwise, though, the house looks exactly as it did on the show.  Love it!

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As you can see in the above screen capture and photograph, producers even went so far as to have the house’s real life “San Marino Security” sign covered over with a “Mount Vernon Security” sign for the filming, which is so darn cool!

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And, of course, I just had to sit in the spot where Dwight and Michael were sitting at the end of the episode.  🙂

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On a side note – for whatever reason, in the episode of The Office titled “Cocktails”, which aired during the very same season as the “Branch Closing” episode, a similar-looking, but obviously very different, home stood in for the Wallace residence.  Have no fear, though, Owen also found that property, so I will be stalking it soon!

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Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location!  🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: David Wallace’s house from the “Branch Closing” episode of The Office is located at 1485 Lomita Drive in Pasadena.