Tag: true crime

Dirty John producers traveled far and wide across Los Angeles to shoot the second season of the true crime anthology series, which chronicles the 1989 double murder of prominent San Diego lawyer Dan Broderick (Christian Slater) and his new wife, Linda Kolkena (Rachel Keller), at the hands of his ex, Betty Broderick (Amanda Peet).  The scenes involving Dan and Betty’s longtime family home were shot deep in the Valley in Chatsworth, the restaurant the couple regularly dined at during happier times is in Studio City, and Betty rammed her car into Dan’s post-divorce pad in Toluca Lake.  But most of the action takes place at Betty’s supposed La Jolla Shores residence, where she grows more and more unglued following the separation.  The sprawling seaside property is perhaps the show’s most prominent locale, popping up in the opening scene of the first episode and going on to appear in pretty much every episode that follows.  So I, of course, was hot to track it down.  Try as I might, though, I could just not find the place – until I enlisted the help of my friend/fellow stalker Owen, that is, who IDed it in no time!

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From what was shown onscreen, we knew the dilapidated ranch-style abode was situated on a corner lot across from a bluff overlooking the ocean.  Since no discernible street signs or address numbers were visible in the background, Owen simply began scouring the Los Angeles coastline from the north to the south via Google aerial views and, voila, quickly pinpointed Betty’s home at 1400 Paseo Del Mar in Palos Verdes Estates.  I ran out to socially-distant stalk it shortly thereafter on a gorgeous Southern California day.  Those skies, amirite!

In real life, the 1966 property boasts 3 bedrooms, 4 baths, 3,962 square feet, 2 fireplaces, a massive 0.48-acre lot, a wraparound driveway, a pool, and a large front yard.

Oh, and views for days!

The Dirty John: The Betty Broderick Story production team roughed the place up a bit for the shoot by dotting the front railings with rust stains and covering the roofline with chipped, peeling paint to make it appear to be in the same disrepair as Betty’s actual former La Jolla Shores home.  The exterior was also painted a muted blue and the front door swapped out to give the property a more dated look.

In real life, the residence has a much cleaner and more contemporary aesthetic.

The set dressing coupled with the fact that the house was mainly shot from the driveway, a vantage point that is blocked from the street by large hedges, equals a very different-looking house in person.  So much so that, when I first pulled up, I wasn’t entirely sure I was in the right place.

One glimpse of the side of the property, though, with the front stairway, large pane windows and ocean visible across the street, and it became instantly recognizable.

Dan put a $140,000 down payment on the house for Betty following their separation in mid-1985.  (Though, as stated in Bella Stumbo’s 1993 book, Until the Twelfth of Never, “He would, of course, collect it back in full nearly four years later from her share of the community property in the divorce settlement.”)  Per a San Diego Reader article, the place was in “poor repair” at the time.  In fact, Betty, sure Dan was going to re-think the separation, considered the property a tear-down and had plans to raze it in order to build a dream house for the two of them.  Dan had other ideas, instead buying a Colonial pad in Hillcrest and moving his mistress right in.  Eventually Betty began fixing up the La Jolla Shores residence on her own, adding a pool, a Jacuzzi, a pool house, a new kitchen and bathroom, and gorgeous landscaping that she honed herself.  By 1988, though, she was in seriously dire financial straits – whether through fault of her own or Dan’s depends on whose account of the divorce proceedings you believe – and could no longer afford the $4,000-a-month payment on the place or the cost of the many repairs it required.  (Per the Reader, she spent $11,000 on home improvements in the first 5 months of 1988 alone!)  She finally put the pad on the market in September 1989 and began moving into a small 2-bedroom condo at 3133 Morning Way, which cost her $200,000.  Though she was splitting her time between the house and condo in November 1989, it was from the La Jolla Shores residence that she departed the morning of the murders.

Betty’s actual La Jolla Shores house, located at 8320 Calle Del Cielo, no longer stands.  It was torn down in 2014 to make way for a newer modern manse. Thankfully, if you toggle Google Street View back to 2007 and 2008, imagery of Betty’s residence is still visible.  As you can see below, it looks nothing like the pad chosen for Dirty John.

In fact, it is the only location on the series so far that does not closely resemble the site of the actual events.  I’m guessing that is due to the tear-down.  Either producers did not know what the residence looked like . . .

. . . or they figured that since it was gone audiences would have nothing to compare it to, so they had a clean slate to work with.

Interestingly, Betty’s TV home looks a lot like a neighboring house on Calle Del Cielo – the one at 8333 (pictured in the top image below) – leading me to wonder if the production team drove around Betty’s old neighborhood, saw the residence and its large second-floor balcony, exterior staircase, big pane windows and ranch-style elements, and became inspired to find a similar property for the shoot.  That’s a completely unsubstantiated hunch, though.

As mentioned earlier, the Palos Verdes house pops up regularly on Dirty John: The Betty Broderick Story.  Besides the front of the residence, Betty is also shown eating with friends on the balcony overlooking the ocean in the episodes titled “No Fault” and “The Twelfth of Never.”

The interior of Betty’s home is just a set, though – one with a very run-down ‘80s feel.

I am sure the interior of the actual Palos Verdes property is much more swanky and updated, though I could find no photographs with which to verify that.

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

Big THANK YOU to my friend Owen for finding this location! 

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 

Stalk It: Betty’s house from Dirty John: The Betty Broderick Story is located at 1400 Paseo Del Mar in Palos Verdes Estates.  Betty’s real former home was located at 8320 Calle Del Cielo in La Jolla Shores, but it was torn down and a new dwelling now stands in its place.