Vince Vaughn – IAMNOTASTALKER

December 15, 2017December 14, 2017

The “Four Christmases” Dance Studio

I can hardly believe it, but the Christmas season is upon us again! It seems like just yesterday I was hanging out in a pool celebrating my 40th birthday in June! I hate how fast time seems to pass, but I do love the holidays and am thrilled to finally be covering a Yuletide-themed locale. Today’s post comes courtesy of my good friend Mike, from MovieShotsLA, who a few years back worked for a production company with offices all over the L.A. area, including the building at 1161 Vine Street in Hollywood. One fateful day, Mike was tasked with setting up some new film and video equipment at the Vine Street space and happened to cue up Four Christmases on his laptop to play in the background while he toiled away (slightly random, being that this was in the summer!). He just about fell over when the dance studio scene came on because, as he looked around the room, he realized he was sitting in the exact spot where the segment had been lensed! Talk about synchronicity! He promptly snapped a bunch of photographs of the place and recently sent them to me, thinking the site would make for a good holiday post. Thank you, Mike!

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Situated on the corner of Lexington Avenue right in the heart of Hollywood, 1161 Vine boasts quite a Tinseltown pedigree, having served as the headquarters of not one, but two sound industry titans. During the ‘40s, the handsome 1928 building acted as the main office of Altec Lansing, an audio electronics company best-known for developing horn-based loudspeaker systems for movie theatres, concert venues, and home entertainment centers. You can see a photograph of what the property looked like during the Altec Lansing days here. Amazingly, aside from the addition of quite a bit of foliage, not much of its exterior has changed since that time. In 1951, Ryder Sound Services moved into the 5,758-square-foot site, utilizing it as a recording and post production studio. The company, which pioneered magnetic audio recording for the motion picture industry, was founded by Loren L. Ryder, a 5-time-Academy-Award-winning sound engineer.

At the time that Four Christmases was filmed in 2008, the modern office space, which boasts exposed brickwork, a 24-foot-high bow truss ceiling, concrete and wood floors, a fireplace, a full kitchen, and a large loft area, served as a photography studio. Today it is home to digital media firm Beautycon. I wonder if the people who work there have any idea of the place’s cinematic history. I am guessing most don’t and can totally picture a not-in-the-know employee putting on the flick during the holiday season and, upon seeing the dance scene and realization dawning, screaming out, “Oh my God! I work there!” No? That’s just me? And Mike? Winking smile

You can check out some additional interior photographs of the property here.

Toward the beginning of Four Christmases, Kate (Reese Witherspoon) and Brad (Vince Vaughn) attend a ballroom dance class at 1161 Vine. While there, they get into a rather humorous exchange with two newly-engaged couples who are taking dance lessons for their upcoming weddings, about why they have no desire to get married or have kids. After denouncing expressions like “tying the knot” and “ball and chain,” Brad tells the betrotheds, “I mean I’d rather be, like, stuck on an island with some weird millionaire hunting me trying to kill me and me trying to escape than to be involved in something with those kind of slogans, ‘cause that’s like a time bomb waiting to explode.” Upon seeing their rather shell-shocked reactions to his diatribe, he closes off with, “But anyway, congratulations on getting married. That sounds like a really cool thing. And to each their own. Merry Christmas.” You can watch the hilarious scene here.

The segment is one of my favorite bits of the whole movie, mainly because Kate and Brad dance to “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” a holiday song I adore.

As you can see in the photos and screen captures above and below, 1161 Vine looks much the same in person as it does onscreen, minus the slew of festive Christmas decorations.

The property’s loft area was utilized for another Four Christmases scene in which Kate and Brad are shown calling their respective parents to inform them that they won’t be making it home for the holiday. Though the segment wound up on the cutting room floor, eagle-eyed viewers might remember a portion of it popping up in the movie’s trailer. As I mentioned in this 2012 post, I originally thought the phone call bit was supposed to have occurred at Kate and Brad’s house, which confused me to no end as the space looks nothing like the residence that appeared in the other scenes set at the couple’s home. But I was lucky enough to get in touch with production designer Shepherd Frankel who set me straight. He explained that Kate and Brad were purportedly phoning their parents from a break area of the dance studio. Why the two would be making such personal calls from a public place, I have no idea, but perhaps that is why the scene, which you can watch in its entirety here, was scrapped.

While researching this post, I was absolutely bowled over to discover that 1161 Vine boasts another holiday movie connection! According to the Mister Magoo’s Christmas Carol blog, all of the dialogue for the 1962 film, which was the first ever animated Christmas special, was recorded at the building! At the time, the property was home to Ryder Sound Services.

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

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for not only stalking this location, but also providing all of the photos that appear in the post!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Four Christmases dance studio is located at 1161 Vine Street in Hollywood.

January 27, 2017January 25, 2017

The “Swingers” Party House

2016 was a great year for me as far as finding locations goes. So many of my most-wanted unknown locales were identified. Rod Tidwell’s home from Jerry Maguire, the Say Anything . . . amphitheatre, the Life Goes On house, the “Las Vegas” casino from the Season 4 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 titled “And Did It . . . My Way” – I could go on and on. Another spot that I tracked down in 2016, but haven’t gotten around to blogging about until now is from Swingers. Though the vast majority of the 1996 comedy’s locations are well-known and have long been documented online, late last year I went on a trek to find some of the missing ones, namely the Spanish-style house where Mike (Jon Favreau), Trent (Vince Vaughn), and the gang attended a party. And I am happy to report that I was successful!

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I literally had nothing to go on with this locale outside of the fact that, per Favreau’s DVD commentary, it was located in the Hollywood Hills. In the scene leading up to the party, Mike and his four friends are shown driving (all separately!) on a curving L.A. road. I figured that the segment was likely shot in the same vicinity as the house where the party scene was lensed. Thankfully, while watching the Swingers Blu-ray, I was able to make out an address number of 7902 on the curb of a home that the boys pass. (Unfortunately, my computer does not have the capacity to play Blu-rays, so all of my screen captures were taken from a regular DVD, which is why the 7902 number is not clear in the image below.)

I started searching the Hollywood Hills for houses with a 7902 address number and fairly quickly discerned that the boys drove by the residence at 7902 Fareholm Drive on their way to the party. I was floored to make the discovery and immediately began scouring the area for the property where the soiree was held – unsuccessfully. Though there are several rambling Spanish-style homes located on Fareholm, none of them matched the pad from Swingers. So back to the drawing board I went.

Since the movie’s 20th anniversary was fast approaching, interviews with the cast and crew were popping up all over the internet. I decided to pour through every one I could find with the hope that some information about the party house would be revealed. I got lucky when I came across this fabulous article on the Grantland website titled “So Money: An Oral History of Swingers.” (If you’re a fan of the film, I highly recommend a read.) Not only did the article mention the party scene, but it detailed the exact street it was shot on! Thank you, Grantland! According to those interviewed, the production team could not afford to rent a home to shoot the soiree sequence, nor could they afford to hire the large amount of extras that would be required. So line producer Nicole LaLoggia and director Doug Liman asked some friends who lived in “this very cool old house” located “up in the Hollywood Hills on Temple Hill Drive” if they would throw a get-together and let them film it. Those words were music to my ears! I immediately started using Google Street View to search Temple Hill Drive for the residence used. It took me longer to find the place than expected due to the fact that it is situated on a corner and only a side view of it was shown in Swingers.

Very little of the dwelling’s exterior actually appeared in the movie, but, thankfully, enough detailing was visible for me to be able to identify it.

I was most excited to see the staircase that Trent and the guys headed up upon arriving at the party.

A better view of those stairs is pictured below.

Though the outside was only featured briefly in Swingers, the interior of the residence got quite a bit of screen time. It is while inside the home that Trent gets – and then immediately tears up – the digits of a “business class” girl who touts herself as having a Tina Yothers vibe.

In real life, the 1926 pad boasts 4 bedrooms, 4 baths, 3,872 square feet, and a 0.22-acre plot of land. As I mentioned above, the residence is situated on a corner. Pictured below is the side of it that fronts Temple Hill Drive.

The property is absolutely massive, much more so than it appears to be from the street. You can check out an aerial view of how it’s laid out below. (The castle-looking estate located next door is known as Moorcrest. Charlie Chaplin and Mary Astor have both called it home at different points in time and it currently belongs to actor Andy Samberg. A post on that locale will be coming soon.)

The Swingers party pad has quite the Hollywood pedigree. As actor/writer Mike White, who was present during the filming of the party scene, explains in the Grantland article, “The house was one of the centers of partying back then. There were four guys that lived there. Two of them have gone on to be successful producers — Wyck Godfrey and Marty Bowen. Their production company is called Temple Hill [Entertainment], in reference to the house. They produced all the Twilight movies, actually.” Godfrey and Bowen also gave us The Fault in Our Stars, Revenge and Rosewood! Not a bad resume. I cannot express how cool I find it that the duo chose to name their production company in honor of their former digs.

In his DVD commentary, Favreau described the property as such, “This is one of those big, great 1920s Hollywood Hills houses that sort of has fallen into disrepair, but people, like, all get together and become roommates and live in these huge mansions.” The residence remains in a state of disrepair today, sadly. Though I do kind of love the fact that, 20 years later, it still looks like a dwelling that a bunch of showbiz hopefuls got together to rent.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Swingers party house is located at 6161 Temple Hill Drive in the Hollywood Hills. It is the eastern side of the residence, which can be found on Vasanta Way, that appeared in the movie.

December 17, 2015December 14, 2015

New “L.A.” Mag Post – About The Federal Bar Long Beach from “Four Christmases”

Don’t forget to read my latest Los Angeles magazine post today – about The Federal Bar Long Beach from Four Christmases. My articles typically get published in the early afternoon hours.

March 4, 2014March 3, 2014

Lorenzo Lamas’ House from “Sex and the City”

This past weekend was hands down the best. Oscar. weekend. ever. I ended up stalking only one event (the torrential rain kept me indoors the rest of the time), but while there I got to meet one of my top-five celebrity crushes, Mr. Joshua Jackson from Dawson’s Creek. Like I said, best. Oscar. weekend. ever.

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I also met Alex Newell from Glee . . .

and The O.C.’s Peter Gallagher (who happened to be playing in a celebrity golf tournament in Palm Springs).

I also got to do a bit of location stalking during the few, brief moments when the sun was out, most of it Sex and the City-related. While doing research for my most-recent Los Angeles magazine Scene It Before post, about the backlot stoop where Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) attempted to smoke a cigarette in the Season 3 episode titled “Escape from New York,” I got inspired to track down some of the missing locations from the episode and the one that followed it, titled “Sex and Another City.” (Both episodes took place in L.A.). The locale I was most intent on finding was the ultra-modern pad that Keith Travers (Vince Vaughn) took Carrie to look at in “Sex and Another City.” In the episode, the real estate agent informs Keith that the residence belongs to actor Lorenzo Llamas and that he has it listed at $3.4 million, but that it will probably go for $3.2.

When Carrie sees the inside of the place, she says, “This is not a house, this is an airport!”

Thanks to its modern style and stellar views, I was convinced that the residence was located somewhere in the West Hollywood area, so I was shocked to come across this listing which stated that it was actually in Studio City. From there, tracking down the home’s exact location was a snap. Sadly though, when I went to stalk it, I learned that the pad is located on a private road and is not accessible to the public. I did manage to catch a glimpse of it from a few blocks away, though.

According to this article, the unique home had a bit of a stilted start. Architect Michael Pearce completed building the exterior of the structure in 1996, shortly before it was acquired by the bank. A man named Robert Seltzer subsequently purchased it for $600,000 and commissioned architect David Kellen to finish the project. The residence was then put on the market in 2004 for, in a case of life imitating art, $3.4 million. It appears to have been put on the market again in 2013 for $2,795,000, but I do not believe that it ever sold.

According to the real estate listing, the property was in need of some repairs and TLC at that time. As you can see below, it does appear that some sort of work is currently being done on the place.

The stunning home boasts four bedrooms, five baths, 5,873 square feet of space, a 0.59-acre plot of land, an infinity pool, a spa, a rooftop deck, three balconies, twenty-foot ceilings, glass walls, a gourmet kitchen, three fireplaces, and a sauna. You can see some interior photographs of the pad here. According to this article, Leonardo DiCaprio (whom I was devastated did not win the Best Actor Oscar on Sunday night) even checked out the property at one point in time.

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: Lorenzo Lamas’ house from the “Sex and Another City” episode of Sex and the City is located at 3596 Woodhill Canyon Road in Studio City. Woodhill Canyon Road is private and not accessible to the public, but you can catch a glimpse of the residence from Mound View Place, which is located just a few blocks east.

September 29, 2011September 28, 2011

The “Beaches” Mansion vs. The “Starsky & Hutch” Mansion

Two weeks ago, fellow stalker Jenny left a comment on my post about the long-sought-after Beaches mansion in which she mentioned that the very same residence had also been used in both 1983’s Mr. Mom and 1987’s Who’s That Girl. Ironically enough, I had received virtually that same exact comment from a fellow stalker named Sarah on the post I wrote about the Starsky & Hutch mansion (pictured above) way back in May of 2009. So yesterday I decided to do some digging to see which mansion, if either, had been used in the two 80s flicks – a task which proved to be easier said than done.

Both the Beaches mansion and the Starsky & Hutch mansion are extremely large, Tudor-style residences situated on absolutely huge pieces of land in Pasadena, so it is easy to see how they have been mistaken as being one in the same over the years. The Beaches mansion, which is pictured above although sadly not much of it can be seen from the street, was originally built in 1916 and boasts 8 bedrooms, 4 baths, and a whopping 7,479 square feet of living space.

The gargantuan home sits on just under two acres of land.

In Beaches, the mansion was where Hillary Whitney Essex (aka Barbara Hershey) lived with her daughter, Victoria Cecilia Essex (aka Grace Johnston).

The Starsky & Hutch mansion, which was built in 1912, boasts 13 bedrooms (and no that is not a typo!), 8 baths, and 11,573 square feet of living space.

The monstrous residence sits on a 2.2 acre plot of land.

In 2004’s Starsky & Hutch, the mansion was where Reese Feldman (aka Vince Vaughn) lived with his wife, Mrs. Feldman (aka Molly Sims), and was where David Starsky (aka Ben Stiller) accidentally shot a pony while at a bar mitzvah party.

As it turns out and as you can see above, Mr. Mom was filmed at the Starsky & Hutch mansion and not at the Beaches mansion. In the movie, the property stood in for the residence belonging to Caroline’s (aka Teri Garr’s) millionaire boss, Ron Richardson (aka Martin Mull).

And here’s where things get confusing. As you can see above, the Starsky & Hutch mansion was also used as the home of Simon Worthington (aka John McMartin) in Who’s That Girl. Well, the front of the house was, at least.

The backyard, though, where the wedding of Louden Trott (aka Griffin Dunne) and Wendy Worthington (aka Sixteen Candles’ Haviland Morris) was supposed to take place, was actually the backyard of the Beaches mansion!

The interior scenes from Who’s That Girl were also filmed at the Beaches mansion. The screen captures in the top row pictured above were taken from Who’s That Girl, while the ones in the bottom row were taken from Beaches, and, as you can see, the interiors match perfectly.

The Starsky & Hutch mansion was also used numerous times in the television series Falcon Crest as the home belonging to Carlo Agretti (aka Carlos Romero) and his daughter, Melissa (aka Ana Alicia). It first showed up in the Season 1 episode titled “House of Cards” and then popped up repeatedly throughout the next few seasons. According to IMDB, the Starsky & Hutch mansion was also used in the Season 2 episode of Fantasy Island titled “The Last Whodunit” and in the Season 4 episode of Murder She Wrote titled “Witness for the Defense”, neither of which I could find a copy of to make screen captures for this post. And according to my buddy E.J. over at The Movieland Directory, the property also appeared in an episode of the short-lived television series Pepper Dennis.

As I mentioned in my post two weeks ago, the Beaches mansion has also been used in countless productions over the years. It stood in for Roger Sterling’s (aka John Slattery’s) country club in the Season 3 episode of Mad Men titled “My Old Kentucky Home”.

And in the Season 2 episode of Parks & Recreation titled “94 Meetings” it appeared as the Turnbill Mansion, which Leslie Knope (aka Amy Poehler) fought to save.

Fellow stalker Tamara in Australia also let me know that the Beaches mansion was used as the residence where the eponymous Alice (aka Natalie Gregory) lived in 1985’s FABULOUS Irwin-Allen-produced television movie Alice in Wonderland, which featured an all-star cast and which I used to watch repeatedly with my grandma when I was a child. The same property also appeared in the Season 7 episode of Columbo titled “Try and Catch Me”, which I was unfortunately unable to find a copy of to make screen captures for this post.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalkers Jenny, Sarah, and Tamara for helping me to clear up the filming location confusion with these particular properties. Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Beaches mansion is located at 880 La Loma Road in Pasadena. The Starsky & Hutch mansion is located just about two miles east at 1050 Arden Road in Pasadena.

March 21, 2011March 19, 2011

The Quality Café

While stalking in Downtown Los Angeles a couple of weekends ago, the Grim Cheaper and I found ourselves hungry so I suggested grabbing some lunch at the Quality Café on West 7th Street – a diner that has appeared in countless productions over the years. When we showed up to stalk the place, though, we were shocked to discover that it was completely boarded up. I was even further shocked to discover, once I returned home, that, aside from some brief blurbs about its filming history, I could not seem to find any information about the place online. I was extremely curious if the cafe had ever been an actual working restaurant or if it had only ever existed as a film set. So I contacted fellow stalker Harry Medved, author of one of my very favorite stalking tomes – Hollywood Escapes: The Moviegoer’s Guide to Exploring Southern California’s Great Outdoors – who was nice enough to give me the scoop on the former greasy spoon. As it turns out, the Quality Café was indeed a real life restaurant at one point time. It closed its doors a few years back and is now used solely for filming, although word on the street is that the place might re-open as an eatery once again in the near future.

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Being that it is completely boarded up and there is not a whole lot to see while there, the Quality Café does not make for a great stalking venue, but because it has such an incredibly vast filming history, I figured it was worthy of a blog post.

In Catch Me If You Can, it is while dining at the Quality Café that a waiter clues Carl Hanratty (aka Tom Hanks) into the fact that Barry Allen, the alias Frank Abagnale Jr. (aka Leonardo DiCaprio) has been using, is the actual name of the comic book character “The Flash”.

In 1995’s Se7en, Tracy Mills (aka Gwyneth Paltrow) confesses to Detective Lt. William Somerset (aka Morgan Freeman) that she is pregnant with Detective David Mills’ (aka Brad Pitt’s) baby over a cup of coffee at the Quality Café.

Morgan Freeman returned to the Quality Café in 2004 to film the scene from Million Dollar Baby in which his character, Eddie Scrap-Iron Dupris, takes Maggie Fitzgerald (aka Hilary Swank) out to celebrate her birthday.

In Gone in Sixty Seconds, the Quality Café is the diner where Helen Raines (aka Grace Zabriskie), the mother of Memphis (aka Nicolas Cage) and Kip Raines (aka Giovanni Ribisi), works.

In Training Day, Detective Alonzo Harris (aka Denzel Washington) and Jake Hoyt (aka Ethan Hawke) meet up at the café on their first day of working together.

In Old School, Mitch Martin (aka Luke Wilson) takes Nicole (aka Ellen Pompeo) to the Quality Café and tries to convince her that he is actually a nice guy.

In Mr. and Mrs. Smith, John Smith (aka Brad Pitt) and Eddie (aka Vince Vaughn) meet up at the Quality Café to discuss the failed assassination attempt of Benjamin Danz (aka Adam Brody).

In 2001’s Ghost World, Enid (aka Thora Birch) and Rebecca (aka a very young Scarlett Johansson) spy on some supposed Satanists while dining at the Quality Café.

In 2009’s The Stepfather, the Quality Café is where David Harris (aka Dylan Walsh) asks Michael Harding (aka Penn Badgley) to be his best man.

In Sex and Death 101, the Quality Café is where Death Nell (aka Winona Ryder) tells Roderick Blank (aka Simon Baker) her life story.

In 2008’s The Midnight Meat Train, the Quality Café is where Leon’s (aka Bradley Cooper’s) wife, Maya (aka Leslie Bibb), works.

In 1993’s What’s Love Got To Do With It, the Quality Café is where Ike Turner (aka Laurence Fishburne) takes Anna Mae Bullock (aka Angela Bassett) out to dinner for the first time.

The Quality Café was the site of a triple murder in the Season One episode of CSI: New York titled “Outside Man”.

In the Season One episode of Mad Men titled “5G”, the Quality Café stood in for the Delight Café where Don Draper (aka Jon Hamm) met up with his half-brother, Adam Whitman (aka Jay Paulson), whom he had been estranged from for years.

Harry Medved also let me know that, according to Marty Cummins, the key assistant location manager for 500 Days of Summer, the Quality Café is where Summer (aka Zooey Deschanel) broke up with Tom (aka Joseph Gordon-Levitt) at the beginning of the flick.

And while the exterior of the restaurant appeared as a local hangout in 2004’s You Got Served . . .

. . . as you can see in the above screen captures, a different restaurant was used for the interior filming.

EMBED-The Quality Cafe in Movies Mash-Up – Watch more free videos

You can watch a fabulous compilation from the Screen Junkies website of several different movies that have been filmed at the café by clicking above.

Big THANK YOU to Harry Medved for filling me in on the restaurant’s history.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Quality Café is located at 1238 West 7th Street in Downtown Los Angeles. The restaurant is currently closed to the public and is only available for film shoots, so I can’t say that I’d really recommend stalking it as there is just not a whole lot to see.

March 2, 2011June 16, 2011

Casa del Mar Hotel from “Just Go With It”

On February 11th – which just so happened to be my girl Jennifer Aniston’s 42nd birthday – I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to see the actress’ latest movie, Just Go With It. Because there are very few JA movies that I have ever actually liked (even though I am a HUGE fan of hers, Office Space and He’s Just Not That Into You are the only two that I can honestly say that I LOVE), I did not have high hopes for the flick. But I am very happy to report that I ended up absolutely LOVING it! Even more amazing was the fact that the GC loved it, too. And even more amazing still was the fact that the GC also recognized a location from it – the Casa del Mar hotel in Santa Monica which was used in the scene in which Katherine (aka Jennifer Aniston) poses as Danny’s (aka Adam Sandler’s) soon-to-be ex-wife and meets his new girlfriend, Palmer (aka Brooklyn Decker), for the first time. So, while we were in Santa Monica this past weekend stalking the blue carpet at the Independent Spirit Awards, I dragged the GC right on over to the Casa del Mar to do a bit of Just Go With It stalking.

Casa del Mar hotel was first opened in 1926 as the luxurious and ultra-exclusive Club Casa del Mar beach club, which catered to Southern California’s elite and featured an indoor, Olympic-sized swimming pool, a private stretch of white, sandy beach, weekly dinner dances, upscale accommodations, and a grand ballroom. Even though it was founded during the heart of America’s Prohibition era, booze apparently flowed freely at the hotel and gambling was a frequent guest pastime. According to local lore, Santa Monica policemen would turn a blind eye to the illegal goings-on at the property and would tip off the club staff members each time there was going to be a raid. During World War II, the US Army took over the building and used it to house American soldiers. Fallen into disrepair, the hotel shuttered its doors shortly after the war ended. Charles E. Dederich purchased the Renaissance Revival-style property shortly thereafter and turned it into a drug rehabilitation facility known as Synanon. In the late 1970’s, the building was purchased by nutrition guru Nathan Pritikin and transformed into the Pritikin Longevity Center, where actor Chris Farley was a one-time guest. The Edward Thomas Hospitality Corporation took over the property in 1998, restored the building to is original 1920’s grandeur, and in 1999 reopened it as the Casa del Mar hotel. It has been going strong ever since.

The hotel currently boasts a Zoltar fortune machine, a la the machine that made Tom Hanks “big” in the movie of the same name, in its lobby area, which I found so incredibly cool!

The Casa del Mar hotel popped up in what was, in my never-to-be-humble opinion, the funniest scene in Just Go With It, in which JA pretends to be a rich, snobby Beverly Hills socialite with a bit of a drinking – and pill – problem. Jen is ABSOLUTELY HILARIOUS in the scene and even had the GC LOL-ing at several points, even though he typically does not find her to be at all amusing.

The Just Go With It scene was filmed in the southern portion of the Casa del Mar lobby, just south of the rear side of the hotel’s main fireplace. The lobby’s furnishings were changed quite a bit for the filming, though.

And I, of course, just had to recreate the scene in which Jen first arrives at the hotel and tells her limo driver that she “shant be long”. Smile

The scene that supposedly takes place just outside of the hotel was shot at a different location, though, and I have not been able to determine exactly where that location is yet.

Just Go With It Trailer – Casa Del Mar Hotel

You can watch the Just Go With It trailer, in which Casa del Mar is featured, by clicking above.

The hotel also popped up in the Season 2 episode of The Mentalist titled “18-5-4” as the supposed San Francisco-area Tidewater Resort where Oliver Simon McDaniel (aka Evan Peters) hid out.

For whatever reason, producers had a fake check-in desk built in front of the hotel’s fireplace for the filming of the episode.

The scene in which Patrick Jane (aka Simon Baker) tells Teresa Lisbon (aka Robin Tunney) that she should have the CBI Headquarters moved to the beach was filmed in the hotel’s Veranda Bar area . . .

. . . which I, unfortunately, could not get a great photograph of due to the brightness of the sun.

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The SUPER nice concierge that we spoke with while we were stalking the hotel also let us know that the Casa del Mar’s Colonnade Ballroom was used in another Jennifer Aniston flick – the 2006 movie Friends With Money, in the scene in which Olivia (aka JA) and her friends attend a benefit for ALS. He also informed us that the ballroom was used in episodes of both Hung and Curb Your Enthusiasm, as well.

As fate would have it, the ballroom just happened to be unlocked while we were stalking the hotel, so I was able to walk in and snap a few pictures of it.

The exterior of the hotel is visible in the scene in 2005’s Be Cool in which wanna-be gansta Raji (aka an absolutely HILARIOUS Vince Vaughn) and Elliot Wilhelm (aka Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson) get into a fight and Raji announces, “I smell you man! I feel your pain!” LOL

Besides being a filming location, the hotel is also something of a celebrity hotspot. Just a few of the stars who have been spotted there in recent years include Lindsay Lohan, Christian Bale, Ryan Phillipe, AnnaLynne McCord, Cameron Diaz, Megan Fox, Gisele Bundchen, Tom Brady, Maria Shriver, Pamela Anderson, Christian Slater, Emma Watson, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Justin Timberlake, Bradley Cooper, Molly Ringwald, Oprah Winfrey, Kevin Bacon, Jessica Alba, Cash Warren, Will Smith, Josh Duhamel, and Renee Zellweger. Sophia Bush and Chad Michael Murray were married at the hotel in 2005 and Miss Britney Spears and then-husband Kevin Federline even lived there for a time while their Malibu mansion was being renovated. I was lucky enough to spot Jen Aniston at the Casa del Mar once – along with Vince Vaughn, Joey Lauren Adams, and Jon Favreau – back in 2006. She was doing press for The Break-Up at the time and the GC and I had randomly stopped by the hotel to grab a cocktail. I was wearing my “Team Aniston” sweatshirt and when Jen saw it she pointed, smiled, and said, “Oh, thank you!” Ever since that day, the GC has referred to Casa del Mar as the “Jen Aniston hotel”. Love it! (The GC took the above photograph of Jen that day on his blackberry, which is why it turned out so poorly. After seeing the picture, I solemnly swore I would NEVER again be caught out and about without my camera and I now carry it with me at all times.)

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Casa del Mar hotel, from Just Go With It, is located at 1910 Ocean Way in Santa Monica. You can visit the hotel’s official website here.

January 19, 2011January 24, 2011

The “Swingers” Apartment Building

One location that I stalked quite a few months back, but for whatever reason have yet to blog about is the Los Feliz apartment building where Mike (aka Jon Favreau) lived in the 1996 comedy Swingers. I had actually been wanting to stalk this location for quite some time, ever since reading on the IMDB trivia page for Swingers that Jon Favreau had lived there while writing the screenplay for the movie and during the actual filming. IMDB even had the address of the building – 5874 Franklin Avenue in Los Feliz – listed on its Swingers filming locations page, but when my husband and I showed up to stalk the place we discovered that such an address did not actually exist. At first I thought that the Swingers building had quite possibly been torn down, but, as it turns out, the information posted on IMDB was actually incorrect. While looking for the apartment numbered 5874, I noticed the building located at 5870 Franklin Avenue and thought it looked very similar to where Mike had lived in Swingers, so my husband and I ventured over there for a closer look. And amazingly enough we found our answer in a very cool way while doing so!

As it turns out, and as you can see in the above photograph, there is a Swingers poster hanging on the wall of the building’s lobby, which we spotted while peeking in through the front windows. Once I saw that poster, I knew we had to be in the right place! So incredibly cool! I am not sure why there is also a Batman poster displayed in the lobby, being that Batman was filmed in its entirety in England, but I am guessing that maybe someone involved in the production had lived in the building at one time or another.

In real life, the Swingers apartment building is named Chateau Marcella and it was originally built in 1928. Due to the building’s detailing and character, I assumed it was mostly likely a historic structure of some sort, but sadly I could find absolutely no information about it online. Like nothing, nada, zip. Not even a single Yelp report stating whether or not it was a nice place to live!

But I am happy to report that the building looks very much the same today as it did back in 1996 when Swingers was filmed.

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Not only did Jon Favreau live at the Chateau Marcella while Swingers was being filmed, but his real life apartment even stood in for Mike’s apartment in the flick! Which makes sense because according to some of the behind-the-scenes information that I have found about the movie online, the Swingers’ shoot was a very low budget one. So, I am guessing that to cut down on costs, Jon decided to use his own apartment for the filming instead of paying to rent out a location for days on end.

I believe that the filming of Swingers took place inside of apartment 382, as in the scene in which Mike comes home after first meeting Lorraine (aka Heather Graham), he opens his front door and a number is just barely visible. I believe that number is 382, but don’t quote me on that as it is very hard to make out. According to IMDB’s trivia page for Swingers, actor Adam Scott also lived at Chateau Marcella during the time that Swingers was being filmed.

The apartment also boasts a fabulous view of the Hollywood sign.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Chateau Marcella, aka the Swingers apartment building and actor Jon Favreau’s former home, is located at 5870 Franklin Avenue in Los Feliz. The 101 Coffee Shop, where Mike and his friends hung out in the movie, is located just a few blocks west of the apartment building at 6145 Franklin Avenue.

November 15, 2010June 16, 2011

The 101 Coffee Shop from “Swingers”

One location that I have wanted to stalk ever since moving to Los Angeles over a decade ago, but didn’t because there were numerous erroneous reports floating around online which stated that the place had since closed down, was the 101 Coffee Shop which appeared in the 1996 movie Swingers. It wasn’t until Mike, from MovieShotsLA, pointed out the restaurant to me while driving by it after we finished our tour of Paramount Studios back in September that I realized the location was, indeed, still open for business. I added the cafe to the top of my “To Stalk” list that very day and when fellow stalkers Lavonna, Beth, Debbie, and Connie came out from Ohio for a Hollywood stalking trip a few weeks later, we all hit the place up for a quick bite to eat.

Apparently, there is quite a bit of confusion surrounding this particular location, so I thought I’d put all the mystery to rest with today’s post. The diner, which is located on the first floor of the Best Western Hollywood Hills Hotel, originally opened in the 1930’s and was named the “Hollywood Hills Coffee Shop”. In 1994, the restaurant, which was faltering at the time, was taken over by a French chef named Susan Fine Moore and her husband, Michael, who revamped the property’s interior and updated its menu to include an array of standard comfort foods along with some Mexican dishes. Of the new menu, which vacillated greatly from L.A.’s typical low-fat fare, Fine said, “We kind of pride ourselves on being an oasis from all that craziness. There’s a new diet, a new fad every week, but actually people seem a little bit less obsessed than they used to be about diets. Otherwise we wouldn’t be so busy. Generation X is lovely – they’ll eat anything. And the older generation is figuring, I suppose, who wants to live to 108 if you can’t put butter on your potato?” Love it! The Hollywood Hills Coffee Shop really started to take off under the helm of Susan and Michael and it was at that point that the place, thanks to its high-quality food and laid-back attitude, started attracting celebrities. A few stars who were known to frequent the diner include Brad Pitt, my girl Jen Aniston, Sandra Bullock, Gwyneth Paltrow, Johnny Depp, Andy Garcia, Minnie Driver, Bruce Willis, Milla Jovovich, and Kevin Spacey. After losing their lease in July of 2001, Susan and Michael moved their restaurant two miles east to a new location at 1745 North Vermont Avenue, but the place, sadly, closed down shortly thereafter. In the meantime the former Hollywood Hills Coffee Shop space was leased to new owners – Warner Ebbink and Brandon Boudet of the Eat Heavy Restaurant Group – who opened a new eatery in its place.

That new restaurant is named the 101 Coffee Shop and, let me tell you, it is a VERY cool place. Ebbink, who has a passion for architecture as well as food, redesigned the property’s interior himself, modeling it after the old-time cafes of the ‘60s and ‘70s. Boudet serves as the head chef and, under his tutelage, the eatery still serves up high-quality comfort food, including macaroni and cheese, meatloaf and gravy, and tuna melts. For the foodies in your group, more highbrow offerings, like the Grilled Tandoori Salmon Sandwich, the Kale “Greek” Salad, and the Grilled Albacore Tuna Burger, are also on the menu. And, despite the change in ownership, the restaurant is still a big time celebrity hotspot. Fellow stalker Chas ran into both Nicolas Cage and Matt LeBlanc on two separate occasions while dining at the cafe. So, while the Hollywood Hills Coffee Shop is no longer in operation, the 101 Coffee Shop is alive and well, and, despite the remodel, is still very recognizable from Swingers.

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Then out-of-work actors Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau actually wrote the screenplay for Swingers over several meals at the Hollywood Hills Coffee Shop. (The restaurant seems to be something of a lucky charm for writers as the pilot episode of the extremely successful CBS comedy series Everybody Loves Raymond was also penned in one of the cafe’s back rooms.) According to a November 1998 New York Times article, Favreau and his good friend Vaughn used to frequent the diner regularly. Of the restaurant, Favreau said, “It was like a family atmosphere. We didn’t have a lot of money, and I lived in a tiny apartment up the block. I loved the people who ran the place, who made you feel like a big shot, even if you weren’t. Very good portions – you never left hungry.” Once the screenplay was sold, Favreau decided to use the restaurant as a filming location for no less than three scenes in the movie! The Hollywood Hills Coffee Shop first appears in the opening scene in which Mike (aka Favreau) talks to Rob (aka Sex and the City’s Ron Livingston) about how to get his girlfriend back.

That scene was filmed in the second booth to the left of the restaurant’s main door, which, despite the remodel, still looks very much the same today as it did in the movie.

The scene in which Trent (aka Vince Vaughn) tells Mike that he is “all growns up” was also filmed at the cafe. The booth where that scene was filmed is, sadly, no longer there. It looks as if the restaurant also had some sort of a grocery section at the time the movie was filmed, but it no longer does today.

The movie’s ending scene, in which Trent thinks a fellow diner is making goo-goo eyes at him, also took place at the former Hollywood Hills Coffee Shop.

In more recent years the coffee shop stood in for Winkie’s, the diner where Lorelai (aka Lauren Graham), Rory (aka Alexis Bledel), and Emily Gilmore (aka Kelly Bishop) stopped to grab a bite to eat while on their way to North Carolina to attend Mia’s wedding in the Season 7 episode of Gilmore Girls titled “Gilmore Girls Only”.

Randomly enough, Gilmore Girls filmed in pretty much the exact same spot where Lavonna, Debbie, Connie, Beth, and I ate lunch! 🙂 So cool!

In the Season 1 episode of Entourage titled “Date Night”, Vincent Chase (aka Adrian Grenier), Johnny ‘Drama’ Chase (aka Kevin Dillon), Eric Murphy (aka Kevin Connolly), and Turtle (aka Jerry Ferrara) grab some breakfast at the cafe on the morning of Vince’s big movie premiere.

Some filming for that episode also took place outside of the coffee shop.

The Entourage boys returned to the cafe to film the Season 7 episode of the show titled “Buzzed”, in which Turtle’s credit card is rejected after he tries to pick up the gang’s lunch tab.

The coffee shop was also featured twice in the 2007 movie In the Land of Women. It was first seen in the opening scene in which Sofia Bunuel (aka Elena Anaya) breaks up with Carter Webb (aka Adam Brody).

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And it was used in the ending scene in which Carter meets Janey (aka fave actress Ginnifer Goodwin).

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for telling me about this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The 101 Coffee Shop, aka the former Hollywood Hills Coffee Shop from Swingers, is located at 6145 Franklin Avenue, on the first floor of the Best Western Hollywood Hills Hotel, in Hollywood. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.

July 6, 2009July 7, 2009

The Old School House

A few weeks ago, while out stalking, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I decided to pay a little visit to the house where Luke Wilson lived and set up his fictional Lamdba Epsilon Omega fraternity in the 2003 comedy Old School. The house is located on a quiet, tree-lined street that has long been a favorite of location scouts. South Pasadena’s Bushnell Avenue has shown up in everything from the movies Back to the Future and Ghost Dad to the television series thirtysomething. I promise to devote a future post to the other famous homes located on the oft-filmed street, but today’s post will be dedicated solely to the Old School house. 🙂

I am happy to report that aside from a few minor changes, the Old School house looks exactly the same in person as it appeared onscreen. Unfortunately, the sun was shining very brightly the day we stalked the house, so my pictures did not turn out very good. 🙁

Because the Old School house was supposed to be located very close to, or as Vince Vaughn says “practically on”, a college campus, producers brought in a mailbox, a kiosk, and several parking meters to make the area look less residential. They also created fake parking places in front of the home, much like was done at the nearby Bedtimes Stories house.

The house shows up many times throughout the movie, most notably as the site of Vince Vaughn’s Mitch-A-Palooza Party, where he hires Snoop Dogg to perform.

Will Ferrell’s streaking expedition was also filmed in front of the Old School house. Before heading over to Honolulu Avenue in nearby Montrose, Frank-the-Tank tries to lead his fellow Mitch-A-Palooza partiers on a streaking trip down Bushnell Avenue. Unbeknownst to him, he is the only one streaking. LOL

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My friend and fellow stalker Owen, informed me that the Old School house was also used in the 1989 flick Back to the Future II. In the movie, bully Biff steals a little kid’s ball and tosses it up onto the balcony of the Old School house.

In a very random side note, the Old School fraternity house actually belonged to Will Ferrell at the time of the filming. In the movie’s DVD commentary, Will Ferrel says, “And this was actually my house. My little craftsman house in Pasadena. I was cool with it, even though you guys ruined the hardwood floors with all the equipment.” Actors Vince Vaughn and Luke Wilson also took part in the DVD commentary and since there was quite a bit of joking around going on during their talk, I can’t say with absolute certainty that the house ever actually belonged to Will. He very well could have just been joking around. But he does continally refer to the house as being his throughout the entire commentary, so I think it might actually be true. At one point he even said that his wife was extremely upset when she saw the house set up for the post-Mitch-A-Palooza scene (pictured above). According to property records, the home was sold to a new owner in 2006, so while I can’t say for sure that Will owned it during the filming of Old School, I can say he for sure that he doesn’t own it anymore.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Old School house is located at 1803 Bushnell Avenue in South Pasadena. The house located at 1727 Bushnell was used as both Lorraine’s 1955 house in Back to the Future and Michael J. Fox’s house in Teen Wolf. George McFly’s 1955 house is located at 1711 Bushnell, while Biff’s from Back to the Future Part II is at 1809. At 1710 Bushnell is the home that was featured as Ken Olin and Mel Harris’ in the television series thirtysomething. Ghost Dad was filmed at both 1615 and 1621 Bushnell. I will write a more detailed post on all of those locations at a later date. 🙂