Frankie’s House from “People Like Us”

As I mentioned in early November in my post about Henry’s Tacos, I did not especially love the 2012 movie People Like Us as I found it to be a bit too depressing.  What I did love, though, was the fact that the flick was filmed in its entirety in L.A.  So after watching, I, of course, set about tracking down as many of its locales as I could – all by myself!  Lately I feel like I do not get to spend much time searching for locations as I am usually too busy writing about them.  While I love the hunt, blogging each day and physically stalking sites each weekend does not leave much time for actually tracking them down.  So while I typically hand over the task of searching to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, with People Like Us, I decided that I was going to do all of the heavy lifting myself.  And I loved every minute of it!    The locale I was most interested in finding, of course, was the house that Frankie (Elizabeth Banks) moved into towards the very end of the movie.  And I am embarrassed to admit that while finding it should have been a slam dunk, it took me more than a few hours to do so.

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In People Like Us, an address number of 809 was visible on the side of Frankie’s front door.  For whatever reason, though, I was absolutely convinced that the number was a fake, so I initially did not pay much attention to it.

And while the filming locations map on the People Like Us Facebook page states that Frankie’s house is located on Laurel Canyon Boulevard in Los Angeles, because the residence was shown to be on a flat, straight street in the movie and because Laurel Canyon is an extremely twisty and hilly road, I knew that information had to be incorrect.  (I somehow did not even notice the word Burbank written next to the drawing of Frankie’s home on the map until making a screen capture of it for this post – yes, I am that blonde!)  My gut was telling me that the abode was most likely located in the Valley somewhere, so I began searching for it in Van Nuys, Reseda, Valley Village and North Hollywood, but, unfortunately, came up completely empty-handed.

It was not until a few hours into the hunt that I recalled a scene in which Frankie’s son, Josh (Michael Hall D’Addario), wrote a note to Sam (Chris Pine) giving him their new address.  And while I did not in a million years imagine that the home’s actual address would have been used in the note, I thought the address given might provide some sort of clue as to the pad’s real life location.  So I scanned to that portion of the flick and saw that Josh wrote down 809 Fairview. On a whim, I punched 809 Fairview and Los Angeles into Google and it kicked back a map of 809 North Fairview Street in Burbank.  One quick Google Street View glance and I saw that it was the right place.  As you can imagine, I felt like a complete and total dolt after that!  All those hours searching and it turns out that the home’s location had been spelled right out for me the entire time!  D’oh!

Frankie’s house shows up only twice in People Like Us – first in the scene in which she is shown moving into the abode.

And next in the scene in which Sam shows up at Frankie’s house unexpectedly, hoping for a reconciliation.  Sadly, as you can see in the photographs and screen captures both above and below, the house has changed quite a bit since the filming of People Like Us.  Gone is Frankie’s landscaping and front lawn, the exterior trim is now painted red instead of white, the brick front porch steps have been swapped out for Spanish-style ones, a railing has been added, and the front porch overhang altered.  Boo!  At least the shutters flanking both front windows still look the same despite a change in paint color.

Thankfully though, the abode pretty closely resembles its onscreen self on Google Street View, as you can see below, so I guess there’s that. 

I much prefer the look of the house in the movie to its real life appearance.  I am just not all that into drought-resistant landscaping, I guess.    According to Zillow, the 2-bedroom, 1-bath, 1,148-square-foot abode was originally built in 1936 and sits on 0.16 acres of land.

I am fairly certain that the real life interior of the home was also used in People Like Us, although very briefly.

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER.  And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 

Stalk It: Frankie’s house from People Like Us is located at 809 North Fairview Street in Burbank.