The “Four Christmases” House

Today’s location is a big one, my fellow stalkers!  Well, it is for me, at least, being that it took me years to find it, as I mentioned in last Friday’s post.  Yes, I am talking about the ultra-modern and gorgeous hilltop home where Brad (Vince Vaughn) and Kate (Reese Witherspoon) lived in the 2008 romantic comedy Four Christmases.  Despite the fact that the abode only showed up once in the flick – and very briefly at that – its contemporary façade and bamboo accents made quite an impression on me and I fell in love the place pretty much on sight.  Try as I might, though, I just could NOT seem to track it down.  So when I finally did this past Thursday morning, I was pretty much doing cartwheels across my apartment for the next hour and a half.  And while the residence is actually located in San Francisco and I was therefore not able to stalk it myself, I recruited my good friend Nat, who lives in the Bay Area, to stalk it on my behalf, which she did the very next day.  Thank you, Nat!

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Because Four Christmases was lensed in both Los Angeles and San Francisco, I had no idea where to even begin my search on this one.  When I first embarked on the hunt, fellow stalker Chas, of the It’sFilmedThere website, had contacted one of the movie’s crew members for me, who informed him that the residence was indeed located in San Francisco, but that it had been changed significantly for the filming and would be virtually unrecognizable in person.  He refused to divulge the property’s exact location, though, so I did not put much credit into his information as I thought that he might be fabricating things in order to throw us off the scent.  As it turns out, the guy was telling the truth.  Brad and Kate’s house was changed drastically for the shoot, which is another reason that it was so hard to find.  It was not until I came across production designer Shepherd Frankel’s amazing website last week and saw this artistic rendering of the Four Christmases house that I was able to finally find the place.

What threw me off considerably during the search was the fact that, for the filming, the home’s real life front doors (which face the street) were covered over and a fake door added to the eastern side of the structure (in the area denoted with a red arrow in the photograph below), making it impossible for me to figure out how the place was situated in relation to the street.  Once I saw the drawing of the house on Frankel’s website, though, it all came together in my head and I was able to find the pad within minutes. WHOO HOO!

The home’s actual front doors are pictured below.  I much prefer the set-up of the house that appeared in the movie to its real life exterior.  Absolutely LOVE that bamboo-covered accent wall.

Also love that the residence’s stuccoed front half-wall was covered over with wood for the shoot.  It gives the place a much more modern feel and adds quite a bit of texture and color to the exterior.

One aspect of the house that was not altered for the filming was its view, which, as you can see below, is absolutely STUNNING.

Can you imagine waking up to this image every morning?  Sigh!

In real life, Brad and Kate’s dwelling is absolutely gargantuan – much larger than it appears to be from its front exterior and much larger than it appeared to be in Four Christmases.  The four-story pad, which was originally built in 1987, boasts five bedrooms, four baths and a whopping 3,990 square feet of living space – all on a 0.09-acre plot of land.

Absolutely LOVE the Christmas tree in the window.  Can you imagine how spectacular it looks at night, all lit up and against the backdrop of that amazing San Francisco view?

All of the interior scenes that took place at Brad and Kate’s house were filmed in Venice Beach at the same residence that was used in Rihanna’s “Take a Bow” music video, which I blogged about last week.

Oddly enough, though, it seems that a different interior was used as Brad and Kate’s house at some point during the filming because in the trailer for Four Christmases, the couple is shown making phone calls to their respective parents while sitting in a brick-walled loft-style residence with arched windows.  

Even odder still is the fact that that particular interior (which in reality is located at 1161 Vine Street in Hollywood and which you can  check out some photographs of here) did wind up in the film – as the studio where Brad and Kate took dance lessons.  As you can see below, the brick walls, exposed duct work and arched windows match Kate and Brad’s house from the trailer perfectly.  Heck, even the Christmas decorations are the same!  Very, very strange!  UPDATE – Shepherd was nice enough to send me an email explaining that this scene was supposed to have taken place in a break area at the dance studio and not at the couple’s home, so the seeming anomaly now makes sense.

You can watch the Four Christmases trailer by clicking below.

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.

Big THANK YOU to my good friend Nat for all of her help in finding this location and for going out and stalking it for me. 

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 

Stalk It: Brad and Kate’s house from Four Christmases is located at 85 Burnett Avenue in the Twin Peaks area of San Francisco.