The Robinson House from “The Graduate”

A few weeks back fellow stalker Scott, from the Film in America website, asked me if I knew the location of the Robinson house and the Braddock house from the 1967 movie The Graduate.   He told me that he feared the locations of those homes were lost to history being that the movie was filmed over forty years ago and the addresses didn'”‘”‘t seem to be posted anywhere.   So I just had to get Mike from MovieShotsLA on the case – and sure enough he found the houses.  Well, the house, actually, but I'”‘”‘ll get to that later.  🙂  While doing some cyberstalking Mike came across this Wikipedia article stating that the Robinson home was located on North Palm Drive in Beverly Hills, and after a quick search of Google Maps he found the house, right where Wikipedia said it would be.  🙂

The Robinson house looks much different today than it did back in 1967 when The Graduate was filmed.  At the time of filming, the home had an all white exterior while today it has a red brick facade.  My initial belief was that the brick exterior was added to the house sometime after filming had been completed, but after seeing the above screen capture, I realized that, in actuality, the home has always been brick. When The Graduate  was filmed the bricks were just painted white.  🙂

Because the Robinson house looks so very different today than how it appeared onscreen forty years ago, I was shocked Mike was able to locate it.  But he found two “landmarks” of a sort on Mrs. Robinson'”‘”‘s house that he used while searching Palm Drive.  The first landmark was the wierd brown wooden design that appears to the left of the front door.  The second was the house'”‘”‘s small peaked roof area.  Both are pictured above.  But here'”‘”‘s where things get really weird!

While looking at aerial images of the Palm Drive house, I realized that the pool area and backyard looked a whole lot like Benjamin Braddock'”‘”‘s backyard from the movie.  Armed with a pretty big hunch I grabbed my Graduate DVD and fast-forwarded through the entire thing.  And sure enough, my hunch was correct – the front of the Braddock house is never shown in the Graduate – only the backyard is shown.  And after looking at all of the Braddock backyard scenes one more time, I realized that the Braddock house and the Robinson house were one in the same!   LOL

So last week I dragged my boyfriend out to Beverly Hills to stalk the (one and only) Graduate  house and while I was there taking photographs the owner happened to drive up.  So, of course, I just had to talk to her!  🙂   I asked her if she lived in the home at the time  The Graduate was filmed and her mouth pretty much just fell to the floor and she said “HOW did you know this was The Graduate  house?”  LOL  I told her that my friend Mike was a master stalker and that he had found the house by doing some cyber-stalking.  She confirmed that her home was indeed used in The Graduate, but said that she didn'”‘”‘t live in it at the time.  She said that when she purchased the house about twenty years ago, the real estate agent was marketing it as “the Robinson house”.  LOL  Then I asked her if her backyard was in fact Benjamin Braddock'”‘”‘s backyard and once again her mouth just hung open.  Apparently she didn'”‘”‘t realize who she was dealing with! LOL  She told me that, in actuality, Benjamin Braddock'”‘”‘s backyard existed only on a soundstage, but that his backyard and pool area were indeed modeled after hers. I'”‘”‘m not sure she'”‘”‘s entirely correct on that, though.  While I have no doubt that her backyard was re-created on a soundstage and that most of the filming probably took place there, if you watch some of the Graduate pool scenes closely it becomes obvious that at least some filming did actually take place at the Palm Drive home.

So, there you have it, the mystery of The Graduate  houses is finally solved.   🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: The Graduate  house is located at 607 North Palm Drive in Beverly Hills.

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