The Win A Date With Tad Hamilton House

I am forever indebted to fellow stalker Chas who has succeeded in finding a location that has eluded me for the past few years, a location that has been at the very top of my ultimate stalking list ever since the movie it was featured in first premiered in January of 2004.  The location in question?  Rosalee Futch, aka Kate Bosworth’s, charming little Craftsman home from fave movie Win A Date With Tad Hamilton.  It was just a few months ago that I found out that Win A Date  had been filmed in its entirety on location in Los Angeles and since that time I have been completely obsessed with finding the main house used in the movie.  Unfortunately, though, I had absolutely no luck in locating it.  I even went so far as to contact Win A Date’s  location manager via Facebook, who sent me back a one line response saying “Long time ago – think house is in Melrose Heights”.   I had never heard of a place named “Melrose Heights” prior to that, so I immediately go to Googling and found out that an area with that name does actually exist in Los Angeles, but that it is a high-end shopping district.  Not to be deterred, I considered the possibility that the house was located near  Melrose Heights, and enlisted the help of Mike, from MovieShotsLA .  The two of us set about searching any and all residences near the small shopping district, but came up empty-handed.  Just last week, fellow stalker Owen joined in the search and also combed the Melrose Heights area, just in case Mike and I had missed something.  They say two heads are better than one, but in this case even our three heads combined couldn’t find that house!  Until Chas stepped in, that is!

Chas spent a full two days looking for the Win A Date  house (how do I even begin to thank him for that???) and eventually found it in an area of Los Angeles known as Melrose Hill.   Um, hello . . . Melrose HILL???  What happened to Melrose Heights????   In all fairness, though, I guess the location manager almost got the name right.  But, as we all know, “almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades”.  LOL  Mike, Owen, and I would now like those 80+ wasted hours of our lives back!  🙂

I cannot tell you how darn excited I was to finally be seeing the Win A Date  house in person.  In fact, I am surprised I didn’t run my car right off the road on my way to stalk it – I was THAT excited.  🙂  And I am happy to report that, aside from a change in paint color, Rosalee’s house looks pretty much exactly the same today as it did when the movie was filmed back in 2003.   It’s no surprise at all that this particular house was chosen as the residence of Rosalee Futch, the All-American girl with the All-American values.  It’s exactly the type of place where you’d expect to find her living.   The Win A Date  house is located on an adorable little tree-lined street that looks like it could very easily be found in a place called Frazier’s Bottom, Virginia, the town where the movie supposedly takes place.   The Melrose Hill Neighborhood is an absolutely charming place that was built between 1911 and 1926 and consists of only 45 homes.  One walk through the area’s tree lined streets and it’s not hard to see why Los Angeles Magazine  named it one of L.A.’s “10 Great Neighborhoods” in 2003. 

Rosalee’s Craftsman house shows up repeatedly throughout the movie, most notably the front porch area, which, as you can see in the above photograph, has since been covered over quite a bit with foliage.

And it appears that the real life interior of the home was also used for the filming of some scenes in the movie.

 

Ironically enough, I think I was more excited about seeing the street light out in front of Rosalee’s house than the actual house itself.  While searching for the Win A Date  home, Mike and I had studied that darn street light for hours, trying to figure out where in L.A. it might be located.  Neither one of us had ever encountered a lamppost that unusual in all of our stalking adventures and I was beginning to think it was a fake.  So, I can’t tell you how excited I was when I saw those unique lights lining the streets of the Melrose Hill neighborhood.   It was validation for me that all of those hours we spent searching for the house weren’t for naught!  Those lights really do exist!  LOL   And now, if a location with those particular street lights ever comes up in a movie again, we will know exactly where to find it!  🙂

Big THANK YOU to Chas for finding this location for me! 

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It:  Rosalee’s house from Win A Date With Tad Hamilton  is located at 814 Melrose Hill Street in the Melrose Hill Neighborhood of Los Angeles.