One of the locations at the very top of fellow stalker Owen’s “To Find” list was the house belonging to Captain Steven Hiller, aka Will Smith, and his girlfriend Jasmine Dubrow, aka Vivica A. Fox, in the 1996 blockbuster movie Independence Day. So, a few weeks ago, Owen enlisted the help of master stalker Chas and, amazingly enough, the two of them found the house in just a few short hours!!!! So, of course, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I immediately ran right out to stalk it! Mike had actually been looking for this house for quite some time, but had become convinced that it was a fake house that had been built solely for the production on a studio backlot somewhere. Well, thanks to Owen and Chas, we can now say for certain that the Independence Day house was, in fact, very real! 🙂
Both Mike and I were absolutely SHOCKED to discover that the Independence Day house looks EXACTLY the same today as it did thirteen years ago when the movie was filmed!!! The paint color, the shutters, and the foliage are all still pretty much identical to how they appeared in the movie. SO LOVE IT! Unfortunately, I couldn’t get a good screen capture from the movie which showed the entire house. 🙁
The thing I was most shocked about seeing in person was the little “6033” address plaque hanging from the front porch which was also featured in the movie (pictured above). I could NOT believe that little plaque was there in real life, too! I thought for sure it had been a movie prop. SO DARN COOL!
The Independence Day house only pops up in a few brief scenes at the very beginning of the movie. It is first shown in the scene when Will Smith walks outside to get his morning paper only to discover a large flying saucer hovering above his neighborhood. We next see it when Will says goodbye to his girlfriend and her son before driving off to go save the world from alien invaders. And, from how it appears in the movie, I am pretty convinced that the real life interior of the home was used for the filming, as well.
There actually was one major part of the house that was changed for the filming of the movie – the view. Producers actually cheated quite a bit regarding the home’s location in the movie. In the scene when Will Smith first notices the flying saucer while standing in his front yard, he looks to his left and sees the above pictured valley and freeway system.
In reality, though, while the home is located on a bit of a hill, it doesn’t really overlook anything. What Will really would have been looking at in that scene is pictured above. 🙂
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I highly recommend stalking the ID4 house to all fans of the movie! Especially since it still looks so similar to how it appeared onscreen! 🙂
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂
Stalk It: Captain Steve Hillard’s Independence Day house is located at 6033 74th Street in the Westchester area of Los Angeles.
Great job tracking it down! Any idea where they shot the plate for the view shot? Looks like it could be the 101 in Cahuenga Pass or the 2 in Glendale.
I’m not sure about that – was thinking it might have been heavily CGIed, but I don’t know.
Found it! The view shot was taken approximately at 758 Ridge Dr, Glendale, CA looking nearly due south. It’s just east of the 2 Glendale Freeway, looking south at the 2 Fwy/134 Fwy interchange and Downtown LA in the background. You can see it clearly from Google street view. The house in the lower left corner is still there and looks the same. The only CGI is the spaceship and possibly the helicopter and/or the people.
Wow…..in Westchester huh! I have a cousin that lives there, just a few blocks away! Im adding it to the Dec. list!!!