The Obsessed House

A few weeks ago, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, called me up and said, “Where is that big pink house in Altadena that you stalked a while back?”  Well, I had absolutely no idea what on earth he was talking about!  For some reason, a “big pink house in Altadena” just wasn’t ringing any bells with me.  And it really should have, being that I actually know the house he was speaking about quite well.  I mean, it’s practically an Altadena institution!   Heck, I’ve even blogged about it before!  LOL  But that’s the blonde in me, I guess.  🙂  Anyway, about an hour after Mike’s phone call, it all of a sudden hit me like a ton of bricks – he had been asking me about the famous Balian Mansion, or, as I like to call it, the real Clark W. Griswold house.  🙂  Mike had been inquiring about the mansion because it was featured briefly in the 2009 movie Obsessed, which he had just finished watching.  Mike had an inkling that Beyonce Knowles’ house from the film (pictured above) was most likely located in the same area.  And, sure enough, he was right!  Just a few clicks through Google Maps later and the two of us were able to locate it, literally right around the corner from the Balian Mansion.  🙂  So, of course, we immediately ran right out to stalk both homes.  🙂

Because only one view of the Obsessed house – the view pictured above – was ever shown in the movie, it looks quite different in person than how it appeared onscreen.  For some reason, producers filmed at an angle which cut out the entire garage area.  (You can see what the garage looks like in the first picture featured in this post.)  The only reason I can think of behind this decision is that producers wanted the home to appear smaller than it really was.

Which makes absolutely no sense to me!  You see, while watching the movie I became completely obsessed (ha ha) with the fact that the interior of Beyonce’s home looked a whole lot bigger than the exterior.  It’s as if the two just didn’t match up.  The inside of her house was absolutely HUGE, yet the outside appeared quite average in size.  It was bizarre and  completely distracted me throughout the entire movie.  I just couldn’t seem to get past it!  I kept pausing the DVD to ask my fiance if the dichotomy in sizes was bothering him as much as it was bothering me.  (It wasn’t, by the way.  LOL)   Anyway, as you can sort of see in the above screen capture, the interior of the house appears to be GINORMOUS, which does not at all fit with the exterior that was shown.

Further complicating the matter is the fact that the exterior of the Obsessed  house is Mediterranean in style, painted in bright terracotta colors, yet the interior has a classic Colonial style feel.   Needless to say, the whole thing just didn’t work for me and I spent the entire movie distracted by the discrepancies between the interior and exterior of the house.  LOL  Now, it’s quite possible that these variances were not necessarily a production decision and that the studio based their sets on the home’s real life interiors, but somehow I really doubt that.  Ironically enough, Mike and I got to see the interior sets of the Obsessed  house while taking the Sony Pictures Studio Tour last November.  Sadly, though, we weren’t allowed to take any photographs of them.  🙁 

Another thing I became obsessed with while watching Obsessed, was the home’s gorgeous, intricately carved mailbox.  I absolutely FELL IN LOVE with it!  Being that the mailbox was so unusual, I was fairly certain it was a prop that had been brought in solely for the filming.  So, you can imagine how FLOORED I was when Mike and I pulled up to the house to find that mailbox standing there!  So cool!  🙂  As soon as I buy my first house, I am SO getting one of those!  In fact, I’d buy one right now, but I think it’d look a little silly standing out in front of my apartment.  LOL  

After stalking the Obsessed  house, Mike and I made our way down the street to stalk the Balian Mansion.   The mansion is actually only featured very briefly in the movie, in the scene when Beyonce turns her car around after realizing she forgot to turn on her home’s security system.

On a humorous side note – As you can see in the above screen capture, the Google Maps Street View photograph of the Obsessed house was apparently taken after the property had just been TP’ed.  LOL LOL LOL   Talk about your bad timing!  Can you imagine your house being forever immortalized on Google Maps with toilet paper strands hanging from every tree???  LOL LOL LOL  Too darn funny!   The kids who pulled this off must be seriously patting themselves on the back right now!!!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: The Obsessed  house is located at 2345 Midlothian Drive in Altadena.  The Balian Mansion is located just down the street at 1960 Mendocino Lane.