Year: 2012

Rachel’s House from “(500) Days of Summer”

Today’s post is, unfortunately, going to be a short one being that I am absolutely exhausted from what turned out to be a very exciting and very successful Emmy weekend. (That’s me on the red carpet above! ) While I had a blast, I truly feel like I could sleep for days and am looking forward to what should be a calm week ahead. But I digress! Now, on with the post!

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Way back in May, while perusing through fellow stalker Tony’s amazing On Location in Los Angeles Flickr photostream, I came across a picture of the house where Rachel (Chloe Grace Moretz), the wise-beyond-her-years teenage sister of Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), lived in the 2009 flick (500) Days of Summer. And even though I was not at all a fan of the “unromantic comedy” (as Tony calls it) due to the fact that it was incredibly depressing, I did absolutely LOVE the charming and picturesque dwelling that Tony featured on his page (although I did not actually remember seeing it in the movie). So I, of course, ran right out to stalk the place that very weekend.

In real life, the Anywhere, U.S.A.-style home, which was originally built in 1910, boasts four bedrooms, three baths, 2,249 square feet of living space, and a 0.34-acre plot of land. As you can see below, it is absolutely adorable in person!

The house actually only shows up once in (500) Days of Summer, and very briefly at that (which explains why I did not remember it), on Day (11) in the scene in which Tom and Rachel are shown playing a Wii tennis game while discussing Tom’s new girlfriend, Summer (Zooey Deschanel). It is in the scene that Tom says, “She likes Magritte and Hopper and we talked about Bananafish for like twenty minutes! We’re so compatible, it’s insane! She’s not like I thought at all. She’s amazing.” To which Rachel utters her famous line, “Just ‘cause some cute girl likes the same bizarro crap you do, that doesn’t make her your soul mate, Tom.” LOL As you can see below, Rachel’s abode looks very much the same in person as it did onscreen, although the mailbox has since been moved to a different spot.

I am fairly certain that the real life interior of the home also appeared in the scene, although I could not find any interior photographs of the house with which to verify this.

I think one of the property’s bedrooms might also have been used as Tom’s childhood bedroom during the movie’s opening montage, but, again, I could not find any photographs with which to verify that hunch.

I did find an extended version of the Wii scene on YouTube, though, in which Rachel is shown sitting on the residence’s front porch.

More of the property’s interior is shown in the extended scene, as well.

You can watch the extended scene on YouTube by clicking below.

Rachel’s House–”(500) Days of Summer”-Extended Scene

According to this shoot sheet posted on the Seeing Stars website, the same house was also used in a television commercial for Countrywide Financial in March 1997. Because the residence is so incredibly idyllic and picturesque, I am sure it has been featured in countless other productions, as well.

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 fellow stalker Tony, from the amazing On Location in Los Angeles Flickr photostream, for finding this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Rachel’s house from (500) Days of Summer is located at 5231 Shearin Avenue in Eagle Rock. The party house from Teen Wolf (which I blogged about here) is located right next door at 5223 Shearin Avenue.

September 25, 2012
Canter’s Deli from “Entourage”

This will, unfortunately, be my last post for this week as I am heading out to Palm Springs bright and early tomorrow morning to take my dad to a few doctor appointments and I will not be back until late Thursday night. And because I am going to the Emmy’s on Sunday (whoo hoo – pinch me now!), there is a good chance that I will not have time to write a new blog post for Monday, either. So apologies in advance. I will for sure be back on Tuesday, though, with a whole new location. And now, on with the post! One very historic locale that I have stalked several times, but, for whatever reason, never blogged about is the legendary Canter’s Deli in Los Angeles’ Fairfax District. So when the Grim Cheaper suggested we grab a bite to eat there a couple of weekends ago, I decided that it was about time I snap some pictures of the place and do a post on it. Here goes!

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Canter’s Deli was originally founded in 1924 as Canter Brothers’ Delicatessen by Ben Canter and his two brothers in Jersey City, New Jersey. When the deli faltered due to the stock market crash of 1929, the three brothers moved to Los Angeles with only a shared $500 to their name. They settled in the then-predominantly Jewish area of Boyle Heights and, in 1931, opened a West Coast outpost of their delicatessen, which you can see a photo of here. When L.A.’s Jewish population started to migrate west towards the Fairfax District following World War II, Ben and his brothers decided to move their establishment, as well. In 1948, they purchased a storefront at 439 North Fairfax Avenue and changed the eatery’s name to the simpler “Canter’s Deli”. In 1953, the restaurant was moved once again, this time to the old Esquire Theatre at 419 North Fairfax, where it remains to this day. Thanks to its massive popularity, the eatery expanded in 1953 and then, in 1961, added on a bar and cocktail lounge named the Kibitz Room. The Kibitz’s stage has hosted countless well-known musicians over the years including Blues Traveler, The Black Crowes, The Wallflowers, and, most notably, Guns N’ Roses, who got their start on the premises.

Canter’s Deli, which, amazingly enough, is still owned and operated by the Canter family, has been a celebrity hot spot since its inception. In the heyday of Hollywood, such stars as Arthur Miller, Elizabeth Taylor, Cary Grant, Jack Benny, Elvis Presley, and my girl Marilyn Monroe all dined there. In more recent years, Drew Barrymore, John Travolta, Dick Van Dyke, Brooke Shields, Sidney Poitier, Adam Brody, Shenae Grimes, Lea Michele, Cory Monteith, and Taylor Swift have all been spotted at the eatery. Sarah Silverman even did a photo shoot at Canter’s for the clothing company Boy by Band of Outsiders, which you can take a look at here.

Canter’s Deli has won countless awards over the years (and deservedly so!) including “Best Waffles” from Los Angeles Magazine, “Best Deli” from both MyFoxLA and LA Hotlist, and, my personal favorite, Top 10 Jewish Silver Screen Landmarks from the Jewish Journal.

All of Canter’s offerings are handmade on the premises each day, including their humongous pickles, which are nothing short of fabulous – as is all of their food. Amazingly enough, over its “lifetime”, the deli has served over 2 million pounds of lox, 9 million pounds of corned beef, 10 million matzo balls, 20 million bagels, and 24 million bowls of chicken soup! Oy vey, that’s a lot of food!

Canter’s Deli has been featured in quite a few notable productions over the years. In the 1982 flick I Ought to Be in Pictures, Herbert Tucker (Walter Matthau) took his estranged daughter, Libby Tucker (Dinah Manoff, aka “Marty Maraschino” from Grease), for a late-night meal at the historic eatery.

In the 1998 thriller Enemy of the State, the interior of Canter’s masqueraded as the interior of Washington, D.C.’s Sam’s Deli Restaurant, where lawyer Robert Clayton Dean (Will Smith) told his informant/former girlfriend, Rachel F. Banks (Lisa Bonet), that he wanted to meet her source, Brill (Gabriel Byrne).

For the exterior of Sam’s, a different location was used, though.

In the Season 4 episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm titled “The Blind Date”, which aired in 2004, Canter’s was where Larry David (Larry David) took his new friend Haboos (Moon Unit Zappa) for lunch. Both the exterior . . .

. . . and the interior appeared in the episode.

In 2005’s Be Cool, Canter’s was where Raji (Vince Vaughn) told hitman Joe Loop (Robert Pastorelli) that he killed the wrong guy. Both the exterior . . .

. . . and the interior were used in the flick.

In the Season 6 episode of Entourage titled “Berried Alive”, which aired in 2009, Canter’s Deli is where the gang – Vincent Chase (Adrian Grenier), Eric Murphy (Kevin Connolly), Johnny Drama (Kevin Dillon), and Turtle (cutie Jerry Ferrara, who I am dying to meet, by the way!) – grabbed late-night drinks and where Drama ran into his former boss, Melrose Place-producer Phil Yagoda (William Fichtner). Both the exterior . . .

. . . and the interior of the deli appeared in the episode.

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.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Canter’s Deli, from the “Berried Alive” episode of Entourage, is located at 419 North Fairfax Avenue in the Fairfax District of Los Angeles. You can visit the official Canter’s website here. The deli is open 24 hours a day, 363 days a year (it is closed on both Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur).

September 19, 2012
The First Beverly Hills House

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, fellow stalker E.J., from The Movieland Directory website, recently published an e-book about Old Hollywood titled Unscripted: Hollywood Back-Stories, Volume 1 (which you can purchase on Nook here and on Kindle here). I read the entire tome – which was fascinating, by the way – in two nights, highlighter and stalking notebook in hand, and, of course, accumulated quite a few new addresses to add to my ever-growing To-Stalk list – the most notable of which was the address of the very first residence ever to be built in Beverly Hills. And I finally managed to drag the Grim Cheaper out there to stalk the place this past Saturday afternoon.

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The city of Beverly Hills actually had a very inauspicious beginning. The six square miles that now make up one of the most exclusive and luxurious areas on the planet started out as a 4,539-acre Spanish land grant known as “El Rancho Rodeo de las Aguas”, or “The Ranch of the Gathering of the Waters”. In 1900, after a succession of different owners, Burton Green, president of the Amalgamated Oil Company, purchased the site – which at the time was being called “Morocco Junction” and was being utilized as a lima bean farm – and began drilling for oil. And while he did not come across any, he did find an abundance of water and, in 1906, decided to develop the land into an upscale housing community and changed his company’s name to the Rodeo Land and Water Company. Green dubbed his new locality “Beverly Hills”, in honor of his hometown of Beverly Farms, Massachusetts. Ground was broken on the site in 1907, whereupon wide, curving boulevards were mapped out (each planted with a different type of tree), parks were landscaped and model homes were built. The first model home (pictured below) stood at 515 North Canon Drive.

Green began selling plots of land for around $500, but, unfortunately, no one was buying. In order to bring attention to his faltering community, he decided to construct a luxury hotel and, in May 1912, the Beverly Hills Hotel, aka “The Pink Palace”, was born. Amazingly enough, according to Unscripted, the BHH “was an hour carriage ride from Hollywood and three hours by train and carriage from downtown L.A.” And I thought today’s traffic was bad! While the hotel proved popular with the showbiz set, it was not until Hollywood darlings Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks purchased a secluded estate in 1920 at 1143 Summit Drive, which they then commissioned famed architect Wallace Neff to transform into a mega-mansion dubbed “Pickfair”, that the city became a celebrity draw. As Unscripted says, “Pickfair brought the stars, who’d never been interested in Beverly Hills, to Beverly Hills. The hilltops within view of Pickfair were soon boasting mansion estates for the likes of Charlie Chaplin, Tom Mix, Rudolph Valentino, Francis Marion and Fred Thompson, and John Barrymore.” And the rest, as they say, is history.

There seems to be quite a bit of discrepancy online about Beverly Hills’ first model home. From what I have been able to gather via property records, the dwelling was originally constructed in 1908, which gels with the timeline of the city’s inception. According to the YouTube video below, though, which was made when the residence was for sale earlier this year, the 5-bedroom, 5-bath, 3,883-square-foot property was “recently built” by architect Alec Dugally. And while I could not find any permits or documents pertaining to a remodel, tear-down or rebuild at the site, according to Redfin, the property was, indeed, renovated in 1948. Adding to the confusion is the fact that Alec Dugally seems to have worked predominantly in the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s, though, not in 1948 and not in “recent” years. So it seems that both Redfin and YouTube might have some bogus information posted. Either way, someone’s wires got crossed somewhere over the years and I cannot state with certainty that the model home is still in its original form today. If I had to guess, though, I would say that the property was, at some point, remodeled. Boo!

The First Beverly Hills House

According to this Beverly Hills Historic Resources Survey, Green’s model home was still standing in its original form in 1986. As you can (sort of) see below in the Historic Aerial’s view of the house circa 1980 as compared to the more current Bing image, it does appear as if some alteration may have taken place. Because the 1980 view is so hazy, though, it is impossible to say for certain either way.

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.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The first house ever built in Beverly Hills is located at 515 North Canon Drive.

September 18, 2012
The Cecil B. DeMille Estate

This past April, the Grim Cheaper’s best friend came to town for a visit and, while he was here, he invited us over for dinner at his parents’ house. Well, believe you me, because his parents live in the gated Los Feliz celebrity enclave known as Laughlin Park, there was very little arm-twisting involved in getting us there. In fact, we jumped at the chance. Well, I did. Per usual, the GC could have cared less about our famous environs.

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Just a few of the luminaries who have called Laughlin Park home at one time or another include W.C. Fields, Charlie Chaplin, Dermot Mulroney, Catherine Keener, Natalie Portman, Portia de Rossi, Jenna Elfman, The Dave Matthews Band’s LeRoi Moore, Carole Lombard, Lily Pons, The Black Eyed Peas’ will.i.am, Casey Affleck, director David Fincher, Lauren Graham, Ellen Pompeo, and musician Chick Corea. The most well-known former resident, though, has to be legendary director Cecil B. DeMille. Heck, Laughlin Park’s main street, De Mille Drive, was even named after him and his one-time house, a massive Italianate Revival-style manse, is arguably one of the most famous in all of L.A. So I, of course, ran right out to stalk the place while we were there.

Laughlin Park, or “The Park” as residents have dubbed it, was originally founded in the late 1890s by real estate developers Homer Laughlin and Wilbur Cummings. And while the site was originally intended to boast forty separate “villas”, some plots of land have since been subdivided and the community is now comprised of sixty dwellings, each with its own architectural significance. The 7,472-square-foot, 15-room “DeMille estate”, as it has come to be known, was constructed in 1914 on the largest and highest of The Park’s lots. The home originally belonged to Laughlin himself, but DeMille purchased it in 1916, two years after it was built, for $27,893. DeMille continued to live on the premises for the next four decades, until his death in 1959. His estate then held onto the residence through 1988.

Legend has it that DeMille filmed The King of Kings’ Garden of Gethsemane scene, in which Jesus, the Christ (H.B. Warner) prayed with his disciples after The Last Supper, on the grounds of his estate in 1927, although that would be extremely difficult to verify.

In 2008, the DeMille estate was put on the market for a cool $26.25 million, but it does not appear that the property was ever sold. You can view some fabulous photographs of the place from its real estate listing on fave website The Real Estalker here.

Sadly, as you can see below, not much of the DeMille estate is visible from the street. Even though it is located inside of a gated community, the house itself is also gated. Boo!

But, as I have said before, that is why God created aerial images. As you can see below, not only is the DeMille estate gargantuan, but it is also pretty darn spectacular. What I wouldn’t give to tour the inside of that thing!

On a side-note – the GC’s best friend’s parents both work in the “biz” and have won countless awards, including a whopping NINE Emmys, which I always tend to freak out over when I am there. And this time I just had to snap a picture with one. (Notice all of the other awards displayed on the shelves in the background behind me. So incredibly cool!) Emmys are apparently not the most sturdy of awards, though – as you can see, the rings of the atom in the one I am holding below have all fallen off. LOL Now, that’s what I call a high-class problem.

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.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The former Cecil B. DeMille estate is located at 2000 De Mille Drive in the Laughlin Park neighborhood of Los Feliz. The property is, unfortunately, located inside of a gated community and is not accessible to the public, so you can only stalk this one vicariously.

September 17, 2012
Baby Showering It in the ‘Bu!

I spent all day yesterday attending a baby shower in the ‘Bu, so I, unfortunately, did not have time to write a new post for today. I will be back on Monday, though. I hope all of my fellow stalkers have a fabulous weekend!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

September 14, 2012
Malibou Lake from “Parks and Recreation”

A couple of months ago, I set out to find the lake house belonging to Donna Meagle (Retta) and her family in the Season 4 episode of fave show Parks and Recreation titled “Sweet Sixteen”. (It was that search that led me to discover Johnson Lake in Pasadena, which I blogged about here.) And while I was absolutely convinced that Donna’s home was located on the banks of the oft-filmed-at Lake Sherwood, I scanned through aerial views of pretty much every single property in that area and came up completely empty-handed. Then fate took a hand and led me to some information about another oft-filmed-at lake in the vicinity – one that I had never before heard of – named Malibou Lake in Agoura. I immediately became intrigued with the place and, after a few minutes of searching, found Donna’s house. Yay! Unfortunately though, because Malibou Lake is a bit of a hike from Pasadena, I was unable to drag the Grim Cheaper out there to stalk it until a couple of weekends ago. But, let me tell you, it was well worth the wait!

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Malibou Lake Mountain Club, as the area has come to be known, was originally founded in 1922 by fishermen George Wilson and Bertram Lackey, who had purchased 350 acres of land in the Santa Monica Mountains with the intent of turning them into a lakeside community, resort and social club. According to a November 2007 Los Angeles Times article, the development was named Malibou Lake with an “o” to avoid being confused with the nearby Malibu Lagoon.

To create their idyllic development, Wilson and Lackey built a clubhouse, sold plots of land for housing, dammed up two nearby creeks, and waited for the 65-acre central basin to fill with water and become a lake. That water took four years to arrive, though, to the consternation of the many new homeowners who had built what they thought were lakeside residences. Finally in the spring of 1926, thanks to a long-overdue bout of storms, twenty million gallons of rainwater fell into the basin and Malibou Lake was born.

I can honestly say that Mailbou Lake is one of the coolest, most picturesque places that I have ever stalked.

Not to mention one of the most unique. Pictured below is a sign that I never thought I would see in L.A.

I cannot even imagine what it would be like to live there! As you can see below, one lakeside house even had a sailboat docked nearby! Sigh!

And while the club, lake and surrounding houses are gated and private, I am very happy to report that much of the area is visible from public streets.

Malibou Lake Mountain Club has appeared in hundreds upon hundreds of productions since its founding and it would be absolutely impossible for me to catalog them all here, but I will do my best to mention its more notable onscreen appearances. In the “Sweet Sixteen” episode of Parks and Recreation, Donna’s lake house is where the gang threw a surprise party for Jerry Gergich (Jim O’Heir). Sadly, the property is not visible from the road, so I was not able to snap any photographs of it.

The interior of the house – which is uh-ma-zing, by the way – also appeared in the episode. You can check out some interior pictures of the property here.

The iconic drowning scene from 1931’s Frankenstein was filmed at Malibou Lake. You can read a FABULOUS article about the exact spot where filming took place penned by screenwriter John Cox (a man truly after my own heart) on the Frankensteinia blog here.

In the 1940 film The Great Dictator, Malibou Lake was where Hynkel – Dictator of Tomania (Charlie Chaplin) shot ducks and was later captured.

In 1956’s The Bad Seed, Malibou Lake stood in for Fern School – the private school attended by Rhoda Penmark (Patty McCormack).

The Malibou Lake Mountain Club clubhouse masqueraded as the Havenhurst Motel in the Season 4 episode of Perry Mason titled “The Case of the Angry Dead Man”, which aired in 1961. The lake and its environs have actually appeared in countless episodes of Perry Mason over the years, some of which are detailed on the Perry Mason TV Series website here.

Malibou Lake was where Lane Meyer (John Cusack) first met Beth Truss (Amanda Wyss) in 1985’s Better Off Dead.

In 1990 and 1991, Malibou Lake stood in for “Easter Park” in several episodes of Twin Peaks, including the Season 1 episode titled “Cooper’s Dreams” (pictured below).

The Malibou Lake Mountain Club office also appeared throughout the series as the Timber Falls Motel. You can see some real life photographs of the office along with comparison screen captures on the In Twin Peaks blog here and on the Brad D Studios website here.

Malibou Lake was used extensively as Urbania, Ohio in 1994’s Little Giants.

In 1998’s Mr. Saturday Night, Malibou Lake stood in for the Catskills resort where Buddy Young Jr. (Billy Crystal) regularly performed his comedy routine and also met his future wife, Elaine (Julie Warner).

In the 1999 dramedy The Story of Us, Malibou Lake masqueraded as the lake at Camp Pinewood, the summer camp where Ben Jordan (Bruce Willis) and Katie Jordan (Michelle Pfeiffer) spent Parents’ Weekend with their children, Erin (Colleen Rennison) and Josh (Jake Sandvig).

In the 2002 horror flick The Ring, a house on Malibou Lake was used as the office of Doctor Grasnik (Jane Alexander), where Rachel (Naomi Watts) went to seek out more information on Samara Morgan (Daveigh Chase).

The real life interior of the house was also used in the movie.

Sadly, that property was torn down to make way for a new, larger residence sometime in 2010 or 2011. The original home is still visible via Bing aerial maps, though, as you can see below.

A view of the vacant plot of land that remained after the residence was torn down, which I found on fave website Zillow, is pictured below.

And the new abode, which is currently for sale for a cool $1.29 million, is pictured below. The GC and I had actually been gushing over it while stalking the lake. You can check out its real estate listing here. Um, yeah, I could live with that.

John Cusack returned to Malibou Lake in 2005 to film the scene for Must Love Dogs in which Sarah Nolan (Diane Lane) chases down his character, Jake, to ask for a second chance.

Thanks to fellow stalker Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, I learned that in the Season 4 episode of The Office titled “Dunder Mifflin Infinity”, which aired in 2007, Malibou Lake stood in for Lake Scranton where Michael Scott (Steve Carell) drowned his car due to “faulty” GPS directions.

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out the latest post – about trying to track down a diabetic-friendly evening bag – on my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Malibou Lake Mountain Club is located at 29033 West Lake Vista Drive in Agoura Hills. Donna’s lake house from the “Sweet Sixteen” episode of Parks and Recreation is located at 2140 East Lakeshore Drive, inside of the gated Malibou Lake Mountain Club community. It is, unfortunately, not visible from the road. The home that was used as Doctor Grasnik’s office in The Ring was formerly located at 29175 South Lakeshore Drive, but it has since been torn down and replaced with a new home.

September 13, 2012
A Day Off . . . Again!

Spent the entire day yesterday running errands and taking care of household stuff again, so I did not have time to write a new post. I will be back tomorrow, though, with a whole new location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

September 12, 2012
Running Errands . . .

I spent all day yesterday running errands and taking care of some household stuff so I was, unfortunately, not able to write a new post for today. But I will be back tomorrow with a whole new location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

September 11, 2012
Tom Bergin’s Tavern from “Duplex”

Two weeks ago, while doing research on Molly Malone’s (which I blogged about here), I came across a website for another historic Irish pub also located on South Fairfax Avenue in L.A.’s Fairfax District. The bar is named Tom Bergin’s Old Horseshoe and Thoroughbred Club (or just simply Tom Bergin’s Tavern) and not only was it originally founded over seven decades ago (y’all know how much this stalker absolutely loves herself some historic restaurants), but the place is also a filming location AND a big-time celebrity hangout! So I, of course, immediately added the address to my To-Stalk list and could hardly wait to drag the Grim Cheaper right on over there, which I finally did last Saturday evening. And, amazingly enough, this was one location that he did not mind being dragged to.

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Tom Bergin’s Tavern was first founded on February 12th, 1936 by a 46-year-old lawyer named – you guessed it – Tom Bergin. The bar was originally named the Old Horseshoe Tavern and Thoroughbred Club in honor of a Boston-area watering hole owned by Bergin’s uncle. And while the establishment first stood at 6110 Wilshire Boulevard, when the lease on that location expired in 1949, Bergin built a new eatery, named Tom Bergin’s Horseshoe Tavern, just down the street at 840 South Fairfax Avenue. Employees and customers alike carried the pub’s legendary horseshoe-shaped bar three blocks south to its new home. And amazingly enough, not only is Tom Bergin’s still located in that very same spot on Fairfax – over six decades later! – but that very same horseshoe-shaped bar is still in use to this day!

In 1973, Bergin sold the tavern to T.K. Vodrey and Mike Mandekic. And while Mandekic ended up leaving to pursue other endeavors in 1998, Vodrey stayed on for more than another decade. In 1999, Vodrey changed the pub’s name once again, this time to Tom Bergin’s Tavern, as it is still known to this day. When Vodrey retired in 2011, Warner Ebbink thankfully stepped in, purchased the site and set about restoring it. Ebbink, who owns Little Dom’s (one of my favorite L.A. restaurants, which I blogged about here) is no stranger to historic eateries, having also purchased and restored both the 101 Coffee Shop (another fave that I blogged about here) and Dominick’s (a 1940s-era establishment where Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack used to hang out, which I have sadly yet to stalk). Ebbink immediately set about giving Tom Bergin’s a much-needed 7-month face-lift, of which he said in a May 2012 The Hollywood Reporter article, “It’s more restoration than renovation, keeping with what was true of Bergin’s. We just replaced and repaired what needed to be replaced and repaired, then distressed them so people won’t even know.” Um, LOVE IT!

Ebbink truly is a man after my own heart. In an April 2012 Los Angeles Times article about Tom Bergin’s, he is quoted as saying, “L.A. doesn’t respect its history. Back when this was built, you could build places with themes. The architecture alone was worth saving, and it has this super-rich history. We knew it was a special place.”

And I am very happy to report that Tom Bergin’s Tavern did indeed look old and weathered, but I mean that in the best way possible. The place just oozes history and walking through its front door is like stepping back in time.

Tom Bergin’s even serves champagne in old-school, Marilyn Monroe-style coupes! Love it, love it, love it!

The pub’s now legendary tradition of honoring regular customers by displaying a green shamrock with their name on the ceiling was started in 1950 by longtime manager Jake Ohlsen. It was not long before the bar’s entire ceiling was covered in the shamrocks and today there are over 7,000 on display.

During the renovation, each shamrock was removed, cleaned and then re-hung. Love it!

Tom Bergin’s Tavern has countless ties to Hollywood. Just a few of the celebrities who have been spotted there over the years include Kiefer Sutherland, Tommy Lasorda, Julia Roberts, Ronald Reagan, Cary Grant, George Wendt, John Ratzenberger, Lee Majors, Glenn Ford, Bing Crosby, Pat O’Brien (the actor, not the The Insider host), and, my personal favorite, Luke Perry. Cary Grant’s favorite booth is pictured below and his shamrock is currently in the process of being framed to hang nearby.

Longtime regular Kiefer Sutherland’s shamrock is pictured below. When the two were a couple, Julia Roberts’ shamrock hung right next to Kiefer’s, but he had it removed shortly following their break-up.

Legend has it that producers Glen and Les Charles got the inspiration for their long-running hit television series Cheers while at Tom Bergin’s and that the character of “Coach” was based on Bergin’s longtime head bartender Chris Doyle.

In 2003’s Duplex, Tom Bergin’s Tavern stood in for the supposed Brooklyn-area bar where Alex Rose (Ben Stiller) holed up during a rainy day in order to finish writing his book, and where his wife, Nancy Kendricks (Drew Barrymore), later met him for a drink. In the movie, both the exterior . . .

. . . and the interior were used.

In the Season 2 episode of Top Chef Masters titled “Pub Food”, contestants were challenged to create an upscale version of a traditional pub dish at Tom Bergin’s. In the episode, both the exterior . . .

. . . and the interior of Tom’s were used.

A photo shoot for House of Pain’s eponymous first album was also held at Tom Bergin’s in 1992 (pictured below). And while episodes of 24 and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia were also supposedly lensed at the bar, I was unable to verify that or figure out which episodes specifically.

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.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Tom Bergin’s Tavern is located at 840 South Fairfax Avenue in the Fairfax District of Los Angeles. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.

September 10, 2012
The McGinley Residence – Where Robert F. Kennedy Is Said to Have Spent His Last Night

Another Lafayette Square-area home that was mentioned in the “Affairs of Estate” article that I blogged about yesterday was the property located at 1821 South Victoria Avenue, where, according to author Ann Herold, Robert F. Kennedy spent the last night of his life. And while that assertion would be extremely hard to prove (and some sites speculate that the senator’s last night was spent either at the Sportsmen’s Lodge in Studio City or the Malibu home of director John Frankenheimer), because the Victoria Avenue residence belonged to RFK’s godfather’s son at the time, it is an entirely likely possibility. So after stopping by the incorrectly identified Leave It to Beaver house this past Saturday afternoon, I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on over to stalk the place.

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The residence that originally stood at 1821 South Victoria Avenue was constructed in the Prairie School-style by Emmett G. Martin in 1924. In 1939, McGinley Oil Company-heir Charles E. McGinley commissioned Paul R. Williams – the legendary architect who also designed the now-defunct Perino’s restaurant (which I blogged about here) and the Just Married mansion (which I blogged about here) – to remodel and enlarge the dwelling. What ended up happening, though, according to the Paul R. Williams Project website, was a complete refab after which only the original home’s foundation remained. McGinley also purchased two neighboring plots of land during that time, essentially tripling the size of his lot. Williams’ remodel, which became known as the McGinley residence, transformed the house into a Classical Regency Revival-style manse and enlarged the property to 6 bedrooms, 4 baths, and 5,952 square feet. At the time, the place looked quite a bit different than it does today. While the façade remains exactly the same shape as it did during the 1939 re-construction, it appears as though the abode was originally painted white, as you can see here. I prefer the unpainted red brick, myself, as it reminds me of the Home Alone house – one of my favorite movie houses of all time.

As I mentioned above, Charles McGinley’s father, oil tycoon Walter T. McGinley, was Robert F. Kennedy’s godfather. And although Walter passed away in 1932, more than thirty years before RFK was assassinated, it is entirely plausible that Kennedy and his family spent some time with Charles while in the area that week – including the night of June 3rd, 1968, Kennedy’s last full night alive. Late the next evening, June 4th, it was announced that the senator had won the California Primary and he gave a short speech in the Embassy Room of the Ambassador Hotel just after midnight on June 5th. Following the speech, Kennedy and his entourage exited through the Ambassador’s kitchen area, where he was shot four times by Sirhan Sirhan. RFK was first taken to Central Receiving Hospital and then Good Samaritan Hospital where he passed away at 1:44 a.m. on June 6th, almost 26 hours after he had been shot. You can check out a more detailed chronology of his assassination on the fabulous FindADeath website here.

Ironically enough, while we were stalking the McGinley residence, the owners’ son-in-law happened to come outside and we got to chatting. When I mentioned the recent Los Angeles Magazine article and his in-laws’ home’s connection to Robert F. Kennedy, the gentleman was absolutely bowled over with excitement and ran right inside to let them know the news. I so love it when homeowners are not only nice about me taking photographs of their property, but are also excited about to learn new things about their residence’s history.

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Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The McGinley residence, where Robert F. Kennedy is reported to have spent his last night, is located at 1821 South Victoria Avenue in the Lafayette Square neighborhood of Los Angeles.

September 7, 2012