Katie’s House from “The Ring”

While doing research on the Malibou Lake residence that stood in for the office of Doctor Grasnik (Jane Alexander) in the thriller The Ring, I came across a page on fave website Washington State Film Locations which stated that the supposed Seattle-area house where Katie (Amber Tamblyn) lived – and died – in the 2002 flick was actually located in Hancock Park.  Well, believe you me, I just about fell off my chair upon learning the information as I had always thought that particular abode was located in the Pacific Northwest, where the majority of The Ring was lensed.  So I immediately added the residence to my Haunted-Hollywood-To-Stalk list and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on over there just a few days later.

Sadly, thanks to some very dense foliage, not much of Katie’s house is visible from the street, as you can see below.  In real life, the Tudor-style abode, which was originally built in 1924, boasts 5 bedrooms, 3 baths, 3,610 square feet of living space, and a 0.28-acre plot of land.

The exterior of the stately residence was featured several times in The Ring.   It first popped up in the movie’s opening scene in which Katie was tormented and then killed by Samara (Daveigh Chase), seven days after viewing a cursed video tape.  As you can see below, while recognizable, the house looks quite a bit different today than it did in 2002 when The Ring was filmed, mostly due to the addition of a front gate, walkway and massive amounts of foliage.

The property next popped up in the scene in which Katie’s friends and family gather for her memorial.  In that scene, the driveway area of the home is visible and, as you can see below, at the time of the filming, the hedges surrounding the front yard were much lower than they are now.  Boo!

The house lastly shows up – through a rainy windshield – in the scene in which Rachel (Naomi Watts) drops her son, Aidan (David Dorfman), off at her sister’s place for the week.

I am fairly certain that the real life interior of the home was also used in the flick, but I was unable to find any interior photographs of the residence with which to verify that hunch.

Thanks to Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, I learned that the very same residence was also used as the home where Buster (Bernie Mac) lived, with his cheating wife, Robin (Beverly Johnson), in 1997’s How to Be a Player, although very little of the house can actually be seen in the flick.

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 Charles, from the In Twin Peaks website, for finding this location and to Marc, from the Washington State Film Locations website, for posting it!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Katie’s house from The Ring is located at 413 South McCadden Place in Hancock Park.

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