Year: 2015

The Rindge House from “The Brasher Doubloon”

There are few things the Grim Cheaper loves more than historic sites. So when we came across a massive dwelling that appeared to have a past while on our way to stalk the Beckett Residence in September 2012, we stopped to take a closer look. Figuring the place had appeared onscreen at some point, I also snapped some photos of it. I didn’t end up doing much research on the home until recently, though. As it turns out, the property is known as the Rindge House and it was built at the turn of the 20th Century for one of L.A.’s most prominent citizens.

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The Rindge House was originally constructed in 1903 for wealthy businessman Frederick Hastings Rindge. Frederick not only co-established the Union Oil Company and the Los Angeles Edison Electric Company, but his family was largely responsible for developing Malibu. (I blogged about Frederick’s daughter’s home, the Adamson House, here.)

The property was designed by Frederick L. Roehrig, the same architect who also gave us the Stimson House from House II: The Second Story, the Andrew McNally House from Kingdom Come, the Lincoln Clark House from Little Black Book, and Castle Green in Pasadena (an oft-filmed locale that I have yet to blog about).

Sadly, Frederick Rindge passed away in 1905, just two years after the manse was completed. His wife, May, continued living on the premises until she, too, passed away in 1941. After May’s death, the property was utilized for a time as both a convent and a home for women. At some point, it was reverted back to a private residence and it remains so today. You can read a more detailed history of the Rindge House on the Big Orange Landmarks blog here.

According to Zillow, the Chateauesque-style pad, which was declared a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument in 1972, boasts 15 bedrooms, 9 baths, 11,704 square feet of living space, and 1.73 acres of land.

The GC and I had a blast walking around the perimeter of the property and looking at all of its unique detailing, like the mailbox and light post pictured below.

Because of its massive size and its age, the Rindge House definitely gives off an ominous aura. The huge spider we spotted hanging out on the fence outside didn’t help to combat that image.

A man named Mike had commented on the Big Orange Landmarks post that he used to live at the Rindge House and that many productions had been shot there. I got in touch with him in the hopes that he might remember some of the productions lensed on the premises and not only did he get back to me right away, but he proved to be a vast wealth of information! As it turns out, the property has a film resume that dates back to 1947! That year, it masked as the Murdock mansion, which is said to be located “all the way out” in Pasadena, in the noir The Brasher Doubloon.

The eastern portion of the residence, as well as the front porch and doorway were featured in the film.

I am fairly certain that the interior of the Murdock mansion was a set. You can check out what the real life interior of the Rindge House looks like here.

In the Season 3 episode of Wonder Woman titled “The Man Who Could Not Die,” which aired in 1979, the Rindge House served as the residence of evil scientist Joseph Reichman (Brian Davies).

Ironically enough, though the home was said to be in Topanga Canyon in the episode, a sign with its real life name and address was shown pretty prominently in a scene. (Love the special effects below!)

The interior of the Rindge House was featured quite prominently in “The Man Who Could Not Die.”

As you can see, it is absolutely stunning inside!

The property’s large guest house was also visible in the episode.

In the 1980 CBS Children’s Mystery Theatre episode titled “The Haunting of Harrington House,” the home masked as Harrington House, an old hotel that Polly Ames (Dominique Dunne) investigates for paranormal activity during a break from boarding school. For whatever reason, an establishing shot of the residence is never shown in the episode. Only close-ups of the porte-cochère . . .

. . . and the interior appeared onscreen.

That same year, the Rindge House was featured in another CBS Children’s Mystery Theatre episode titled “The Treasure Of Alpheus T. Winterborn.” In the episode, the property masqueraded as the Winterborn Public Library. Sadly, as Mike informed me, during the filming a 40-year-old stuntwoman named Odile Astie was killed while performing a stunt in which she was supposed to fall off the roof of the home onto airbags situated twenty-five feet below. Some plastic padding that Astie was wearing caught on the gutter during the sequence, though, causing her to land on the ground instead of the airbags. You can read more about the tragedy here.

The inside of the Rindge House masked as two different places in “The Treasure Of Alpheus T. Winterborn.” It first appeared as the interior of the Winterborn Public Library.

And it was also featured as the interior of Alpheus Winterborn’s former house.

I was shocked to discover while watching that the exterior of the Winterborn home was none other than the Weller Residence, which I blogged about on Wednesday.

And I was further shocked to discover that the episode starred Keith Coogan, who is married to my friend Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog!

In the 1982 comedy (and I use that term loosely) Slapstick (of Another Kind), the Rindge House was where twins Wilbur (Jerry Lewis) and Eliza Swain (Madeline Kahn) lived.

The interior of the home was also featured in the movie.

For Pat Benatar’s 1982 “Shadows of the Night” music video, both the exterior . . .

. . . and the interior of the Rindge House were turned into a Nazi compound.

You can watch that video by clicking below.

In 1983’s Private School, the interior of the Rindge House stood in for the interior of Cherryvale Academy for Girls.

Oddly enough, two different exteriors were shown as the outside of Cherryvale Academy in the movie, neither of which was the Rindge House. The first exterior shown was that of the “Batman mansion” in Pasadena, which I blogged about here.

The other exterior shown was that of a house located at 4839 Louise Avenue in Encino. That same residence was also where Roger Azarian (Matthew Perry) lived in the Season 1 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 titled “April Is the Cruelest Month.” You can read a post I wrote about it here.

The close-ups of the exterior of Cherryvale Academy were shot at the Rindge House, however.

Mike also informed me that the Rindge House appeared in another episode of CBS Children’s Mystery Theatre, but he could not remember which episode, and in the 1980 made-for-television movie Scout’s Honor, which I, unfortunately, could not find a copy of to make screen captures for this post.

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Big THANK YOU to Mike for all of the help he provided with this post!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Rindge House, from The Brasher Doubloon, is located at 2263 South Harvard Boulevard in the Adams-Normandie area of Los Angeles.

October 23, 2015
New “L.A.” Mag Post About “The Postman Always Rings Twice” Train Station

Be sure to check out my latest Los Angeles magazine article, about East Los Angeles Union Pacific Station, an abandoned train depot from The Postman Always Rings Twice!

October 22, 2015
The Weller Residence from “Castle”

What is it about Victorian-style dwellings that lends itself so well to scary movies and television shows with a spooky theme? I so often find myself blogging about Victorians this time of year. (There’s the Mills View House from House, the Blankenhorn Lamphear House from Teaching Mrs. Tingle, and the Miller and Harriott House from the Halloween themed episode of Modern Family titled “Open House of Horrors,” just to name a few.) Today’s post is in that same vein. Last May, I happened upon an absolutely uh-ma-zing Queen Anne residence while stalking the Girls United group home from The Fosters. Figuring it had to have acted as a filming location at some point, I snapped some photos of it and was floored to later discover that not only had it appeared onscreen, but as a spooky old hotel no less!

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In real life, the house is known as the Weller Residence and it was built in 1894 for a businessman named Zachariah Weller. In the book Beautiful America’s California Victorians, author Kenneth Naversen suggests that the property may have been fashioned upon a design found in a pattern book created by mail-order architect G.F. Barber.

Oddly, when the Weller Residence was originally built it stood in a different location, at what was then 401 North Figueroa Street in Echo Park. That address is now 401 North Boylston Street. In 1900, the area became populated with large oil derricks, several of them popping up around Zachariah’s home. It was not a pretty sight. You can see a photograph of what it looked like at that time here. So Weller did the only rational thing – he broke the house into two pieces and moved it about 3,000 feet north to a vacant plot of land at 824 East Kensington Road. He also had the property wired for electricity at that time. The Weller Residence has the distinction of being the first home in the area to feature electrical power.

Zachariah Weller passed away in 1903. The home remained in his family through 1953, when it was purchased by Albert and Helen McNellis. Their son still owns it to this day.

The Weller Residence was declared a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument in 1979.

The two-story house boasts ten rooms, pocket-wood doors, vintage crystal chandeliers, hardwood flooring, a large front porch, a second story balcony, and a peaked tower.

The property is absolutely spectacular in person! It is easily one of the most beautiful Victorians I have ever seen. Not to mention one of the largest. You can read a more in-depth account of its history on the Big Orange Landmarks blog.

The Weller Residence was featured in the Season 5 episode of Castle titled “Scared to Death.” In the episode, which was an homage to horror movies (Wes Craven even had a cameo!), Richard Castle (Nathan Fillion) and Kate Beckett (Stana Katic) investigated the death of a young girl, Val Butler (Alison Trumbull), who died three days after receiving a DVD that predicted her exact time of death, a la The Ring. Images of the dwelling appeared in the DVD that Val was sent, which Castle watched at the beginning of the episode.

Beckett’s team later discovers that the Victorian pictured in the DVD is Port Campbell’s Brunswick Inn. To convince Beckett that the property deserves investigating, Castle tells her, “The inn must be the place where some unspeakable horror befell the spirits. Think about it! The Ring, Psycho, The Shining – it’s when we get to the creepy old motel that everything starts really going south.” Love it!

The interior of the Weller Residence also appeared in the episode. While Beckett is exploring the hotel with Javier Esposito (Jon Huertas), she says, “It doesn’t look like there’s anyone here.” To which Javier says, “Doesn’t look like anyone’s been here this century!”

On a side-note – I’m pretty sure that Matthew Del Negro (whom I met recently – you can see my photo with him here) had a featured extra role as a policeman in “Scared to Death.”

The Weller Residence also appeared as the old Winterborn house in the 1980 CBS Children’s Mystery Theatre episode titled “The Treasure of Alpheus T. Winterborn,” which I was floored to discover starred none other than Keith Coogan, who is married to my friend Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog.

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Weller Residence, aka Brunswick Inn from Castle, is located at 824 East Kensington Road in Echo Park. The Girls United group home from The Fosters is located just up the street at 766 East Kensington.

October 21, 2015
New Discover L.A. Post About Film Noir Locales

I had to take my mom into Los Angeles yesterday for a doctor appointment, so I do not have a new post for today . . . but I do have a new post up at Discover Los Angeles. It’s about film noir locations, so be sure to check it out.

October 20, 2015
The Phillips Mansion

The Grim Cheaper always tells me that it is not about the destination, but the journey. He’s right. Getting lost can have its perks. While driving around looking for Spadra Cemetery (which I blogged about on Friday) a couple of weeks ago, we happened upon a seemingly abandoned mansion set back from the road behind a chain link fence. The site appeared to be beckoning to me, so we pulled over for a closer look.

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As it turns out, the property is known as Phillip’s Mansion and it is one of Pomona’s oldest residences. The pad was originally constructed in 1875 by a wealthy rancher named Louis Phillips, who I wrote about in my Spadra Cemetery post.

According to the The Historical Society of Pomona Valley, the three-story, eight-room estate was built in the Second Empire or “Classic Haunted Mansion” style of architecture (I didn’t even know there was such a thing, but LOVE it) at a cost of $20,000. The exterior was fashioned out fired bricks that were hand-made on the premises, while the ornate interior featured gas lighting, sixteen-foot tall ceilings, a whopping six fireplaces (!!!!), and cherry and maple woodwork. Phillips, who in 1892 the Los Angeles Times named the “richest man in Los Angeles County” with an estimated net worth of around $3 million, lived there until his death in 1900. His wife continued to reside at the mansion until she passed away in 1918. Both are buried at Spadra Cemetery. Their tombstone was, sadly, upended by vandals a few years back, the sight of which only adds to the spookiness of the graveyard.

After it was sold, Phillips Mansion was used for a variety of purposes. At one point in time, the site was turned into apartments and then it later served as a dorm for Cal Poly Pomona foreign exchange students. Over the years, the property fell into disrepair and in the ‘60s was bought by an industrialist who planned to demolish it in order to build a factory. Thankfully, the Historical Society stepped in and purchased it in 1966, rescuing it from the wrecking ball. The organization immediately set about renovating the structure with the hopes of turning it into a museum. The project took years and the museum finally opened to the public in 1978. Sadly, it has not had much luck since that point. Phillips Mansion, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, suffered severe damage in both the Upland earthquake of 1990 and the Sierra Madre earthquake of 1991. The Historical Society began to restore the wreckage in 2002 and was even hosting special theatrical productions titled “A Premature Burial” on the premises each Halloween, but then tragedy struck in July 2008 when the property was damaged yet again in the Chino Hills earthquake. The group is still currently working to repair the manse and return to its original glory.

While stalking it, I felt like I was standing in front of the Bates’ house from Psycho. The two properties look so much alike!

Supposedly, two movies, one starring Buster Keaton and the other starring Tom Mix, were shot at a barn located on the Phillips Mansion property in the 1930s. I am unsure of the names of the films, though, and, unfortunately, the barn is no longer standing.

Fellow stalker Darnell let me know that the mansion itself appeared in the 2005 horror movie Mortuary as the home where Liz (Alexandra Adi) lived.

While researching the mansion for this post, I was floored to discover that there is a dilapidated residence located directly behind it. I had not noticed the second property while I was there, which is unfortunate being that not only is it fabulously run-down, but it was also featured prominently in Mortuary. The dwelling is known as the Currier House and it was designed by architect Ferdinand Davis for local politician/philanthropist Alvin Tyler Currier in 1907. The home, which cost $12,000 to construct, was originally located about 15 miles west in the City of Industry. In 2004, after standing vacant for over a decade, the City of Industry gave the house to the Historical Society of Pomona Valley and paid to transport it to the grounds of the Phillips Mansion.

In Mortuary, the Currier House masked as the abandoned Fowler Brothers Mortuary.

I am unsure if the real life interior of the Currier House was used in the filming. Being that the interiors shown in the movie do not appear nearly as run down as the exterior of the home, I am guessing that a set was used for all inside filming. That is just a hunch, though.

Update – my friend Scott Michaels, of the FindaDeath website and Dearly Departed Tours, recently got a chance to visit both the Phillips Mansion and the Currier House and was kind enough to share the photos he took with me to add to this post.

During his tour, Scott got to see the interior of both residences. The inside of the Phillips Mansion is pictured below.

The Currier House could not be more fabulously dilapidated!

I am in love with the photo below! Scott thinks the happy face might have been left over from a filming of some sort, but he isn’t sure. Either way, it’s spectacular! Thank you, Scott, for the great pictures!

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Phillips Mansion is located at 2640 Pomona Boulevard in Pomona. The Currier House is located directly behind it.

October 19, 2015
Spadra Cemetery

Finding the words “ghost town” used to describe a cemetery is likely to cause my head to start spinning. Which is exactly what happened while I was doing some research on abandoned locales for an upcoming Discover Los Angeles post. I happened to come across an article on the Avoiding Regret blog about a forgotten, dilapidated old graveyard in Pomona named Spadra Cemetery and my eyes practically bugged out of my head. The photographs displayed showed an overgrown, crumbling site marked by toppled, cracked tombstones. I was instantly intrigued. An abandoned cemetery? Count me in! I knew the place would be perfect for my Haunted Hollywood postings, so I ran right out to stalk it shortly thereafter.

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Prior to reading about the cemetery, I had never heard of Spadra. The now defunct small town came to be thanks to a stagecoach line established in 1859 that ran from San Francisco to Memphis via Los Angeles. Several stations were constructed along the route, one of which was in the area that came to be known as Spadra. In 1864, a wealthy rancher named Louis Phillips purchased a 12,000-acre portion of land that included the station, with the intention of breaking it up and selling it off. One of the first to purchase a parcel was a colorful character named Billy Rubottom, aka “Uncle Billy.” Not only was Rubottom wanted in Arkansas on two separate murder charges, but he had also killed his son-in-law in El Monte.

The enterprising Rubottom built a hotel and bar on his new land in 1866. It was not long before stores, warehouses, a post office and a school sprung up around it. Rubottom dubbed the fledgling community “Spadra,” in honor of his hometown of Spadra, Arkansas. It doesn’t sound like it was a great place to reside. According to a post on The David Allen Blog, a Historical Society of the Pomona Valley booklet describes the town as such: “The village of Spadra was characterized by murder, suicide and mysterious deaths.” Not surprising considering its founder.

The 2.5-acre Spadra Cemetery was established in 1868 on land donated to the town by Louis Phillips.

Spadra continued to thrive and in 1874 the Southern Pacific Railroad extended their line to the town. While that caused a boost in popularity, it was short-lived. The following year, the line was again extended about thirty miles farther east to Colton and Spadra became an all but forgotten stop along the route. As the neighboring town of Pomona began to grow and boom, thanks in large part to the fact that the area had a water supply, the population of Spadra dwindled. The establishment of a mental hospital in the area in 1927 and a landfill in 1957 further drove people away. The town was finally acquired by Pomona in 1964. The last burial at Spadra Cemetery took place in 1971 and four years later the site was deeded to the Historical Society. You can read a more in-depth account of Spadra’s history here.

Today, Spadra Cemetery, which boasts 212 graves (that’s the official number, at least), is almost completely hidden from view and extremely hard to find. Situated underneath State Route 57, the site shares a driveway with a company named Altec Southern California Service Rentals, which bars it from sight. (A Google Street View image of the shared driveway is pictured below.) We actually drove past the entrance twice before stopping to ask a local resident for directions. Upon finally finding it, I was a bit disheartened to discover that no part of the property is visible from the street.

The graveyard itself is located about 500 feet south of a locked gate and can only be reached via an open field to the west of it. And no, the Grim Cheaper and I did not venture over past the gate. The cemetery is on private land and I am not one for trespassing. But man, do I wish I could have seen it because the images I found of it online are haunting. There is good news, though! The Historical Society does sometimes offer tours of the cemetery. One such tour takes place annually on Halloween night. I honestly cannot think of a better place to spend the holiday!

I was thrilled to discover while researching this post that the entrance gate is also a horror movie location! In a case of art imitating life, the gate stands at the entrance to the abandoned funeral home and cemetery that the Doyle family – Jonathan (Dan Byrd), Leslie (Denise Crosby) and Jamie (Stephanie Patton) – purchases in 2005’s The Mortuary.

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Spadra Cemetery is located at 2850 Pomona Boulevard in Pomona. As I mentioned, it can be hard to find. The entrance, which shares a driveway with Altec Southern California Service Rentals at 2882 Pomona Boulevard, is situated about 100 feet east of the 57 Freeway. The actual graveyard is located about 500 feet south of the entrance gate, across a set of railroad tracks. Pleased by advised that the cemetery is private property and venturing onto its grounds is trespassing. There are legal ways to see it via the Historical Society of the Pomona Valley. You can contact them regarding tours here.

October 16, 2015
The Evers’ House from “The Haunted Mansion”

My Los Angeles magazine editor is on vacation this week, so I will not have a post on LAmag.com today. To make up for it, though, I’ve got a Haunted Hollywood locale for you right here! One of my favorite parts about the Halloween season is watching scary movies. (And of course stalking their locations and blogging about them.) It always shocks me how many horror flicks and thrillers there are out there that I have yet to see. One of my more recent screenings was of The Haunted Mansion, the 2003 Disney flick based on Disneyland’s popular ride of the same name. I didn’t have very high hopes for the movie, but it turned out to be really cute – and a perfect watch for this time of year. The best part? Years ago, my buddy Mike, from MovieShotsLA, told me about the location of the home where the Evers family – Jim (Eddie Murphy), Sara (Marsha Thomason), Michael (Marc John Jefferies), and Megan (Aree Davis) – lived in the flick. He had tracked it down via this 2006 Pasadena Weekly article. As it turns out, not only is the pad an extremely popular filming location, but it is located very close to where I used to live. For whatever reason, I had never stalked it, though. So I finally amended that by running right on over there while I was in the area a few weeks back.

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In real life, the Colonial-Revival-style residence, which was originally built in 1925 and sits on a 0.26-acre plot of land, boasts 4 bedrooms, 3.5 baths, and 3,234 square feet.

As you can see below, the dwelling is extremely picturesque. For some odd reason, though, the exterior rarely makes it onto the silver screen.

Such was the case with The Haunted Mansion – only the interior of the property was used in the filming. The exterior of the Evers’ house was never shown, not even in an establishing shot, which I found a bit weird. You can check out some photographs of the inside of the home here and here.

According to the Pasadena Weekly article, to accommodate the filming, the home’s then owners had to move out for two and a half weeks (the longest they had ever been displaced for a shoot), which is surprising being that the residence was only shown in a couple of brief scenes.

The haunted mansion that appeared in the movie, which was referred to as the Gracey Estate, was unfortunately just a façade that was built at Sable Ranch in Santa Clarita. Only the lower part of the manse was constructed for the shoot – the top portion was added via CGI in post-production – and was subsequently torn down after filming wrapped. You can check out some photographs of the façade here and here. What I wouldn’t give to have been able to have seen it in person! (Side note – I was floored to discover while researching this post that the Haunted Mansion ride at Disneyland was modeled after a real home, the Shipley-Lydecker House in Baltimore, Maryland. Sadly, it no longer stands, but you can see an image of what it used to look like here. It is the spitting image of the Disneyland mansion. SO incredibly cool!)

I actually think the mansion looks quite fake in the faraway shots that appeared in the movie.

But the close-up views of it are amazing! Personally, I think they should have forgone the CGI and utilized the façade as it was.

The interior of the Gracey Estate was an elaborate set constructed at Barwick Studios where The Haunted Mansion was lensed. You can read a fabulous blog post written by a few lucky souls who were able to visit the set on the DoomBuggies website here.

According to DoomBuggies, the couch that appeared in the library scene was also used in the 1954 movie 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

And, according to internet lore, after filming wrapped a chair from the mansion’s dining room set was placed inside the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland. It is said to be the chair that Jack Sparrow is sitting in at the very end of the attraction. Upon closer inspection, though, I do not believe that to be correct.

You can check out a picture of the Pirates chair here. While the two chairs are strikingly similar, there are some differences. Most notably, the movie chairs have an elevated carving of some sort located at the top, while the Pirates chair does not. Internet lore further states that one of the same chairs is also pictured in a portrait of a bride in the attic area of the Haunted Mansion ride. You can see an image of it here.

The Evers’ house was also where Michael Feller (Ken Howard) and Sydelle Feller (Candice Azzara) lived in the 2005 dramedy In Her Shoes. That movie was one of the few instances in which the exterior of the dwelling was shown.

The interior of the home made an appearance in the film, as well.

In the 2009 drama State of Play, the residence belonged to Anne Collins (Robin Wright).

And while 2007’s Spiderman 3 also did some filming on the premises, those scenes wound up on the cutting room floor.

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for telling me about this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Evers’ house from The Haunted Mansion is located at 1480 North Michigan Avenue in Pasadena.

October 15, 2015
The Orchid Tree Inn

It’s no secret that there’s nothing this stalker loves more than an abandoned site. Throw in a waterless pool and I am an even happier camper. So a couple of months ago when I passed by an abandoned motel that appeared extremely accessible in downtown Palm Springs, I immediately pulled the car over for a closer look. I came to find out the property was a shuttered 1930s-era hotel known as the Orchid Tree Inn and that it not only boasted three pools, but had been deserted for over a decade. My kinda place!

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The Orchid Tree Inn is a sprawling, ramshackle property that takes up almost an entire block of land. That was not always the case, though. The motel, which was founded in 1934 by a man named Horace L. Cook, was originally established as a tiny 10-bungalow complex known as the Sakarah Apartments. The site offered both short- and long-term lodging. The original ten units still stand to this day. One is pictured below.

A reader who is a distant relative of Horace recently sent me scans of the property’s original advertising pamphlet! The booklet boasts of mountain and desert views, a roof garden, gas heating, breakfast nooks, and “tasteful, early Californian furniture.”

She also sent me the photograph below and informed me that the Sakarah was named after a favorite cat. Couldn’t love that more!

When Horace decided to relocate to Los Angeles in 1941, he sold the property to Beverly Hills contractor Harry Irvin, who renamed it the Apache Lodge.

By 1948, the name had been changed yet again, this time to the Bel-Ardo Villas. The complex was finally given its current moniker, the Orchid Tree Inn, in 1952. A pool was also added to the property’s central courtyard at that time. You can check out some postcard images of what the site looked like in those days here and here. The area featured on the postcards is the same area pictured below. As you can see, despite the hotel being abandoned for over a decade, it still looks very much the same today as it did then.

During its heyday, the Orchid Tree Inn played host to several Old Hollywood celebrities including William Holden, Troy Donahue, Tab Hunter, Anthony Perkins, and Rosalind Russell.

Over the years, the owners of the inn purchased the many different properties surrounding it. It eventually came to be made up of seven different structures and complexes, the oldest of which, a private residence, dated back to 1915. The home, which was Craftsman in style, belonged to a Christian Science Practitioner named Genevieve Reilly for over 45 years. Sadly, it was destroyed in a fire in 2007 and all that currently remains of it is the stone archway pictured below.

According to a Historic Site Preservation Board report done on the Orchid Tree Inn in 2010, the archway was hand-laid.

From what I have been able to gather, I believe that the large stone pad visible below was the bungalow’s footprint.

A faraway view showing the footprint, the archway, and the motel units beyond and adjacent to them is pictured below.

At some point (I believe in the ‘90s), the Orchid Tree Inn acquired a neighboring motel known as the Desert House Inn that was originally built in 1941.

The Desert House Inn’s dry, but intact pool . . .

. . . hot tub . . .

. . . and fountain practically had me drooling!

While most of the Orchid Tree Inn’s acquisitions were Spanish in style, there was one mid-century modern building formerly located on the premises. When the nearby Premiere Apartments, originally designed by prolific architect Albert Frey in 1957, were threatened with demolition in 1972, the entire complex was moved onto a vacant plot of land on the Orchid Tree Inn premises. Sadly, that building was also burned in a fire in 2007 and no longer stands. It was formerly situated in the area pictured below.

The Google Street View images below were taken in 2007 and show what the Premiere Apartments looked like shortly after the fire. And you can check out some photocopied pictures of the building in its original state here.

The pool located behind the Premiere Apartments remains intact.

After over seven decades in business, the Orchid Tree Inn was shuttered in 2005 and has remained vacant ever since.

The hotel’s former owners held an estate sale during which its furnishings were sold in 2010. You can check out some photographs of the many items put up for sale here.

I was shocked – and delighted – at how photographically accessible the Orchid Tree Inn is.

Virtually all of the property is visible from the street.

Even through the chipped paint and crackling walls, it is apparent how beautiful it once was.

On a neighboring parcel of land sits the former Community Church, which was devastated by a fire in 2013. It has been left charred and dilapidated ever since.

The church was originally designed in 1935 by William Charles Tanner.

Developer Richard Weintraub is currently seeking the city’s approval to turn the Orchid Tree Inn and the Community Church into an 89-room luxury resort. He plans to revive the ten historic bungalows in the process. The property renderings looks absolutely gorgeous and, being that many portions of the original hotel will be kept intact, I hope the plans are approved and that new life is brought to the site. In the meantime, though, I sure enjoy passing by it in its current state.

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Orchid Tree Inn is located at 261 South Belardo Road in Palm Springs. The aerial view below denotes the many different properties that were added to the hotel throughout its history and what year they were originally built.

October 14, 2015
Mary Miles Minter’s Former Mansions

The death of William Desmond Taylor remains one of Hollywood’s most notorious unsolved mysteries, over 90 years after its occurrence. On the evening of February 1st, 1922, the 50-year-old director was shot and killed in his Westlake apartment complex. Though there were suspects aplenty, no one was ever indicted in the murder and the case was officially closed without resolution (for the second time) on February 23rd, 1938, never to be re-opened. Common belief, though, has long since held that the guilty party was Charlotte Shelby, the mother of 19-year-old starlet Mary Miles Minter, with whom Desmond was said to be having an illicit May-December affair. I became fascinated with the case after reading Tinseltown: Murder, Morphine, and Madness at the Dawn of Hollywood and stalked the site of Taylor’s former bungalow as part of my 2014 Haunted Hollywood postings. So this year I thought it only fitting to venture out to visit two mansions that once belonged to Mary and Charlotte, the addresses of which I found thanks to my buddy E.J. Fleming’s new book, Hollywood Death and Scandal Sites: Seventeen Driving Tours with Directions and the Full Story.

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The life of Mary Miles Minter was a strange one. The actress was born Juliet Reilly on April 25th, 1902 in Shreveport, Louisiana. Her mother, then known as Lilla Pearl Reilly, soon tired of what she deemed a lowly existence in the Bayou and moved Juliet and her sister, as well as her widowed mother, Julia Miles, to New York, hoping to catch a taste of the good life. Lilla changed her name to Mrs. Charlotte Shelby and quickly became the stage mom to end all stage moms, pushing her daughters into the limelight. Charlotte was the OG momager. Before there was a Dina Lohan, before there was a Kris Kardashian, there was a Charlotte Shelby. It wasn’t long before Juliet caught the eye of theatre producer Charles Frohman, who hired the nine-year-old to act in rather sexy stage productions. When Juliet’s age was questioned by child labor advocates, Shelby’s response was to acquire the birth certificate of a 16-year-old dead relative named Mary Minter and pass it along as her daughter’s. The scheme worked and from that point on the youngster was known as Mary Miles Minter. Shortly thereafter, Charlotte relocated the family to Los Angeles and Mary quickly secured a $1.3-million contract with film magnate Adolph Zukor, going on to act in 54 silent films.

After finding success, Charlotte, using Mary’s money, leased the family a mansion in Hancock Park that had once belonged to silent screen star Mary Pickford. Today, the estate, which still stands at 56 Fremont Place, is a popular filming location, appearing in everything from Taken (screen capture below) to CSI: Miami to Beverly Hills, 90210. During the time the family was living there, Mary landed a role in the 1919 movie Anne of Green Gables. William Desmond Taylor, who was then 47, was the director. For 17-year-old Minter, it was love at first sight. Though rumors of an affair between the two are still persistent to this day, Tinseltown author William J. Mann asserts that Taylor kept her at arms length. Either way, Mary was smitten and wanted nothing more than to marry Desmond, retire from the film industry and have his children. Charlotte would have none of it, though. Mary was her meal ticket and she did not want the gravy train to end.

In late 1920, when the lease on the Hancock Park mansion was up, the family headed to the East Coast for a brief vacation. Upon returning, Charlotte, using Mary’s money once again, purchased a 20,000-square-foot, 3-story, 40-room mansion that they named Casa de Margarita (or Casa de Marguerite, depending on which website you are reading). They lived at the property for a short time before beginning a renovation project in the fall of 1921, at which point they relocated to a house at 2039 Hobart Boulevard in Los Feliz, where they remained until the spring of 1922. It was while they were living on Hobart that Taylor was murdered in his bungalow. Mary’s career came to an almost screeching halt.

Charlotte was immediately painted as a prime suspect. Shelby had vocally opposed her daughter’s adoration of Taylor for years, had done everything she could to keep the two apart, and had even once threatened him publicly, saying “If I ever catch you hanging around Mary again, I will blow your goddamned brains out.” A grand jury was convened at one point, and while they chose not to indict her, the murder plagued both Charlotte and Mary for the rest of their lives.

At the time of William’s murder, Hollywood was in a precarious position thanks to the Fatty Arbuckle scandal, which had hit the industry hard financially. Studios did not want their stars to have connections to any sort of salacious behavior as it proved detrimental to the success of their movies. The Famous Players-Lasky Corporation decided that Mary had to go. When she was informed that her contract would not be renewed, she was just shy of her 21st birthday. The unemployed actress had just moved out of Casa de Margarita and into a Hollywood Hills bungalow. The move had caused an estrangement between the star and her mother and, unfortunately for Mary, it was Charlotte who held the purse strings. Without a studio contract, she no longer had a way to pay the bills.

By the summer of 1923, Mary was in dire straits. She was broke, had lost the love of her life, her career had disappeared, she had developed a heroin problem and gained a large amount of weight. To stir up publicity (which would hopefully lead to a job), she created a fake story claiming an attempt had been made on her life and that the killer’s intentions had been to forever silent her on what she knew about Taylor’s death. Neither the police nor the tabloids bought her story, though. The starlet then moved to New York for a time, hoping to carve out a career on the stage, but it never took shape. She eventually began legal proceedings against Charlotte in order to regain the money she made as a young star. For reasons that are not entirely clear, but that I am guessing have to do with the lawsuit, Shelby was forced to sell Casa Margarita at auction in December 1932.

Mother and daughter eventually reconciled. Ever the shrewd businesswoman, Charlotte had invested Mary’s money rather wisely and the two moved in together, first to an estate in Beverly Hills and then, in the 1950s, to a spacious, 6-bedroom, 9-bathroom (!!!), 5,501-square-foot home known as the Bishop Conaty House in Santa Monica. The pad, which sits on 0.46 acres, was originally constructed in 1907 for the Reverend Bishop Thomas Conaty of Los Angeles and San Diego. Charlotte and Mary would live there for the rest of their days.

Mary’s later years were not happy ones. The former starlet started turning into a recluse. Shortly after Charlotte passed away in 1957, Minter married a real estate developer named Brandon O’Hildebrandt. When he passed away in 1965, she grew even more reclusive. Last year I attended a Q&A about Tinseltown and photographer Michael Childers happened to be in attendance. He spoke of meeting Minter at her home in her final years and described her existence as a very “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? situation.“ Apparently, the then obese actress surrounded herself with photographs from her younger years and continued to wear the hairstyle and clothing from her movie star days. On one particularly bad night in 1981, a robber broke into Mary’s residence, tied her up and stole $300,000 worth of items. It was later discovered that her caretaker was behind the theft.

On August 4th, 1984, Mary Miles Minter passed away silently at the home, her film legacy largely forgotten, but her entwinement with one of Hollywood’s most infamous unsolved murders still very much intact.

Casa de Margarita served many incarnations after it was sold by Charlotte in 1932. For a time the property was utilized by a seminary, then it became a home for unwed mothers, and then a shelter for children. Today, it is a family service center named Children’s Institute, Inc. According to this article, the dwelling still boasts much of its original décor, including large fireplaces, a grand staircase, built-in bookcases, a central courtyard with a fountain, and hardwood flooring. It is also supposedly haunted. You can see some interior photos of it here.

A big THANK YOU to my friend E.J., of The Movieland Directory website, for providing these addresses. For those who are as into Haunted Hollywood locales as I am, I highly recommend his book Hollywood Death and Scandal Sites: Seventeen Driving Tours with Directions and the Full Story (the second edition was just released via McFarland). The tome is chock full of macabre spots (I swear, one year virtually all of my Haunted Hollywood locations came from the first edition), all of which are well-researched and well-documented. As I have mentioned many times before, E.J. is one of the very few fellow stalkers whose information I trust. He is a rare breed in this field in that his data is accurate, his locales unique (read: not regurgitated from all of the other websites out there), and his story-telling bar none!

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Casa de Margarita, aka Mary Miles Minter’s former mansion, is located at 701 South New Hampshire Avenue in Koreatown. The home where Mary spent her final years can be found at 144 Adelaide Drive in Santa Monica.

October 13, 2015
Gramma-Jess’ House from “Poltergeist II: The Other Side”

I have never seen Poltergeist, which, considering my love of the ‘80s and all things spooky, is rather shocking. I tried to remedy the situation this past weekend, but the Grim Cheaper was having none of it, unfortunately. I did recently stalk a location from the sequel, Poltergeist II: The Other Side, though. I had come across a post on the Then & Now Movie Locations blog about the residence used as Gramma-Jess’ (Geraldine Fitzgerald) house in the flick and became quite intrigued. Not only is the dwelling gorgeous, but it is located in Altadena, in close proximity to my old home. So I ran right out to see it in person.

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Their house having imploded in Poltergeist, the Freeling family – Steve (Craig T. Nelson), Diane (JoBeth Williams), Robbie (Oliver Robins), and Carol Anne (Heather O’Rourke) – moves in with Diane’s mom, Gramma-Jess (Geraldine Fitzgerald), in Poltergeist II: The Other Side. Virtually all of the movie takes place at the large Craftsman-style residence, which is said to be located in Phoenix, Arizona.

Amazingly, the house looks very much the same today as it did onscreen in 1986.

Love the images below!

And LOVE that the driveway is exactly the same as it appeared onscreen!

A few areas of the home were used in the filming, including the front exterior . . .

. . . the backyard . . .

. . .and the front porch.

Interiors were filmed on a soundstage at MGM Studios in Culver City (which is now Sony Pictures Studios). According to the Poltergeist II production notes, “Preceded by months of intensive preparatory work, the production fully occupied two of the largest soundstages at MGM’s famed Culver City studio lot. On Stage 30, [production designer Ted] Haworth and his crew constructed a full-scale house, duplicating in exacting detail the real-life house selected to represent Gramma Jess’ home in the film –– inside and out.”

Because it is obvious that most of the exteriors were shot at the actual home in Altadena, I am guessing that the replica exteriors mentioned in the notes were only used for more close-up, tight shots of the outside of the residence, such as in the scene below. UPDATE – I recently spoke to David, who runs the amazing Poltergeist Fan Website, and it turns out that my hunch was correct. David informed me that the residence’s backyard and garage were re-created on a soundstage for use in a few night scenes, including the scene in which the Freelings ran out the back door of the house, through the backyard and into the garage, where they found Carol Anne hiding in the station wagon.

In real life, Gramma-Jess’ house, which was built in 1913, boasts three bedrooms, two baths, 2,766 square feet of living space, and a 0.53-acre plot of land. The property was last sold in 1973 for $18,500, which cracks me up being that Zillow now estimates its worth at around $1.5 million.

The home is absolutely gorgeous in person and I am quite surprised that it is not listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

While researching this post, I was floored to discover that the Poltergeist franchise is laced with behind-the-scenes mystery and intrigue. According the the television special Real Fear: The Truth Behind the Movies, the original 1982 film is said to be loosely based on supposed real life events that took place at a one-story ranch-style house belonging to the Hermann family in the Long Island suburb of Seaford. In early 1958, the Hermanns began experiencing many odd occurrences at the home. James and Lucille and their two children witnessed random objects flying across the room and furniture toppling over for no apparent reason. The disturbances only lasted about five weeks and the family attributed them to an Indian burial ground located nearby. You can read a more in-depth article about the Hermann hauntings here, though there is some contention about their connection to Poltergeist. There is also quite a bit of contention over who actually directed the first installment. While Tobe Hooper is listed on the credits, many believe that Steven Spielberg was actually at the helm. Mystery also shrouds the re-shot ending of the third movie, which no one involved in the production seems to want to discuss. And, of course, there is the so-called “Poltergeist curse,” which I talked about in my post about the house from the original film. For those who want to delve deeper into the intrigue surrounding the movies, I highly recommend checking out the Poltergeist Fan Website.

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Big THANK YOU to the Then & Now Movie Locations blog for finding this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Gramma- Jess’ house from Poltergeist II: The Other Side is located 1589 Homewood Drive in Altadena.

October 12, 2015