The Palms Motel from “My Name Is Earl”

Another day, another motel location.  Today’s is one that has been covered on many other blogs, so I realize I am a bit late to the game.  I only just recently stalked it, though, and was shocked to discover that its most recognizable element had been removed!  I am talking about the Palms Motel where Earl Hickey (Jason Lee) lived with his brother, Randy (Ethan Suplee), on the television series My Name Is Earl.  Up until writing this post, I had never seen a full episode of the show, but my dad is a huge fan, so I had caught many bits and pieces of it over the years.  I had also long been familiar with the real life location of the Palms Motel.  In actuality, it’s known as the Palm Tree Inn Motel in North Hills.  Mike, from MovieShotsLA, first pointed it out to me during one of our many Valley stalks ages ago and, when I was in the area recently, I decided to stop by to stalk it for my dad.  I was absolutely shocked upon arriving, though, to see that the hotel’s iconic, murky-watered pool was no longer!

For those unfamiliar with My Name Is Earl, the series centers around ne’er-do-well Earl, who, after winning $100,000 in the lottery and then promptly losing the ticket, decides to change his ways by adhering to the tenets of karma.  He draws up a list of all of the people he has wronged throughout the course his life and proceeds to try to make amends with each of them.  I absolutely love Earl’s mantra of “You do good things and good things happen to you.  You do bad things and they’ll come back to haunt you.”  It’s not a bad way to operate.  After losing his winning lottery ticket and being dumped by his wife in the pilot episode (oh, and getting hit by a car – the guy was not having a good week), Earl and his brother move into a low-budget inn named the Palms Motel.

The motel went on to be featured regularly throughout the series’ four-season run.  It also appeared each week in the My Name Is Earl opening credits.

The Palms’ dingy, fin-shaped pool was easily its most notable aspect – well, for me, at least.

Before venturing onto the property, I popped into the Palm Tree Inn’s front office to speak with the manager and he could not have been nicer, immediately welcoming me onto the premises to take all of the pictures that I wanted.  Before I did so, he informed me that the pool had been filled in a few years prior (I believe around 2010) due to the fact that it was expensive to maintain and rarely used.  He pointed me in the direction of the pool’s former location (it now serves as a parking lot addition) and, while distressed over the fact that it was no longer there, I was floored to see that its outline was still visible.

Oh, how I wish I had gotten to see the pool in person, though.

The outline of the circular space where the random blue sculpture once stood is also still visible.  I am guessing that area was the site of a hot tub at one point in time.

On the series, the brothers were said to live in Room 231 and that is actually where filming took place.

Room 231 can be found on the second floor of the southeast corner of the Palm Tree Inn Motel.

That area is denoted with a pink arrow in the aerial view pictured below.

While the exterior of Room 231 was featured regularly throughout the series’ run, I believe that the actual (heavily dressed) interior was only used in My Name Is Earl’s pilot episode . . .

. . . and that a set re-creation of it was built for all subsequent filming once the series got picked up.  You can check out some photographs of what the Palm Tree Inn’s real rooms look like here.

E & Z Liquor Market, where childhood Earl (Noah Crawford) taught his friend Ralph (Tanner Maguire) about “street piñatas” in the Season 1 episode “Teacher Earl,” is located adjacent to the Palm Tree Inn Motel at 8418 Sepulveda Boulevard.

The Palm Tree Inn Motel was originally built in the 1960s and was known as the Travelyn Hiway Host.

I believe that it did not become the Palm Tree Inn Motel until after My Name Is Earl started filming in 2005, which would mean that the owners re-named it in honor of its TV moniker, the Palms Motel, which is pretty darn incredible!  Don’t quote me on that, though.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover while researching this post how much filming has taken place at the 76-room motel over the years.

The Palm Tree Inn appeared very briefly as the L.A. motel where Azamat (Ken Davitian) was living at the end of the 2006 comedy Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.

In the Season 1 episode of The Mentalist titled “The Thin Red Line,” which aired in 2008, the motel masked as the Davis Motor Inn in Davis, California, where the CBI team investigated the murder of a state witness.

One of the hotel’s actual rooms, Room 222, appeared in the episode.

A nice view of the pool was also shown.

In the Season 3 episode of Heroes titled “Chapter Four ‘Cold Wars,’” which aired in 2009, the property stood in for the Costa Verde motel where Peter Petrelli (Milo Ventimiglia), Matt Parkman (Greg Grunberg) and Mohinder Suresh (Sendhil Ramamurthy) interrogated Noah Bennet (Jack Coleman).

Ironically, Room 231, the very same room where Earl and Randy live on My Name Is Earl, was utilized in the filming.

Or at least the doorway was.  I believe the interior of the room that appeared in the episode was just a set.

The Palm Tree Inn Motel was featured extensively in Kesha’s 2010 music video for “Take It Off.”

Though the property was made to appear as if it was located in a remote, mountainous area for the shoot.

An extensive sequence from the video took place in the motel’s pool.

You can watch the “Take It Off” video by clicking below.

Having viewed the many productions filmed at the motel, I’m rather shocked that the owners decided to have the pool filled in.  Though, as I mentioned earlier, I was told it was expensive to maintain, it seems that all of the movies and shows lensed on the premises featured it in some aspect.  The pool’s unique shape added a certain je ne sais quoi to the property, making it stand out from the countless roadside motels in the area, and no doubt proved attractive to location scouts.  Without it, the place looks like every other motel in L.A., which probably explains why it, sadly, hasn’t seen much filming in recent years.

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Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Palm Tree Motor Inn, aka the Palms Motel from My Name Is Earl, is located at 8424 Sepulveda Boulevard in North Hills.  E & Z Liquor Market, from the “Teacher Earl” episode, is located right next door at 8418 Sepulveda Boulevard. The areas of the motel that appeared on the series, as well as the liquor store, are denoted in the aerial view below.  The Budget Inn of North Hills, aka the Little Miss Sunshine motel, is located a mile north at 9151 Sepulveda Boulevard.  The Hometown Inn from the 2002 Britney Spears’ movie Crossroads is located just a bit north of that at 9401 Sepulveda Boulevard.