The Waterfront Beach Resort from “Rosewood”

It is such a shame when a favorite show jumps the shark.  If its latest episode, titled “Amparo & the American Dream,” is any indication, that fate seems to have befallen Rosewood, the FOX procedural currently in its second season.  While I was all in with the recent storyline centering around Captain Ryan Slade (Eddie Cibrian) donating his kidney to Dr. Beaumont “Rosie” Rosewood, Jr. (Morris Chestnut) and the complications that arose from that, as soon as the focus shifted to Slade possibly being a dirty cop, I completely lost interest.  The sudden addition of Detective Annalise Villa’s (Jaina Lee Ortiz) brother, Marcos (Manny Montana), has been another low spot.  He needs to go away, and fast!  While this week’s show might be a turnaround, considering how catastrophically bad “Amparo & the American Dream” was, I’m not holding out hope.  One bright spot in the episode was that I recognized a location – one that has appeared on Rosewood before (in my favorite episode of the series) and that I had stalked, but not yet blogged about – Huntington Beach’s The Waterfront Beach Resort.

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The 12-story Waterfront Beach Resort opened its doors in 1990.  At the time, it was known as “The Waterfront Hilton.”  It is still a Hilton property today.

The 285-room, Four-Diamond resort sits a short hop from the sand and boasts 21,000 square feet of meeting and event space, a heated pool and whirlpool overlooking the Pacific, a fitness center, a market/espresso bar, and an eatery named Shades Restaurant & Bar.

Stepping into The Waterfront feels like stepping onto a tropical island.  The Grim Cheaper and I popped by for a quick visit while in Orange County last month and I found myself seriously considering rearranging our schedule so that we could book a room for an immediate spontaneous stay.  Sadly, we couldn’t.

The hotel started undergoing an extensive $140-million, 18-month renovation and expansion in early 2016.

During the project, a 9-story suites-only tower with a restaurant, a lounge, a pool deck, and an events lawn will be added to the property.  Many areas of the existing hotel are also being altered, including the lobby and pool.

In the Season 1 episode of Rosewood titled “Atherosclerosis and the Alabama Flim-Flam,” which is hands-down my favorite of the entire series, The Waterfront portrays the Coconut Beach Crown Plaza Hotel in Coconut Beach, Florida, where Rosie serves as a keynote speaker for the Forensic Pathology Organization of America’s Annual Convention.  During the conference, someone murders one of Rosie’s fellow pathologists, utilizing methods detailed in his speech.  So he calls on his East Miami PD colleagues, including Villa, to help solve the case and track down the killer.

The episode was shot pretty much in its entirety on location at the hotel.  Areas used include the Grand Ballroom;

several hallways;

the pool;

the Tides Ballroom,which masked as Surf and Turf restaurant, where Rosie and Villa carried out the “Wilma Illinois Screamer” scam on two suspects (and where Rosie professed his love for Villa, only to have her deny him moments later);

Shades Restaurant & Bar;

and the lobby, where Villa made a grand entrance wearing a “gift shop” dress.

Sadly, the lobby has already undergone the majority of its renovation, so, while the basic set-up remains the same, it looks quite a bit different today than it did onscreen in Rosewood.

I believe that several of the hotel’s actual rooms were also used in the shoot – either that or production utilized sets very closely modeled after The Waterfront’s accommodations.  You can check out what some of The Waterfront’s rooms look like here and here.

In Rosewood’s “Amparo & the American Dream” episode, which is hands-down my least favorite of the entire series, The Waterfront masks as Miami Beach’s The De Leon Hotel, where Rosie and Villa track down a prostitution ring.  The resort was only featured briefly in the episode.  Areas used include the exterior;

the pool;

a room;

and several hallways.

A couple of other productions have also been shot at The Waterfront.  Amanda Woodward (Heather Locklear) and boyfriend Bobby Parezi (John Enos III) stayed there in the Season 4 episode of Melrose Place titled “The Bobby Trap.”  In the episode, not only was an establishing shot of the exterior of the hotel shown . . .

. . . but Bobby and Amanda dined by the resort’s pool.

One of the hotel’s hallways was also utilized . . .

. . . as was one of the rooms.

It is also at The Waterfront that Jackie Dorsey (Christy Carlson Romano) takes a California vacation with some friends in the 2006 ABC Family movie The Cutting Edge: Going for the Gold.

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Until next time, Happy Stalking! 

Stalk It: The Waterfront Beach Resort, aka the Coconut Beach Crown Plaza Hotel from the “Atherosclerosis and the Alabama Flim-Flam” episode of Rosewood, is located at 21100 Pacific Coast Highway in Huntington Beach.  You can visit the hotel’s official website here.  The Hyatt Huntington Beach, which stood in for the Beverly Hills Beach Club on 90210, is located just down the street at 21500 Pacific Coast Highway.  You can visit the website for that hotel here.