Year: 2017

Woody’s Boathouse Restaurant from “Vanderpump Rules”

I had high hopes for a lot of rest, relaxation, and reading during my recent trip to Lake Arrowhead. I wound up doing little else besides shopping and some Vanderpump Rules stalking, though, which, hey, I’m not gonna complain about! One site I did not pinpoint the exact location of prior to actually setting foot in the lakeside city was the eatery where the Sur gang grabbed lunch in the Season 2 episode titled “Only the Lonely.” I recognized from my prior visits to the area that filming of the scene had occurred somewhere in Lake Arrowhead Village, so, armed with screen captures, the Grim Cheaper and I ventured around the sprawling shopping center until we found the right spot. As we soon learned, VR was lensed on the small back patio of Woody’s Boathouse Restaurant, a spot we had actually dined at during one of our previous trips! I failed to recognize the place, though, because that particular visit took place during the winter (there was even snow on the ground!), so we dined indoors and did not even realize that the eatery had a back patio.

[ad]

In “Only the Lonely,” Stassi Schroeder, Jax Taylor, et al. travelled to Lake Arrowhead to attend Tom Sandoval’s band’s show. Their first night in town, during which the gang grabbed drinks at Papagayos Mexican Restaurant & Cantina (I blogged about that site here), was a bit rocky, with Tom and then girlfriend Kristen Doute arguing – initially over whether or not Tom regularly wore his steampunk glasses and then later over the fact that Kristen wouldn’t let Tom kiss her goodnight. (It came as such a shock when their relationship ended a few episodes later! ) The following day, Tom, Kristen and the rest of the (very hung-over) group discussed the fight and its fallout over lunch – and more drinks (because, duh!) – at Woody’s.

During the debriefing, Tom, of course, cried – or, as he described it, “shed some man tears” – and all was forgiven. For the time being, at least. (And yes, I realize what an idiot I must be coming off as for being a fan of this show! Trust me, though, it’s highly addicting.)

In person, the Woody’s Boathouse patio looks much the same as it did onscreen.

Though the patio was accessible, sadly, dining there was not possible during our visit due to the cold weather.

We did get to enjoy some of its incredible views for a moment, though.

Woody’s Boathouse Restaurant is situated directly overlooking Lake Arrowhead, so the entire eatery boasts some pretty stellar vistas.

I mean, come on!

After finishing their lunch/drinks on Vanderpump Rules, Jax and Stassi took a walk together on the dock in front of Woody’s and discussed the fact that, despite being broken up for over a year, Jax had just tattooed Stassi’s name onto his arm. (Again, the fact that I admit to religiously watching this show can’t be making me look too good right now.)

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Woody’s Boathouse Restaurant, from the “Only the Lonely” episode of Vanderpump Rules, is located in the Lake Arrowhead Village shopping center at 28200 CA-189 in Lake Arrowhead. You can visit the eatery’s official website here. Papagayos Mexican Restaurant & Cantina, which was also featured in the episode, is located in Building P-100 of the same center. You can visit that eatery’s official website here.

April 19, 2017
The “Why Him?” Gate House

Location managers can be such tricksters! And there’s pretty much nothing I love more than uncovering the various fabrications that go into a particular locale. Such was the case with the gate house supposedly situated at the entrance to the massive manse belonging to millionaire video game creator Laird Mayhew (James Franco) in Why Him? The Grim Cheaper and I recently watched – and thoroughly enjoyed – the 2016 comedy and I went on an immediate quest to track down some of its filming sites. Thanks to the Global Film Locations website, I quickly homed in on Laird’s sprawling estate, which is known as the Summit House in real life. One look at the place on Google Street View, though, told me that Laird’s quaint ranch-style gate house could not be found anywhere on the premises. Ah, the magic of Hollywood! So I set out to find it. And find it, I did.

[ad]

Thankfully, an address number of 2253 was visible outside of the gate house on the mailbox containing Laird’s facial recognition security device. I figured that the mailbox and address number were real and began searching for homes with 2253 addresses, first in Beverly Hills near the Summit House and then slowly working my way outward. I eventually found the right spot about seven miles away at 2253 Linda Flora Drive in Bel Air.

As I plopped down into Street View, I was shocked to discover that the mailbox that had facilitated my search was not there in real life! Turns out it was a prop that had been inexplicably fashioned with the home’s real life address for the shoot!

I was further surprised to see that the driveway where the mailbox was placed as well as the gate situated beyond it belong to the neighboring property located at 2251 Linda Flora Drive. So two residences were used to represent Laird’s gate house in Why Him? The trickery was strong with this locale!

The gate house only pops up briefly in Why Him?, in a beginning scene in which Stephanie Fleming (Zoey Deutch) brings her parents, Ned (Bryan Cranston) and Barb (Megan Mullally), and brother, Scotty (Griffin Gluck), to her boyfriend Laird’s home for the first time. As they arrive, Barb, mistakenly thinking that the charming dwelling they pull up to is Laird’s residence, says, “Oh, this is cute.” To which Stephanie explains, “Actually, this is the gate house.” As you can see, the gate house was changed a bit for the shoot. A fence was added to the perimeter of the front yard, a window was installed on the side of the pad, and quite a few trees, shrubs and plants, as well as a garden gnome, were brought in.

Producers also had the gate itself altered for the shoot, completely covering it over with foliage, which nearly obscured it from view. As Barb says when the gate opens upon the Fleming family’s arrival, “The hedge is moving!”

In real life, Laird’s gate house is a regular single family home that boasts 2 bedrooms, 2 baths, and 1,560 square feet.

The driveway and gate next door lead to a newly-built modern residence that boasts 4 bedrooms, 4 baths, 9,300 square feet, a 3.2-acre plot of land, travertine stonework, disappearing glass doors, two separate lawn areas, a detached guest house, a 3-car garage, a reflecting pool surrounded by a pool deck, 14-foot high ceilings, a massive skylight, a chef’s kitchen with Miele and Wolf appliances and electrically-controlled drawers, a library with a glass floor, a wine room, several fireplaces, and a 1,000-foot-long driveway.

You can see photographs of that property here.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Laird Mayhew’s gate house from Why Him? is located at 2253 Linda Flora Drive in Bel Air. The actual gate to his home can be found next door at 2251 Linda Flora Drive. And Laird’s mansion is located at 1159 Summit Drive in Beverly Hills.

April 17, 2017
The Ultimate Guide to the Los Angeles Filming Locations of “Say Anything . . . “

1989. The year the Berlin Wall fell, Disney-MGM Studios opened at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, Game Boy was released by Nintendo, and, on April 14^th, Say Anything . . . debuted. Cameron Crowe’s romantic tale of eternal optimist Lloyd Dobler (John Cusack) and his resolute love for classmate Diane Court (Ione Skye) remains a standout teen romance today, almost three decades after its release, and has inspired countless onscreen and real life imitations in the form of trench coat-wearing paramours expressing their love via a boombox held high overhead. Though set in Seattle, Washington, outside of a few establishing shots and some B-roll footage lensed in the Pacific Northwest, the movie was filmed in its entirety in Los Angeles. In honor of the flick’s 28^th anniversary, I teamed up once again with Greg Mariotti, from Crowe’s official The Uncool website, to chronicle the L.A.-area locales featured in the timeless tale.

[ad]

1. Corey Flood’s House (2545 Ganesha Avenue, Altadena) – Though an establishing shot of a traditional two-story home at 3627 Northwest 65^th Court in Seattle was used to portray the residence of Lloyd’s gumptious BFF Corey Flood (Lili Taylor), all actual filming took place a good 1,100 miles away at a dwelling in Altadena.

2. Lloyd’s Apartment (318 South Canyon Blvd #3, Monrovia) – The non-descript apartment building where Lloyd lives with his sister, Constance (who was played by Cusack’s real life sister, Joan), and nephew, Jason (Glenn Walker Harris Jr.), is another San Gabriel Valley locale. The two-story complex can be found on a shady street in Monrovia, looking much the same today as it did onscreen 28 years ago. The actual interior of Unit #3, including the bathroom where Lloyd calls Diane for the first time, was utilized in the film.

3. Lakewood High School Graduation – Santa Monica College Amphitheatre (1900 Pico Boulevard, Santa Monica) – The large amphitheater where Diane gives her famous “I’ve glimpsed our future and all I can say is, ‘Go back!’” valedictorian speech is sadly no longer standing. Formerly located at Santa Monica College, the arena was razed in 2009 to make way for a student services building.

4. Post-Graduation Meet-Up – Lacy Park (1485 Virginia Road, San Marino) – Following the graduation ceremony, Lakewood High’s Class of ’88 gathers at San Marino’s picturesque Lacy Park to take photos and greet loved ones. While there, James Court (John Mahoney) gifts Diane with a car and Corey snaps a down-low picture of Lloyd stealthily posing with an unaware Diane. The sprawling park also pops up later in the movie in the montage scene in which Diane and Lloyd walk, talk and kiss in the rain.

5. Diane’s House (140 South Norton Avenue, Windsor Square) – Supposedly located in a Seattle suburb, the two-story dwelling where Diane and James live can be found in Windsor Square. Partial views of the exterior and the pad’s real life interior – including the dining room, a bedroom, the living room and kitchen – were utilized in the shoot. Amazingly, the home has remained virtually untouched since filming took place. You can check out some photographs of it here.

6. Golden Seasons Retirement Home – Tierra del Sol (9919 Sunland Boulevard, Sunland) – Two different locations were used to represent Golden Seasons, the retirement home run by James. All exterior filming took place at Sunland’s Tierra del Sol, a support and training center for disabled adults that was originally established in 1971. Though the organization’s kitchen also appeared in the movie, all other interiors were shot at the now-defunct Scripps Home, an assisted living facility formerly located at 2212 El Molino Avenue in Altadena. While Tierra del Sol still looks much the same as it did in Say Anything . . ., Scripps Home was razed in 2008 and a new, larger senior housing project now stands in its place.

7. Vahlere’s House (1686 Homewood Drive, Altadena) – Lloyd refuses to allow Diane to leave the country for her upcoming fellowship without attending Vahlere’s (Eric Stoltz) “graduation thing,” and, after quite a bit of prodding, she finally agrees to be his date. The raucous party was shot at a large 7-bedroom, 8-bath, 6,637-square-foot dwelling in Altadena. Both the interior and exterior of the property were featured in the movie.

8. Mike’s House (4936 Sunnyslope Avenue, Sherman Oaks) – After driving around aimlessly for over three hours upon leaving the party, unwitting “key-master” Lloyd is finally able to drop off a very drunk and very lost Mike (Jason Gould) at his home before continuing on with his date with Diane. Mike’s house can be found on a quiet street in Sherman Oaks, markedly unchanged from its onscreen self. The later scene in which Diane breaks up with Lloyd in his Chevy Malibu (“dissed in the ‘bu!”) was shot nearby.

9. 7-Eleven (11340 Magnolia Boulevard, North Hollywood) – The iconic moment in which Lloyd brushes glass out of Diane’s path, subsequently melting the hearts of female moviegoers everywhere, was an added scene lensed months after initial filming wrapped. The romantic segment took place in the markedly unromantic parking lot of the 7-Eleven on Magnolia Boulevard in North Hollywood.

10. Cameron’s Seafood (1978 East Colorado Boulevard, Pasadena) – Diane shares a rather awkward lunch with her mother at one of Pasadena’s oldest eateries, Cameron’s Seafood, which was originally established in 1984. Little of the locale’s ocean-themed décor has changed since the segment was shot.

11. Flooky’s (5200 Vineland Avenue, North Hollywood) – Lloyd and Diane agree to be “friends with potential” over coffee at Flooky’s, a Valley chain that was founded in 1965. Outposts of the hot dog diner were once dotted all over L.A. and, while most are now shuttered, including the North Hollywood location where Say Anything . . . was filmed, nostalgic fans of the eatery can still grab a wiener at the Woodland Hills and Canoga Park sites.

12. Diane and Lloyd Spend the Night Together – 20^th Century Fox Studios (10201 West Pico Boulevard, Century City) – Thanks to a well-timed establishing shot of a Seattle-area beach, Diane and Lloyd seemingly consummate their relationship seaside in Lloyd’s car. In truth, the scene was shot inside Stage 14 at Fox Studios.

13. Guitar Garage – Voltage Guitars (1513 North Gardner Street, Hollywood) – Oh, Lloyd, don’t you know you should never kiss and tell? But he does just that, informing his friends Corey and D.C. (Amy Brooks) about his dalliance with Diane while at a now defunct outpost of Voltage Guitars, Hollywood’s oldest vintage guitar store, formerly located on North Gardner Street. Originally established in 1982 (ironically enough by a man named Lloyd), today the company is mainly an online business and the Gardner Street space is currently vacant.

14. Kick-Boxing Dojo (5223 Lankershim Boulevard, North Hollywood) – Lloyd doesn’t want to “sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed.” So he instead finds a job teaching kick-boxing to kids at a local “Seattle” dojo. Filming of the kick-boxing scenes took place at a real karate studio in North Hollywood. The site is something of a cinema stalwart, having also appeared as the Cobra Kai dojo in the 1984 classic The Karate Kid and its 1989 sequel, The Karate Kid III. An alternate scene in which Diane and Lloyd get back together supposedly outside of the dojo was actually shot a good 16 miles away at Library Park in South Pasadena. You can watch that segment, as well as many other deleted, extended and alternate scenes, on the Say Anything . . . Special Edition and 20^th Anniversary Edition DVDs.

15. Lloyd Calls His Sister (Fern Dell Drive, Griffith Park) – After Diane breaks up with him, a heartbroken Lloyd pulls over to make a call to his sister from a phone booth situated on a rainy stretch of sidewalk. The memorable, oft-quoted scene (“She gave me a pen. I gave her my heart and she gave me a pen.”) was an additional shoot lensed after principal filming had wrapped at the southern end of Fern Dell Drive, just north of Los Feliz Boulevard, in Griffith Park. The rain visible in the segment was manufactured and the phone booth was a prop, but Lloyd’s conversation was real – he was actually speaking with his sister on the other end of the line while shooting the segment.

16. Gas N Sip – Retro Dairy Mart (4420 West Magnolia Boulevard in Burbank) – After his break-up with Diane, Lloyd seeks solace from some male friends (including a young Jeremy Piven) at the local Gas N Sip. The scene was actually shot in the parking lot of a 1962 Alta Dena Dairy outpost located in Burbank. The site, now a Retro Dairy Mart, recently found onscreen fame once again thanks to its appearance as Ryan Gosling’s favorite breakfast spot in La La Land.

17. Wiener’s Luggage at Westfield Fashion Square (14006 Riverside Drive, Sherman Oaks) – James attempts to purchase a suitcase set for his daughter, as well as hit on a saleswoman (spoiler – he’s unsuccessful on both counts) at the Westfield Fashion Square outpost of the upscale luggage boutique Wiener’s Luggage. Due to the IRS’ investigation into his finances, James’ credit cards are denied and he is forced to leave the shop sans suitcase – and his dignity. Today, the Wiener’s space is home to a Sephora.

18. North Hollywood Park (11430 Chandler Boulevard, North Hollywood) – In what is arguably one of the most iconic movie scenes from the 1980s, Lloyd serenades Diane by standing outside of her house with a boombox held high above his head playing Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes.” Though Crowe initially shot the segment on the street in front of the Court residence in Windsor Square, he was not happy with the footage. Fate later stepped in during the filming of the 7-Eleven scene when cinematographer László Kovács noticed a park across the street that he thought would be perfect for the boom box bit. With only a few minutes of daylight remaining, cast and crew rushed over to a tree-lined stretch of North Hollywood Park and did a quick re-shoot. Cameron loved the way it turned out, the footage made it into the final cut, and the rest is cinematic history.

19. IRS Office – Design Center (433 South Spring Street, downtown Los Angeles) – After the IRS begins an investigation into James’ business dealings, Diane heads to a field office to try to convince an agent of his innocence. Filming of the scene took place at the former Design Center, now Twin Springs, in downtown Los Angeles. Originally built in 1928 as the Title Insurance Building, today the Art Deco structure houses offices for major fashion companies and is used regularly for filming. You can check out some photos of its spectacular interior here.

20. Court Exterior – Spring Street Federal Courthouse (312 North Spring Street, downtown Los Angeles) – An establishing shot of L.A.’s Spring Street Federal Courthouse was used to represent the Seattle D.A.’s office where James’ lawyer discussed his plea deal. Only the exterior of the building was utilized. Interiors were shot at the Design Center, where the IRS scenes also took place.

21. Spokane Correctional Facility – Mira Loma Detention Camp (Avenue I and 60^th Street, Lancaster) – A since shuttered juvenile detention camp in Lancaster masked as the Spokane prison where James was incarcerated. The site was closed in 1990 upon the opening of the Challenger Memorial Youth Center and today is used as a training facility for the Los Angeles County Sherriff’s Department.

22. Stage 747, Universal Studios (100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City) – “When you hear that smoking sign go ‘ding,’ you know everything’s gonna be OK.” So says Lloyd to calm Diane while on their flight to London in the movie’s final scene. The bit was shot at Universal Studio’s former Stage 747, a large soundstage that once housed set versions of a 707 and 747 airplane. The space was converted to a workshop in 2002 and the plane mockups removed, but you can see some photos of what they formerly looked like here.

April 14, 2017
The “Why Him?” House

I don’t like to think of myself as a brat, but I’d be lying if I did not admit to having brat-like tendencies when it comes to choosing what movie to watch with the Grim Cheaper on any given Saturday night. Typically I veto all of his recommendations straight out of the gate and we wind up watching a flick of my choosing. That was not the case on a recent evening in, though, when the GC had his heart set on viewing the 2016 James Franco/Bryan Cranston comedy Why Him? Even though I didn’t have high hopes for the film after watching the trailer, for whatever reason, I acquiesced – and wound up eating crow because not only was the movie great, but it gave me a new obsession, Alaskan King beds. (If you don’t know what they are, here ya go! I know, right? Simply amazing!) I also became quite obsessed with the flick’s locations, especially the massive modern mansion belonging to Laird Mayhew (Franco). Thankfully, it was an easy find. A quick Google search for “Why Him?” and “house” let me to this page on the Global Film Locations website which provided the address – 1159 Summit Drive in Beverly Hills.

[ad]

I was only further intrigued when I headed over to check out the property on Google Maps and dropped into Street View. As the little yellow cartoon man showed me, the pad is completely visible from the road, not hidden behind tall walls and gates like so many other Beverly Hills properties.

In person, the residence is even more impressive.

Built in 2011 by Whipple Russell Architects for a sports agent and his family, the sleek contemporary residence replaced a sprawling Mediterranean-style pad that Architectural Digest described as “hodgepodge” in a December 2015 article. That property is pictured via a 2007 Google Street View image below. As that home was demolished, its materials were gathered and donated to Habitat for Humanity. Then Whipple Russell began production on the new manse.

The completed project, which is known as the “Summit House,” is a work of art.

Per Zillow and the Architectural Digest article, the 6-bedroom, 11-bath, 10,000-square-foot estate boasts a 2-story entry, glass walls, a formal living room, a library with mahogany paneling, a gym, a master suite with dual closets (yes, please!) and dual baths (again, yes, please!), maid’s quarters, a 5-car garage, a motor court with room for 20 cars (!), several terraces, a rooftop deck, a rec room with a bowling alley and windows looking into the adjacent pool, a media room, a 1.26-acre lot, and a tennis court.

In Why Him?, college student Stephanie Fleming (Zoey Deutch) brings her parents, Ned (Cranston) and Barb (Megan Mullally), and brother, Scotty (Griffin Gluck), out to Silicon Valley during the holidays to meet her new boyfriend, millionaire video game creator Laird. During their visit, the Flemings bunk at Laird’s sprawling – and “paperless” – home.

The movie made extensive use of the Summit House.

I am fairly certain that the inside of Laird’s mansion was a mix of both the actual residence and studio-built sets. I believe that the entry;

rec room;

and kitchen/dining room shown in the movie were those of the actual Summit House . . .

. . . while the living room;

. . . . bathrooms . . .

. . . and bedrooms were sets. (There’s that Alaskan King bed I became so enamored with below!)

You can check out some images of the actual interior of the Summit House here and here.

Thanks to fellow stalker Gonzague, I learned that the mansion also appeared as the home of Maximo Reyes (Arturo Castro) in the Season 6 episode of Silicon Valley titled “Blood Money,” though an atrium of sorts was digitally added to the roof of the home for the shoot.

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

Big THANK YOU to the Global Film Locations website for finding this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Laird Mayhew’s mansion from Why Him? is located at 1159 Summit Drive in Beverly Hills.

April 12, 2017
Papagayos Mexican Restaurant & Cantina from "Vanderpump Rules"

It has been hot in Palm Springs lately. Granted, it is always hot here, but the past few months have been unseasonably sweltering. Two weeks ago, my parents, the Grim Cheaper and I decided to chill out a bit by heading to Lake Arrowhead for a short getaway. Just prior to our trip, the GC and I started watching Vanderpump Rules over again from the beginning and, as fate would have it, one of the reality series’ Season 2 episodes was shot in the mountain town, which is located about 80 miles east of Los Angeles. So I, of course, had to get in some VP stalking while I was there.

[ad]

In Season 2’s “Only the Lonely,” Stassi Schroeder, Jax Taylor, and the rest of the Sur gang journeyed to Lake Arrowhead for the weekend to catch Tom Sandoval’s band’s show. Several area sites appeared in the episode and I stalked pretty much all of them, excluding the beach where Jax showed Stassi his new tattoo, which I maddeningly did not manage to track down until after I had already returned home.

One of the most prominent locales featured was the Lake Arrowhead Village eatery Papagayos Mexican Restaurant & Cantina, where the group headed for drinks shortly after arriving in town. So the GC and I, of course, had to do the same!

During their visit, Stassi and co. hung out mainly in the restaurant’s bar area.

Drama, of course, ensued while there, as it always does with the Sur gang. During this particular venture, Sandoval and then girlfriend Kristen Doute got into a heated dustup over whether or not Tom wore his pair of steampunk glasses regularly. I’m not joking – that is actually what their fight was about. Ah, the important things in life. The girls wound up splitting off from the guys during the argument and both genders gave Sandoval and Kristen the same advice – break up, and fast!

Our lunch at Papagayos was much less eventful. (The GC does not own a pair of steampunk glasses, so what was there to fight about, really?)

Like the Vanderpump gang, we ate in the bar area and I can honestly say that the eatery served up one of the best Mexican meals I’ve ever had.

It’s no wonder the place was absolutely jam-packed, even though it was 3 p.m. on a Saturday.

If you’re in the area, I cannot recommend Papagayos more.

The building housing the eatery has quite an interesting history. Lake Arrowhead Village was the brainchild of the Arrowhead Lake Company, an L.A.-based development group that purchased a 4,800-acre plot in the San Bernardino Mountains in 1920 with the intention of turning it into a resort town. Roadwork, 3 hotels, a 9-hole golf course, and a quaint Norman-style shopping center named Lake Arrowhead Village were soon completed at the sprawling site. The center consisted of boutiques, an outdoor movie theatre, restaurants, a beach, and a 12-sided dance pavilion that was designed by McNeal Swasey. The lakeside town quickly became a getaway for Hollywood’s elite, attracting such stars as Marilyn Monroe, Bette Davis, Jules Stein, Cary Grant, Charlie Chaplin, Doris Day, Liberace, Frankie Avalon, and Rock Hudson.

By the late ‘70s, the Village had fallen into a state of decline. When new developers purchased it in 1978, they decided it would be more cost-effective to demolish the center and build a new one in its place, rather than do repairs. So in 1979, Lake Arrowhead Village was burned to the ground as part of a “burn to learn” exercise conducted by the Lake Arrowhead Fire Protection District and a few other city agencies. Only a couple of the site’s original buildings were kept out of the blaze, including the post office, the bank, a real estate office, and the circular dance pavilion. The later was restored and revitalized and today houses Papagayos, as well as a few other shops. You can see a photograph of the exterior of the pavilion in its original state here and here, and an image of the interior here.

According to More Magnificent Mountain Movies, the pavilion was featured prominently in A Swingin’ Summer. I scanned through the 1965 film, though, and the venue said to be the dance pavilion in it is the single-story outdoor bandstand pictured below, which I believe may have been a set created for the shoot. It looks nothing like the Village’s actual dance pavilion, which, from what I saw, never made an appearance in the movie.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Papagayos Mexican Restaurant & Cantina, from the “Only the Lonely” episode of Vanderpump Rules, is located at 28200 Highway 189, Building P-100, in Lake Arrowhead. You can visit the eatery’s official website here.

April 10, 2017
A Round-Up of “Big Little Lies” Filming Locations

I’ve decided to break with tradition a bit for this post. My latest small screen obsession, Big Little Lies, came to an end on Sunday night and, though the finale was excellent, I am bummed to say the least that the HBO miniseries is now over. During its seven-episode run, I tracked down most of the L.A.-area locales, as well as a few of the Monterey spots, featured in it and I thought it would be fun to chronicle them here. Because I have not visited many of the sites in person, I am relying on screen captures instead of photos for this post’s imagery.

[ad]

1. Madeline’s House (30760 Broad Beach Road, Malibu) – Though I already wrote an in-depth post on the gorgeous Cape Cod-style home belonging to Madeline Martha Mackenzie (Reese Witherspoon) on the series, I would be remiss if I did not include information about it here for those who missed the article. Madeline’s beachfront pad, by far my favorite of all of the residences featured on the show, is an oft-filmed gem that has also appeared on Models Inc., Diagnosis Murder, and Hannah Montana.

2. Jane’s House (161 North Chester Avenue, Pasadena) – The bungalow where Jane Chapman (Shailene Woodley) lives is another spot I’ve already covered, but, again, I thought I should include its information here.

3. Celeste’s House (40 Yankee Point Drive, Carmel) – The architectural masterpiece belonging to Celeste Wright (Nicole Kidman) and her husband, Perry (Alexander Skarsgård), ranks a close second when it comes to my favorite residence on the series. Only the exterior and bottom floor of the clifftop stunner were utilized on Big Little Lies. The Wright’s bedroom, bathroom and massive walk-in closet were part of a studio-built set. In real life, the dwelling, which was originally built in 1988, serves as a vacation rental.

4. Renata’s House (27326 Winding Way, Malibu) – The massive contemporary home where Renata Klein (Laura Dern) and her husband, Gordon (Jeffrey Nordling), reside is another oft-filmed property that can be found on a private road in Malibu. The 10,000-square-foot residence’s onscreen resume (which includes appearances on 90210, Brothers & Sisters, and Revenge) almost led to it not being featured in Big Little Lies. As location manager Gregory Albert told Vulture, “I was resisting, even showing it to [director] Jean-Marc [Vallée] because of that, but we presented it and he picked it and then I was kicking myself. I felt in some way it was doing a disservice to the show. But then I remember watching the first episode and there’s Renata standing at the edge of the world, glass of wine in her hand. The [director of photography] had shot it in a way that I’ve never seen the house shot before and I thought, That’s why Jean-Marc’s the auteur and visionary that he is.” I actually find Albert’s statement kind of funny because I recognized the pad instantly when watching the scene described.

5. Bonnie and Nathan’s House (636 Crater Camp Drive, Calabasas) – The bohemian compound where Madeline’s ex, Nathan Carlson (James Tupper), lives with his new wife, Bonnie (Zoë Kravitz), sits tucked off the road in a wooded part of Calabasas near Malibu Creek State Park. The secluded residence, which Albert says, “feels like it is part of the environment,” is situated on 1.12 acres of lush, forested land.

6. Otter Bay Elementary School – Kenter Canyon Elementary School (645 North Kenter Avenue in Brentwood) – Otter Bay, the elementary school attended by all of the characters’ children on the series, is actually Brentwood’s Kenter Canyon Elementary. Both the interior and exterior of the site appeared on the show.

7. Side Door Café – Happy Trails Garden (207 South Fair Oaks Avenue, Pasadena) – While Blue Blues, the supposed Fisherman’s Wharf coffee shop where Madeline, Celeste, and Jane often hang out, is not a real place but a studio-built set, the other eatery frequented by the group is authentic. Or, at least, it was. The picturesque outdoor restaurant referred to as Side Door Café on the show, which is very reminiscent of Carmel’s popular Hog’s Breath Inn, was known as Happy Trails Garden in real life. Sadly, it shuttered in 2018 and currently sits vacant. The bucolic site was featured three times on the series. It first showed up in “Serious Mothering” as the place where Madeline and Celeste meet for drinks and get into a confrontation with Renata. Then in “Push Comes to Shove,” it appeared as both the spot where Madeline and Nathan discuss co-parenting Abigail and where Jane meets with Ms. Barnes (Virginia Kull). You can read a more in-depth post on the eatery here.

8. Studio City Recreation Center (12621 Rye Street, Studio City) – Jane’s son, Ziggy (Iain Armitage), tries out Tee-ball for the first time – and hits a home run – at Studio City Recreation Center, which is also known as Beeman Park. I wrote about the oft-filmed site last year, detailing its appearances in Girls Just Want to Have Fun, Scrubs, Role Models, and Parks and Recreation. You can read that post here.

9. Interior Design Office (1035 East Green Street, Pasadena) – Madeline tracks down (Spoiler alert!) Jane’s possible rapist, Saxon Baker (Stephen Graybill), to an interior design office in San Louis Obispo. In reality, the office is part of Invicta Fitness, a workout studio located in a quaint brick building where Albert Einstein once worked on Green Street in Pasadena.

10. Celeste’s Apartment (1 Surf Way, Monterey) – The apartment Celeste leases in “Burning Love” is another Monterey-area location. Situated on the sand overlooking Del Monte Beach, the complex is made up of condos in real life and is known as “1 Surf Way.”

11. Community Theatre – Barnsdall Art Park (4800 Hollywood Boulevard, East Hollywood) – The community theatre where Madeline works, as well as the constantly under-repair stairs that lead up to it, are both parts of Barnsdall Art Park in East Hollywood. The stairs can be found on Lower Road in the southeast portion of the park, just north of and adjacent to the Art Center. The theatre itself is actually a mash-up of two Barnsdall spots – interiors were shot at the Barnsdall Gallery Theatre (which you can see photos of here), situated north of the Art Center, and exteriors were filmed at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, which sits adjacent to it. Barnsdall Art Park is also where the Trivia Night event was held in the final episode, “You Get What You Need.” You can read an in-depth post about the park’s use on the series here.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

April 5, 2017
Madeline Garden Bistro & Venue from “Mad Men”

I have had many different stalking notebooks over the years. My latest is a gorgeous white Moleskin that I picked up during my Switzerland vacation back in June 2013. One locale that has been listed in it since I started using it almost four years ago (it’s one of the very first entries), but had never been checked off until recently is Madeline Garden Bistro & Venue, which was featured in a Season 4 episode of Mad Men. I had seen photos of the darling Pasadena restaurant/tea room on several websites, walked by it dozens of times over the years, and knew of its onscreen appearance thanks to my buddy E.J.’s The Movieland Directory website. Due to the place’s formerly spotty hours, though, I had never been able to stalk it. The opportunity finally arose two weeks ago when the Grim Cheaper and I found ourselves wandering Green Street just as Madeline was opening, so we headed on in.

[ad]

While the exterior of Madeline Garden Bistro is incredibly idyllic . . .

– I mean, even the signage looks like something from a movie set –

. . . what awaited us as we stepped through the front doors was nothing short of breathtaking.

Madeline Garden Bistro is easily one of the prettiest places I have ever laid eyes on . . .

. . . which I guess should come as no surprise being that it is located inside of the Cheesewright Studios Building, or the Cheesewright Building, one of Pasadena’s most historic and prominent sites.

Per The Architecture of Entertainment by Robert Winter, the French Quarter-style property was designed in 1927 by Louis du Puget Millar as a studio/office/workshop for renown interior decorator Edgar J. Cheesewright.

At the time of its inception, the 2-story, 42-room, 35,000-square-foot complex boasted 3 street-level boutiques, 8 sales rooms, several workshops and offices, a reception hall with a curved staircase, an entrance courtyard with a fountain, a rear garden, leaded glass windows, wrought iron balconies, and a 2-story atrium . You can see photos of the building during its early days here and here.

Cheesewright’s business suffered financially during the Great Depression and he eventually sold the property. During World War II, the complex was acquired by the U.S. Naval Research Bureau and was utilized to conduct secret military testing. A basement lab was constructed for Albert Einstein during that time, complete with a tunnel that linked it to the California Institute of Technology located about a half a mile away, so that the scientist could venture there and back unseen. In 1983, the Navy relinquished the building and it was transformed into retail/office space once again. Today, the second floor houses apartments known as the Pasadena Green Plaza Apartments. Miraculously, despite its different incarnations over the years, much of the site’s original detailing and beauty has been retained.

I was able to chronicle the history of the ground level space that now houses Madeline Garden Bistro back to 2001, at which time it was opened as an upscale eatery named Restaurant Halie.

Halie was shuttered in 2006 and shortly thereafter Madeleine’s Restaurant & Wine Bistro moved in.

Though I lived in Pasadena at the time and heard great things about the place (especially its décor), on every single occasion that the GC and I attempted to eat there or grab a cocktail, we would invariably walk up only to find it closed.

I guess other people had a hard time getting in, as well, because Madeleine’s Restaurant & Wine Bistro closed in 2010. The space remained vacant for a few years before re-opening as the similarly named Madeline Garden Bistro & Venue in 2013.

Though closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, the eatery has a much better operating schedule than its predecessor.

Madeline Garden Bistro has been called “a maze of a restaurant” by several websites and that is the perfect description of the place.

The massive site is comprised of a seemingly endless array of rooms, hallways and tucked-away spaces, each one more beautiful than the next.

The bistro features a lovely main dining room replete with jewel tones;

a towering fireplace;

poufy couches;

arched windows and crystal chandeliers. (And yes, I’m fully aware that I got a little picture happy while stalking Madeline!)

The back bar is just as gorgeous.

Decorated in deep greens and dark purples . . .

. . . the space has the feel of a Parisian watering hole of yesteryear.

There’s a gorgeous brick and flagstone courtyard . . .

. . . perfect for whiling away a sunny afternoon.

Just off the courtyard is the High Tea Room, a grand space marked by French doors, teal walls and an elaborate fireplace.

It was in the High Tea Room that Mad Men was filmed.

In the Season 4 episode titled “Public Relations,” which aired in 2010, Don Draper (Jon Hamm) took an opera supernumerary named Bethany Van Nuys (Anna Camp) on a first date there.

Though the site was operating as Madeleine’s Restaurant & Wine Bistro at the time of the filming, as you can see that room still looks very much the same today.

The Cheesewright Studios Buildings was also featured in a 2015 “The Season of Audi Sales Event” commercial, which you can watch here.

On a side-note – my Google Photo app “stylized” one of the pictures I took of Madeline Garden Bistro and I absolutely love how it turned out. I’m honestly thinking of framing it and had to include it here.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Madeline Garden Bistro & Venue, from the “Public Relations” episode of Mad Men, is located at 1030 East Green Street in Pasadena. The eatery is only open Wednesday through Sunday, so plan accordingly. You can visit the tea room’s official website here.

April 3, 2017
The “Empty Nest” House

Today’s post is a looooooong-time coming, friends! Easily the location I get asked to track down most often is the supposed Miami, Florida-area house where Dr. Harry Weston (Richard Mulligan) lived on the television series Empty Nest. I have searched for the contemporary two-story residence off-and-on over the years, but never had any luck. I even got fellow stalkers Mike, from MovieShotsLA, Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, and Michael, our resident Brady Bunch aficionado/guest poster extraordinaire, in on the hunt, but we were all at a loss. Until recently that is, when Michael did the impossible and found the house! He was even nice enough to offer to write up the story behind the search for IAMNOTASTALKER – along with a few notes from me (they’re denoted in red). So take it away Michael!

I distinctly remember my inaugural viewing of The Golden Girls and Empty Nest. I was in the first grade and my bedtime had just been extended by an extra hour on the weekends. Looking back, they seem like both an unusual viewing choice for a six-year-old and maybe a little inappropriate, but hey, I needed something to balance out all those Brady Bunch reruns. Although the fourth season of The Golden Girls took up the first half of this uncharted hour of television for me, the second half was filled by a new sitcom, Empty Nest. Both fast favorites of mine, they’ll always be intertwined in my memory and evoke a time when there wasn’t anything quite as exciting as an extra hour added to your bedtime.

With that said, it seems only appropriate that I begin this post not with the topic at hand, but a cursory look at the Golden Girls house(s). The Golden Girls, which premiered in 1985, originally used footage of a ranch-style house in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles to stand in for the girls’ Miami-situated home. Capitalizing on the show’s success, Disney replicated the Brentwood house on a new backlot in Orlando, Florida. Their theme park and production studio, part of Walt Disney World and originally known as Disney-MGM Studios, opened to the public in spring of 1989, but its backlot and Residential Street were already being used to film Splash, Too and Ernest Saves Christmas as early as 1988.

Also in 1988, the creators of The Golden Girls premiered their new show, Empty Nest. The sitcom, set in the same universe as The Golden Girls, would intermingle characters (simple, as they were all neighbors) and occasional storylines. Because Empty Nest premiered the same year that Disney-MGM Studios was constructed, along with its Golden Girls facade, I always assumed that the home shown in EN’s opening titles and establishing shots was only ever a studio-backlot creation. That turned out not to be the case. And It wasn’t until last year when Lindsay offhandedly asked if I’d ever researched the original Empty Nest house location, that I knew what I’d been missing—the exterior of a real house had been shown in the early seasons of the show and was eventually replicated on the Disney-MGM Studios backlot.

Making up for lost time, I dove into research mode to fill in the specifics. Although the Golden Girls house facade was on the backlot on opening day in Orlando, the Empty Nest facade was added years later. An ad in the Orlando Sentinel confirmed that it wasn’t until January 24, 1992, during the show’s fourth season, that Richard Mulligan and Bear (the dog who played Dreyfuss) were on hand at Disney-MGM Studios for a ribbon cutting ceremony at the newly completed facade, followed by a parade, and a hand/paw-print ceremony in Disney’s version of the Grauman’s Chinese Theatre forecourt. Then in 2003, Disney-MGM Studios, now known as Disney’s Hollywood Studios, demolished, among other parts of the backlot, the entirety of Residential Street, including the Empty Nest and Golden Girls facades.

Since Empty Nest isn’t available on DVD or streaming, I was limited to reviewing episodes on YouTube. But, as far as I could tell, the backlot facade was first seen in the late-season episode of the fourth season, “Charley for President.” Then, starting with the fifth season, the opening titles were updated with a shot of the Orlando replica.

Disney did a commendable job recreating the exterior, but upon closer inspection I noticed a few differences. For example, the original house maintained some mundane elements that a backlot shell would have no use for, including a rain diverter and vent pipes on the roof. The backlot version also appeared to exclude a right-side balcony that that was just barely visible in some early-season establishing shots. Moreover, I’ve found the easiest way to tell the houses apart is by looking at the roofline on the garage; only the backlot replica had squared off the eave with a soffit.

Establishing shots of the original house provided subtle clues to its location: a neighboring house to its left and a garage that opens to the right, suggesting the house was on a corner lot. Yet, most interesting to me was a shot framed to include a saucer-style street light in front of the house. It’s not a particularly common style and I hoped that would help me zero in on the neighborhood.

Although Lindsay had seen a tip suggesting the home was in Bel Air or Beverly Hills, those neighborhoods’ scarcity of wide sidewalks didn’t leave me with many areas to investigate. Not only did the Empty Nest house have a sidewalk running in front of it, it had a strip of grass between the sidewalk and the road. I moved on and investigated as many neighborhoods with sidewalks as I could find, but always came up empty. Undeterred, I continued to search on-and-off for months. Then, last week Lindsay emailed me to say she’d met David Leisure, who played the Weston’s zany neighbor Charley Dietz on the series, at an event. And with that, I’ll pass the baton to Lindsay to fill in the, ahem, “dietz.”

Lindsay here. A couple of weeks ago, I attended a charity event in the desert and was beyond elated to run into David Leisure. Literally. While walking around a corner, I almost bumped into the actor and his wife and just about had a heart attack. While I asked for a photo and he happily obliged, I was so flustered over our rather abrupt meeting that I failed to inquire if he knew the whereabouts of the Empty Nest house. The Grim Cheaper was in the bathroom at the time and when he came out, I told him about my chance encounter and how upset I was that I failed to ask about the home. He immediately grabbed my hand, marched over to where David was standing and said, “My wife wants to ask you a question.” Leisure couldn’t have been more kind, once again, and when I brought up the Weston house, he immediately started laughing and said, “So you do know who I am! As soon as we walked away from you earlier, I said to my wife, ‘I wonder who she thinks I am.’” LOL Regarding the Weston pad, he said that he had never been asked about its location before, but found the query fascinating and thought it might be in the Hancock Park/Larchmont area. I immediately passed the intel onto Michael. I’ll let him tell you the rest.

Emboldened by the fresh tip, I surveyed Larchmont. Having no real luck again, I decided to do a little more research. This time, I came across a 1993 article in the Orlando Sentinel. In the article, a reader wrote in to ask about the exteriors shown on Empty Nest and Golden Palace (The Golden Girls’ short-lived replacement). The paper’s reply noted that the Empty Nest house used that season was located at Disney in Orlando, but the original was in Brentwood.

Cautiously optimistic—I feared the author mixed up the original location of the Empty Nest house with the original Golden Girls house—I once again pulled up an aerial map of Brentwood. I’d already investigated the immediate area around the Golden Girls house, so I thought I’d try a different area and look near the border of Pacific Palisades and Brentwood. As I scrolled across the map, Paul Revere Middle School jumped out at me. I’d remembered the name of the school from the O.J. Simpson trial and never really knew where it was located. Looking at it, I noticed a clump of houses nearby that seemed a little less grandiose than many of the mansions winding through Brentwood, and most importantly, I could see sidewalks.

To get a feel for the neighborhood, I plopped myself down in Google Street View and immediately noticed a saucer-style street lamp. Back on the birds-eye view, I started to look at homes on corner lots. Unbelievably, the first corner I zoomed in on, I found exactly the layout I’d imagined staring back at me.

Dumbfounded that I’d finally rooted it out, I immediately sent Lindsay the details, and as luck would have it, she said she’d be in LA the following week and would be able to check it out in person. And without further ado, a final pass of the baton to Lindsay to wrap things up.

Me, again. I could not have been more excited as the GC and I pulled up to the home. I knew from looking at Street View imagery that virtually none of it had been altered in the years since filming took place, but being there was like a shock to my system. I felt like I had stepped right into my 1988-era television set. The residence is completely frozen in time and brought to mind another classic TV home – that of The Golden Girls. Ironically enough, that residence, too, remains absolutely pristine in its onscreen state. Two Brentwood properties, featured in classic shows created by same production team, preserved like museum pieces all these years later.

Big THANK YOU to Michael for not only finding this location, but for writing up the story of the hunt! You can check out his other guest posts here.

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

Stalk It: The house from Empty Nest is located at 1457 Jonesboro Drive in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles.

March 31, 2017
Jane’s House from “Big Little Lies”

I am extremely biased when it comes to my former stomping ground of Pasadena, where I lived for close to 15 years. Though I’ve heard on more than one occasion from L.A. denizens that the city is too suburban and too far removed from the hustle and bustle of urban life, I think it is one of the best places in the world and miss it so much at times it almost breaks my heart. So whenever I hear of a movie or TV show that has done some filming in Crown City, I get a wee bit obsessed with tracking down the exact location or locations used – well, more obsessed than I usually do when it comes to locales. Such was the case with the bungalow where Jane Chapman (Shailene Woodley) and her son, Ziggy (Iain Armitage), live on the HBO miniseries Big Little Lies, which ends its run next week (oh, say it ain’t so!). I learned the home could be found in Pasadena via this recent Travel + Leisure article and immediately started trying to track it down.

[ad]

Though the exterior of Jane’s rental wasn’t featured very much in the first two episodes of Big Little Lies, thankfully, in the third, titled “Living the Dream,” a good view of the property and the street it is located on was shown. While watching, I noticed that Jane’s street not only abutted a one-way road, but also that it formed a “T” with another street two blocks away. Because of my familiarity with the city, I knew straight away that the residence had to be situated somewhere just north of Union Street in East Pasadena. Armed with that knowledge, I began searching aerial views of the area and found Jane’s house within minutes at 161 North Chester Avenue.

In person, Jane’s red and brown bungalow looks exactly as it does onscreen in Big Little Lies.

The only notable difference is the lack of a front yard light post in real life.

Outside of that, nothing was changed for the production. The place so resembles its onscreen self that, while there, I half expected Jane to coming walking outside in full running gear!

I mean, even the skewed address placard remains unaltered!

According to a recent Vulture article, only the exterior of the pad was utilized in Big Little Lies. For interior scenes, a set partially modeled upon the home was built because, as location manager Gregory Alpert stated, the property’s real interior “looked better on film than it actually was.”

The Vulture article also mentions that the residence landed its onscreen role thanks partially to “the canopy of trees on the street.” As you can see in the images below, as well as the other images in this post, the trees situated outside of the house and nearby are absolutely magical.

Per Zillow, the 1917 bungalow boasts 1,075 square feet of living space (though Redfin measures it at 928 square feet), 3 bedrooms, 1 bath, a fireplace, a garden, a 0.17-acre lot, a detached 1-car garage, and a large front porch.

The front porch has been utilized several times on Big Little Lies.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Jane’s house from Big Little Lies is located at 161 North Chester Avenue in Pasadena.

March 29, 2017
Madeline’s House from “Big Little Lies”

Every once in a while a show comes along that absolutely grips me. Granted, I watch – and get hooked on – a lot of series, but among them are certain standouts. The Hills, Vanderpump Rules, and Beverly Hills, 90210 come to mind, though my obsession with the latter was admittedly next-level. My latest fixation is Big Little Lies, the murder-mystery miniseries based on the book of the same name currently airing on HBO. Besides a scintillating premise, well-drawn characters, and a dynamic timeline (the story is told mainly through flashbacks), the show is real estate porn at its finest! I am thoroughly consumed with each of the main character’s homes and was thrilled to learn via this fabulous People magazine article that all but one is located in the Los Angeles area and not in Monterey where BLL is set.

[ad]

Out of the four principal residences used on the series, the beachfront Cape Cod belonging to Madeline Martha Mackenzie (Reese Witherspoon) is my favorite. So I recently set about tracking it down. As it turns out, the place is an onscreen regular that I had actually already stalked!

My initial thought upon first seeing Madeline’s house in the pilot episode of Big Little Lies was that it looked like a modernized version of the gray shingled pad where Sarah Owens (Cassidy Rae) and her fellow models lived in the 1994 Melrose Place spin-off, Models Inc. (Man, that was a great show! I am still flabbergasted over the fact that it only lasted one season.) I stalked that property, which can be found at 30760 Broad Beach Road in Malibu, back in March 2013. In no way did I think the two places were one and the same, though, so I did not give the subject further attention. Thanks to the People article, I knew that Madeline’s home was also located in Malibu and started perusing beachfront dwellings in the area via aerial views, but, frustratingly, came up empty-handed. Circling back to my Models Inc. inclination, I decided to pull up some screen captures from the show and just about fell over! The reason I thought Madeline’s residence looked like a modernized version of the Models Inc. house is because it is a modernized version of the Models Inc. house! Apparently, the property was given a bit of a facelift in recent years. As you can see in comparing the images above and below, the renovation included a change in paint color, the removal of several awnings, and opening up the second floor deck.

I actually stalked the property post-remodel, but only visited its street side. While I had every intention of heading around to the rear of the home, while walking there, I somehow stepped into some tar (like a bunch of it – my feet were covered for days!) and had to turn back.

Ironically, that wasn’t my only visit to the house. Later that year (October 27th, to be exact), Miss Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog, married Keith Coogan, of Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead fame, at the Malibu West Beach Club, which is located next door to Madeline’s pad. Because I am seriously directionally-challenged and because I had parked near public beach access – which is a ways away from the residence – during my initial stalk, I did not realize the venue’s proximity to the home until looking at it recently via aerial views. D’oh! As soon I put two and two together, I remembered that the bridesmaids (including myself) and Keith had climbed onto a bluff adjacent to the club to pose for a wedding photo. I had an inkling that Madeline’s residence was likely visible in the shot and, sure enough, I was right! In the image below, which Pinky was nice enough to let me post here, you can see it on the left-hand side!

In real life, the 1979 property features a 6,000-square-foot main house with 6 bedrooms (2 of which are master suites), 7 bathrooms, 3 fireplaces, a Jacuzzi, a deck, a rock sauna, a family room with a bar, a wine cellar, and a large chef’s kitchen with 3 ovens, 2 dishwashers, and Viking appliances. The detached 2-story, 950-square-foot guest pad boasts 1 bedroom, 1.5 baths, and a full kitchen.

The pad, which sits on a 0.6-acre lot featuring 80 feet of beachfront land, is currently available as a vacation rental with rates running from $3,000 to $5,000 a night.

Interestingly, only the rear side of the property is shown on Big Little Lies. A different home is used as the front of Madeline’s residence and, unfortunately, I have not yet tracked that location down.

The dwelling’s actual interior also appears on the show – and it is nothing short of idyllic.

The kitchen area is uh-ma-zing! I find it quite ironic that, according to the People article, Madeline’s house is intended to be the least fabulous of the bunch – excluding Jane Chapman’s (Shailene Woodley) – and “represents her lower economic standing.” Like, huh? Madeline’s residence is pretty much my dream pad! I would give my eye teeth to live there!

Besides being featured in Models Inc., Madeline’s residence also portrayed the home of Dr. Mark Sloan (Dick Van Dyke) and his son, Steve (Barry Van Dyke), during Seasons 3 through 8 of the television series Diagnosis Murder.

The pad was also where the Stewart family lived from Seasons 1 through 3 on the Disney series Hannah Montana.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Madeline’s house from Big Little Lies is located at 30760 Broad Beach Road in Malibu. You can visit the residence’s vacation rental website here.

March 27, 2017