Jerry’s Condo from “Jerry Maguire”

Location hunts can take some strange, circuitous paths.  Case in point – during my laborious, years-long search for the condo where Jerry Maguire (Tom Cruise) lived in the 1996 classic of the same name, I headed down a fairly deep rabbit hole in an attempt to identify the onetime beach home of actress Suzanne Somers and her husband, Alan Hamel.  What in the heck do Somers, Hamel and their former beach house have to do with Jerry Maguire?  Let me explain.

My quest to find Jerry’s condo actually began many moons ago, around the time I first met Mike, from MovieShotsLA.  During one of our initial stalking outings, Mike mentioned that he had worked in Marina Del Rey for years and would often walk by a house on the Strand that had a unique rock sculpture displayed on its beach side.  Upon seeing Jerry Maguire years later, he noticed a rock sculpture visible outside of Jerry’s windows and knew it was the same one he had regularly passed.  Unfortunately though, other than it being on the Strand in MDR, he could not remember exactly where it was located.  As soon as I got home that day, I spent more than a few hours searching the area’s coastline.  Being that the exterior of Jerry’s place was never actually shown in the film, I had my work cut out for me and came up empty.  Figuring the rock statue had long since been removed, I abandoned any hope of ever pinpointing the site.  Then, in 2016, while on a Jerry Maguire kick, I sat down to watch the video commentary featured on the film’s Special Edition DVD and just about fell over when Renée Zellweger mentioned that Suzanne Somers lived next door to the location used as Jerry condo’s.  Hope restored, I began hunting for the Somers/Hamel residence, which both Zellweger and Cuba Gooding Jr. said was in Manhattan Beach and which I figured would be a snap to find.

A Google search led me to a 1999 Los Angeles Times article chronicling the sale of the Three’s Company actress’ longtime Marina Del Rey home, which was described as a “beachfront townhouse” with three levels, three bedrooms, a rooftop sundeck, and 3,500 square feet.  According to the blurb, Somers and Hamel had owned the pad since 1977.  While the Marina Del Rey part did not gibe with Renée and Cuba’s recollections, it did gibe with Mike’s, so I figured I was on the right track.  Hope was soon dashed, though, when I came across a 1982 People feature that catalogued all of the Hamel/Somers’ homes, noting that their coastal property was “a seven-level beach-fronter” in the “expensive section of Venice.”  Though I knew that one of the articles had to be incorrect in its reporting, I couldn’t find an address for the couple in either MDR or Venice, nor could I find a seven-level property anywhere along the Speedway!  The hunt for their pad was proving just as difficult as the search for Jerry’s!  So I reversed course and sat down to scour the entire coastline from Venice down to Manhattan Beach.  Using Google Street View (which amazingly chronicles the beach side of the Strand!) and some serious elbow grease, I finally came across the infamous rock sculpture outside of the property located at 3811 Ocean Front Walk in Marina Del Rey.  Eureka!

I promptly did an internet search of the address to see what else I could dig up on the locale and was flummoxed when the first result kicked back was a 2015 real estate listing with this sentence in the description, “Residence offers Hollywood pedigree, as it was the home of Jerry Maguire in the popular movie of the same name.”  Face palm!  Had I just simply Googled “Jerry Maguire” and “Marina Del Rey” upon revisiting my quest for the house, I would have saved myself a lot of time!  Ah, well.  I ran out to stalk the place just a few days later and was saddened to see that the rock statue that had figured so much in the hunt was no longer in place.

I’m assuming the sculpture was removed when the place sold in 2015 (for a cool $2,754,000, mind you!) because it was still on display in the MLS photos.

As was depicted in Jerry Maguire, 3811 Ocean Front Walk houses condos in real life – two condos to be exact.  Unit 1, a one-story space, is situated on the lower level and Unit 2, a two-story spread, comprises the second and third floors.  It was the lower level unit that was utilized in the film.

The site pops up several times in the movie.  Though the master bedroom was not utilized (Jerry’s bedroom was a set built on Stage 21 at Sony Pictures Studio), the rest of the condo’s interior was used prominently in the film.

Areas of the pad that appeared onscreen include the kitchen;

the living room;

the dining room, which served as Jerry’s home office;

and the media room.  (Notice that the shutters and shelving visible behind Kelly Preston below are identical to those pictured in the listing photo!  I think the couch might actually be the same, too!)

One room in the condo was also apparently utilized as the office of Cardinals General Manager Dennis Wilburn (Glenn Frey) in the movie, but I was unable to find anything that resembled it in the listing photos.

In real life, Unit 1 features 2 en-suite bedrooms, 3 baths, 2,368 square feet, a private beachfront terrace, a fireplace, an open kitchen, a media room, flagstone flooring throughout, and granite countertops.  Or, at least, it did.

Sadly, as you can see in recent Google Street Views and in this image, the second and third floors appear to be undergoing massive renovations.

It is heartbreaking that the locale remained virtually frozen in time from its onscreen stint all the way up until its recent sale, only to then be completely gutted.  What a shame.

For those wondering, I did end up finding Suzanne Somers’ home, but not until I sat down to write this post.  Once I finally pinpointed Jerry’s condo, I was so excited, I completely forgot to see if the Hamel/Somers residence was actually located next door.  As Zellweger noted, though, it does indeed neighbor Jerry’s place at 3819 Ocean Front Walk!  I wound up identifying it thanks to a set of photos published on Alamy of a fire that took place at the property in 2009 which ran with captions stating the locale was once owned by Somers.

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Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Jerry’s condo from Jerry Maguire is located at 3811 Ocean Front Walk #1 in Marina Del Rey.  Suzanne Somers and Alan Hamel’s longtime former home is right next door at 3819 Ocean Front Walk.

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