Carlotta’s House from “Hail, Caesar!”

Today’s locale involves something I’ve never come across in all my years of stalking!  Last June, a reader named Molly posted a comment on my Challenge Lindsay page asking for some help in tracking down the house where Carlotta Valdez (Veronica Osorio) lived in the 2016 Coen Brothers comedy Hail, Caesar!  She mentioned that two places had actually been used to portray the exterior of the residence and that while she had found one, she was still looking for the other.  Somehow I had never heard of the film (and I love a good Hollywood farce!), but was fascinated by the query.  A Google search led me to an L.A. Weekly article chronicling a few of the movie’s sites which backed up Molly’s claim – the segment taking place outside of Carlotta’s pad was indeed lensed in two different spots.  Though location trickery is old hat in Hollywood, this was the first I’d heard of a scene shot in two entirely different places, then stitched together to appear as one.  Appropriately intrigued, I set out to help Molly on her quest.

Carlotta’s house pops up in one brief scene in Hail, Caesar! in which the starlet, who was inspired by real life “Brazilian Bombshell” Carmen Miranda, is picked up by cowboy actor Hobie Doyle (Alden Ehrenreich) to go to a movie premiere.  In the bit, the two characters are shown standing outside of Carlotta’s pad on a picturesque street greeting each other and making small talk.  In reality, the two sides of the segment were lensed miles apart.  Watching the illusory scene, which you can can do here, is quite jarring.  Despite knowing the logistics, the whole thing was done so seamlessly that I could hardly believe it was not all shot in the same spot.

Though Molly had already tracked down the Hollywood Hills street where Hobie’s portion of the segment was lensed, she was looking for the gorgeous Spanish Colonial Revival that served as the backdrop for Carlotta’s.

As denoted in the L.A. Weekly article (and as Molly informed me), Hobie’s side of the scene was filmed at the intersection of Grace and Whitley Avenues in the Hollywood Hills.  Location manager John Panzarella, who also worked on L.A. Confidential, explains, “Joel and Ethan [Coen] are not shy about cheating reverses; they really embrace it.  They want the visual they have conceived.”  That visual consisted of Hobie performing a dazzling array of lasso tricks while waiting for Carlotta on a sleepy street corner.  Panzarella says, “Whitley Terrace was perfect for that, with the view of Hollywood in the background.”  The only trouble was, there was no dwelling in the vicinity that matched the Cohens’ vision of Carlotta’s pad.

The directors instead found a place that fit the bill about three miles away in Los Feliz.  While the L.A. Weekly article did not denote the home’s exact location, it did mention that the pad was designed by famed architect Paul Revere Williams in 1927.  So I headed over to Google, where a quick search for “Paul Williams,” “Los Feliz,” and “1927” led me to this page on the Paul Revere Williams Project website about a dwelling at 4791 Cromwell Avenue.  One look at the images posted told me it was the right spot!

The stunning 5,211-square-foot, 4-bedroom, 4-bath property looks much the same in person as it did onscreen, though the film definitely showcased it through a 1950s-style Hollywood filter which muted its color palette a bit.

In real life, the home is known as the Blackburn Residence in honor of its initial owners Bruce and Lula Blackburn, who hailed from Missouri, but moved to Los Angeles in the early 1900s.  Initially settling in West Adams, once Bruce found financial success thanks to his invention of a roll-up window screen, he commissioned Williams to design the large Los Feliz estate.

Williams (who also gave us Johnny Weissmuller’s Bel Air home, the famed Perino’s restaurant, and Sloane’s house from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off) incorporated Bruce’s innovative screens into his design.  They made such an impression on the prolific architect that he used them in many of his later works, as well.

The sprawling Blackburn Residence also boasts 12 rooms, 2.5 stories, an elevator, a triple fireplace, ornate tile work, wrought iron detailing throughout, vaulted ceilings, a grand 2-level arched entry, and a lush 0.35-acre plot of land.

The home continued to be owned by the Blackburn family until 1978, when it was offloaded by Bruce and Lula’s daughter, Elizabeth.  The property, which is Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument #913, last sold in November 2003 for $2,199,000 and, per Zillow, is worth a whopping $4.5 million today!

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Big THANK YOU to Molly for challenging me to find this location! 

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Blackburn Residence, aka Carlotta’s house from Hail, Caesar!, is located at 4791 Cromwell Avenue in Los Feliz.  The portions of the scene featuring Hobie were filmed at a different spot – on Grace Avenue in the Hollywood Hills.  More specifically, Hobie’s car was parked in front of the entrance to the condominium complex at 1979 Grace Avenue and he practiced his rope tricks at the intersection of Grace Avenue and Whitley Avenue.

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