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My taste in movies is about as mature and refined as my palate, which favors chicken strips and ranch dressing above all else. Case in point – I am obsessed with the 2004 tween romance A Cinderella Story. Chad Michael Murray? Hilary Duff on roller skates? A high school love story? A pink ‘50s diner? Yes, yes, yes and yes! I’ve written posts on several of the film’s locations over the years (you can read them here, here and here), but somehow forgot to dedicate one to Monrovia High School, which portrayed North Valley High (home of the Fighting Frogs!) and which I visited way back in 2013. I figure the time to rectify that is now!
Designed by architect Austin Whittlesey, working under John C. Austin and Frederick M. Ashley, construction on Monrovia High School began in January 1928.
Completed early the following year, the Spanish Colonial Revival-style building, which features Palladian elements, cost $600,000 to erect.
Numerous expansions have taken place in the years since, the most recent from 2009 to 2011.
That project, which totaled a whopping $60 million, included the addition of a 2-story science building, a 30,000-square-foot gym complete with a weight room, and a new football stadium and surrounding track.
Thankfully, all of the additions were designed with the school’s original architecture in mind, ultimately creating a cohesive, striking and picturesque property.
Not only is the school itself beautiful, but the grounds are absolutely bucolic. I was just a wee bit obsessed with the massive tree pictured below.
I mean, just look at it!
Considering its handsome façade, it is no surprise that the place wound up onscreen. In A Cinderella Story, Monrovia High was used extensively. Areas of the school featured include the front exterior;
interior hallways;
the baseball field;
the pool;
the football field (which was, sadly, redone during the 2009 expansion);
and the main quad (it also looks a bit different post-expansion) . . .
. . . where the pep rally took place.
The quad is the spot I was most interested in seeing during my stalk, namely the “Friendship Circle” planter where Sam and Austin regularly sat throughout the movie.
Unfortunately, we stopped by on a Saturday, when Monrovia High was closed, so I wasn’t able to poke around. I was thrilled to see, though, that the quad area is visible through the front gates.
The gates even afford a small glimpse of the planter!
A Cinderella Story is hardly the only production to feature Monrovia High.
Skip Lewis (Chad Lowe) and Ken (Charlie Sheen) go to school there in the 1984 made-for-television movie Silence of the Heart.
In 1985, Monrovia High played itself in another made-for-TV film, Between the Darkness and the Dawn.
The production, which journalist John J. O’Connor deemed “a candidate for the worst television movie of the year,” gave audiences a glimpse at what the interior of the school looked like at the time.
Rocky Dennis (Eric Stoltz) enrolls in Monrovia High at the end of the 1985 drama Mask.
Monrovia High (along with Walter Reed Middle School from License to Drive) appears as Garden City High in the 1988 horror film 976-EVIL.
Brad Kimble (Will Friedle), Leah Jones (Jennifer Love Hewitt) and Brooke Kingsley (Marley Shelton) attend Monrovia High School in the 1997 comedy Trojan War.
The school (along with several others, including Torrance High) was also used to portray John Hughes High School in 2001’s Not Another Teen Movie.
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Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: Monrovia High School, aka North Valley High from A Cinderella Story, is located at 845 West Colorado Boulevard in Monrovia.
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