Year: 2019

Valentino from “Pretty Woman”

Pretty Woman is one of the most well-documented movies out there when it comes to locations. Oddly though, despite the legions of websites and books with sections dedicated to its locales, I have yet to see identified the Rodeo Drive shop where Vivian Ward (Julia Roberts) and Edward Lewis (Richard Gere) spent an “obscene amount of money” mid-film. So I recently set out to find it.

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The exterior of the boutique, where Vivian famously spits her gum onto the sidewalk, is only shown briefly in the shopping scene, unfortunately. And my copy of the movie on DVD (the 15th Anniversary Special Edition which I’ve owned for years) is surprisingly grainy, giving away little in terms of the shop’s location. So I decided to stream a high-definition version in the hopes that some clues might be discernable. And there were! In the high-res format available on Amazon, the words “Valentino” and “a Torie Steele boutique” were visible at the bottom of one of the store’s windows, as was the familiar Valentino logo featuring a large “V” above the front door. The start of an address number reading “40” could be seen, as well!

I was thrilled to make out the last digit – an “8” – on the back of the door shortly after Vivian and Edward entered the store. From there, it was not hard to put the pieces together – the Pretty Woman shopping/gum spitting scene was lensed at the Valentino boutique formerly at 408 North Rodeo Drive.

A quick Newspapers.com search confirmed that a Valentino outpost owned by Torie Steele was located at that address from the mid-80s through the mid-90s.

Torie Steele, a revelation in the fashion industry, pioneered the merchandising of foreign designers’ wares to American consumers via a stretch of Rodeo Drive boutiques she established in the 1980s that, along with Valentino, specialized in Ferré, Versace, and Krizia.

When Torie retired in the ’90s, her popular boutiques were shuttered. The Valentino space was purchased by Lladró in 1994, five years after Pretty Woman was shot and four years before my first visit to Beverly Hills, sadly. Even had I known about the locale, it would have been far too late for me to stalk it.

Per everything I’ve come across, the 408 North Rodeo building as it exists today was constructed in 1997, so it was either torn down after the Lladró sale or extensively gutted and remodeled. The exclusive ceramics company then opened a boutique/museum in the space in March 1997.

Because of the remodel/razing, there are no elements leftover from the time that Pretty Woman was shot, leaving the storefront completely unrecognizable from its 1990 cameo.

Lladró’s interior, designed by Juan Vicente Lladró (son of one of the company’s original founders) and architect Ki Suh Park, also bears no resemblance to the inside of Valentino as it appeared in Pretty Woman. The spectacular space, which you can see a photo of here, featured a grand double staircase rising three levels and a domed ceiling.

It is a bit surprising that producers chose to use a Valentino outpost in the scene rather than an unnamed boutique (as was the case with the movie’s other famous shopping segment) being that none of Vivian’s clothes were actually made by the fashion house. Her enviable wardrobe was instead created by costume designer Marilyn Vance in its entirety, right down to the iconic red opera gown, as detailed in this fabulous interview. Somehow, despite the fact that I’ve seen Pretty Woman about a gazillion times, I only just noticed while making screen captures for this post that the famous crimson frock can briefly be seen displayed on a mannequin on the Valentino sales floor during the shopping sequence, as denoted below!

During 408 North Rodeo’s almost twenty-year tenure as Lladró, Michael Jackson frequented the place regularly. One of his many visits is pictured below via a video posted by Marianna Sarte on YouTube.

In summer 2014, Lladró moved to a new storefront a block away at the Two Rodeo complex. It’s former home, the 16,129-square-foot 408 North Rodeo building, had been sold to Chanel the year prior for a whopping $117 million. Per The Hollywood Reporter, it was “the highest per-square-foot retail sale in L.A. County!”

Chanel was set to raze the building, as well as its flagship store next door, in order to construct a massive new boutique, but those plans have yet to come to fruition.

The space did house a St. Supéry Estate Vineyards and Winery pop-up for a time in 2017, but sits vacant today, a distant memory of its famed 1990 role.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Valentino, where Vivian and Edward shopped in Pretty Woman, was formerly located at 408 North Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. The building is currently vacant.

November 22, 2019
Bradley’s Mom’s House from “The Morning Show”

The Morning Show really threw me for a loop, location-wise (as I mentioned in this recent post). Set in NYC, I got through the entire first episode of the new Apple TV+ series thinking it was shot in the Big Apple, as well. I did have a couple moments of hesitation in that belief while watching, one when an overhead shot of the dining room of downtown L.A.’s famous Cicada restaurant was shown and the other when Bradley Jackson (Reese Witherspoon) pulled up to the home belonging to her mother, Sandy (Brett Butler). The foliage, setback, and architecture of the latter had a definite San Gabriel Valley feel to it. In fact, it looked ripped right off a leafy Pasadena-area street! I even turned to the Grim Cheaper and said, “Huh, they must have Craftsman-style houses like that in the suburbs of NYC, too!” D’oh! As soon as I realized while watching episode 2 that The Morning Show was actually lensed in L.A., my first order of business was to find Sandy’s house. Thankfully, it turned out to be a fairly easy endeavor despite some trickery by the production team.

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In the series’ premiere episode, titled “In the Dark Night of the Soul It’s Always 3:30 in the Morning,” Bradley heads to her mother’s supposed West Virginia home to confront her brother about his early release from rehab. A fake address number of 1624 was added to the residence’s mailbox for the scene and, while it thwarted my identification attempts for a bit, ultimately I prevailed. You have to get up pretty early in the morning to fool me!

Due to the home’s seeming ruralness, I figured it was most likely located just north of Pasadena in the unincorporated community of Altadena and began my search there. Thanks to its unique orientation – it sits perpendicular to the road with its side facing the street, which is apparent when Bradley parks in the scene – I pinpointed it rather quickly via aerial views as 2874 Santa Anita Avenue, about a mile northwest of the Walsh house from Beverly Hills, 90210.

In real life, the handsome 2-story Craftsman, built in 1915, boasts 5 bedrooms, 3 baths, 1,673 square feet, and a detached garage.

Not to mention one grand front porch!

It is on the front porch that Hannah Shoenfeld (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) convinces Bradley to go to New York to be interviewed by Alex Levy (Jennifer Aniston) in the episode.

Set back from the road, the home sits on a large corner 0.41-acre lot.

Though the front of the property is visible from the street, not much else of it is thanks to the massive amount of foliage surrounding it.

I am 99.9% certain that the inside of the pad also appeared in “In the Dark Night of the Soul It’s Always 3:30 in the Morning,” but, unfortunately, I could not find any interior photos with which to verify that.

It is also from the house that Hal (Joe Tippett) calls Bradley to inquire about her new morning show gig in episode 3, titled “Chaos is the New Cocaine.”

And it is from there that Sandy is interviewed during Bradley’s hosting debut in episode 4 “That Woman.”

The residence is actually no stranger to the small screen.

Thanks to IMDB, I learned that it also portrayed the Harvest, Alabama-area dwelling where David Rossi (Joe Mantegna) and his team investigated a double murder and kidnapping in the Season 4 episode of Criminal Minds titled “Bloodline,” which aired in 2009.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Sandy Jackson’s house from The Morning Show is located at 2874 Santa Anita Avenue in Altadena.

November 20, 2019
“The Unicorn” House

The Fall 2019 television season is chock full of fabulous new series! The Grim Cheaper says the deluge brings him right back to the Must-See TV days of the ‘90s. A few of our favorites include The Morning Show (as mentioned here), All Rise, Bluff City Law, Prodigal Son, and The Unicorn. The latter, based on a true story, centers around widower Wade Felton (Walton Goggins) and his attempts to move on with life a year after his wife’s death via a little help from his friends. While it doesn’t sound like it’d be a great premise for a comedy, I find myself laughing throughout each episode. And bonus – though set in Raleigh, North Carolina, it’s shot in Los Angeles! So I, of course, set out to find the home where Wade lives with his two young daughters, Grace (Ruby Jay) and Natalie (Makenzie Moss), on the show. (Pardon the selfie above – I stalked the house while by myself on a quick visit to L.A. last week.)

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I had seen the trailer for The Unicorn months before the series’ debut in September and immediately recognized the residence that appeared in it as the Partridge House, located at Warner Bros. Ranch in Burbank. The picturesque Colonial, a practical set situated on the backlot’s Blondie Street, has appeared in countless productions over the years, as I detailed in this 2016 post for Mike the Fanboy. So named thanks to its regular appearance as the Partridge residence on The Partridge Family, it also portrayed the Thatcher home on Life Goes On and the Kravitz pad on Bewitched and is currently where MeeMaw (Annie Potts) lives on Young Sheldon.

By the time the pilot of The Unicorn aired, though, a different property had been selected to portray the home of the Felton family. When I first laid eyes on the Craftsman-style pad, I was convinced it was located in Pasadena, but searching around Crown City and its environs yielded nothing that matched.

Episode 2, titled “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do,” thankfully provided additional clarity via an address number of “138” visible on the house next door to the Felton’s. That number gibed more with the Hancock Park area than Pasadena, so I started searching there and found the Felton home within minutes at 132 Wilton Drive in Windsor Square.

The exterior of the handsome home appears regularly in establishing shots of the Felton residence, as well as in some on location filming of outdoor scenes.

Only the exterior of the property is featured on The Unicorn. The interior of the Felton pad – described by Wade’s friend Delia (Michaela Watkins) as being “like the Disney Channel version of Grey Gardens” in the first episode – is just a set that exists inside of a soundstage at Paramount Studios where the series is lensed. It looks nothing like the actual inside of 132 Wilton Drive, which you can check out some photos of here. Interiors for the pilot episode (pictured below), though, were shot at the Partridge House at Warner Ranch, which, as I mentioned above, is a practical set meaning that both the inside and outside of it can be utilized for filming.

I’ve been fortunate enough to tour the Partridge House a few times, which is where the photos above and below come from. Unfortunately, my angles are just slightly off from what was shown in The Unicorn’s pilot.

The inside of the Partridge House is basically just an empty shell that productions can come in and change or outfit as needed. As you can see below, the kitchen area does not even have cabinets when not being used for a shoot.

Again, my angle is a bit off, but pictured below is the kitchen nook that served as the Felton’s dining area in the pilot. You can just see the Partridge House’s living room fireplace through the opening in the wall in my photo.

A full view of the living room is below. The kitchen stands just behind the “built-in bookcases,” which were removed for The Unicorn pilot in order to make the space more open.

Though I did not snap a photo of the living room area looking out toward the staircase, I did capture the stairs themselves during my visits to the Partridge House.

The Partridge House also boasts a functional backyard and The Unicorn producers made use of it in the pilot.

The alcove where Wade keeps his freezer – a focal point of the episode – is an actual element of the house, situated between the rear door and the detached garage, as you can see below.

When The Unicorn got picked up, filming moved to Paramount Studios, where the Felton residence interior set was then built from scratch. It looks virtually nothing like the interior from the pilot, though Wade’s freezer alcove was a holdover. You can just see it outside of the door to the left of the stairs in the lower screen capture below.

While I initially assumed that the show made use of 132 Wilton Drive’s backyard for all episodes beyond the pilot, that turns out to be incorrect. The Feltons’ backyard is actually part of the Paramount set, situated inside of a soundstage on the lot.

In real life, the Wilton Drive house, which was built in 1917, boasts 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, 2,200 square feet of living space, and a 0.13-acre lot.

The property last sold in 2011 and looked quite different at the time, with a rounded Colonial-inspired portico attached to its façade, as you can see below. In recent years, the new owners widened the steps leading down to the sidewalk, swapped out the lower-level windows and front door, and removed the portico, adding a large porch in its place. The result is a home that is much more Craftsman in style.

Not to mention much more photogenic! As such, it is no surprise that it wound up onscreen as the residence of the Felton family.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Felton home from The Unicorn is located at 132 Wilton Drive in Windsor Square.

November 18, 2019
City Supper Club from “He’s Just Not That Into You”

Back in February, I wrote a Scene it Before column for L.A. magazine covering a few locales from He’s Just Not That Into You in honor of the romcom’s 20th anniversary. While researching, I was thrilled to come across a mention on production designer Gae Buckley’s website that the supposed Baltimore-area City Supper Club, where Alex (Justin Long) worked in the film, was not a studio-built set as I had long assumed, but an actual restaurant! I, of course, promptly reached out to Gae in the hopes that she could ID the place for me. Though she didn’t get back to me before my article went to print, when she did respond she was a wealth of information, notifying me that a shuttered eatery on the northeast corner of Hollywood and Vine in the heart of Tinseltown had masked as City Supper Club. A quick Google search showed me that the space had since re-opened as 33 Taps Bar & Grill. Despite the new tenant, interior photos posted on Yelp still bore somewhat of a resemblance to what had appeared onscreen! Ecstatic, I ran out to stalk it a couple of months later. I’m pouting in the above photo, though, because, unbeknownst to me, 33 Taps had shuttered in the interim and I arrived at a vacant, boarded-up building.

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33 Taps was situated on the ground floor of The Lofts at Hollywood and Vine, a 12-story, 116,000-square-foot Late Gothic/Art Deco structure designed by Aleck Curlett in 1929. Commissioned by drug store magnate Sam Kress, the property was originally known as the “Bank of Hollywood Building” thanks to the financial institution of the same name which occupied its street level.

In an ironic twist, the site’s namesake shuttered in December 1930, after less than two years in operation! The structure was sold shortly thereafter and subsequently redubbed the “Equitable Building.” The former Bank of Hollywood space then became home to Citizens National Bank and, in later years, the Bernard Luggage Company and American Airlines.

The Equitable Building, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, fell on hard times and was allowed to dilapidate, along with the rest of downtown Hollywood, from the ‘70s through the ‘90s, but was finally rescued by Tom Gilmore in 2000. The developer purchased the property for $5 million and set about rehabbing it to the tune of another $6 million. The restoration process took two years to complete.

Part of that restoration included a build-out of the ground floor to accommodate the new Hollywood and Vine Diner, a dark wood-paneled space reminiscent of the great Tinseltown restaurants of yesteryear. You can see what it looked like here.

The upscale eatery, helmed by Scott Shuttleworth and Richard Heyman, opened in 2002. It had about as much staying power as the Bank of Hollywood, though, initially shuttering in 2004 before being revived a few months later and then ultimately closing for good in 2007, the same year that He’s Just Not That Into You was shot. The restaurant’s furnishings were left intact after the closure, making it an ideal spot for the production to utilize.

The Equitable Building underwent another massive renovation around the same time, during which the upper floors were converted from offices to condos, a project that cost $50 million to complete. The 60-unit property is now known as The Lofts at Hollywood and Vine.

After the shuttering of Hollywood and Vine Diner, that space, too, was significantly remodeled and subsequently debuted as Dillon’s Irish Pub in November 2009. The bar had a short shelf life, as well, closing in April 2013 (though it did move for a time to a different Hollywood Boulevard location) and 33 Taps opened in its place a few months later. The name of the 8,051-square-foot sports bar was derived from the 33 beers it had on tap.

Lasting about six years, 33 Taps closed its doors in June 2019 and its former home is under construction yet again, as you can see in the photos below, which I took through the front windows. Per Eater LA, an Italian eatery named Soprano will be opening there in the near future.

The numerous changeovers (especially the most recent) have taken a toll on the space’s recognizability from He’s Just Not That Into You, unfortunately. When the film was shot, the restaurant’s large U-shaped bar was situated directly across from the front doors . . .

. . . at the base of the grand staircase leading up to the second floor (which you can just see in the background below).

That same area today is pictured below. For whatever reason, when Dillon’s Irish Pub moved in, the bar was relocated to the opposite side of the staircase (as you can see in this photo) and the area where it formerly stood was closed off.

Today, the only remnants of the City Supper Club are those stairs, sadly. Gone is the aforementioned central retro bar;

the dark oak walls (they’re still there, they’ve just been painted over);

. . . and the many rounded partitions.

Oh, how I wish I had visited Hollywood and Vine Diner when it was still in operation – or, at least, had made it to 33 Taps before its recent closure!

As noted on Gae’s website, Alex’s office was not an actual element of Hollywood and Vine Diner, but a set specifically constructed for the shoot at the rear of the bar.

Only the interior of Hollywood and Vine Diner was utilized in He’s Just Not That Into You. The exterior of City Supper Club was faked outside of Duda’s Tavern at 1600 Thames Street in Baltimore.

Thanks to the Seeing Stars website, I learned that Hollywood and Vine Diner, prior to shutting down, appeared in the 2009 thriller Taken as the restaurant where Kim (Maggie Grace) tried to convince her father, Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson), to let her go to Paris.

In the scene, Bryan, Kim and Kim’s mom, Lenore (Famke Janssen), sit in the spot where the eatery’s bar now stands. That space was a dining room when Hollywood and Vine was in operation.

Though the former bar area isn’t shown in Taken, the adjacent staircase is just visible in the top middle of the screen capture below, which should help you get your bearings when looking at the various images.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: 33 Taps Bar & Grill, aka the former Hollywood and Vine Diner from He’s Just Not That Into You, was located at 6263 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood. The restaurant closed recently and currently sits vacant.

November 13, 2019
Cicada from “The Morning Show”

I don’t know what all the hullabaloo regarding The Morning Show being terrible is about. The Grim Cheaper and I trepidatiously tuned in earlier this week and, considering all the jeers reviewers are spewing, were shocked at how much we enjoyed the new Apple TV+ series! We devoured the three episodes that have aired so far in one sitting and literally loved every second! So artfully done and intriguing is the show that it even managed to pull one over on me, locations-wise! Set in NYC, I assumed all filming had taken place there as well. While I did have a few “That looks like L.A.” moments throughout episode 1, it was not until Bradley Jackson (Reese Witherspoon) walked up the instantly recognizable split staircase of downtown’s iconic Cicada restaurant at the start of episode 2 that I realized my mistake! A quick look at the drama’s Wikipedia page confirmed that it was largely lensed in Los Angeles, with a few exteriors shot in the Big Apple. Hoping to throw a little love The Morning Show’s way, I figure it is the perfect time to blog about Cicada, a spot I stalked ages ago (while scouting wedding venues prior to my 2010 nuptials!) but somehow have yet to write about.

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Any article about quintessential Los Angeles restaurants will undoubtedly feature Cicada. Initially established as Rex iI Ristorante in 1981, the landmark eatery sits on the ground floor of the Oviatt Building in the heart of downtown. The 13-story structure was the brainchild of James Oviatt, a famous clothier who outfitted the likes of Clark Gable, John Barrymore, and Gary Cooper during the Golden Age of Hollywood. Originally employed as a window dresser at Desmond’s Department Store, Oviatt partnered with fellow employee Frank Alexander in 1911 to open their own haberdashery, the exclusive Alexander & Oviatt. It was an instant success. A 1925 visit to Paris’ International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts (which introduced Art Deco to the world) inspired James to construct a gilded architectural marvel of his own in L.A. Thus the Oviatt Building was born in 1928.

Designed by Albert Walker and Percy Eisen, the exquisite structure featured maillechort detailing, hand-carved wood paneling, more than 30 tons of glass artworks created by René Lalique, and an arcade with an ornate frosted-glass ceiling courtesy of artist Gaetan Jeannin (pictured below).

Sadly, much of both Lalique and Jeannin’s pieces were later sold off and have since been replaced with facsimiles, though some of their original works remain, like the doors below.

The building’s pièce de résistance was easily its street-level salon which housed the new Alexander & Oviatt haberdashery. Gilded, grand and absolutely striking, the boutique featured a large open sales floor flanked by wooden cabinets filled with the finest clothes money could by, a magnificent split staircase, a mezzanine which was home to the women’s department (aka the Salon des Elegances), and an outdoor palm grove, where patrons could experience the wares in natural light.

Though L.A.’s premier place to shop for fine clothing for decades, Alexander & Oviatt saw a decline in patronage in the 1960s and closed its doors in 1967. The once-popular boutique subsequently sat vacant for years. By that time, the building was showing its age. Enter Wayne Ratkovich and Don Bowers, developers who, seeing potential in the once-grand structure, made an offer to buy it in 1977 and subsequently dedicated $5 million into a major renovation. A huge part of that renovation was a reimagining of the former Alexander & Oviatt space, which was transformed into an exclusive eatery courtesy of Mauro Vincenti. Because the Oviatt had been declared a Historic-Cultural Monument in 1978, the nuts and bolts of the boutique’s interior, thankfully, couldn’t be changed, but the Rome-born restauranteur outfitted it with décor and design elements inspired by a dining room from the 1930s-era Italian cruise ship the SS Rex. Mauro dubbed the place “Rex il Ristorante,” which translates to “Rex the Restaurant.” The gorgeous site was soon the spot to dine in L.A.

Vincenti sadly passed away in August 1996 at the untimely age of 53. His widow kept his famed eatery open until the following January when the lease on the site expired. Stephanie Taupin subsequently took over the 14,000-square-foot space and re-located her West Hollywood restaurant Cicada there.

Though the interior was given a bit of a facelift, the ceiling painted with gold leaf and much of the décor swapped out, thanks to its Historic-Cultural Monument status, the former boutique still looks not only much as it did when Rex was in operation but Alexander & Oviatt as well!

It is easily one of the most gorgeous places in L.A.!

I mean!

In the first episode of The Morning Show, titled “In the Dark Night of the Soul It’s Always 3:30 in the Morning,” Corey Ellison (an absolutely brilliant, but utterly unrecognizable Billy Crudup) and Chip Black (Mark Duplass) dine at what is supposedly the Archer Gray Hotel in New York, where they discuss future strategy for their program after one of the hosts, Mitch Kessler (Steve Carell), gets fired for sexual harassment. It is the top screen capture below that gave me that initial “That looks like L.A.” moment while watching and I actually turned to the GC and said, “Wow, that place is the spitting image of Cicada.” Facepalm!

It took Bradley venturing up the staircase and around Cicada’s mezzanine at the top of the second episode, “A Seat at the Table,” for the pieces to fall into place for me.

The Morning Show is hardly the only production to feature Cicada. In fact, the restaurant is practically royalty when it comes to Hollywood! So much so that it would be impossible for me to chronicle all of its cameos here, but read on for a list of some of the more significant.

In easily its most famous appearance, Viviane Ward (Julia Roberts) tosses an escargot shell across the Rex il Ristorante dining room in the 1990 classic Pretty Woman.

Rex also served as a locale in another Richard Gere film – the 1992 thriller Final Analysis. It was there that Heather Evans (Kim Basinger) suffered from an extreme bout of pathological intoxication while out to dinner with her husband, played, ironically enough, by Julia’s brother, Eric Roberts.

David Murphy (Woody Harrelson) confronts Diana (Demi Moore) and John (Robert Redford) outside of Rex in the 1993 drama Indecent Proposal.

Longfellow Deeds (Adam Sandler) takes Babe Bennett (Winona Ryder) on a romantic date at Cicada that ends in a massive fight with other diners in the 2002 comedy Mr. Deeds.

The following year, Cicada popped up as the spot where Bruce Nolan (Jim Carrey) brought girlfriend Grace Connelly (Jennifer Aniston) to tell her that he was finally given the anchor job in Bruce Almighty.

Charlene Morton (Queen Latifah) teaches Peter Sanderson (Steve Martin) to dance there in the 2003 comedy Bringing Down the House.

John (Brad Pitt) and Jane (Angelina Jolie) share a seductive tango at Cicada in 2005’s Mr. & Mrs. Smith.

Mad Men utilized the restaurant in no less than three episodes. In Season 1’s “New Amsterdam,” which aired in 2007, it was both the restaurant where Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) dined with his wife and her parents . . .

. . . and where he later met clients for a drink.

The following year, Roger Sterling (John Slattery) tried to convince his daughter to have a big wedding over dinner at Cicada in Season 2’s “Three Sundays.”

And Don Draper (Jon Hamm) won a Clio Award at the restaurant in Season 4’s “Waldorf Stories,” which aired in 2010.

George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) overhears some unkind words from Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo) while at Cicada in the 2011 film The Artist.

In 2015, the exterior of Cicada, as well as that of the Oviatt Building, portrayed the outside of Hotel Cortez in American Horror Story: Hotel.

Though no filming actually took place inside, Hotel Cortez’s lobby was very closely modeled after the interior of Cicada.

Cicada occasionally masked as the entrance to Lux nightclub during the third season of Lucifer, which began airing in 2017.

Cicada also masquerades as the restaurant where Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) dines while filming on location in Italy in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (which is not yet out on DVD so I am unable to make screen captures of that scene), as well as the bar from which Marvin Schwarz (Al Pacino) calls him (which is shown briefly in the trailer as pictured below).

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Cicada, aka New York’s fictional Archer Gray Hotel from The Morning Show, is located at 617 South Olive Street in downtown Los Angeles. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.

November 8, 2019
The Arts District Firehouse Hotel from “ER”

The Grim Cheaper likes to say that I fixate on the silliest of things. I typically scoff at the notion, but he’s 100% right. Case in point – a few months back favorite blogger Emily Schuman, of Cupcakes and Cashmere, did a photo shoot at the Arts District Firehouse Hotel, a stylish fire-station-turned-lodging in downtown L.A. While there, she recorded an Instagram story showing an assortment of blush matchbooks displayed at the check-in desk. As it so happens, I had recently changed up my kitchen décor by adding some pops of pink, including a bowl filled with two rose-colored matchbooks. One look at Emily’s story and I decided I had to snag some of the hotel’s matches ASAP to add to my new collection. When the GC and I headed out to L.A. to take care of some business a few weeks later, I, of course, tried to reserve a room at the property, but it was completely booked. Undeterred, I ventured right on over there as soon as we arrived in town to grab that matchbook – and an iced latte from the lobby coffee bar, natch. The Arts District Firehouse Hotel is so artfully designed and unique that I couldn’t help but snap some pics while waiting for my drink, which turned out to be quite fortuitous, because, as it turns out, the place is a filming location!

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The Arts District Firehouse Hotel began life as Engine Co. 17, which started servicing the downtown area on April 1st, 1905. Interestingly, it was situated in a slightly different location at the time – at 2100 East Seventh Street, about 100 feet north of its current home. At its inception, the handsome vine-covered building (which you can see here) sat facing Seventh Street, in pretty much the spot where Bread Lounge stands today When the Seventh Street Bridge, which ran in front of the station, was raised above grade in the mid-20s, Engine Co. 17 had to be re-located. I’ve come across a few reports stating that to accommodate the project, the entire building was picked up and moved the short distance to 710 South Santa Fe Avenue, but I don’t believe that to be true. Though similar, the edifice of the original Engine Co. 17 is quite different from that of the Arts District Firehouse Hotel. The former boasted an intricately paned, three-panel window with angled projections across its second floor (as you can see here), while the latter has six separate flat windows in that spot. And while the original featured one bay door, the hotel has two. Though subtle, the differences are just enough to lead me to believe the 1904 firehouse was razed during the bridge project and a replacement then built at the new location. Whatever the case, per LAFire the Santa Fe Avenue facility opened its doors on September 9th, 1927. The station operated at that site for the next five decades before being decommissioned in 1980, at which point Company 17 re-located once again to a new building eight blocks south at 1601 South Santa Fe.

The former firehouse was subsequently sold to photographer Robert Blakeman who transformed it into four separate artist studios which he shared with various contemporaries over the next 20 years. In 2006, he put the property up for sale for $2.95 million. At the time, the 8,721-square-foot, 2-story structure boasted the station’s original kitchen, an indoor handball court, and parking for 13 cars. There were no takers, though, and it was removed from the market in 2007.

At some point, Engine Co. 17 did change hands and the owners began making plans to transform the space into a hotel, but those plans did not reach fruition until hospitality magnate Dustin Lancaster was brought onboard in 2016. He quickly tapped interior designer Sally Breer, with whom he partnered on two prior projects, to reimagine the station’s interior. Sally worked her magic, converting the site into an operable lodging, all the while keeping intact all of the original firehouse elements that make it so unique. A woman after my own heart, she told the Los Angeles Times, “Always our job first and foremost is to respect the architecture and breathe some new life into it.” Yaaaaas! With that mantra in mind, Breer preserved the building’s concrete flooring, pressed-tin ceiling, and exposed beam work.

To say the finished project is stunning would be a gross understatement! Since the transformation, the hotel has been written up by everyone from Vogue to Architectural Digest to Time – and it’s not very hard to see why. The place is serious #designgoals!

Opened this past April, the boutique lodging features nine suites, a restaurant and bar, event space (the station’s former handball court now serves as a private dining room), a coffee bar, a large patio complete with a fire pit, and a small shop featuring Los Angeles- and California-themed wares.

I did not realize Engine Co. 17 had appeared onscreen until long after I got home, though it really shouldn’t have come as a surprise. A decommissioned firehouse with many of its original elements intact that operated as a studio (and therefore could easily be shut down for filming) for over two decades? Sounds like a dream site for any location manager working on a procedural!

In the Season 8 episode of ER titled “A River in Egypt,” which aired in 2002, Kerry Weaver (Laura Innes) confronts her paramour, firefighter Sandy Lopez (Lisa Vidal), at Engine Co. 17 for outing her to her fellow County General Hospital coworkers.

Thanks to firehouse expert Richard Yokley (you may remember him from this post and this post), I learned that Jack Malone (Anthony LaPaglia) and Danny Taylor (Enrique Murciano) investigated the disappearance of a firefighter at Engine Co. 17 in the Season 2 episode of Without a Trace titled “Trip Box,” which aired in 2003.

Kate Beckett (Stana Katic) interrogates Rod Halstead (John M. Jackson) at Engine Co. 17 about a fire her mother had been looking into in the Season 4 episode of Castle titled “Rise,” which aired in 2011, though little of the building is visible in the scene.

Richard also informed me that Captain Ray Holt (Andre Braugher), Jake Peralta (Andy Samberg) and Charles Boyle (Joe Lo Truglio) headed to Engine Co. 17 to apologize to Fire Marshall Boone (Patton Oswalt) in the Season 1 episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine titled “Sal’s Pizza,” which aired in 2013.

The episode gives us some nice glimpses of the firehouse’s Interior, as well.

The music video for A Great Big World’s 2014 song “Already Home,” which you can watch here, also largely took place at Engine Co. 17. The song tells the story of lovers who live on opposite coasts, which explains why the top screen capture below is split.

Per On Location Vacations, the pilot of Like Father was also lensed at the firehouse in 2012, but, sadly, it appears as if the show never made it on air.

And for those asking, pictured below are the matchbooks I went out of my way to procure – a fabulous addition to my collection, don’t you think?

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Arts District Firehouse Hotel, aka the former Engine Co. 17 from the “A River in Egypt” episode of ER, is located at 710 South Santa Fe Avenue in downtown Los Angeles. You can visit the lodging’s official website here.

November 6, 2019
A “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” Halloween

I usually start planning my and the Grim Cheaper’s Halloween costumes on November 1st each year. Out with the old, in with the new, as they say. This year I was a bit late to the game because by the time mid-summer came around, I still found myself with no ideas. And then, on July 28th, I saw Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. One look at Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) donning a red kimono, a blender full of margaritas in hand, and I knew there was no one else the GC could be! I was unsure of my costume, at first, as there was no real female counterpart to Rick in the movie. Then my mom said, “Why not dress up as up as Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt)?” – duh! – and, voila, our costumes for Halloween 2019 were born!

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I opted to wear Cliff’s Hawaiian shirt/Champion tee ensemble featured on the movie’s poster.

It turned out to be an easy costume to put together. I found the Hawaiian shirt first, at Walmart of all places – a pretty accurate facsimile of Cliff’s for $25! The Champion tee came from Red Bubble (I ordered the slim fit version), the Levi’s (men’s 511s) from a local thrift store, the belt from Etsy, the watch was my grandfather’s, and the leather bracelet and sunglasses I already had in my closet. I was most excited to find Cliff’s suede booties, though! The iconic Minnetonka Two Button Softsole Boot was first released in 1969 and recently reissued thanks to the popularity of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood – (I got the women’s version, men’s are here). To complete the look, I pinned up my hair (my neighbor actually thought I cut it!) and there he was, Cliff Booth in the flesh!

The GC’s costume was easy, as well. I found the house slippers on Amazon (they run large, so size down), the kimono on Ali Express (we ordered “red black”), and the vintage blender was an eBay score (and pretty much the most expensive part of the ensemble, interestingly).

Though we both loved walking around in our costumes, the highlight of our Halloween came when Once Upon a Time in Hollywood costume designer extraordinaire Arianne Phillips, whom I had contacted a while back to inquire about the kind of slippers Rick wore in the movie, shared a photo I sent her, along with pics of a few others dressed in OUATIH garb, on Instagram! Say whaaa? Pretty darn cool, if you ask me!

In honor of our costumes, I thought it only appropriate to blog about Rick Dalton’s fabulous mid-century ranch-style pad today. Because the film has yet to come out on DVD (December 10th can’t come soon enough!), I was only able to forage the trailer for screen captures. As soon as I do get my hands on a copy of the movie, I will add more imagery and information (thank you, special features!) to the post.

I found the address of Rick’s house thanks to this CurbedLA article about OUATIH filming locations and ran out to stalk it while in the area a few weeks back. In real life, the 1964 pad boasts 3 bedrooms plus a den, 3 baths, 2,630 square feet, terrazzo and hardwood flooring, a pool, a 0.42-acre lot, and striking 180-degree views of the city. The residence was recently offered for lease at a whopping $9,000 per month. The listing even touts its Once Upon a Time in Hollywood cameo!

According to a 2019 Architectural Digest article about the movie’s set design, Rick’s supposed Cielo Drive property proved quite evasive to pin down. Author Cathy Whitlock says, “For Rick Dalton’s house, the design crew searched for the perfect ranch house only to encounter one obstacle after another. The goal of a one-story ranch-style midcentury with a sloped ceiling, soffits, and a pool with a great view meant shooting three separate locations instead of one.” (The “three separate locations” thing surprised and confused me, but more on that in a bit.)

Adding to the elusiveness of the locale was the fact that the production required a home with a gate and long winding driveway be situated next to Rick’s to stand in for the leased residence of Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) and Roman Polanski (Rafal Zawierucha). Assistant location manager Scott Fitzgerald told the Location Managers Guild International (LGMI) website, “The whole idea was that Rick Dalton and Sharon Tate lived in the same neighborhood. So we had to find two houses that would work. Quentin had these little pieces in his mind. Rick was a movie star, so his house had to be the house of a movie star. But movie star homes back then were not weird and wild like they are today. Some were modest ranch houses in a nice neighborhood. It was a sign of wealth.” Contributing even more difficulty to the hunt was a shot director Quentin Tarantino had in mind from the beginning. As production designer Barbara Ling told LGMI, “The real albatross was finding Rick Dalton’s house. We wanted to try to capture the Benedict Canyon of that time. The house needed to be very close to another house. Quentin is so visual as a director. He had this shot written into the script. ‘We’ve got to have Rick in the swimming pool, and we’ve got to be able to have a camera that moves over so you can see the other house.’ We looked everywhere. It was such a tricky combo of driveways and was very specific to the shot he needed.” In the same article, location scout Lori Balton furthers, “Tarantino was super specific about his needs. The exact geography was important. For instance, the camera is on Rick’s pool, then cranes up and over the hedges to Sharon and Roman in their car leaving the driveway.” The production team finally found exactly what they were seeking for the Dalton and Tate/Polanski residences at 10969 and 10974 Alta View Drive, respectively, in the hills above Studio City. (The MLS image of the pool below comes from 10969’s recent rental listing.)

Both properties are pictured below, though only the gate of 10974 is visible from the street.

Though the exterior of Rick’s pad wasn’t featured in the trailer, from my recollection it looks very much as it did onscreen – as does the carport area (which did make the trailer), minus the large movie poster bearing his face, of course.

Per the LGMI article, the shoot on Alta View Drive required 14 nights of filming! And it was all exterior work.

The interior of Rick’s house was nothing more than a set built on a soundstage at Raleigh Studios in Hollywood. You can check out what the actual inside of 10969 Alta View looks like here. It bears little resemblance to what appeared onscreen, as you can see below. Of Dalton’s décor, Ling told Architectural Digest, “Rick is somebody who bought a house at the height of his career and hasn’t renovated since he was a bachelor. He was not into the pop culture of the moment. The development of the character was about a TV star in his era, and everything was given to him from a [studio] set, such as the saddle of a horse from a TV show or a movie poster.”

As referenced earlier, Architectural Digest contends that three different locations masked as Rick’s residence. The magazine stipulates, “For Dalton’s Cielo Drive house, the production team used the exterior of two ranch-style homes and created the interiors on a soundstage.” I think that info may be erroneous, though, as we know that both the façade and backyard of 10969 Alta View were featured as Rick’s. I don’t recall any other outside areas of his house ever appearing onscreen and cannot fathom what the secondary ranch exterior mentioned could possibly have been used for. I think the article may actually be alluding to the fact that two different homes were used to portray the Tate residence (more on that below), though neither of them is a ranch. But that is just a guess. Once I get my hands on the DVD, I will hopefully be able to piece things together.

So far, what I have been able to discern is that the production team meshed two different exteriors to play Sharon’s pad. The gate and driveway are, of course, at 10974 Alta View Drive.

Though aerial views make it hard to tell, I believe front exterior shots of the Tate/Polanski rental were also likely lensed there.

According to the LGMI piece, backyard scenes were shot at a different location entirely – the former residence of Western actor Lee Van Cleef. While initially scouting that property, Balton says, “ . . . just my luck, a guy was pulling down the driveway wondering what I was up to. After I explained myself, he got a funny look on his face at the mention of Quentin Tarantino. He explained it was Lee Van Cleef’s home — a ’60s time capsule — and filled to the brim with Hollywood memorabilia that he thought would interest Quentin. Quentin is a rabid Sergio Leone fan; Van Cleef was in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and For a Few Dollars More. Van Cleef died in 1989, but his wife still lives there with her brother. We ended up shooting in their backyard.” Key assistant location manager Kirk Worley furthers, “It stood in for the backyard of the Tate/Polanski home.” Per property records and my friend E.J.’s Movieland Directory website, Van Cleef’s former pad is at 19471 Rosita Street in Tarzana. The backyard has a pool smack dab in the middle of it, which doesn’t much jibe with the layout of the actual Cielo Drive house Sharon and Roman rented, but I guess the production team was able to make it work.

On an interesting side-note – until researching for this post, I had no idea that there was at one time a “twin residence” to the real Tate/Polanski rental. Both pads were designed by architect Robert Byrd in 1941. The twin, situated below Sharon and Roman’s place on Cielo Drive, had an almost identical façade and footprint, as you can see here. Both properties have since been remodeled past recognition, sadly. What is odd, though, is that, despite being owned by different parties and renovated at different times, the two homes once again are almost identical! It is a bit eerie to see. For those interested in the history of the actual Tate rental, I direct you to this fabulous Curbed LA article.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Rick Dalton’s house from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is located at 10969 Alta View Drive in Studio City. Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski’s gate from the movie can be found next door at 10974 Alta View.

November 4, 2019
Woodsboro Police Station from “Scream”

Happy, happy Halloween! I can’t believe it is already time to wind down my Haunted Hollywood posts, but here we are. Another October in the books! The season definitely turned into a full-blown Scream-fest on the blog (as predicted a couple of weeks ago) and I am a-OK with it! Amazingly, there are still quite a few locales from the 1996 horror flick that I have yet to write about, so I figured I’d finish things off this year with Oakville Grocery Co., the former Healdsburg City Hall which masked as Woodsboro Police Station onscreen. Like all the other Scream sites I’ve blogged about recently, I stalked this one back in 2016 while in Northern California for a brief visit.

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The southeast corner of Matheson and Center Streets in downtown Healdsburg was home to the area’s City Hall for 110 years. The original building, a towering three-story brick and stone Romanesque Revival structure which you can see here and here, was erected in 1886. Comprised of city offices, a library, a post office, and a gym for a nearby school, it was razed in 1960. The building that replaced it was a vast departure from its predecessor with a decidedly mid-century modern feel. Designed by A.C. Steele, the new Healdsburg City Hall was dedicated on July 4th, 1961. Built at a cost of just over $175,000, the one-story, 7,544-square-foot site housed both city offices and the police station and featured a beamed overhang, a front patio, pebble rock siding, and globe lighting. You can check out a photo of it here. It is that building that appeared in Scream.

In the hopes of making downtown Healdsburg more tourist-oriented, City Hall was moved to a new, larger building a couple of blocks northwest at 401 Grove Street and the police station re-located next door to 238 Center Street in 1996, shortly after Scream was lensed. The former city hall site was subsequently given a massive overhaul and transformed into the Oakville Marketplace, home to a winery, a jewelry store, a spa, a clothing boutique, and an upscale deli/market named Oakville Grocery Co. Boasting a Mediterranean façade, the 9,000-square-foot retail complex is hardly recognizable from its days as City Hall, though structurally it remains the same.

Though I abhor the fact that a Scream location has been gutted, Oakville Grocery Co., which takes up a third of the former City Hall space, has long been our favorite spot to eat when in town. With a large front patio complete with a fireplace, a wide selection of specialty grocery items, and excellent deli sandwiches, Oakville just can’t be beat!

Healdsburg City Hall pops up as Woodsboro PD twice in Scream, first in the scene in which Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) is brought in by Deputy Dewey (David Arquette) to make a report following the attack by Ghostface. As you can see below, the exterior is recognizable from its 1996 cameo in shape only, unfortunately.

I first saw Scream in December 1997 with some friends who had rented it on DVD over Christmas break. I remember being shocked when the end credits rolled and I spotted a nod to the City of Healdsburg in the “Filmmakers Wish to Thank” section, suggesting filming had taken place there. The charming Northern California town was only about an hour away from where I then resided and a stone’s throw from where my aunt lived (and still lives). I begged my mom to take me up there pronto and a few days later she obliged. At the time I was not entirely sure what portions of the movie had been filmed in the area – this was long before location websites that could point me in the right direction existed – so when we arrived, my mom suggested I pop into the local police station to inquire, which I distinctly remember garnering an eye roll and a “Seriously, mom?!?” from me. I did as she recommended, though, and just about fell over when the detective I spoke with informed me that filming had actually taken place at the former police station! By then, the remodel had already occurred and Oakville Grocery Co. was in full swing, but he walked us over to explain where the station used to be and which areas of it had appeared onscreen – proving further that mothers always know best! As he told us, the actual interior of City Hall was utilized as Woodsboro PD in the movie.

An interview that fellow stalker Ashley of The Drewseum recently emailed me a scan of leads me to believe that it was the City Hall portion of the building, not the actual police station, utilized in Scream. In the blurb, production designer Bruce Alan Miller says, “There’s a City Hall on the corner of the square that we turned into our police station. We just changed some signs and put a few things in the windows. We couldn’t use a real police station, because we would have been at their mercy, and we couldn’t be disrupting their police activity.” Though I was unable to unearth any photos of the interior areas featured in Scream, I did find 1961-era pictures of Healdsburg City Hall’s lobby, courthouse, and city council chambers. (Here’s another of the lobby for good measure.)

Perhaps even more famous to Scream fans than Woodsboro Police Station is the alley that runs alongside it, where Dewey escorts Sidney and Tatum (Rose McGowan) after Sidney gives her statement. Said alley can be reached via Center Street, just south of Oakville Grocery, but it, too, has largely been remodeled. The door that the girls walk out of in the scene, unfortunately, fell casualty to the 1996 renovation, though the pipe visible just beyond it still stands.

The door’s former location is pretty much where the middle glass block window is currently situated, as denoted with an orange rectangle below.

The rain gutter and window due east of the door’s former location are also still intact, which was thrilling to see! Along with the aforementioned pipe, they are pretty much the only elements that remain from the time Scream was filmed.

The dumpster enclosure and chain link fencing situated at the rear of the alley also largely remain the same.

It is in the alley that Sidney famously gives Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) a fist to the face.

Had to do it!

During my ‘97 visit, my officer friend informed me that the people standing across the street in the punching scene were not background actors hired to be there, but interested locals hoping to catch a glimpse of the filming. Taking advantage of the situation, Wes Craven installed barricades to give the illusion that the crowd was made up of lookie-loos waiting outside the station for news about the murders of Casey Becker (Drew Barrymore) and Steve Orth (Kevin Patrick Walls). In his commentary on the Scream Collector’s Series DVD, Craven calls them “free extras.”

Woodsboro Police Station also shows up in a later scene in which Dewey drops the girls off to go grocery shopping while he checks in with his boss, Sherriff Burke (Joseph Whipp).

That segment gives us a better look at City Hall’s former exterior. It truly was a piece of mid-century perfection!

Today, the entrance to Woodsboro PD serves as the exterior of the Virginia Carol clothing boutique (the shop with the yellow awning below).

Man, what I wouldn’t give to have seen the old City Hall building still intact!

The happiest of Halloweens to all of my fellow stalkers!

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Oakville Grocery Co., aka Woodsboro Police Station from Scream, is located at 124 Matheson Street in Healdsburg. Healdsburg Town Plaza, which portrayed downtown Woodsboro in the movie, is right across the road at the intersection of Healdsburg Avenue & Matheson Street.

October 31, 2019
Healdsburg Town Plaza from “Scream”

I was saddened to wake up to the news of yet another fire tearing through Sonoma County last Thursday morning, this one threatening Healdsburg, one of my favorite places in the entire world. Not only is the city idyllic, pastoral and ridiculously charming, but it is a filming location to boot, the main square having stood in for downtown Woodsboro in Scream. Healdsburg Town Plaza was, in fact, the site of one of my very first stalking adventures back in late 1997. I have visited it often in the years since, most notably during my epic October 2016 Scream stalking trek in which I hit up every.single.location. featured in the 1996 flick, down to the warehouse where the production’s few sets were built to the hotel where the cast and crew stayed during the 55-day shoot (the latter was, sadly, lost to the Tubbs Fire in October 2017). Though Healdsburg remains safe from the Kincade Fire for the time being, the city was evacuated and per a Los Angeles Times article is currently a “ghost town,” a situation eerily reminiscent of Scream’s curfew scene which rendered downtown Woodsboro deserted. I pray that the blaze is controlled soon and my thoughts go out to everyone affected, including my aunt and uncle who were recently evacuated from their home in the area. For now, I thought a post on Healdsburg Town Plaza was in order.

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The city of Healdsburg was originally envisioned by businessman Harmon Heald. After failing to strike it rich mining gold, the native Ohioan built a small home in 1851 on what was then a portion of the Rancho Sotoyome land grant. Figuring the site was perfectly situated between San Francisco and the mining areas north of it and would, therefore, be passed through often, he constructed a general store with a post office soon after. A community surrounding the shop quickly developed and in 1857 Harmon commissioned a surveyor to layout a design for a town square and surrounding streets and, thus, Healdsburg and its central plaza were born. The city was incorporated ten years later.

Today, the bucolic one-acre Town Plaza boasts a gazebo, a central fountain, pathways, Canary Island date palms, and redwood trees, all surrounded by a sprinkling of charming shops, cafés, and restaurants. It is small town U.S.A. at its finest!

The fountain at its center, known as Sandborn Memorial Fountain, was donated by Elmer Sandborn in remembrance of his family in 1961. In the square’s early days, though, a bandstand stood as its focal point. The structure not only drew musical acts, but audiences with alcohol in hand, to the consternation of many locals. The Ladies’ Improvement Club got to work on curtailing the drinking and eventually won permission to raze the bandstand in the early 1900s, with a 13-foot marble fountain installed in its place. The revelers couldn’t be curtailed, though – according to The Healdsburg Tribune, a new bandstand was simply built next to the fountain the following day! Healdsburg Town Plaza also saw raucous times in the 1970s, when the Hells Angels made it their regular hangout. Today, the park is, thankfully, much more low-key.

On any given afternoon, you’ll find families picnicking, couples strolling, and visitors relaxing on the many benches that dot the site.

The space is so idyllic that Travel and Leisure deemed it one of “America’s Most Beautiful Town Squares” in 2013.

The surrounding town isn’t too shabby, either!

The last time I visited, in early December 2018, the city was really flaunting its fall colors.

We just don’t get this kind of Autumn vibrancy in Palm Springs.

Show off!

Healdsburg Town Plaza pops up a couple of times in Scream, most notably as the spot where Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) and her friends eat lunch in an early scene. In the segment, during which Stuart Macher (Matthew Lillard) utters his famous “Liver alone!” line, the group is sitting on Sandborn Memorial Fountain’s north side with their backs to Matheson Street.

Sadly, the fountain has been renovated a bit in the years since filming took place, with its rock siding removed and built-in planters added to its corners.

Even sadder, the park’s quaint white wooden gazebo, visible in the scene, has since been completely replaced. According to a Press Democrat article, the original structure was a “casualty of dry rot and changing taste.” This photo of its demolition, which took place on March 14th, 2007, absolutely breaks my heart.

The gazebo is also where Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox), wearing her infamous neon green suit, reports on the murders plaguing Woodsboro in a news clip that Sidney catches on TV in a later scene.

Fortunately, the original gazebo and fountain were both still in place during my early stalks of the square.

Healdsburg Town Plaza is also seen in an establishing segment in which the sun rises on Woodsboro the morning after Sidney is attacked. That bit was filmed on the corner of Center and Plaza Streets.

Per the sheriff I spoke with during my first Healdsburg stalk, the shot was actually lensed early evening as the sun was setting. Apparently, Wes Craven intended to capture it the morning of the last day of the Healdsburg portion of the shoot, but ran out of time, so he instead grabbed it later that day at dusk, knowing that audiences would be none the wiser.

Finally, the plaza serves as a backdrop for the scene in which Woodsboro townspeople lock up and head home before the newly-imposed curfew. Several shops lining the square are featured in the segment including 104 Matheson Street;

312 Center Street, which was the site of Healdsburg Coffee Company at the time of the filming, but today houses The Nectary juice bar;

and the grassy section of the park directly across from 105 Plaza Street . . .

. . . and 111 Plaza Street.

Thanks to the Dear Old Hollywood blog, I learned that Healdsburg Town Plaza also appears a few times as Hartfield, Iowa in the 1943 drama Happy Land.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Healdsburg Town Plaza, aka downtown Woodsboro from Scream, is located at the intersection of Healdsburg Avenue & Matheson Street in Healdsburg.

October 29, 2019
Broadlind Hotel from “Over Her Dead Body”

Over Her Dead Body is hardly a horror flick. In fact, the only thing scary about it is the reviews, with one critic going so far as to opine, “A deceased bride, a depressed groom and a caterer who doubles as a psychic. Yes, it’s an unlikely love triangle, and it’s even more unlikely that you’ll like this film.” Ouch. The 2008 “ghostcom,” as Roger Ebert called it, centers around would-be-newlywed Kate (Eva Longoria), who, after getting killed in a freak accident on her wedding day, decides to spend the afterlife haunting Ashley (Lake Bell), a psychic who starts to show interest in her former fiancé, Henry (Paul Rudd). (I’m not gonna lie, that would be so be me!) I initially learned of the movie many moons ago when fellow stalker Virginie emailed me a couple of its locations including Long Beach’s Broadlind Hotel, which doubled as the apartment building where Ashley lived and was haunted by Kate. I finally sat down to give Over Her Dead Body a watch this week and was shocked to find it cute, sweet and funny – and though not of the horror genre, considering its subject matter, fully fitting of a Haunted Hollywood post.

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Built in 1928 as a boutique lodging by the Piper & Kahrs architecture team, the Italian Renaissance-style Broadlind Hotel featured 20 rooms as well as a manager’s unit at its inception.

The property’s name was derived from its location on the corner of East Broadway and Linden Avenue in Long Beach’s East Village Arts District.

Featuring handsome brickwork, terra cotta detailing, two-story arches dotting the lower levels, and carved wooden doors, the structure, dubbed “the biggest little hotel in Long Beach,” was mainly patronized by naval officers temporarily stationed at the now-defunct Long Beach Naval Complex in its early days. Amenities included a tiled bath and shower in every room and a barbershop, beauty parlor, and restaurant on the ground floor.

The basement level, now home to the Blind Donkey whiskey lounge, served as a gambling hall and watering hole during the Prohibition years.

The Broadlind eventually transitioned into an apartment facility before falling into disrepair and sitting vacant for many years. Then in 2005, it was picked up by a new owner who made plans to restore it to its original use as a boutique lodging. Those plans finally came to fruition in 2017. Today, the 20-room property, a Long Beach Historical Landmark, is marketed as a European-style “ApartHotel,” meaning it is part apartment/part hotel. Each of the units features many of the comforts of home, including a kitchenette with an oven, refrigerator and microwave, cookware, utensils, a flat-screen television with digital channels, and Wi-Fi. Laundry facilities are also on the premises, as well as a lobby balcony for guests to enjoy their morning coffee. In a unique twist, there is no front desk or on-site reception – vacationers are instead granted access to their rooms via keyless entry codes.

The Broadlind even has a penthouse suite in the tower situated at its northeast corner.

The hotel’s ground floor is currently home to a Thai restaurant and a juice bar. And don’t forget about the Blind Donkey in the basement!

Though the place looks absolutely adorable both from the outside and in its website photographs, sadly the reviews are less than stellar. Yelpers really don’t mince words about the property, with one referring to it as “whipped cream on dog sh*t” and another deeming it the “Fyre Festival of hotels.” Yikes!

It is the penthouse area that Ashley calls home in Over Her Dead Body. Oddly, we only get one establishing shot of it throughout the entire movie.

Though I didn’t take a matching photograph, that’s the penthouse in my images below.

Broadlind’s front entrance also makes a brief appearance in the film . . .

. . . as does its interior stairwell . . .

. . . and its north side, where Thai District restaurant is now located.

The interior of Ashley’s apartment only existed in a studio soundstage, though. You can see what the actual penthouse looks like here. The sole element of it that matches its onscreen counterpart is the perimeter of arched, paned windows.

The hallway leading up to Ashley’s apartment was also just a set. Production designer Cory Lorenzen incorporated elements of the Broadlind’s actual exterior, including arches, tile work and wooden doors, into the design of both, though.

The Blind Donkey has also famously cameoed onscreen. The basement lounge masked as the interior of Seb’s, the jazz club owned by Sebastian (Ryan Gosling), at the end of La La Land.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Virginie for telling me about this location!

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Broadlind Hotel, aka Ashley’s apartment building from Over Her Dead Body, is located at 149 Linden Avenue in Long Beach. You can visit the property’s official website here.

October 25, 2019