Lindsay

December 11, 2019December 10, 2019

Pee-wee’s House from “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure”

The internet lit up this week with news that actor Paul Reubens is embarking upon a 20-city 35th Anniversary Tour celebrating Pee-wee’s Big Adventure starting next February. Coincidentally, the house where Reubens’ titular character, Pee-wee Herman, lived in the 1985 comedy has long been on my list of To-Blog Christmas locales. And no, I haven’t completely lost it – I am well aware that the film is in no way holiday-related. But a few years ago, my friend Lavonna suggested I include the abode in my Yuletide postings since it is completely decked out with all sorts of seasonal décor in the movie, including multi-colored lights strung along the roofline, Santa in his sleigh with all eight reindeer perched atop the rafters, a light-up Frosty the Snowman in the backyard, and another large Santa positioned along the picket fence. I ran out to stalk the place shortly after Lavonna’s suggestion (way back in 2014!), but somehow never got around to writing about it. Then when I heard about the tour yesterday, I figured it was the perfect spot to kick off my holiday postings for 2019! So here goes!

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Like so many famous movie houses, Pee-wee’s pad is located on a leafy street in South Pasadena. In person, the dwelling is much plainer than it appeared onscreen, for obvious reasons.

Even without all of Pee-wee’s eccentric accoutrements and yard art, though, and despite the passage of almost 35 years, the place is still incredibly recognizable!

Pee-wee’s rickety detached garage, located at the end of his driveway, remains completely unchanged from its cameo, aside from a missing sconce. And I was thrilled that a white picket fence still lines the property, even though it is slightly different today, boasting a curvature that its movie counterpart did not. The mailbox, though much less colorful than what appeared onscreen, remains in the exact same positioning along the fence, as well!

The residence’s actual backyard also appears briefly in Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, though again with a myriad of embellishments.

The Herman pad’s chaotically whimsical interior was, obviously, just a set. While I was unable to track down any photos showing what the inside of the home actually looks like, I can pretty much guarantee there is no fireman’s pole to be found!

In real life, the property, which was built in 1922, boasts 2 bedrooms, 1 bath, 1,298 square feet of living space, a fireplace, and 0.15 acres of land.

Incredibly, per Redfin, the house, which was not used for any of the Pee-wee Herman sequels, last sold on September 13th, 1974 for $15,500! The website measures its current value at $1,005,925! Not a bad ROI!

Big THANK YOU to my friend Lavonna for suggesting I stalk this locale and include it in my Christmas postings!

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Pee-wee Herman’s house from Pee-wee’s Big Adventure is located at 1848 Oxley Street in South Pasadena. Many famous movie locations can be found on Oxley, including Laurie Strode’s (Jamie Lee Curtis) home from Halloween at 1115 Oxley, the Cooper residence from Forever Young at 1724 Oxley, and South Pasadena Public Library from Say Anything . . . at 1100 Oxley. Kaldi Coffee and Tea, another frequent film star, is right around the corner from the library at 1019 El Centro Street.

December 9, 2019April 23, 2020

611 Place from “The Morning Show”

I hope y’all aren’t sick of The Morning Show locations yet, cause I’ve got a few more up my sleeve, namely the site that portrays UBA Studios, where the titular show-within-the-show is filmed on the new Apple TV+ series. At first blush, I thought the locale was most likely in New York, where the program is set and partially filmed. But once I identified the Starbucks at 6th and Grand in downtown L.A. as the spot where Bradley Jackson (Reese Witherspoon) is invited to a birthday party in episode 4, “No One’s Gonna Harm You, Not While I’m Around,” I quickly realized that the UBA scenes were lensed right across the street at a towering structure known as 611 Place. Fortunately, I happened to be in DTLA just a few days after my discovery, so I popped by to check it out.

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Constructed as the headquarters for Crocker-Citizens Bank in 1969, the building originally went by the name Crocker-Citizens Plaza.

The formidable modernist structure was designed by architect William Pereira, who also gave us Fox Plaza (aka Nakatomi Plaza from Die Hard), Farralone (aka the former Frank Sinatra estate), and the Disneyland Hotel.

The 42-story cross-shaped tower, which sits atop a four-level block base, boasts vertical steel beaming, 715,000 square feet of office and retail space, a marble-clad lobby, and a ground-floor bank complete with a vault.

At 620 feet, Crocker-Citizens Plaza was the tallest building in Los Angeles at the time of its completion (and only the second to surpass the height of City Hall), a record it held briefly until ARCO Plaza (now City National Plaza) was constructed in 1972.

When Crocker-Citizens Bank vacated the locale in 1983, it was purchased by AT&T and renamed AT&T Center, though many referred to it (and still refer to it, in fact) as the AT&T Building.

AT&T’s tenure ended in 1999, at which point the Chetrit Group, a New York-based development firm, acquired the building and it was re-named once again, this time to 611 Place, in honor of its 611 West 6th Street address.

Per the Urbanize Los Angeles website, the upper floors have been mostly vacant for a decade and, while Chetrit is said to have obtained entitlements way back in 2007 to transform the office spaces into condos, those plans have yet to come to fruition. When I was stalking the place, though, I saw plenty of people coming and going from the elevators, making their way through the large lobby, so I am not sure how empty the building actually is. Regardless, filming is definitely one way the site is bringing in revenue.

611 Place repeatedly pops up as UBA Studios on The Morning Show.

The series makes use of the building’s Grand Avenue side.

Unfortunately, a UPS truck was parked right in front of the Grand Avenue entrance when I attempted to take a matching shot of the screen capture below, so Google Street View imagery will have to do.

It is not hard to see how 611 Place wound up on The Morning Show as it does very much have the look and feel of a New York building, especially with its brass revolving door which Bradley, Alex Levy (Jennifer Aniston) and Cory Ellison (Billy Crudup) are regularly seen entering and exiting.

Some CGI trickery was employed to add to the building’s NYC feel in episode 4, “That Woman.” As you can see, imagery of the iconic Cartier Mansion on Fifth Avenue was superimposed in the background of a scene taking place outside of 611 Place.

The special effects team wasn’t very thorough, though, because seconds later, the Edwards & Wildey Building, the actual structure located in that spot, is clearly visible where Cartier stood just moments before.

The lobby of 611 Place also regularly appears on The Morning Show.

The friendly security guard on duty during my stalk was nice enough to allow me to snap interior photos of the lobby and even pointed out which areas of it were used! As you can see below, some turnstiles were added to the premises for the shoot, as were sconces above the elevator.

The interior of the actual studio where the show-within-the-show is shot was nothing more than a set built inside of a soundstage on the Sony lot in Culver City.

611 Place is actually a longtime screen star.

Way back in 1973, William Dorn (Chuck Connors) set off a bomb outside of the building, killing himself in the process, at the end of The Police Connection, aka The Mad Bomber.

611 Place served as the headquarters of MacGregor Oil in the 1983 drama Uncommon Valor.

That same year, it popped up as the office building where Caroline Butler (Teri Garr) worked in the comedy Mr. Mom.

Pinball’s (Dave Chappelle) body is tossed from a plane and lands on a car in front of 611 Place in the 1997 thriller Con Air.

It is seen briefly as the casualty of an earthquake in the 2000 disaster flick Epicenter.

The now vacant bank space on the building’s lower level is where Roy Waller (Nicolas Cage) heads to empty his safety deposit box in 2003’s Matchstick Men.

Leland Van Lew (Bryan Brown) base jumps off the neighboring KPMG Center at 550 South Hope Street in the 2004 romcom Along Came Polly, giving audiences a brief view of 611 Place during his descent.

And it recently popped up as the FBI office Harry Bosch (Titus Welliver) and Jerry Edgar (Jamie Hector) visited in the Season 6 episode of Bosch titled “Good People on Both Sides.”

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: 611 Place, aka UBA Studios from The Morning Show, is located at 611 West 6th Street in downtown Los Angeles. The Starbucks featured in the series’ fifth episode, “No One’s Gonna Harm You, Not While I’m Around,” is right across the street at 523 West 6th Street.

December 6, 2019April 1, 2020

The Wolves from “The Morning Show”

My obsession with The Morning Show is no secret. I’ve blogged about its locations four times already (here, here, here, and here) and it isn’t even on its eighth episode! Readers have obviously taken note because I recently received an email from one who works in downtown Los Angeles informing me that some filming of the new Apple TV+ series had taken place at an area bar named The Wolves. One look at images of the watering hole had me absolutely drooling. Dark, old-timey and full of stained glass and rich woods, it was like no other spot I had ever seen. So to the top of my To-Stalk List it went and my mom and I headed out there just a few days later while in town for a doctor appointment for my dad. It wasn’t long after that The Wolves popped up on the series, appearing in the episodes titled “Open Waters” and “The Interview.”

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The spot that now houses The Wolves was previously home to the rather austere F Square Printing, which, per its signage, served as a copy/business center, art gallery, and karaoke venue all in one. The odd combo shop shuttered in 2013 and sat vacant for a time before being snapped up by restaurateurs Al Almeida, Daniel Salin, and Isaac Mejia, who saw potential in the stark storefront and spent the next two and a half years building it out to create an incredible Belle Époque-inspired bar. The two-story lounge opened its doors last September. Though the stunning exterior feels like a façade straight out of Paris, France, or perhaps Disneyland . . .

. . . the interior is the real sight to behold!

Knowing nothing of the site’s past prior to entering, I was convinced that the magical space, which is situated on the ground floor of the Alexandria Hotel, was some sort of historic ballroom. Owner Almeida, an incredibly friendly Jeremy Renner lookalike whom we had the great pleasure of chatting with, set me straight, though, regaling us with the complete lowdown on the design and background of the unique watering hole. It is incredible to think that just a few years ago it looked like this!

Though the Batchelder tiles that cover the floor are, amazingly, original to the space (you can even see them in this image of F Square Printing), the rest of The Wolves is the result of an incredible collation of antiques.

Inspired by turn-of-the-century Paris, Almeida, Salin, and Mejia sourced pieces from all over the globe to furnish the bar.

The mahogany booths that line the drinkery, authentic 1920s seating formerly situated in a restaurant in Seneca, New York, were a Craigslist find.

The mirrors situated at the back of each booth were also vintage discoveries.

The carved wooden doors are from Argentina circa 1890.

And the pièce de résistance, the dramatic domed ceiling, was an eBay score delivered in panels via flatbed truck that was procured from Paris, Illinois where it formerly canopied a train station.

Initially spanning 22 feet, to fit The Wolves’ 11-foot ceiling, the piece was split in half and the two sections installed adjacent to each other, forming a double arch atop the lounge’s main room.

The Wolves even boasts a secondary bar situated in the rear known as Le Neant (French for “the nothingness”), an intimate room cloaked in deep reds that is utilized for special events, as well as the many tastings and dinners hosted onsite.

Nothing about the bar is typical, not even the name, which is a nod to Martin Scorsese’s 2002 period drama Gangs of New York. Salin, a huge fan of the film, initially wanted to dub the watering hole in honor of one of the gangs portrayed in the story (my memory is failing me now – I’m going to blame the bubbly I consumed while speaking with Almeida – but I believe it was either the “Dead Rabbits” or the “Gopher Gang”), however the moniker just didn’t work for a saloon. So the owners brainstormed other animal names, eventually landing on “The Wolves.”

It is absolutely no surprise that the gorgeous bar found its way to the screen.

In the “Open Waters” episode of The Morning Show, Audra (Mindy Kaling) tries to poach Daniel Henderson (Desean Terry) for her own series over lunch at The Wolves.

The two journalists sit in one of the lounge’s antique booths in the scene.

And in the series season finale, Yanko Flores (Nestor Carbonell) drinks his troubles away at The Wolves after being dumped.

The Wolves was also featured in another recent Reese Witherspoon production! It is at the bar that a young Elena Richardson (AnnaSophia Robb) parties with her boyfriend Jamie Caplan (Luke Bracey) on their last night in Paris in 1976 in the Season 1 episode of Little Fires Everywhere titled “Duo.”

Per Almeida, a couple of photo shoots have also taken place at The Wolves and I have no doubt the bar will be popping up in many more productions in the near future.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Wolves, from the “Open Waters” episode of The Morning Show, is located at 519 South Spring Street in downtown Los Angeles. It is open from 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. daily. You can visit the bar’s official website here.

December 2, 2019November 28, 2019

The CalEdison from “The Morning Show”

L.A. never ceases to amaze! Case in point – the CalEdison. Built in 1931, the Art Deco masterpiece is not only a sight to behold, but its grand lobby is open to the public! Somehow though, I never knew about the place until last week when I was researching locations from The Morning Show.

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During my viewing of the new Apple TV+ series’ premiere episode, “In the Dark Night of the Soul It’s Always 3:30 in the Morning,” I became a bit mesmerized with what was said to be the Archer Gray Hotel in New York. With towering marble columns, ornate tile flooring, and intricate wrought-iron windows, the space was striking to say the least. Shocked I had never come across it in all my years of stalking, I immediately set out to track it down. Because The Morning Show is largely filmed in L.A., with only a few exteriors shot in NYC, I knew the Archer Gray had to be somewhere in SoCal. Its seemingly historic architecture led me to look first in the downtown area. But Google searches for “historic building,” “grand lobby,” and “marble columns” did not bring up images that even remotely resembled the place.

It was not until episode 5, “No One’s Going to Harm You, Not While I’m Around,” aired that I was able to pinpoint it. In a scene at the close of the episode, Bradley Jackson (Reese Witherspoon) attempts to secure the room number of her boss Cory Ellison (Billy Crudup) from an uncooperative Archer Gray front desk clerk, during which a massive mural is visible behind her, as well as what appeared to be a coffee bar of some sort. Adding those elements to my search terms led me straight to The CalEdison, a historic office building in the heart of downtown. I was elated to discover upon researching the place further that it is open to the public! My parents just happened to be heading into L.A. a few days after my discovery and had booked a room at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel, located right across the street from The CalEdison. So I, of course, tagged along and ran right over to stalk the building immediately upon check-in.

The 14-story structure originally served as the headquarters of Southern California Edison and was known, appropriately, as the Southern California Edison Building.

Designed by the Allison & Allison architecture firm (who also gave us the First Congregational Church of Los Angeles and UCLA’s Kerckhoff Hall), the property’s gorgeous exterior features a limestone and terracotta façade, bas-reliefs sculpted by artist Merrell Gage, and a towering two-story entry portico.

It is the interior that is the real stunner, though!

The expansive lobby boasts over 17 varieties of marble, 30-foot coffered ceilings, a mural painted by Hugo Ballin, and stunning friezes above each elevator.

Even the trash cans are elegant! And those building directories!

The CalEdison is more than just a pretty face, though. As the first seismically-retrofitted building in L.A., as well as the first to be electrically heated and cooled, it was incredibly technologically advanced.

Boasting 250,000 square feet of office space, The CalEdison cost a whopping $2.5 million to construct.

When SoCal Edison sold the place in 1972 in order to relocate to Rosemead, it was renamed One Bunker Hill. Its stellar architecture was mutilated in the decade that followed – its ceilings dropped, walls removed, and large fourth-floor patios enclosed with glass casings. I actually really like the look of the latter, which have been described as “greenhouse-like structures.” You can see what they looked like here. Thankfully, the lobby was left untouched during the renovations.

In October 2015, the grand building was bought by Hermes Investment Management of London, Limestone Investments and Rising Realty Partners for $92 million. The group renamed it The CalEdison and set about bringing the site back to its original glory, as well as renovating the many upstairs office spaces into creative work sites. The patio casings were also removed as part of the project. Though I wish those casings had been left intact, the rest of the work performed can only be described as perfection.

GreekOak Real Estate bought out both Hermes and Limestone earlier this year for $140 million, though Rising Realty continues to hold on to its share of the property.

While walking around the vast lobby, I couldn’t help but think how fabulous is it that this masterpiece exists and that it is open to the public for Angelinos and tourists alike to enjoy.

On The Morning Show, the Archer Gray Hotel is where network exec Cory checks in upon arriving in New York to deal with the fallout from the firing of Mitch Kessler (Steve Carell). Bradley also moves there in episode 5 after being relocated from The Standard, where she was initially put up. Only the lobby of the building is featured on the series. (My photo below is a little off on the angling, but shows the same area of The CalEdison as is pictured in the screen capture.)

Bradley’s room . . .

. . . as well as Corey’s are both just studio-built sets.

And the exterior of the Archer Gray Hotel is a building in New York that I have yet to identify.

The Morning Show is not CalEdison’s only claim to fame!

The building is also seen briefly in the 1953 noir The Bigamist in the scene in which Mr. Jordan (Edmund Gwenn) first arrives in L.A.

The property was used for interior shots of the office building Davey Osbourne (Henry Thomas) and Kim Gardener (Christina Nigra) try to infiltrate in 1984’s Cloak & Dagger.

Basher Tarr (Don Cheadle) gets arrested for robbing a bank at The CalEdison before being rescued by Rusty Ryan (Brad Pitt) in the 2001 thriller Ocean’s Eleven.

Jack Bauer (Keifer Sutherland) almost gets arrested there in the Season 8 episode of 24 titled “11:00am-12:00pm,” which aired in 2010.

That same year, the building served as the office of Victor Racine (Michael Ironside) in the Season 2 episode of Castle titled “Den of Thieves.”

Narcy (Paz Vega) heads to the bank on The CalEdison’s lower level to empty her dead husband’s safety deposit box in the 2015 Lifetime television movie Beautiful & Twisted.

During the second season of Big Little Lies, which aired in 2019, the offices of Scheper Kim & Harris LLP, located on CalEdison’s 12th floor, portrayed the office of lawyer Ira Farber (Denis O’Hare), as I detailed in this post. (I learned this tidbit thanks to a reader, but because only the 12th floor appeared in the episodes, I never took a look at images of the lobby or the rest of the building, which is why I was unfamiliar with it prior to trying to track down the Archer Gray.)

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The CalEdison, aka the Archer Gray Hotel from The Morning Show, is located at 601 West 5th Street in downtown Los Angeles. The building’s lobby is open to the public from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays.

November 28, 2019November 26, 2019

Happy Thanksgiving!

I would like to wish my fellow stalkers the happiest of Thanksgivings! I hope you all are enjoying the day with many loved ones. I am spending the rest of the week celebrating with my family, but will be back on Monday with a new post! Until then, Happy Stalking! Smile

November 27, 2019April 23, 2020

The Starbucks from “The Morning Show”

I love a good Starbucks location! I mean, what’s better than stalking and being able to pick up a great cup of coffee at the same time? So I was thrilled to recognize an outpost of the java giant while watching the fifth episode of The Morning Show, titled “No One’s Gonna Harm You, Not While I’m Around,” recently. As it turns out, the café is a place I’ve visited countless times over the years and even blogged about once back in 2013. Situated on the corner of West 6th Street and Grand Avenue in downtown L.A., the coffee shop is just steps from the Millennium Biltmore Hotel, where the Grim Cheaper and I regularly used to check in when seeking a staycation while living in Los Angeles. As fate would have it, my parents booked a room at the property just last week, so I, of course, tagged along in order to do a little Starbucks re-stalk.

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The Starbucks at 6th and Grand has been a staple of the neighborhood for more than a decade.

Before that, the space, situated in the southwest corner of the ground floor of the picturesque PacMutual building, housed a Grand Central Coffee outpost and then a Tully’s Coffee.

The Starbucks looks quite a bit different today than when I originally stalked it six years ago thanks to an extensive remodel that took place in late 2017 during which the interior was gutted, the front doors moved from the store’s south to west side, and the café expanded into the unit next door which formerly housed a deli.

The result is a massive, modern space with plenty of seating, a huge front counter, and wraparound windows.

I love the muted green color scheme and concrete design elements which give it a bit of a different feel than a typical Starbucks.

It is at the coffee shop that Bradley Jackson (Reese Witherspoon) runs into her co-workers Hannah Shoenfeld (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) and Claire Conway (Bel Powley), who invite her out to celebrate Claire’s birthday, in “No One’s Gonna Harm You, Not While I’m Around.”

By only showing one small corner of the café in the scene and none of the familiar Starbucks signage, it seems that producers went out of their way to make the place appear to be a random coffee house and not an outpost of the retail giant. Had it not been for the green umbrellas visible outside the window, as well as the view of the Edwards & Wildey Building (now known as Milano Lofts) across the street, I might not have recognized the location. It’s a good thing I know my Starbucks!

The 6th and Grand outpost is actually a frequent film star.

It appeared very briefly in the background of the 1999 drama Fight Club in the scene in which The Narrator (Edward Norton) and Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) blew up an electronics store.

Josh Lyman (Bradley Whitford) and Amy Gardner (Mary-Louise Parker) discussed welfare reform at the site back when it was a Tully’s Coffee in the Season 3 episode of The West Wing titled “Posse Comitatus,” which aired in 2002.

Though the Tully’s signage was left intact on the front doors, the space was utilized to portray the fictional “Phil’s Bar” in the 2004 romcom Little Black Book. In another odd move, the imagery of the bar’s exterior was also flipped in the scene, as I detailed in my 2013 post.

The 6th and Grand Starbucks is also where Martin Bohm (Kiefer Sutherland) tried to talk to Walter King (Robert Patrick Benedict) in the Season 1 episode of Touch titled “Safety in Numbers,” which aired in 2012.

Recently, Jerry Edgar (Jamie Hector), Brad Coniff (David Marciano), and Detective Julie Espinosa (Jacqueline Pinol) grabbed coffee there and discussed a case in the Season 6 episode of Bosch titled “Good People on Both Sides.”

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Starbucks from the “No One’s Gonna Harm You, Not While I’m Around” episode of The Morning Show is located at 523 West 6th Street in downtown Los Angeles.

November 22, 2019November 20, 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! Smile

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 20, 2019May 2, 2020

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! Winking smile

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.

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Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

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

November 18, 2019November 17, 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.

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Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

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

November 13, 2019November 13, 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.

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Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

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.