Your definitive source to filming locations and all things Hollywood!
I am ecstatic to report that Brooks Memorial Home for the Aged, where Kris Kringle (Edmund Gwenn) lived in the 1947 holiday classic Miracle on 34th Street, has finally been identified! Sadly, though, it is no longer standing. Watch my latest reel to discover where filming took place.
TL; DW – The now-defunct Black-Foxe Military Academy, formerly located at 637 North Wilcox Avenue in Los Angeles’ Hancock Park, played the facility onscreen.
If you loved the Apple TV+ musical Spirited as much as I did, you’re definitely going to want to check out my latest reel about Boston’s historic Marshall Street, where the movie’s rousing “Good Afternoon” scene was shot.
Too long; didn’t watch? The offices of Scrooge & Marley can appropriately be found on the ground floor of the Ebenezer Hancock House at 10 Marshall Street. The Green Dragon Tavern at 11 Marshall Street portrays the “sh*tty British bar” where the musical number kicks off. And the segment ultimately culminates at Marshall’s southern end, where it intersects with Union Street.
While the 2019 Disney+ movie Noelle was largely shot in the Vancouver area, The Outlet Shoppes in Atlanta (located at 915 Ridgewalk Parkway in Woodstock, Georgia) played a key role masquerading as Phoenix’s Desert Ridge Marketplace, where Santa’s daughter, Noelle (Anna Kendrick), crash lands with her reindeer during a last-minute attempt to save Christmas. You can learn all about it in my latest reel.
My mom often calls me “DB” for Dumb Blonde. I can’t be offended as I’ve certainly earned the nickname thanks to countless airheaded antics over the years. Case in point – I recently got a request from @nic_fury on Instagram to dedicate a blog post to the apartment complex where David Seville (Jason Lee) lived in Alvin and the Chipmunks. As fate would have it, I stalked the locale years ago, but somehow never wrote about it. I decided to amend that and, since I had never actually seen the 2007 film, promptly streamed it. The only trouble was, I rented Garfield, another live-action/computer-animated flick from around the same time, instead. It took about twenty minutes of watching before I realized my mistake. Thankfully though, while I had the wrong movie, I had the right location. In Alvin and the Chipmunks, Dave lives at St. Andrews Bungalow Court in Hollywood, a charming complex that I stalked way back in 2009.
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The U-shaped site, consisting of 15 bungalows built around a lush courtyard hidden away from the street, was commissioned in 1919 by Fay Sudrow as an investment property. Per a National Register of Historic Places registration form compiled by the United States Department of the Interior, “The court is an example of an ‘owner/builder’ construction, a common practice in early Hollywood. Builder-built (as opposed to architect-designed) housing employs standard, inexpensive, wood-frame construction with minimal architectural and decorative refinements. The ‘agent’ employed to construct the complex is identified as W. Jones, and the eight-room duplex in the back was built by a contractor identified as Frank Pece. No architect was identified, which suggests that Frank Pece may have purchased architectural plans from a design service.”
That design service must have been top-notch because, “minimal decorative refinements” notwithstanding, the complex is nothing short of idyllic! Each of the 14 standalone bungalows, as well as the duplex units, originally boasted one bedroom and one bath, but many have since been transformed via the installation of an interior wall into two-bedroom spaces. According to the NRHP registration form, the Colonial Revival-style cottages feature coved ceilings, crown moldings, built-in buffets with glass-fronted cabinets, and front porches with “nine unique gable treatments.”
Due to shifts in the neighborhood and severe negligence, St. Andrews Bungalow Court fell upon hard times in the 1980s. It hit the auction block in 1987 and was set to be razed the following year. Demolition permits were even filed and, though they were fortunately revoked, the site was abandoned in 1989. Vandals soon descended, hurling the place into further disrepair. A guardian angel came in the form of the Hollywood Housing Community, which acquired the complex in 1992 and completely restored it, transforming the 700-square-foot bungalows into residences for those with special needs. The new and improved St. Andrews Bungalow Court opened for occupancy in December 1995. It remains in the hands of the Hollywood Housing Community today.
Per the NRHP registration form, the complex is an “outstanding example” of a bungalow court and is “unusual for its size and for the attention to individual detail bestowed upon each unit by its anonymous designers.” Situated just steps off Sunset Boulevard and across from a strip mall with a Burger King and a 7-Eleven, it is a bucolic little sanctuary, hidden away behind a white picket gate and arched hedges. One could easily pass right by without realizing the tiny oasis is even there. It reminds me quite a bit of the apartments where David Silver (Brian Austin Green) lived during the later years of Beverly Hills, 90210, which can be found less than half a mile away at 1547 North Serrano Avenue.
St. Andrews Bungalow Court pops up countless times throughout Alvin and the Chipmunks and, in fact, is a focal point of the movie.
Though the front gate was swapped out for the shoot . . .
. . . little else was altered.
The complex is just as adorable in real life as it appeared onscreen!
In the movie, David lives on the southern side of the complex, towards the rear. In real life, his unit is numbered 1520.
It is denoted with a white arrow in the Bing aerial below.
Onscreen though, the cottage is addressed 1958, which is a nod to Chipmunks creator, singer-songwriter Ross Bagdasarian Sr. His son, Ross Bagdasarian Jr., served as executive producer on the film and threw in many tributes to his father, 1958 being the year that two of his big hits, “Witch Doctor” and “The Chipmunk Song,” first reached number 1. (Side note – David Seville is actually Bagdasarian Sr.’s stage name. Figuring his full moniker was too long to fit on a 45, he went with a pseudonym, one that paid homage to the city in Spain where he was stationed during WWII.)
Only the exterior of St. Andrews Bungalow Court appeared in Alvin and the Chipmunks. The inside of Dave’s home was a soundstage-built set. Per Brian Carroll, assistant to the film’s Animation Supervisor, Chris Bailey, “The entire interior and walkway in front of the house was built on a soundstage at Sunset Gower Studios in Hollywood. The director, Tim Hill, did a great job of mixing the exteriors shot at the apartment complex with the footage shot on stage.” The fact that a set was used is quite apparent while watching, though, as Dave’s residence is obviously larger than 700 square feet.
You can check out what a portion of one of the real bungalow interiors looks like here. The production team incorporated some of the actual design elements into the set, namely the built-ins, glass-fronted cabinets, and checkered kitchen floor.
St. Andrews Bungalow Court was also featured in 2009’s Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, though the footage, featured solely in establishing shots, looks to have been re-used from the first movie. It doesn’t appear that any actual filming of the follow-up took place on the premises.
In an odd twist, at one point in the “squeakquel,” Toby Seville (Zachary Levi) is shown walking to his car, supposedly parked outside of St. Andrews Bungalow Court. The vehicle is actually a good three miles away on the 1300 block of North Ogden Drive, though. (Parking in Dave’s neighborhood must really suck!) I recognized the spot where filming took place immediately thanks to the house visible behind Toby, which is one of my favorite movie residences of all time! Long time readers of the site should recognize it, as well – it’s Stu’s (Ed Helms) home from The Hangover!
The interior of Dave’s apartment in Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel was also a set, albeit slightly altered and enlarged from the one in the original movie, but no less charming.
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Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: St. Andrews Bungalow Court, aka Dave’s apartment complex from Alvin and the Chipmunks, is located at 1514 –1544 North St. Andrews Place in Hollywood.
Pre-COVID and before my dad’s many complications following his February surgery, I was planning a surprise trip for the Grim Cheaper’s March birthday. Even though it involved a flight, I was over-the-moon excited about it. Our travels obviously had to be postponed and, considering the current climate, who knows when we will be able to embark upon the short getaway. In light of my and so many others’ vacation delays, I figured a virtual trip was in order! So I enlisted my BFF Nat, who lives in the Bay Area, to do some stalking on my behalf. Though I consider all locations immensely important to a production (duh!), the residence I sent her to stalk is the centerpiece of The Last Black Man in San Francisco. Without the spectacular house at the heart of the feature, there is no story. So, obviously, one look at the trailer, and I was all in! The 2019 drama tells the tale of Jimmie Fails (played by the actor of the same name), an SF native obsessed with restoring his childhood home, a towering Victorian that his grandfather built by hand in 1946. The only problem? His family no longer owns the place. But that doesn’t stop him from painting the eaves, weeding the yard, and, in a bold move, secretly moving in. The movie couldn’t be more up my alley if it tried! Before watching even a single frame, I did some research on the property that figures so prominently in it and sent Nat right out to stalk it.
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Known as the John Coop House in real life, the stunning Queen Anne Victorian was designed by German-born architect Henry Geilfuss for mill owner John Coop in 1889. Coop did much of the carpentry himself and, upon its completion, utilized the ornate residence as a showpiece of his work.
Said to be at 959 Golden Gate Avenue in San Francisco’s Fillmore District in the movie, the home actually stands at 959 South Van Ness Avenue in the Mission.
The massive property, easily the grande dame of the neighborhood, boasts 6 bedrooms, 3 baths, a whopping 5,240 square feet, a carved staircase, wainscoting throughout, a wood-paneled library (with a secret chamber concealed behind a bookshelf!), a formal parlor, ceiling frescoes and friezes, stained glass windows, a tiled fireplace, a turret capped by a “witch’s hat,” and a 0.10-acre lot (which is actually pretty spacious for San Francisco).
Though the house is striking both onscreen and off, The Last Black Man in San Francisco, sadly, left me wanting. On paper, the narrative (loosely based upon Jimmie Fails’ real life) couldn’t be more compelling, but it moved slowly (almost painfully at times), bounced around in too many directions, and as a whole felt lacking. That’s not to say there aren’t good points. I fell in love with the main characters, Jimmie and his BFF, Montgomery Allen (Jonathan Majors) – serious #friendshipgoals there! Cinematically, it is one of the most beautiful films I’ve ever seen and, having grown up in the Bay Area, I can say paints a very accurate portrait of life in the city (especially that bus stop scene!). And hey, I’m willing to forgive all being that the house is not just a character in it, but the character! Location manager Daniel Lee certainly had his work cut out for him in finding the ideal residence to ground the movie – a painstaking process that, per Curbed, took several years. It was worth the elbow grease, though, because Lee hit the nail on the head with the John Coop House! I don’t know how one could look at the image below, with the pad showcased in widescreen glory, and not be smitten! Of scouting for the location, director Joe Talbot said, “We wanted to find a place that would hopefully make the audience feel those things Jimmie is feeling. It sounds silly to say this, but we needed the house to feel like a character, to feel developed, to go through its own arc.” Talbot obviously doesn’t read my blog – if he did, he’d know that’s not a silly sentiment at all!
Interestingly, in the first two shots we get of the dwelling, there are discrepancies. Though the images are shown within minutes of each other and are supposed to represent the same day, some changes occur from one to the next. As you can see in the first shot (the top screen capture below), the residence to the direct left of the John Coop House has a light green roof and the pad two doors to the right is painted yellow. In the second shot, though (lower cap below), the property to the left has a dark green roof and the one two doors down is now black. Talbot did express to Curbed that the rapidly shifting nature of the city posed some problems for the shoot. The article states, “Changes to approved and permitted filming locations happened so quickly—sometimes from one day to the next—that they created continuity challenges and compromised the film’s cinematography.” I am guessing this is one of those instances. I’m shocked it wasn’t noticed – and corrected – in post-production, though.
The odd triangle-topped garage door ornamentation, which was (thankfully) covered in foliage for much of the shoot and only unveiled at the end of the movie after Jimmie’s childhood home has supposedly been renovated, is unsightly, to say the least. Per the San Francisco Daily Photo blog, the Coop House originally boasted a single garage that was enlarged (to its aesthetic detriment) in 1998. You can see a photo of it prior to the augmentation here.
The film certainly showcases the rest of the Coop House in spectacular fashion.
And the interior is even more magical than the exterior!
It is so ornate and enchanting, in fact, that I thought it could only be the stuff of a production designer’s imagination – a production designer with a hefty budget, no less. I was thrilled to discover that was not the case. Incredibly, the ornate detailing captured so beautifully onscreen is authentic to the residence! As stated in Curbed, “Everything you see in the film—the hardwood floors and the intricate period molding, yes, but also the secret room behind a bookshelf, the built-in organ, the attic big enough to host the play-within-the-film, even the sauna—is actually in that damn house.” An architectural survey of the property conducted in 1975 sums the place up perfectly, noting it “has one of the most outrageous interiors – ornament is heaped upon ornament.” You can check out some fabulous photos of the inside of the Coop House here.
In a case of art imitating life, for decades the pad has been owned by a man whose life has been shaped by it. Retired chemist Jim Tyler was first introduced to the Victorian in the early 1960s when he attended a party there. Wholly transfixed, he acquired the place just a short time after, trading his own house for the then-stark property, which did not even have heating at the time. He was forced to sell it within two short years and moved away from San Francisco, but, like Jimmie, the home always remained close to his heart. When Tyler returned to the city in 1970, the house happened to be for sale and he liquidated all he had to re-purchase it. A man after my own heart, he has spent the last five decades assiduously restoring and enhancing it, as well as researching and documenting its history. The John Coop House is certainly the love of Tyler’s life, as it was onscreen in Jimmie’s – and his adoration for it shows clear as day to anyone who passes by.
Big THANK YOU to my friend Nat for stalking this location for me! 
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: The John Coop House, aka Jimmie’s childhood home from The Last Black Man in San Francisco, is located at 959 South Van Ness Avenue in the Mission District.
Recently I’ve had to face the fact that my friend Owen, a Connecticut native, possibly knows more than I do about Pasadena, the city that I called home and regularly explored for almost 15 years! Last December, he tipped me off to Oaklawn, a gorgeous South Pasadena enclave full of cinematically famous houses I had not previously heard of. Then, a few weeks ago, he sent me this Entertainment Weekly article about locations from Booksmart. I had yet to see the 2019 comedy at the time, but the photo of the gloriously pink mid-century modern apartment complex where Molly (Beanie Feldstein) lived immediately caught my eye. I was shocked to learn while diving into the article that the retro property, made up of condos in real life, is in Pasadena! How I had missed it in all my years residing in Crown City is beyond me! So I made it a point to amend that and headed on over there soon after.
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Villa San Pasqual, as Molly’s complex is known in real life, was designed in 1953 by architect Lionel V. Mayell.
The property, a designated Pasadena landmark, features striking mid-century detailing, including a bright stucco exterior, hipped roofs, and arresting floating staircases with uniquely-patterned railings.
Oh, and front doors with centered knobs. Why do we not do that anymore??
The complex’s pink and turquoise color combo is perfection!
The sprawling property, comprised of 15 separate buildings surrounding landscaped courtyards, is absolutely huge! You could get lost wandering the grounds.
To say Villa San Pasqual is cinematic is an understatement! The interiors are even more so!
The complex is incredibly versatile, too. It could just as easily portray Las Vegas as it could Los Angeles or Miami onscreen. In fact, according to The Movieland Directory website, it appeared in a 2010 episode of CSI: Miami, but I have been unable to figure out which one.
Per Entertainment Weekly, Booksmart’s director Olivia Wilde and production designer Katie Byron zeroed in on the locale because “they fell in love with the retro peach color.” As did I, ladies! As did I (though I consider it more pink than peach). The site also fit in with their desire to film at a “quintessentially Angeleno complex.”
Wilde furthers, “I also love that [Molly’s complex] is designed to make you commune with your neighbors, yet it’s something Molly would want nothing to do with.”
The only thing missing according to the duo? “One of the cheesy, vaguely European monikers that evoke a vacation rental.” So they added the Le Capris sign – “intentionally misspelled so that it wouldn’t be confused with a real building,” per EW.
In the movie, Molly lives in Unit T of Villa San Pasqual’s southeastern-most building, which is situated on Catalina Avenue.
It is denoted with yellow arrows in the photos below.
Interiors appear to have been filmed on a set. You can check out the real inside of Unit T here.
Villa San Pasqual boasts a couple of other roles on its resume.
Along with the aforementioned appearance on CSI: Miami, I also learned via The Movieland Directory that David Sinclair (Alimi Ballard) and Colby Granger (Dylan Bruno) chased down a suspect there in the Season 4 episode of Numb3rs titled “Graphic,” which aired in 2007.
Villa San Pasqual also popped up a couple of times as the complex where Levi Callow (Luke Wilson) lived on the television series Enlightened, which aired from 2011 to 2013.
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine, and Discover Los Angeles.
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: Villa San Pasqual, aka Molly’s apartment complex from Booksmart, is located at 1000 San Pasqual Street in Pasadena. Molly lived in unit T of the complex’s southeastern-most building (denoted with a yellow arrow below), which is situated on South Catalina Avenue.
It is no secret that the San Gabriel Valley is chock full of gorgeous Craftsman homes. Never have I come across a neighborhood more saturated, though, than Oaklawn, the tiny enclave in South Pasadena that I blogged about on Wednesday. The 0.2-mile curved street, made up of 27 stunning houses, features some of the prettiest Arts and Crafts properties I have seen, including the one at 216 Oaklawn Avenue, which portrayed the residence of the Browning family in Zathura: A Space Adventure. My friend/fellow stalker Owen alerted me to the home last December, saying it was basically a main character in the 2005 family film and would make for a good post. I had never seen the movie at the time, but one look at the screen caps included in his email and I knew I had to stalk the place! I finally made it out there a couple of weeks ago in what amounted to a stalking twofer as Mary’s residence from Why Women Kill is right next door. Just a few days later, my mom and I sat down to watch Zathura. Owen was right. Though the movie is just OK (it’s basically a mediocre version of Jumanji set in space), the house is undeniably the star and definitely worthy of a post.
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There seems to be quite a bit of confusion floating around online regarding the residence’s provenance as well as its amenities.
From what I have been able to gather, though, the Craftsman boasts 4 bedrooms, 4 baths, 3,805 square feet, wood detailing throughout, a fireplace, an upgraded kitchen, French doors, a pool, a hot tub, and a 0.45-acre lot.
Per some documents on the City of South Pasadena website, 216 Oaklawn was a speculative home constructed for builder G. W. Stimson in 1908 at a cost of $6,800. Known as the F.N. Finney Residence, the property is said to have been designed by prolific architects Charles and Henry Greene. Other sources, though, assert that the home is known as Villa Dora and that it was built in 1912 by architect G. Lawrence Stimson.
Regardless of its history, there’s no debating the pad is architecturally incredible!
It is not hard to see how it got chosen to appear in Zathura. The house belongs on the screen!
Even the driveway is picturesque!
And the tree out front? Come on!
In Zathura: A Space Adventure, two young brothers, Danny (Jonah Bobo) and Walter Browning (Josh Hutcherson), discover a retro board game packed away in their basement while being babysat by their inattentive older sister, Lisa (Kristen Stewart). They, of course, start to play the game, which immediately rips their house from the ground, sending it into outer space where they have to battle various otherworldly adversaries. The actual exterior of the Oaklawn home is only shown twice, in the movie’s opening and closing scenes.
The residence in the Chris Van Allsburg book on which the film is based is much more traditional in style, as you can see here. But for the movie, producers zeroed in on using a Craftsman to keep the story visibly compelling. The production notes state, “Since Zathura: A Space Adventure takes place in one location, the house had to be as visually interesting and integral to the film as any of the characters. This was a major challenge for [production designer J. Michael] Riva who worked closely with the filmmakers to select just the right style and look for the house. After much discussion, they decided to go with a classic California Craftsman-style home. ‘We didn’t want the audience to feel trapped in a house for the whole movie,’ says [director Jon] Favreau. ‘So we decided to make it as interesting to look at as we could, something so spectacular than when it comes apart in the course of the film, you really feel like it’s a tragedy that this beautifully restored Craftsman-style house is being destroyed.’” They certainly succeeded to that end. My heart broke a little each time a piece of the residence was damaged.
An exacting scale model was constructed for the scenes in which the Browning residence is shown floating through space.
You can see images of the model on the Hooked on Houses website.
The miniature is also featured on the movie’s poster.
The interior of the Browning residence was nothing more than a studio-built set – an exquisite and elaborate studio-built set – which becomes quite obvious as it gets destroyed into virtual oblivion throughout the film. The actual inside of the Oaklawn house is much smaller and much less Craftsman-y than its big-screen counterpart, as you can see in these interior images.
Of the set, the production notes state, “The filmmakers also wanted the house to stand out against the coldness of deep space and the metallic materials used for the spaceship. The Craftsman style lent itself perfectly to that end and Riva was also able to fashion a welcoming interior. ‘The idea was to create a hospitable environment, using warm tones and colors with lots of wood,’ explains Riva, ‘in direct counterpoint to the coldness of space — a womb-like environment that the characters could all survive in. As that got destroyed, like an island being swallowed up by the high tide, the world they inhabited became smaller and smaller, as if the life-giving sustenance of the house, which protects them from oblivion, was diminishing. We just loved the contrast in the colors to suggest that.’” Riva did a spectacular job! The set was so intricate, it truly had the look and feel of a real home, which is exactly what Favreau was going for. He says, “I came up through independent film, where you’re usually shooting on location. I hate when it looks like you shot on a set instead of on location.” So realistic was the set, in fact, that until the destruction began, I was convinced filming had taken place inside the Oaklawn property.
Inspiration for the set came from some real residences. Favreau explains, “We really wanted the house to feel like something, and feel old, and like it had some character. All the details were chosen from different famous houses, even the fireplace and the fixtures.” Well I, of course, read those words and got right to identifying exactly which pads in particular inspired the design. It was not too hard to pin things down. The production team looked no further than two of Pasadena’s most famous Craftsmans – the Gamble House and the Blacker Estate, both of which I am very familiar with. The Brownings’ two fireplaces were modeled after one at the Gamble House. You can see an image of it here.
The front door was likely inspired by that of the Gamble House, as well, though it was built on a much smaller scale.
And the staircase is a copy of one at the Blacker Estate, which you can see here.
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine, and Discover Los Angeles.
Big THANK YOU to my friend/fellow stalker Owen for telling me about this location! 
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: The Browning residence from Zathura: A Space Adventure is located at 216 Oaklawn Avenue in South Pasadena. Mary’s house from Why Women Kill can be found right next door at 224 Oaklawn Avenue.
Little known fact about me – back in June 2011, I was approached by Warner Bros. Studios’ art department asking for my location advice for a movie set in 1949 Los Angeles that was then in pre-production. My dad was in the hospital for a lengthy stay at the time and I’ll never forget putting together a composite of suggestions for the eight spots the team was looking for while sitting by his hospital bed over the next few days. I was ecstatic when, about a year and a half later, Gangster Squad hit theatres and I saw that a couple of my recommendations made it to the screen! The whole experience was not only one of the highlights of my stalking career but a bright point in an otherwise tough time. Just being asked for my location guidance on any production, let alone one that turned out to be a major motion picture, was enough to send me into a tailspin of excitement! One spot I did not propose but was recently tipped off to was the site that portrayed the secret base where Sgt. John O’Mara (Josh Brolin), Sgt. Jerry Wooters (Ryan Gosling), and the rest of the titular Gangster Squad clandestinely met to plan their takedown of mobster Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn) in the 2013 film. As a fellow stalker named Michael informed me in May, a rustic property on a dusty lot in Sylmar was utilized as the hideout, with a bit of Hollywood magic employed to slightly alter its look. Thrilled at the tip, I ran out to stalk it shortly thereafter.
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In real life, the 0.73-acre hilltop site that masked as the Gangster Squad’s secret base is comprised of two small dilapidated structures.
Currently for sale for a cool $279,000, the real estate listing notes that the property contains a “small bunkhouse in tear-down condition” and “a garage-type structure in poor-to-tear-down condition.” It goes on to state that the bunkhouse is filled with bees, cautioning “Do not enter!”
The listing also mentions “top of the world views,” which is not hyperbole.
The locale pops up a couple of times in Gangster Squad. Interestingly, only the north side of it is ever shown in the flick.
The roofline of the “garage-type structure” was quite a bit different at the time of filming.
As you can see in the 2017 Google Street View image below, the garage formerly had some sort of peaked-roof façade attached to its northern edge. It is that roofline that was visible in Gangster Squad.
Later Google Street View imagery reveals that the façade collapsed in 2018, leaving behind the flat-roofed structure shown in my photos.
The sprawling Mediterranean mansion situated on the hilltop across from the secret base no longer remains intact, either. In fact, it never actually existed! Amazingly, the large estate and its smattering of palm trees were just CGI creations added to the landscape in post-production! In real life, the hill behind the house is nothing but rolling greenery.
It is not hard to see how the site wound up in the mid-century-set flick. Its remoteness, lack of neighboring residences and views of a seemingly sparse city below all make for a great throwback to the Los Angeles of yesteryear, not to mention the perfect place for a group of cops to set up a secret shop to plan a takedown of one of the country’s most notorious gangsters.
Only the exterior of the property was used in Gangster Squad. The interior of the group’s secret base was nothing more than a studio-built set.
The outlined diamond design of the actual garage door was carried over into the design of the set, though – a detail which I love!
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine, and Discover Los Angeles.
Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Michael for telling me about this location! 
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: The Gangster Squad secret base is located at 11901 West Trail Avenue in Sylmar. The Hideaway Bar and Grill, from the “Misery Loves Company” episode of 90210, is just around the corner at 12122 Kagel Canyon Road.
It’s not every day a location is featured in back-to-back Oscar frontrunners, but such was the case with Glassell Park’s Super A Foods! The small mid-century market made appearances in both 2018’s A Star Is Born and 2019’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Neither movie wound up locking down the Best Picture prize, but Super A Foods became a household name among fans, not to mention a popular stalking venue, nonetheless. I had long been familiar with the grocery store thanks to its cameo in the 2002 Britney Spears vehicle Crossroads and even blogged about it in 2011. It sure has come a long way since then, though, so I figured it was definitely time for a redo and ran right out to re-stalk it.
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Built in 1967, the one-story grocer was designed by architect Robert H. Peterson and originally housed a Food Fair market.
In 1975, Super A moved in and never looked back. The chain, which today boasts 8 outposts, was founded in 1971 by Lou Amen, who sadly passed away two weeks ago at the age of 90 after miraculously recovering from a case of COVID-19. He was still actively working for the family-run company until just a few days before his death.
Per the Los Angeles Conservancy, the Glassell Park Super A Foods “is significant as a largely intact example of a postwar-era grocery market.” The building features fabulous mid-century detailing including glazed glass, a geometric sign, and a canted ceiling.
That roofline, though!
It is at Super A that Pussycat (Margaret Qualley) and other Manson Family members dumpster-dive for food toward the beginning of Once Upon a Time In Hollywood. The segment was shot on the market’s west side, along Cypress Avenue.
The signage visible behind the women in the scene is authentic to the store, painted there long before filming took place.
The James Dean mural the group walks by upon leaving Super A is not, though. It was created specifically for the shoot on the western side of S & S Pharmacy, directly across the street from the market.
Sadly, the mural was painted over after filming wrapped and there are no vestiges of it left today.
As I mentioned above, Super A was also featured in Crossroads. It is at the supposed Alabama store that Lucy (Britney Spears), Mimi (Taryn Manning), Kit (Zoe Saldana), and Ben (Anson Mount) make a pit stop for snacks during their road trip from Georgia to California.
And in A Star Is Born, Ally (Lady Gaga) and Jackson Maine (Bradley Cooper) stop by Super A for frozen peas after Ally gets into a bit of a scuffle, punching someone at a bar. While sitting in the market’s parking lot nursing her swollen hand, Ally begins to write “Shallow,” the song that eventually makes her famous. Of the location, cinematographer Matthew Libatique told radio station KPCC, “If a grocery store can possibly be cinematic, it’s this one.” He also considered the site pretty central to the movie. As Libatique expressed to LAist in a 2018 interview, “It was meant to root [Ally’s] existence on the Eastside of Los Angeles. It was very important for [production designer Karen Murphy], as a designer, to make sure the character had an identity through her environment.”
Yellowcard’s 2003 “Way Away “ music video was shot at the market, as well.
And in 2019 Cuco filmed his “Keeping Tabs” music video at Super A.
The Glassell Park Super A Foods is not the chain’s only claim to fame. The former Eagle Park outpost at 2245 Yosemite Drive, which today houses a Sprouts Famers Market, made several appearances in the 1981 comedy The Incredible Shrinking Woman.
The Eagle Rock store was also featured in Travis’ 2007 “Closer” music video.
And the 2008 comedy Over Her Dead Body filmed a couple of scenes at the Highland Park Super A, located at 5250 York Avenue.
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: Super A Foods, from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, is located at 2925 Division Street in Glassell Park.
I would be remiss if, in all my blogging of Cameron Woods (here, here and here), I did not mention the neighborhood’s most famous “resident,” especially since I am asked about it all.the.time. Towards the southern end of the 6200/6300 block of Orion Avenue in Van Nuys sits the picturesque Cape Cod where Donna Ludwig (Danielle von Zerneck) lived in the 1987 biopic La Bamba. I first learned about the locale thanks to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, who took me to stalk Cameron Woods way back in 2008. I was recently reminded of the place while in the area taking photos of the house from the Season 2 finale of You just prior to my dad’s surgery and decided it was high time I dedicate a post to it. So I wandered right on over to snap some more current pics. (“Oh, Donna” stuck in your head yet? ‘Cause it sure is in mine!)
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The picturesque one-story property, originally built in 1948, boasts 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, 1,931 square feet, original hardwood flooring, a brick fireplace, an open floor plan, a breakfast nook, French doors, a 0.44-acre lot, a pool, a hot tub, a BBQ, a detached 2-car garage, and what a former real estate listing describes as “an entertainer’s backyard.” You can check out some interior images of it here.
The residence last sold in 2013 for $715,000 and, per Zillow, is currently worth a whopping $1.3 million.
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Oddly, we are only given one semi-wide shot of the home in La Bamba. In it, you can see how different the property is today. Since filming took place 33 years ago (how is that possible?!?), the white picket fencing out front has been removed (which, per Google Street View, looks to have occurred in 2014) and four gable windows have been added to the roof. Despite those alterations, though, the dwelling is still recognizable from its big-screen stint.
Donna’s residence pops up several times throughout La Bamba . . .
. . . but typically only in very tight shots, as evidenced above and below.
We also get some glimpses of the houses to the immediate north . . .
. . . and south of Donna’s in the scene in which Ritchie Valens (Lou Diamond Phillips) walks his love interest home for the first time.
I was thrilled to discover while looking at MLS images of the property that the actual interior was also used in the movie!
Its aesthetic was quite a bit different at the time, though! (The angle of the MLS photo below is a little off as compared to the screen grab, but it does show the same room – sans wood-paneling and pink walls. You can check out a better matching view of the space here.)
I am not sure if the décor seen in La Bamba was that of the actual homeowners or set dressing, but I am guessing the latter. Either way, it sure is fabulous! Check out that mid-century kitsch! The wall coloring, chandelier, ashtray, lamp, and rotary phone are perfection!
Considering its idyllic qualities, Anywhere, U.S.A. appeal, and the fact that it is located on one of L.A.’s most oft-filmed blocks, I would have guessed that the house had been featured in other productions, but I was unable to dig up any additional cameos.
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: Donna’s house from La Bamba is located at 6238 Orion Avenue in Van Nuys’ Cameron Woods neighborhood. Many other filming locations can be found on the same street, including Mary-Kate and Ashley’s home from “The Case of Thorn Mansion” episode of The Adventures of Mary-Kate & Ashley at 6332 Orion, Pete’s (Brian Petsos) residence from Bridesmaids at 6309 Orion, and Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) and Love Quinn’s (Victoria Pedretti) new pad from the Season 2 finale of You at 6301 Orion.