Category: Movie Locations

Santa Fe Depot from “The Trouble with Angels”

It is no secret that I love abandoned places, especially during this time of year. (What I wouldn’t give to be able to see this in person!) Recently I stalked Monrovia’s former Santa Fe Railroad Depot and it had my heart going pitter-patter. The now defunct train station is also a filming location and, while it appeared in a comedy and not a horror movie, due to its current dilapidated state I figured it would fit in perfectly with my Haunted Hollywood postings.

[ad]

The Santa Fe Railroad Depot was originally constructed in 1925 for the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway.

The Spanish colonial revival-style structure replaced a wooden station constructed on the site in 1886 that serviced the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Railroad. Fun fact – the initial depot also serviced a mule-drawn railway car that shuttled passengers to and from Monrovia’s business district.

Santa Fe Depot fell victim to the decline of railway use in the second half of the 20th century and wound up being shuttered in 1972. The property was left vacant and allowed to dilapidate over the four decades that followed.

In coordination with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Gold Line Foothill Extension, there are plans currently in the works to turn the depot and the land surrounding it into the Monrovia Station Square Transit Village – a 25-acre mixed-use center that would feature retail stores, restaurants, offices and housing. The project is set to be completed by the end of 2015, although I am not sure how feasible that date is considering the current state of the property.

The Santa Fe Railroad Depot was featured twice as the St. Francisville Train Station in the 1966 comedy The Trouble with Angels. While a portion of the movie was shot on location in Pennsylvania (the stunningly gorgeous St. Mary’s Villa for Children and Families in Ambler masked as St. Francis Academy), the vast majority of the flick was lensed in L.A. Interestingly, two different locales were used as the St. Francisville Station. As the St. Francis school bus arrives at the depot to pick up Mary Clancy (Hayley Mills) and the girls in the film’s opening scene, a shot of the Merion, Pennsylvania depot was shown. A matching Google Street View image of that spot is pictured below.

When the girls are actually shown getting off the train, though, the location switches to the Santa Fe Depot in Monrovia.

Santa Fe Depot was also used in The Trouble with Angel’s ending sequence in which the girls leave St. Francis Academy. You can see a great shot of the side of the station that appeared in The Trouble with Angels here and you can read a fascinating blog post about the making of the movie here.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Santa Fe Depot, from The Trouble with Angels, is located at 101 West Duarte Road in Monrovia.

October 20, 2014
Fosselman’s Ice Cream from “Phantasm”

When I was a little girl, my grandma would regularly take me out for an afterschool treat at our local ice cream parlor. I cherished those trips, and now the memories of them, and was absolutely devastated when the parlor closed down about 15 years ago only to be replaced by a gift store. So when I came across this Freddy in Space posting about an old time ice cream shop still in operation – one that is a filming location, no less – I just had to stalk the place.

[ad]

Fosselman’s Ice Cream Company was founded by Christian Anthony Fosselman at his family’s Waverly, Iowa bottling plant in 1919. Christian’s father, who hailed from Germany, had established the brewery in the 18th Century, which Christian later took over. Besides beer, the company also manufactured soda. When the prohibition years halted the sale of alcohol, Christian began producing ice cream which he would freeze using blocks of ice from the nearby Cedar River.

Once mechanical refrigeration became more common, Christian decided to move the operation, as well as his family, to sunny Southern California. They settled in Pasadena in 1924 and opened up the first West Coast Fosselman’s Ice Cream parlor on Fair Oaks Avenue. Christian moved the store to South Pasadena’s Mission Street in 1936 and followed up with sister parlors, first in Alhambra in 1941 and then in Highland Park in 1946. While the South Pas outpost soon became an area landmark, it was shuttered in 1974 when the building that housed it was set to be demolished. (A plaque currently marks its former location at 1515 Mission Street.) The Highland Park store was also closed around the same time, but the Alhambra Fosselman’s remains standing to this day – over seventy years after its inception!

The parlor is still owned and operated by the Fosselman family and all of the ice cream served is handmade daily on the premises. While there are over 200 flavor variations in the Fosselman’s repertoire (from such staples as Cookie Dough, French Vanilla Bean and Strawberry to the more exotic Brown Butter, Lychee and Rum Raisin), “only” 48 are available on any given day. From what I’ve been able to gather via online reviews, all are pretty darn fabulous. In fact, The Guardian UK’s Killian Fox proclaimed that Fosselman’s serves the “Best Milkshakes” on the planet in his 2009 article The 50 Best Things to Eat in the World, and Where to Eat Them.

Apparently, the locals agree. When the Grim Cheaper and I stopped by at around 11 in the morning on a recent Saturday, the place was jam-packed!

We opted for a scoop of Coffee & Cookies – a Columbian coffee-flavored ice cream hand-mixed with Oreo cookies. Because I am diabetic, I only had a couple of licks, but the small bit I did sample was easily some of the best ice cream I have ever tasted.

Way back in 1979, Fosselman’s Ice Cream masked as Reggie’s Ice Cream in the horror flick Phantasm. Well, sort of. The parlor only appeared in a deleted scene – the scene in which Mike (A. Michael Baldwin) started an ice cream fight with his brother’s friend Reggie (Reggie Bannister). I had yet to see Phantasm at the time that I stalked Fosselman’s and had to actually order a special edition of the DVD in order to watch the deleted scene. Now having seen it, all I can say is: Egads, what a terrible movie! I did enjoy the Fosselman’s scene, though. As you can see below, little of the shop has changed since Phantasm was shot over 35 years ago.

I was thrilled to spot some signage featuring the Fosselman’s logo in the background of the deleted scene.

The storefront used for the exterior of Reggie’s Ice Cream – which did make Phantasm’s final cut – is located about 140 miles south of Alhambra in the town of Julian. In real life, it is known as Julian Café & Bakery.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Big THANK YOU to the Freddy in Space blog for finding this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Fosselman’s Ice Cream, aka the interior of Reggie’s Ice Cream from Phantasm, is located at 1824 West Main Street in Alhambra. You can visit the parlor’s official website here. The exterior of Reggie’s Ice Cream is the Julian Café & Bakery located at 2112 Main Street in Julian. You can visit the eatery’s official website here.

October 14, 2014
The Chandler Estate from “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”

The Chandlers are widely considered to be one of L.A.’s “first families.” Patriarch Harry not only served as publisher of the Los Angeles Times for 27 years, but was largely responsible for developing the San Fernando Valley, the Hollywood Hills and Dana Point in the O.C., as well. He was also instrumental in the construction of some of the city’s most famous structures including the Biltmore Hotel, the Hollywood Bowl, the California Institute of Technology and the Los Angeles Coliseum. So when I found out that his Los Feliz estate had been used in the 1956 science fiction thriller Invasion of the Body Snatchers, I ran right out to stalk the place.

[ad]

The 8,891-square-foot, red-brick, Georgian-style manse was built from 1914 to 1916 and boasts 24 rooms, including eight bedrooms and four baths, a two-story entrance hall, a library, a solarium, a butler’s pantry, a pool, a detached four-car garage, and a one-bedroom guesthouse. Sadly, outside of a long tree-lined driveway, little else of the place is visible to the public. The views from the street out front are pretty darn spectacular, though.

An aerial view of the Chandler estate is pictured below. As you can see, it is quite impressive. You can also check out some close-up and interior photographs of the pad here.

After Harry Chandler passed away in 1944, his wife Marian continued to live at the mansion until her own death in 1952. The Chandler family held onto the property for quite some time and in 1972 leased it at a rate of $1,000 a month to the Source Family (the cult that operated The Source Restaurant on Sunset Boulevard, which I blogged about here). During their time there, the Source Family dubbed the estate “Mother House.” The Chandler’s opted not to renew the group’s lease after the first year, so in 1973 the Family moved elsewhere. In September 2008, the mansion was put on the market for $6,799,000. There were no takers, though, and in January of the following year the price was dropped to $5.499 million. The residence finally sold in October 2009 for $3,696,000.

It is well-documented online that the Chandler estate served as the home of Jack Belicec (King Donovan) and his wife, Theodora (Carolyn Jones), in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Having scanned through the flick in preparation for this post, though, I cannot say with certainty that the reports are correct. So little of the house can been seen in the movie that it is virtually impossible to confirm or deny the location.

It has also been reported on several Invasion of the Body Snatchers websites and message boards that the Chandler estate was demolished sometime after filming took place. I think what led to that assumption is the fact that most sites list the address of the residence as 2330 Hillhurst Avenue. There is no such address is Los Feliz. The Chandler estate is actually located at 2411 Inverness Avenue. But as you can see below, both addresses point to the same spot, which leads me to believe that the home was originally numbered 2330 Hillhurst. In its early days, the Chandler estate boasted five acres. The majority of the land was sold off over the years, though, and the residence currently sits on 0.83 acres. I am guessing that the address was changed to 2411 Inverness at some point due to that division of land, leading Invasion fans to believe that the residence was no longer. Thankfully though, it is still standing in its original state.

The interior of the Belicec home was also shown in two Invasion of the Body Snatchers scenes, but I am uncertain if the the Chandler estate’s actual interior (if filming did, in fact, take place there) was used or a set. I am leaning toward the latter, though.

In 1985, the estate was used in a few Season 4 episodes of Falcoln Crest as the home of Gustav Riebmann (Paul Fremann), although very little of it could be seen in the episodes.

The Chandler estate was also where Matthew Winfield (a very young George Clooney) hid out in the Season 3 episode of Hunter titled “Double Exposure,” which aired in 1987. Both the exterior . . .

. . . and the interior of the property appeared in the episode.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Chandler estate, from Invasion of the Body Snatchers, is located at 2411 Inverness Avenue in Los Feliz.

October 8, 2014
Harbor Steps Apartments from “The Ring”

I am reaching deep into my stalking vault for today’s location. I visited the Harbor Steps Apartments from The Ring during a trip to Seattle well over four years ago – shortly after being caught in a torrential downpour, which explains my hat in the above photograph – but somehow failed to blog about them. Since the building’s appearance in the 2002 thriller was decidedly macabre, I figured what better time to write about it than during my annual Haunted Hollywood postings. So here goes!

[ad]

The 734-unit Harbor Steps Apartments, which are situated overlooking downtown Seattle and Puget Sound, were completed in 2000.

The upscale complex, which consists of four high-rise buildings, features three fitness centers, a basketball court, a volleyball court, three Jacuzzis, a sauna, a climbing wall, an indoor pool, a business center, a media room/theatre, stunningly gorgeous views, and (my personal favorite) 24-hour concierge service.

The Harbor Steps Apartments sit directly across from the Seattle Art Museum and one of Jonathan Borofsky’s Hammering Man sculptures. (There are several others situated throughout the world.) The 48-foot-tall instillation was constructed in 1991 out of hollow-fabricated steel and, according to the City of Seattle’s official website, “celebrates the worker’s contribution to society.”

Thanks to an electric motor, the sculpture’s arm makes a hammering motion every 15 seconds, 24 hours a day, every single day of the year. Well, except each Labor Day, that is, when Hammering Man is programmed to take a rest – a fact which I thought was so incredibly cool.

In The Ring, the Harbor Steps Apartments were where Rachel Keller (Naomi Watts) lived with her son, Aidan (David Dorfman). According to the movie’s production notes, director Gore Verbinski chose to shoot the flick in Washington because, “The Pacific Northwest winter provided a seemingly perpetual overcast and cold, gloomy weather that only added to the story’s atmosphere of dread. The lack of sun also lent itself perfectly to the soft light and lack of shadows that Verbinski and cinematographer Bojan Bazelli were employing to complement the story’s surrealistic moments.” Production designer Tom Duffield based the film’s coloring on the paintings of Andrew Wyeth. He says, “In Wyeth’s work, the trees are always dormant, and the colors are muted earth tones. It’s greys, it’s browns, it’s somber colors; it’s ripped fabrics in the windows. His work has a haunting flavor that I felt would add to the mystique of this movie, so I latched on to it. “

He did a fabulous job, too, because, as you can see below, even moments after a downpour, the building is much more vibrant in person than Duffield made it appear to be in The Ring.

Rachel supposedly lived in Unit 601 in the movie.

But I am fairly certain that the interior of her apartment was a set. You can check out a few interior photographs of some real life Harbor Steps Apartments here and here.

The interior of Rachel’s unit seemed to be much larger and more open than those of the actual complex.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Harbor Steps Apartments from The Ring are located at 1221 First Avenue in Seattle, Washington. You can visit the complex’s official website here.

October 7, 2014
Anoakia Mansion from “Doppelganger”

There’s no denying that Doppelganger is a pretty horrible movie. But part of the fun of the Halloween season is watching ridiculously terrible horror flicks from years past – and stalking their locations, of course. I had long been on the hunt for the psychiatric institution from the 1993 thriller and was given a tip a couple of years ago that a historic, since-demolished mansion named Anoakia in Arcadia was the right spot. (For the life of me, I cannot remember who gave me the information. To whomever it was, I apologize.) Even though the place is long gone, I figured that it still proved blog-worthy being that several people have asked me about its location over the years.

[ad]

Anoakia was originally constructed in 1913 for Anita Baldwin, the daughter of Elias Jackson “Lucky” Baldwin, the founder of Arcadia. The 50-room estate was designed in the Italian Renaissance style and boasted 17,000 square feet of space, a bowling alley, a gym, wood-paneled rooms, etched glass doors, a pool, an aviary, a bee yard, tennis courts and murals painted by artist Maynard Dixon. The 20-acre grounds featured ponds, gardens, stables, a bathhouse and a chapel. Upon Anita’s death in 1939, the property was turned into a boarding school for girls. In 1944, it was purchased by Lowry McCaslin, a former manager of the Baldwin estate. He continued to operate a school on the premises for several decades. Unfortunately, after the Whittier earthquake in 1987, McCaslin was forced to make costly upgrades to the mansion to keep it up to code. Maintaining the site was no longer feasible for the 82-year-old, so he had the school moved and made plans to develop Anoakia’s grounds, keeping the mansion intact.

City officials rejected all of McCaslin’s proposals and Anoakia sat vacant for the next decade and began to dilapidate. In 1999, a developer from Orange County purchased the site from Lowry’s estate (McCaslin passed away in 1995) and came up with a plan to build a gated community of 31 homes on the land. To do this, the Anoakia would need to be demolished. While the developer met with some opposition from preservationists, the city eventually approved of his plans and the historic mansion was leveled in 2000. You can see some pictures of how it looked in its last days here.

Today, the upscale community is known as Anoakia Estates.

The only part of the original property to remain intact are the perimeter wall and a guard house located in the southeast corner of the grounds (circled in the two aerial views below).

I did not know about the guard house at the time that I stalked the location so I did not take any photographs of it, but you can see what it looks like it via the Google Street View image below.

In Doppelganger, Anoakia stood in for Our Lady of Mercy Psychiatric Institute, where Holly’s (Drew Barrymore) brother, Fred, was institutionalized.

True to life, the institute was said to be located in Arcadia in the movie.

Anoakia showed up a couple of times in Doppelganger.

The real life interior of the mansion was used in the movie, as well.

From what was shown in Doppelganger, it is obvious that Anoakia was an absolutely idyllic estate. What a shame that it is no longer standing!

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Anoakia Mansion, aka Our Lady of Mercy Psychiatric Institute from Doppelganger, was formerly located at around 1200 North Baldwin Avenue in Arcadia.

October 6, 2014
The American Cement Building from “Scream 3”

While I am admittedly not a fan of MacArthur Park, there is a property situated on the border of it that I would absolutely LOVE to live in – The American Cement Building. Mike from, MovieShotsLA, pointed out the dramatically stunning structure many moons ago during one of our very first stalks together and I have been obsessed with it ever since. And while Mike also informed me that the edifice had appeared in the 2000 horror flick Scream 3, for some reason I never thought to blog about the place during my Haunted Hollywood postings. That changes today!

[ad]

The American Cement Building was constructed in 1964 and originally served as the American Cement Company’s headquarters. The Daniel, Mann, Johnson and Mendenhall (DMJM) architecture firm designed the 13-story structure, which was, fittingly, manufactured out of reinforced concrete.

The north and south sides of the building are covered in latticework comprised of 450 X-shaped pieces of precast concrete. While the design adds beauty to the structure’s façade and is striking to look at, it serves a functional objective, as well. According to the Los Angeles Conservancy website, “The primary purpose of the latticework is to provide external support for the structural system so the building’s interior can be free of columns.”

The American Cement Building underwent a multi-million dollar renovation in 2002 during which time the office spaces were transformed into 71 live/work lofts. You can check out some great interior photographs of the property here. The units – and their views – are breathtaking!

In Scream 3, The American Cement Building housed the office of horror movie producer John Milton (Lance Henriksen).

At the time of the filming, the interior of the building was far less modern than it is today.

I absolutely LOVE the fact that Milton had a diving board attached to his window in the flick. Anyone care for a swim?

The American Cement Building also appeared in Pharrell Williams’ music video “Come Get It Bae,” which featured Miley Cyrus.

The building’s parking garage was where The Bride (Uma Thurman) learned how to wiggle her toe again in Kill Bill: Vol. 1.

The Entourage movie also apparently did some filming at the building in March of this year.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for telling me about this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The American Cement Building, from Scream 3, is located at 2404 Wilshire Boulevard in Westlake. You can visit the building’s official website here.

October 3, 2014
Callahan’s Diner from “Zodiac”

In the early years of our relationship the Grim Cheaper lived in Santa Monica, just a few blocks from a local staple named Callahan’s Diner. Even though I knew the eatery was a filming location and supposedly served up some fabulous grub, for whatever reason we never ventured in for a meal. I am kicking myself now, too, because the restaurant, which has been in operation since 1948, is set to close at the end of the year. So when I found myself in the area a couple of weeks ago, I seized the opportunity to snaps some pics of the place.

[ad]

It was late afternoon when I stopped by Callahan’s, just a few minutes before I had to pick the GC up from a meeting, so, unfortunately, I did not have time to grab a bite to eat. But the owner, Abraham Vazquez, was nice enough to spend some time chatting with me and invited me to snap all of the photographs of the place that I wanted.

The Streamline Moderne-style building that houses Callahan’s – and the neighboring Vienna Pastry – was constructed by restaurateur Art Groves in 1946 for his eponymous Groves Restaurant and Bakery. In 1948, he leased out the restaurant portion of the property to Melvin Callahan and Callahan’s Diner was born. The café proved successful for four decades. In 1988, Melvin sold the site to Abraham, who thankfully kept Callahan’s name, décor and menu intact. While Abraham also enjoyed a long, successful run, he recently announced that Callahan’s will be shutting its doors on December 31st. A new company, LGO Hospitality, purchased the building not long ago and made plans to raise Vazquez’s rent when his lease is up at the end of the year. He, sadly, cannot afford the price hike. The good news is that LGO has a long history of preserving historical locations and announced in a press release that while the Callahan’s menu will be transformed, the floor plan and décor will remain largely the same.

Callahan’s has appeared onscreen a few times over the years, most notably in the 2007 thriller Zodiac. The eatery was featured in three scenes from the movie – well, sort of. It first popped up as the supposed San Francisco-area diner where Inspectors David Toschi (Mark Ruffalo) and William Armstrong (Anthony Edwards) discussed some handwriting samples over a BLT sandwich.

Towards the middle of the film, it was used in the scene in which Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal) bought David lunch and informed him that books on cyphers had been stolen from both the Presidio Library and the Oakland Army Terminal Library.

Now here’s where things get weird. The third scene to take place at Callahan’s involved Robert sharing with David the various evidence he had compiled on suspect Arthur Leigh Allen (John Carroll Lynch). Prior to stalking the restaurant, I had come across a piece of Zodiac trivia on IMDB that stated, “Though Callahan’s Diner was a set built for the film, the Callahan’s Diner logo and window script is identical to that used by Callahan’s Diner at 1213 Wilshire Boulevard in Santa Monica, California.” I assumed the trivia was bupkis, especially once Abraham had confirmed for me that filming had actually taken place on the premises. But while watching the third scene that was supposedly shot at the eatery, I noticed that some portions of the interior did not match up to what was shown in the earlier scenes or to the real Callahan’s interior.

What first tipped me off to the inconsistencies was when David was shown leaving Callahan’s through a door located on the restaurant’s western side – a door that does not exist in the real life space. A partition separating the entryway from the booths was also visible in that segment of the scene. There is no such partition at Callahan’s, though, as you can see below.

There was no such door or partition in that area in the earlier scene in which David and William discussed handwriting samples, either.

What was shown in the handwriting sample scene does match perfectly to the real restaurant, though, as you can see below.

A wide shot of the restaurant was also featured in the evidence scene and, again, it does not match the real life interior of Callahan’s.

Nor does it match what was shown in the earlier lunch scene.

The interior shown in the lunch scene does match the actual Callahan’s interior, though. All of this leads me to believe that, as implausible as it may sound, while the lunch scene and handwriting sample scene were filmed on location at Callahan’s, the evidence scene was shot on a set modeled to look like it. The reason this was done is anyone’s guess.

Abraham also informed me that Callahan’s Diner had been used in music videos for both Snoop Dogg and Lionel Richie, but I am unsure of which videos. If any of my fellow stalkers are aware, please let me know.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Callahan’s Diner, from Zodiac, is located at 1213 Wilshire Boulevard in Santa Monica. You can visit the eatery’s official Facebook page here.

September 29, 2014
The “Encino Man” House

Lately, I have been on a retro-movie watching kick. I think it has something to do with ”The ‘80s” issue of Los Angeles magazine that hit newsstands this past July. Reading through it got me in the mood to revisit decades past. So I was thrilled when my buddy Mike, from MovieShotsLA, took me by the residence that served as the Morgan family home in Encino Man (spoiler alert – it’s not actually in Encino!). I had not seen the 1992 comedy in ages and remembered very little about it. To be honest, I could not even recall what the house looked like at the time that Mike took me to stalk it. So I decided a re-watch was in order STAT and the Grim Cheaper and I sat down to view it earlier this week. The flick brought back some great memories. Man, I love me some Pauly Shore! “Meat group!”

[ad]

Mike found this location (sans help from a crew member, I might add) many years ago thanks to both this 1992 Los Angeles Daily News article, which stated that the Morgan home was located in West Hills, and an address number of 7511 that was visible on the curb of a neighboring residence in the scene in which newly-thawed caveman Link (Brendan Fraser) got into a fight with the mailman. He began searching all of the 7500 blocks in the West Hills area and, while it took him quite a bit of elbow grease, he eventually spotted the place at 7532 Sedgewick Court.

Amazingly, the Morgan house looks almost exactly the same today as it did onscreen 22 years ago when Encino Man first premiered!

The mailbox that appeared in the movie, which was modeled to look like the residence, is, sadly, not there in real life. I am guessing that it was a prop brought in for the shoot and not the home’s actual mailbox.

I so love that the front walkway, where Dave Morgan (Sean Astin) waited for Stoney Brown (Pauly Shore) and Link to return from Mega Mountain, is still in its 1992 state.

As you can see below, the house located next door to the Morgan’s looks completely different today than it did during filming. In 1992, the property was traditional in style and painted grey. It has since been transformed into a Spanish-style home, with a white exterior and red tile roof.

In real life, the Morgan house boasts five bedrooms, five baths, 4,359 square feet and a 0.34-acre plot of land. It last sold in May 2009 for $970,000.

The property’s backyard – where Stoney and Dave discovered Link while digging a pool – was used extensively in the filming.

An aerial view of the backyard in its current state is pictured below. You can also check out a real estate photograph of the backyard here.

As you can see, while the home does have a pool, it does not match the layout of the one that Dave and Stoney were digging in the movie. The real life pool sits horizontal to the home, while the pool in the movie was situated perpendicularly. The Morgan dwelling was originally built in 1988, only a couple of years before Encino Man was shot, so I am guessing that at the time of the filming the backyard was largely undeveloped, which is probably one of the reasons it was chosen for the movie. Once production wrapped, the hole was filled back in and then a pool with different positioning was later added.

The shed where Dave and Stoney left Link to thaw out after first discovering him was, I believe, not native to the residence, but a prop brought in for the shoot.

And while I would have guessed that the real life interior of the home was used in the filming, the Los Angeles Daily News article that Mike found states that Encino Man’s interior sets were built inside of a warehouse in Sylmar.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for finding this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Encino Man house is located at 7532 Sedgewick Court in West Hills.

September 12, 2014
The Victorian from “Mr. Mom”

Some movie scenes just seem to stay with you, seared into your memory for years, despite the fact that you can remember little else about the storyline. That’s how it was for me and Mr. Mom. I had not seen the comedy since 1983 when it first premiered in theatres and recalled few details from it, but the scene in which Jack (Michael Keaton) dried his baby’s bottom in a public restroom using a hand blower had stuck with me. Recently, on a whim, the Grim Cheaper and I decided to re-watch the flick. I was pleasantly surprised to discover how relevant Mr. Mom still is – and even more pleasantly surprised to recognize a location while watching!

[ad]

In a brief scene towards the end of Mr. Mom, Jack goes out to dinner with some of the housewives from his neighborhood.

Despite some changes to the exterior, I immediately recognized the spot where the group dined as The Victorian (aka Basement Tavern) located at 2640 Main Street in Santa Monica. It is a place that the Grim Cheaper and I frequent on a regular basis whenever staying on L.A.’s west side. We discovered the eatery about a year ago during an evening stroll on Main Street and fell in love with its gorgeous patio – which I posted a picture of on Instagram – on sight. We promptly decided to grab dinner there and were thrilled by the restaurant’s top-notch menu and fabulous happy hour. It has been one of our dining staples ever since.

The two-story, Victorian-style property was originally constructed as a private residence for an optometrist named Dr. George Kyte in 1892. At the time, it was located at 1003 Ocean Avenue. In 1973, the 15,000-square-foot home was moved about a mile and a half south to its current location as part of Santa Monica’s California Heritage Museum project. A neighboring residence, the First Roy Jones house, was moved to an adjacent lot at the same time. The Jones House was slated to become a historical museum and the Kyte House an upscale restaurant. There were some hold-ups in the planning and development process, though, and it was not until 1977 that The Chronicle was opened inside of the Kyte House. It was founded by restaurateur Lud Renick as a sister eatery to his Pasadena outpost of the same name, which was located at 897 Granite Drive. (The Pasadena Chronicle originally opened in 1971 and was shuttered in 1996. In more recent years, the Granite Drive site housed Jennifer Lopez’s former Cuban bistro, Madres, which I blogged about here and here).

While doing research for this post, I was shocked to discover that The Chronicle was where John Thomas Sweeney worked after serving a scant three-year-eight-month jail sentence for the killing of his former girlfriend, 22-year-old Poltergeist actress Dominique Dunne. I have long loved the writings of author Dominick Dunne and have read quite a bit about the 1982 murder of his daughter. When Sweeney was released from prison in 1986 after serving what Dominick called “a tap on the wrist” of a prison sentence, he landed a job as head chef at The Chronicle. The Dunne family was furious upon hearing the news and famously began standing outside the eatery each night, handing out flyers to patrons which read, “The food you will eat tonight was cooked by the hands that killed Dominique Dunne.” Sweeney soon quit, changed his name and moved to the Pacific Northwest. I had known about the flyers and the Dunne’s ongoing fight for justice for their daughter, but never knew the location of the restaurant where they staged their nightly protests.

The Chronicle, which you can see a photograph of here, shut its doors sometime around 1987. After the closure, the Kyte House was acquired by the Gerson family, who also own fave restaurant Malibu Café at Calimigos Ranch (which I blogged about last month). The Gersons operated the property solely as a special events and wedding venue for many years, but in 2010 they opened Basement Tavern, a 2,000-square-foot bar, in the basement of the home. On evenings when weddings are not taking place in the actual house, the Basement Tavern also serves dinner and drinks on the residence’s patio and bottom floor. The Victorian is a truly charming place with excellent food and I cannot more highly recommend dining there.

Fellow stalker Chris informed me that The Victorian also popped up as the supposed San Francisco-area Le Grill restaurant, where Jesse Katsopolis (John Stamos) took the Tanner family to dinner to celebrate his wife Becky’s (Lori Loughlin) promotion, in the Season 8 episode of Full House titled “The Producer.”

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The former The Chronicle restaurant from Mr. Mom, now The Victorian, is located at 2640 Main Street in Santa Monica. You can visit the property’s official website here and Basement Tavern’s official website here.

September 10, 2014
The Daily Grill at LAX from “Red Eye”

I am officially back from vacation today (yesterday’s post was pre-written). I could not have had a more fabulous time and was heartbroken when my best friend, Robin, and his family returned to their native Switzerland. During moments like this, I am reminded of the quote, “Don’t be sorry it’s over. Be glad it happened.”

[ad]

Before I get to today’s locale, I thought I would share some photos of the amazing house our group rented for the week. The pad was the perfect little oasis in the middle of Hollywood and we could not have enjoyed our time there more. I only wish our stay had been longer.

It is a tradition during each of Robin’s visits to grab one final cocktail at the Daily Grill at LAX’s Tom Bradley International Terminal before he and his family board their return flight home. Knowing that the time to say good-bye is near, we are all typically in tears before our drinks have even arrived, so we have come to refer to the place as “the sad restaurant.” I blogged about the eatery back in December 2011 to chronicle its appearance in Friends with Benefits, but, at the time, was unaware that it had also been featured in the 2005 thriller Red Eye. So, prior to boarding our plane to Switzerland last summer, the GC and I headed over to the Daily Grill to both grab a drink and snap some more pictures. Somehow I completely forgot to write a second post on the place, though.

Flash forward to Robin’s visit this past April. When we arrived at LAX prior to his return flight, we were shocked to discover that the Daily Grill had been shuttered and completely gutted as part of the Tom Bradley Terminal’s current renovation, which is expected to be completed sometime next year. I was hoping that a new eatery would have opened in the former Grill space by the time that Robin and his family departed this past Friday evening, but the area is still a construction zone and, from what the nice lady at Swiss International Air Lines told us, there are no plans for a restaurant to be put in that area. So that only leaves one place in all of LAX located outside of the security checkpoints to grab a drink – Daniel’s Bistro + Bar, and let’s just say that it definitely does not have the same ambiance as the Daily Grill.

In Red Eye, Tom Bradley International Terminal stood in for Miami International Airport, where Lisa Reisert (Rachel McAdams) landed after a rather scary flight from Dallas, Texas, during which she was kidnapped. Upon escaping her attacker and departing the plane, Rachel walked towards the Daily Grill.

My photograph below was shot from the opposite angle from which the scene was filmed, but you can see that the floor pattern matches in both images.

To hide from her kidnapper and airport security, Rachel then sat down with two strangers at a Daily Grill table. When the eatery was in existence, it took up the entire northeast portion of Tom Bradley’s mezzanine and was split in two by a concourse that ran through its middle. In Red Eye, Rachel sat in the portion of the restaurant seen on the right side of my photograph below (again, my picture was taken from the opposite angle from which the scene was shot).

The escalators located adjacent to the Daily Grill also appeared in the scene.

Those escalators were also featured in the 2005 romcom Rumor Has It.

Manny Delgado (Rico Rodriguez) headed up the same escalators to catch his flight to Columbia in the Season 5 episode of Modern Family titled “Suddenly, Last Summer.”

And the area just below the escalators, which serves as Tom Bradley’s ticketing counters, is where the Backstreet Boys danced in their 1999 “I Want It That Way” music video. You can watch it here.

As I talked about in my December 2011 post, the Daily Grill was featured in Friends with Benefits. In the movie, it masqueraded as the Newark Liberty International Airport restaurant where Dylan (Justin Timberlake) and Mr. Harper (Richard Jenkins) ate a meal in their underwear.

In the scene, the two ate in the Daily Grill’s northeast section, in the area overlooking the international check-in counters.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Daily Grill, from Red Eye, was formerly located on the Mezzanine Level of the Tom Bradley International Terminal, inside of the Los Angeles International Airport at 380 World Way in Los Angeles. The entire terminal is currently under construction and there is no longer a restaurant in that area.

September 9, 2014