Movie Locations – Page 3

October 29, 2019November 5, 2019

Healdsburg Town Plaza from “Scream”

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

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

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

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

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

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

The surrounding town isn’t too shabby, either!

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

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

Show off!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

. . . and 111 Plaza Street.

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

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

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

October 25, 2019November 5, 2019

Broadlind Hotel from “Over Her Dead Body”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

. . . as does its interior stairwell . . .

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

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

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

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

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

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

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

October 18, 2019October 23, 2019

Cole’s House from “The Sixth Sense”

Locations stick with me. They just do. Obviously. One that stuck with me above the realm of normalcy, though, is the handsome brick townhouse where Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment) lived in The Sixth Sense.

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Even though I’ve only actually seen the 1999 thriller once, the image of Bruce Willis as child psychologist Malcolm Crowe sitting on a bench while waiting for Cole in the film’s opening sequence is forever seared in my mind. So when we headed to Philadelphia, where the movie was lensed, in September 2016, visiting Cole’s house was a no-brainer. (My photo below is of the wrong bench, unfortunately – I accidentally snapped the one situated directly outside of Cole’s home, thinking that is where Bruce sat, instead of the one across from it.)

The correct bench is pictured below.

Though named the “Garden Court Apartments” in The Sixth Sense, the row of picturesque brick townhomes where Cole lives is actually known as the “Garden Block.”

Centered around a foliage-filled median, the small stretch of road, closed to cars, is pretty darn idyllic.

While the vegetation is much more mature and full than it was when The Sixth Sense was filmed twenty years ago, the block is instantly recognizable from its big-screen cameo – even to those for whom locations don’t stick, like the Grim Cheaper who identified the place immediately.

Unfortunately, the abundance of greenery made it impossible to get a photo matching the screen capture below. The pictured image is the best I could do.

As you can see in this unobstructed view, though, aside from the front door and window trims now exhibiting a bright purple hue . . .

. . . the property looks much as it did onscreen.

The inside of the home is another story entirely. For interior scenes involving Cole’s apartment, a studio set was built, one that, interestingly, looked nothing like its real-life counterpart. Though taken from opposing angles, in the MLS image as compared to the screen capture below, you can see that the real entry does not resemble its silver-screen self in the slightest. The actual entrance to the home is comprised of a narrow hallway that leads directly to a staircase, while the movie version is wide and open and pours into the living room.

To accommodate that wide entry, you’ll notice that filmmakers cheated things a bit with the townhouse’s exterior by making it appear to have a central front door flanked by two windows. In actuality, only the window to the west of the door (denoted with an orange arrow below) belongs to the property.

The window to the east is part of the neighboring townhouse (the front door of which is situated around the corner facing South 23rd Street), something that is quite obvious in person thanks to the differing trim colors.

The real kitchen is also much different from its big-screen counterpart, with lower ceilings, fewer, more modern cabinets, and a narrower footprint. I much prefer the homey, charming look of the set to that of the actual house, which is somewhat bland and cold. But I guess that’s why production designers get paid the big bucks!

You can check out some more images of the townhome’s interior here. The washer/dryer situation leaves quite a bit to be desired, but I digress.

Per an old real estate listing, the 1915 pad is comprised of 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, 2,052 square feet, an eat-in kitchen, a small backyard, and a full basement. There’s no mention of unwanted visitors of the spirit variety, so whether or not the house actually has any remains to be, ahem, seen.

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: Cole’s apartment from The Sixth Sense is located at 2302 St. Alban’s Place in Philadelphia.

October 16, 2019October 23, 2019

Ontario Airport Inn from “Poltergeist”

In “I must be living under a rock” news, I had no idea that a Poltergeist remake had debuted in 2015 – in 3D, no less! Considering the so-called curse that plagued the OG trilogy, I’d have to think long and hard before signing up to be a part of any sort of reboot! That cast and crew were seriously brave – yet it turns out the only thing plaguing the recent flick was bad reviews. The rumored curse has never stopped me from stalking locales from the franchise, though, including the motel where the Freeling family stayed at the end of the 1982 original. The location was actually a mystery for years, with several sources claiming that filming took place at Hotel Silver Lake in Westlake, and I am not entirely sure who finally pinpointed the correct spot. Whoever did discover that the hotel utilized in the production was the Holiday Inn at 1801 East G Street in Ontario (now the Ontario Airport Inn), I thank you! Since the lodging is situated right off the 10 Freeway between L.A. and Palm Springs, I figured it would be the perfect place for a pit stop on the way home from my last visit to the City of Angels, as wells as a perfect Haunted Hollywood posting.

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The property currently known as the Ontario Airport Inn was originally built as a Holiday Inn in the mid-1960s.

At the time, nothing was surrounding it but vacant land as you can see in the 1980 image from Historic Aerials below.

Aerial views look quite different today, though amazingly the hotel hasn’t changed a bit, structurally at least.

Per ads I came across on newspapers.com, by 1996 the lodging had become the Good Nite Inn which it remained through at least 2000. Today, the Ontario Airport Inn, situated less than a mile from Ontario International Airport, boasts a huge pool, a courtyard with a BBQ, a laundry room, free coffee and fruit available 24 hours a day, a business center, park-and-fly services, rooms with Tempur-Pedic memory foam beds, and a complimentary continental breakfast and airport shuttle. Not bad for rates that start at $69.95!

Before snapping any photographs, the Grim Cheaper and I popped into the lobby to ask permission from the powers that be. A front desk clerk welcomed us and I explained that I was hoping to see the area of the hotel featured in Poltergeist. She retreated to ask the manager if it was alright and when she returned she told me it was perfectly fine and then produced a map of the property, pointed to a building on the southern side and informed me that filming had taken place in front of Room 209. Shocked that she knew the precise spot and figuring her awareness had to be due to the countless requests from stalkers like myself, I said, “Oh, do a lot of people come by asking to take photos because of Poltergeist?”, to which she deadpanned, “Nope, not really.” And here I thought maybe I was in good company! The GC and I could not stop laughing as we headed out the door toward Building 4, where we had been pointed (that’s it below).

Said to be “the Holiday Inn on I-74,” the weary Freelings venture to the hotel after leaving Midwestern suburbia, where their possessed home has just been sucked into a paranormal vortex, at the end of Poltergeist. (That scene was achieved using a 6-foot by 4-foot model of the Simi Valley property that stood in for the family’s residence, the debris of which were, at least for a time, displayed in Steven Spielberg’s office.)

Room 209, where the Freelings check in, can be found on the second floor of Building 4.

I was shocked to discover upon walking up to the Freelings’ door that Ontario Airport Inn not only boasts the same coloring it did onscreen in 1982, with red doors and yellow walls, but that the number placards also remain entirely unchanged!

It is incredible that so little of the hotel has been altered since the filming, especially considering two changes in ownership and the passage of 37 years! Aside from the addition of some hedges and the removal of the Holiday Inn signage, though, the place is frozen in time.

In an interesting twist, the locale is not included in the shooting schedule featured on Poltergeist: The Fan Site which covers all sixty days of principal photography, as well as one day of second-unit photography. That coupled with the fact that Ontario is a somewhat out-of-the-way spot to film, especially considering the rest of the thriller was lensed in Simi Valley, Agoura Hills, Irvine, and Culver City, makes me wonder if the hotel segment was a re-shoot or perhaps a scene added after initial filming wrapped.

Figuring one of the Poltergeist DVD iterations had to feature a commentary of some sort which might provide clarity on the issue, I got to Googling and was shocked to discover via DVD Exotica that is not actually the case. Amazingly, the only home release of the film with any sort of extras about the movie itself (and not paranormal activity in general) is the 1982 LaserDisc which boasts a stills gallery, the original trailer, and a 7-minute making-of featurette (that you can watch here). Sadly, none of the three provide any info on the hotel. An Upland resident named Don J. did inform the Daily Bulletin in 2017 that producers landed on the locale thanks to its classic neon signage, which few Holiday Inns in the area still had at the time. Whether that information is true or not is anybody’s guess.

The Ontario Airport Inn has another claim to fame! The many musicians hired to perform at the California Jam music festival in 1974 were put up there and shuttled back and forth to the venue, the Ontario Motor Speedway, via helicopter. During their stay, the motel’s marquee read “Welcome Western States Police Officers Assn.,” a rather humorous attempt to mislead any fans heading to the property hoping to catch glimpses of the various acts, which included such bands as Earth, Wind & Fire and the Eagles.

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: Ontario Airport Inn, aka the Holiday Inn from Poltergeist, is located at 1801 East G Street in Ontario. Filming took place in front of Room 209 on the second floor of Building 4. Please keep in mind that the hotel is private property and you need permission to be on the premises. You can visit the lodging’s official website here.

October 14, 2019October 16, 2019

Homer’s House from “The Day of the Locust”

Today’s locale is an oldie but goodie. Way back in October 2010, while in Eagle Rock stalking with Mike, from MovieShotsLA, we passed by a residence at 4911 College View Avenue and Mike informed me that it was featured in The Day of the Locust. At the time I had never heard of the 1975 surrealistic thriller, which was based upon the 1939 Nathanael West book of the same name. I snapped a few photos regardless, but somehow the pad went straight to the back of my mind pretty much as soon as I got the images uploaded to my computer. It wasn’t until organizing my location spreadsheet a few months ago that I was reminded of it. Figuring the home would make for a good Haunted Hollywood post, I finally sat down to watch the movie. Though the name sounds straight out of a horror film, as it turns out it is neither horror nor slasher – nor are there any locusts to be found! The Day of the Locust is instead about several show business hopefuls in 1930s-era Hollywood. Because it is easily one of the oddest, most disturbing flicks I have ever seen, I decided it was still fitting for an October posting.

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In a 1975 review, Roger Ebert explains The Day of the Locust’s odd titling as such, “The locusts are the little people, faceless and sad, who accumulate on the benches of Los Angeles, waiting for a bus that will never come. They’re surrounded by the artificial glitter of Hollywood, which provides dreams that certainly are happier and sometimes seem more real than the America of the 1930s. But one day, the dreams will end and the locusts will swarm and the whole fragile society will come crashing down.” Said “crashing down” occurs in an almost zombie-ish scene at the end of the film in which a bloody riot breaks out in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre during a big Hollywood premiere. Living amongst the locusts in the film are three archetypal Tinseltown characters – talented aspiring art director Tod Hackett (William Atherton), opportunistic blonde starlet Faye Greener (Karen Black – who, in real life, became something of a horror movie queen later in her career), and wealthy, lonely, older recluse Homer Simpson (Donald Sutherland) who gets taken advantage of by her. It is the latter’s house that Mike took me to stalk that warm October day nine years ago. (And yep, you read that right – Sutherland appeared as a live-action big-screen “Homer Simpson” twelve years before the infamous animated patriarch made his television debut and quickly became a household name.)

Miraculously, the 1928 pad looks very much as it did onscreen when The Day of the Locust premiered over four decades ago – though there have been a few alterations.

Most notably, the front door is in a different spot. Odd, I know! But in the movie, the home’s main entrance was situated at the southern end of the front porch, facing West Fair Park Avenue which runs perpendicular to College View Ave.

Though it is hard to see in my photos due to a hedge standing in the way, when I stalked the house the front door was situated in the middle of the porch, facing College View Avenue, as the below Google Street View image from May 2009 shows.

In an incredible twist, since my 2010 visit the front door has been relocated again! (In all my years of stalking, this is the first time I’ve come across a house with a front door that has been moved twice!) Per current Google Street View imagery, the door is now situated in the same spot it was during the filming of The Day of the Locust, as you can see in the extreme side view of the property below.

In place of the former front entrance is now a paned window.

The detached garage which once stood at the rear of the property and which was intact when I stalked the place has also since been torn down. In its place is what is referred to in the building permits I dug up as a 528-square foot “recreation room” with a 2-car garage below it. Apparently, in 2012 plans were submitted to the city to subdivide the 0.44-acre plot of land the residence stands on in order to build a secondary home on the northern parcel, but they look to have been denied. I am guessing the “recreation room” was constructed as an alternative.

Per aerial views, the pad also has some sort of guest house/second garage located in the backyard and I am fairly certain that the measurement information supplied by Zillow includes that of the main property as well as the guest cottage and the “recreation room” being that the home itself appears far too small to comprise the reported 6 bedrooms, 5 baths and 3,022 square feet.

I am fairly certain that the residence’s actual backyard was featured in The Day of the Locust . . .

. . . as was its original garage.

The interior of Homer’s house, though, was, I believe, just a set. While the camera angles certainly made it look as if the actual inside of 4911 College View was utilized, because so many scenes took place there, it seems a lot more feasible that a set was constructed on a soundstage for the production.

Said set was seriously (and appropriately) eerie – and reminds me quite a bit of the Canfield-Moreno Estate in Silver Lake – another great Haunted Hollywood locale that I blogged about in 2012.

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

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Homer’s house from The Day of the Locust is located at 4911 College View Avenue in Eagle Rock.

October 9, 2019October 11, 2019

Stu’s House from "Scream"

At the risk of my October postings turning into a full-fledged Scream-fest (and there ain’t nothing wrong with that, honestly!), I’m coming at ya again with another locale from the 1996 horror flick – the Tomales-area farmhouse where Stuart Macher (Matthew Lillard) lived. Situated up a long, winding driveway and barely visible from the road, the pad is typically off-limits to passersby. But I had the amazing good fortune of seeing it up-close-and-personal during my 2016 visit to Sonoma County. As fate would have it, I happened to drop by on a Saturday morning, at which time a wedding was being set up on the premises. While I was posing for the above photo, one of the party planners pulled up, took pity on me and asked if I wanted to come onto the property for a better look. I just about died right on the spot, stuttered out a “YES!” and promptly hopped in my car and followed her up the driveway, practically hyperventilating the entire way! It was definitely a day for the record books!

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In real life, Stu’s house boasts 5,500 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 4 baths (3 with clawfoot tubs and marble counters procured from a hotel in San Francisco), a formal dining room, a library, 4 fireplaces (though one is covered over), 2 wood stoves, fir wood detailing throughout, a gourmet kitchen with a walk-in pantry, a grand staircase, rear and front foyers, a 3-car garage with a bonus room upstairs, 298 acres of land, creek frontage, 2 barns, 2 guest cottages, and a span of eucalyptus groves.

I was a little uncertain about the home’s provenance when I originally published this post. Thankfully, a fellow stalker named Mandy went on a deep dive into the nitty-gritty of the property’s history as well as that of its original owners and has filled in all the blanks! Honestly can’t thank you enough, Mandy! A real estate listing I came across early on in my research stated that the dwelling was built in 1991 by a Mr. and Mrs. McPhail, who were in their 70s, and was designed to match to the Victorian where Mr. McPhail’s grew up – a factoid that just about made me, ahem, scream! A replica of Stu’s house existing somewhere in Marin County? I couldn’t think of anything cooler! As Mandy discovered, though, virtually none of the listing’s reporting was correct. The property was actually commissioned by John (aka “Jack”) and Carolyn MacPhail, not McPhail, who were in their late 50s, not 70s. A photo of a plaque displayed on the front of Stu’s house that was posted to Instagram by a guy named Ben who attended the Scream Comes Home event in 2018 further confirms Mandy’s information. It also shows that the pad was completed in 1990, not 1991.

But the erroneous reporting doesn’t end there. Mandy further uncovered that John’s childhood home is located at 7 Marin Street in San Rafael. That’s it below. As you can see – and as I was sorely disappointed to discover – it looks absolutely nothing like Stu’s. It’s not even a Victorian!

Now, the house next door at 11 Marin Street, where John’s father was born and raised and where a cousin of the family lived during his childhood, does bear some resemblance to the Macher residence. Some. While it is Victorian and has bay windows and a porch overhang similar to the Scream home, that’s certainly not enough to claim it is a replica of it – or even that it was inspired by it. So yeah, the whole story about the Tomales property being built to match John’s childhood home appears to be just that, a story – probably intended to make the history of the place more interesting and therefore more attractive to buyers.

Per their obituaries, the MacPhails both passed away in their Tomales home in 1991 at the age of 59 – John from a “brief illness” on March 6th and Carolyn “after being in ill health for several years” on November 12. Matthew Lillard discusses the deaths in an on-set interview that is included in the Behind the ‘Scream’ documentary featured in The Ultimate Scream Collection DVD box set. He says, “It’s kind of, like, an eerie house. Actually, two people have died in this house. Literally – two people have died in the house. So coming up the hill and you’re doing a Wes Craven film and somebody tells you, ‘Oh, by the way, two people have died in the house,’ it brings on an entirely new thing.” Though both John and Carolyn passed away from natural causes, Matthew is right – it’s certainly eerie!

The MacPhails left the sprawling property to their children and it sat vacant in the years following, which I’m sure is a big part of how it came to be used in Scream. A huge, deserted and unoccupied Victorian situated up a lonely dark road? There’s no better spot to shoot the final sequence of a horror movie! Of the find, Wes Craven said in a 1996 interview that my friend Ashley of The Drewseum was kind enough to email me a scan of, “We wanted Stu’s home to have elements of a dark and haunted Gothic house and it needed to be very isolated. We looked a long time for some place that had all of those elements. The house we found was actually brand new. It had not quite been completed when both of the owners died, and the family of younger kids didn’t quite know what to do with it. When we found it and offered to use it, they were very happy to let us. The art department went in there and did an enormous number on the house. We put in all sorts of beams, and stained-glass windows, darkened all the colors, and brought in all the set dressings. It was done in a sort of farmhouse style, and we changed it into a Gothic farmhouse.”

Production designer Bruce Miller furthers in the same article, “It just doesn’t make sense that in a normal American home, murders could be happening in the upstairs bedrooms, and people watching television downstairs wouldn’t know about it. So the house had to be big enough, and the rooms had to be separated by enough distance, to convince the audience that these things could really be happening, without the other people knowing about it. This particular house was perfect for that, because it was very convoluted, and kind of Victorian on the inside. It was actually a little scary to some extent, and then we added big paintings and a chandelier. Because the house was so Victorian on the inside, we didn’t want to fight that, but we didn’t want to over-stress it either. We even put a volleyball net in the front yard, because it had to be believable that a normal teenager lives there with his parents, who just happened to be away for the weekend.”

The production team must have really, ahem (again), screamed with excitement when they saw that the home’s garage is situated on the rear side of the property, not at all visible from the front, making Tatum Riley’s (Rose McGowan) death scene (which was a part of the original script) – as well as the fact that her body is never seen by any of the partygoers – all the more feasible.

Stu’s house was put up for sale in November 2011 for $2,795,000, but there were no takers. It was eventually removed from the market, then returned and finally sold in June 2014 for $2,820,000. Today, it is known as “Spring Hill Estate” and, as I mentioned, serves as a wedding venue. Despite being remote, isolated, situated on a lonely hill and the site of one of filmdom’s most famous horror movie sequences, it is nothing short of peaceful and pastoral, not to mention stunningly beautiful. I can think of no better place to host a wedding in Northern California. The nuptials we saw being set up, situated in one of the property’s barns, looked like something out of a magazine! Rustic, inviting and lit with hundreds upon hundreds of twinkle lights, it was all I could do not to try to secure myself an invite!

Scream’s epically bloody finale, which counts for a whopping 42 minutes of screen time, was comprised of one scene, Scene #118. Broken up into more than 20 different parts, the sequence, titled “People live, people die,” makes up the entire third act of the film. And all of it takes place at Stu’s house! Pretty much every single area of the residence is featured, including the front exterior.

The pad looks exactly the same in person as it did onscreen, minus the large stained glass window situated over the front door which was a prop added for filming, I am guessing to give it even more of that Gothic Victorian farmhouse feel.

For the shoot, the home’s real life dining room was transformed into the Macher family’s TV room, where audiences were gifted with Randy Meeks’ (Jamie Kennedy) legendary break-down of “the rules” of horror movies. As you can see in the MLS image below from the property’s 2014 sale, even without Stu’s red floral curtains and rust-colored couch, the room is very recognizable from its cameo.

And the kitchen is even more so! Looking at MLS images of it makes my heart beat a little faster! The room is absolutely frozen in time from its big screen appearance!

The only thing missing is a set of ceiling-mounted cabinets that ran along the edge of the space in Scream. I am not sure if said cabinets were a real element of the house since removed or just set dressing, but I am guessing the former.

The 2014 listing mentions that the home boasts “a kitchen desk and planning center” which cracked me up as that is the spot where Stu sits while speaking on the phone with Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell). It is there that he utters his famous line, “My mom and dad are gonna be so mad at me!”

The residence’s breakfast nook also makes an appearance in Scream;

as does the foyer;

one of the bedrooms;

the attic (of which, Wes Craven says, “The attic wasn’t very creepy, so we darkened it down, and filled it up with all sorts of strange stuff.”);

and, of course, the garage!

Had to do it!

As I mentioned earlier, the garage is situated on the back side of the house . . .

. . . completely hidden from view from the front.

It is in the middle garage door that Tatum meets her untimely end and from the dormer above it and to the left that Sidney jumps out of the attic and first sees her body.

The finale sequence, which took a whopping 21 nights to shoot, was so grueling that cast and crew started referring to it as “the scene from hell” and “the longest night in horror history.” It was not long before “I survived Scene 118” became a running joke and t-shirts bearing the phrase were made for everyone involved, as seen in the still from ’Scream’: The Inside Story below.

All I could think while making screen captures for this post was how in the heck did they ever get the house clean again following filming?

Fun fact – Dewey Riley (David Arquette) was originally set to die at the end of Scream, but Wes Craven had a last-minute change of heart and shot the bit with the deputy being taken out of Stu’s house on a stretcher and loaded into an ambulance on the final night of filming, as he had a feeling audiences were going to fall in love with him. And he was right! I can’t imagine the sequels without Dewey!

Per the Spring Hill Estate website, Stu’s house is quite a hotbed for filming, with more than 15 productions lensed on the premises. I was only able to identify 2, though.

The interior is utilized briefly as the home where Sara Gold (Allison Paige) lives with her parents in the 2016 drama The Dog Lover.

And Stu’s house also serves as the residence of Stella Davis (Dorian Brown Pham) in 2017’s Running Wild.

Coincidentally, shortly after I began penning this article, the Grim Cheaper texted me a link about a Halloween party taking place at Stu’s house on October 31st, hosted by the same guys who put on Scream Comes Home. Apparently, the homeowners have recently decided to move onto the premises and though the place will still be available periodically as a special event venue, this will be the last time it is opened up to Scream fans. You can get your tickets here! And if you are interested in checking out more interior shots of Stu’s house, the Real to Reel website has some fabulous ones from the Scream Comes Home event.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Mandy for unearthing so much of this home’s history and to my friend Ashley, of The Drewseum, for sharing several articles about the property with me!

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: Spring Hill Estate, aka Stu’s house from Scream, is located at 3871 Tomales Petaluma Road in Tomales. The home currently serves as a special event venue. You can visit its official website here. The residence is situated up a long private drive and only the back of it (which did not appear in the movie) is visible from the street. (Pictured below is the view of it from the road.) You can catch an up-close glimpse of it, though, by attending the Halloween party being held there on October 31st. More information can be found here.

October 7, 2019October 11, 2019

The “Scream” Grocery Store

I love a good grocery store locale (as evidenced here, here, here and here)! My dad worked in markets throughout my childhood and I spent a lot of time with him at “the office,” which is where my affinity stems from. So even though I had already blogged about Pacific Market, the Santa Rosa bodega that cameoed in horror favorite Scream (which my aunt and uncle, who live in the area, stalked on my behalf back in 2008), I still had to hit the place up when I traveled to Sonoma County in October 2016. Going through my photos from that trip in preparation for this post made me a bit misty-eyed. While in town, I dragged my mom, aunt, two uncles, longtime BFF, and her boyfriend to every.single.locale. featured in the 1996 flick. Oh, how I wish I could do it all over again – especially the visit to Pacific Market, where my stalking resulted in a free bottle of champagne! But more on that in a bit.

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Per newspaper ads, the property that currently houses Pacific Market has been a grocery store since at least as far back as 1950, at which time it was known as Pohley’s Market.

It has gone through several different grocer iterations in the years since – as well as a few renovations, I’m sure. When the Scream cast and crew descended upon the area in the spring of 1996, the shop was known as Town and Country Market.

The upscale store was known for its fine wines, gourmet foods, and other specialty items. A former ad for the place I found on Newspapers.com touted Town and Country as a spot “Where old-fashioned courtesy and relaxed shopping are yours at supermarket prices.”

Town and Country became the third store in the Pacific Market chain when it was acquired by the Mohar family in 1997, a year after Scream was filmed on the premises. Initially established in 1948 by Stan and Mary Mohar, the grocery company was light years ahead of its time as far as healthful eating was concerned, dedicating an entire section of each outpost to organic produce from the start! Unfortunately, with the purchase came some renovations, which I’ll cover further down.

The Santa Rosa outpost was subsequently sold on two more occasions (first in 2012 and then again in 2016), each time retaining the Pacific Market name. The latter sale occurred just prior to my visit, during which I had the good fortune of meeting the new owner, who could not have been nicer! Turns out, he had no idea of his store’s cinematic history and was thrilled to learn about it! As I filled him in on Pacific Market’s role in Scream and where filming had taken place, I couldn’t help but relish in his enthusiasm over the cameo and had to throw out a few suggestions to honor it, such as stationing a Ghostface mask in the freezer aisle so that its reflection could forever be visible in the glass doors. I am unsure if he implemented the idea, but it’s genius, right? As our chat wound down, he asked me what I like to drink. I told him champagne (of course) and he promptly grabbed a very nice bottle off the shelf and gifted it to me – which was the first time any of my stalkings ever resulted in free bubbly!

In Scream, Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) and Tatum Riley (Rose McGowan) head to what was then Town and Country Market to buy party supplies for the soiree Stuart Macher (Matthew Lillard) is hosting to celebrate classes being canceled due to the murder of two fellow Woodsboro High students. Sadly, the part of the store the girls walk by at the top of the scene was extensively remolded after filming took place, with the side window and wooden patio railing removed, as you can see below.

This was done to allow for a new entrance (pictured below) to be built at the corner of the market, one that would be more accessible to the surrounding wraparound parking lot.

As such, the southeast tip of the building was essentially blown out and diagonally-situated doors installed in its place. (The support beam visible below marks exactly where the demolished corner used to come out to.)

The store’s original main entrance, which was situated on the south side of the market and which Sidney and Tatum walked through in Scream, is just a set of windows today.

Completely framed in, the windows are situated behind seasonal displays and grocery cart storage and semi-obscured from view.

The bulk of the Scream scene takes place inside Pacific Market, in aisle 5 to be precise – the freezer aisle (dun dun dun!) – which Tatum and Sidney walk the length of.

It, too, has been remodeled, unfortunately. The freezer aisle used to be zigzag in shape. It was in the shorter section, where the aisle zagged off toward the front of the store, that Sidney grabbed popsicles and ice cream and announced she was “sexually anorexic.”

Today, the freezer section is one straight line with an open refrigerated display case situated in the spot where Sidney and Tatum perused frozen desserts. Though I don’t have a photo taken from the same angle shown in Scream, the area where the girls were positioned is pretty much right where the woman in blue is standing below. Because the freezer aisle pretty much ends where the new front doors stand, I believe the alteration was made to accommodate for their construction.

It is as the girls leave the aisle that Ghostface’s reflection becomes visible in a freezer case door – as I said, dun dun dun! (I accidentally took the photo below from the wrong angle, but as you can see the freezer doors have also since been swapped out for new ones.)

It is not at all hard to see why Wes Craven and the rest of the production team landed on the store as a location for Scream. Pacific Market is the perfect little neighborhood grocer. And while the segment shot there is short, it is significant as it not only encapsulates the idyllic small town nature of Woodsboro, but the naivete of the teens at the center of the story who are out buying ice cream and Tostitos for a party celebrating school being cancelled due to the murder spree ravaging their town! Talk about a juxtaposition! (The song that plays at the top of the scene is also perfection, btw.)

I really could not have timed my visit to Pacific Market better as the fall decorations adorning the store only added to its homey feel. I mean, if that’s not the perfect slice of Americana pictured below, I don’t know what is!

And yeah, had to do it!

Even my aunt got in on the fun!

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

Big THANK YOU to my aunt and uncle for originally stalking this location for me back in 2008, taking me to stalk it myself in 2016, and then re-stalking it for me again this past weekend. When I sat down to edit my photos for this post, I realized I hadn’t taken any that matched what was shown in Scream, so I asked if they might head out there to snap better comparison shots. They happily obliged and sent me all that appear in this post. (For those counting, that’s their third stalk of the place – and no, they’re not fans of the movie in the slightest.) I honestly can’t thank them enough!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Pacific Market, aka the former Town and Country Market from Scream, is located at 1465 Town and Country Drive in Santa Rosa. You can visit the store’s official website here.

October 4, 2019October 8, 2019

The “Scream” Video Store

Extremely nostalgic by nature, I was recently thinking about the demise of video stores and how many movies would suffer if made today because of it – movies like The Holiday, Clerks and, of course, Scream. Without the scene set at Woodsboro’s local VHS rental spot in the latter, in which Randy Meeks (Jamie Kennedy) schools buddy Stuart Macher (Matthew Lillard) on the “very specific formula” followed by slasher flicks, much of the tongue-in-cheek nature of the storyline would have been tragically lost. I blogged about Santa Rosa’s Bradley Video, where the segment was shot, back in 2008, though I had never actually stalked it myself, instead sending my aunt Lea, who lives in the area, to do so on my behalf. By the time I next made it up to Sonoma County in 2016, the shop had long since shut down, but I still included it in my Scream stalking itinerary, which encompassed every.single.location featured in the 1996 horror classic down to the hotel where the cast and crew stayed during the 55-day shoot, as well as the warehouse that served as the production’s soundstage. The vast majority of those sites remain on my To-Blog List and I figured today was the perfect time to get to posting about them, starting with Bradley Video.

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When Lea stalked Bradley Video for me in 2008, the store was still in operation. In fact, it was her local rental place and she and her husband would visit it regularly. Sadly, it went the way of most VHS leasing establishments, initially closing its doors in 2005 after its owner, William Bradley, filed for bankruptcy. There were 11 shops in the chain at the time, all of which shuttered that same year. In a fitting twist, the majority of the company’s outposts, including the one from Scream (located on Marlow Road) were curtained on October 31st! As The Press Democrat reported a few days later, calls to the Sebastopol outlet were met with a message stating, “Bradley Video is closing its stores for good, and this store is closed. Happy Halloween.” Though I am sad it is no longer open, if a horror movie location has to shutter, I can think of no better day to do it than Halloween!

That wasn’t the end of the Marlow Road store, though. In January 2006, the shop was was re-opened by West Coast Video, along with 6 others in the Bradley chain.

The rebirth was short-lived, however, and the Marlow Road BV closed once again in early 2009, shortly after my aunt’s stalk of it.

Amazingly, the space has remained vacant ever since, which is great news for us Scream aficionados as it has resulted in very few changes to the exterior.

The same goes for the interior, which I was thrilled to discover as I peeked through the windows! Despite the passage of 23 years, two separate closures, an ownership change, and an almost-decade long vacancy, the Bradley Video site still looks exactly as it did onscreen!

I cannot express how thrilled I was to see the very same muted fuchsia carpeting that Stu and Randy walked upon still lining the floor of the space! Also visible? Faded markings surrounding the areas where the shelving used to stand!

The rectangular pillar stationed behind Randy throughout the scene also remains intact, though today it is mirrored.

Per Scream’s production notes, Sonoma County was chosen as a backdrop for the lurid tale thanks to its “innocent, familiar” locales which provided the perfect setting for the movie’s more macabre sequences. And no site is more innocent or familiar than a local video store! It is at Bradley Video that Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich), Stu, and several other Woodsboro High students head to rent movies after classes are cancelled due to the murder spree taking place in town. While there, we get these choice words from video store employee/resident slasher flick expert Randy, “See, the police are always off track with this sh*t. If they watched Prom Night, they’d save time. There’s a formula to it – a very simple formula! EVERYBODY’S A SUSPECT!” As I was not able to venture inside the former Bradley Video space, my photographs were, obviously, not taken from an angle matching that of the movie, but I believe the image below shows basically the same vantage point, minus the anteroom visible in the foreground.

As for the detritus strewn about, per a commenter named Rich Brasil on the Bloody Disgusting website, the location is currently used to house supplies for a neighboring Chinese restaurant.

Filming of the Bradley Video scene took place on Monday, May 6th, 1996 (the 16th day of production) according to the Scream call sheets, which my friend Ashley of The Drewseum was kind enough to give me copies of. Actors were required to report to the locale at 9:15 a.m. and the weather was “sunny and cloudy, dry, breezy at times” with highs in the mid-60s. There were a total of 40 extras on set (including “2 babes for Billy”) and the shoot was scheduled to wrap at 6 p.m.

And while I am thrilled the Bradley Video space remains so unchanged from that 1996 cameo, at the same time it is a bit disheartening that the site of such a famous cinematic moment exists in such a sad state. I would love to see the place re-open, but with the interior left intact, of course. Scream video store pop-up, anyone?

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

Big THANK YOU to my aunt Lea for initially stalking Bradley Video for me and taking the images dated 2008 that appear in this post.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Bradley Video, from Scream, was formerly located in the Rosewood Village shopping center at 3080 Marlow Road in Santa Rosa. Its former storefront, Unit A19, is denoted with an orange arrow below and its onetime frontage marked by orange lines.

October 2, 2019October 7, 2019

The “Waxwork” House

It’s finally that time again, folks – time for my annual Haunted Hollywood stalkings! I intended to commence this year’s postings with a real doozy of a murder case, but got held up a bit in my research. I am currently awaiting some documents from the County of Riverside that should provide more clarity as to the precise location where the killing took place and will write about it just as soon as they arrive. In the meantime, I thought I would instead kick things off with a locale from a horror classic. Now, as I’ve mentioned many times, a fan of slasher flicks I am not. But this past July, my friend Owen tipped me off to a spot that he thought would figure in nicely to an October post – the Hancock Park home that masked as a waxwork, aka a wax museum, in the 1988 horror film of the same name. As he informed me in his email, the “cool-looking” brick pad boasts “great windows and a turret!” Interest piqued, I added the address to my To-Stalk List and headed right on out there this past weekend.

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Finally watching Waxwork last night did little to turn me into a horror fan. In fact, I have to say the movie was pretty darn terrible (though star Zach Galligan sure is a cutie!). The premise? A morose old man named David Lincoln (David Warner) attempts to set off the “voodoo end of the world” by bringing eighteen of the most evil people who ever lived back to life. How does he do this, you ask? By creating wax effigies of each person and feeding them the souls of the various patrons who visit the waxwork he has built inside of his private home in the middle of suburbia. And he would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for two meddling high schoolers, Mark (Galligan) and Sarah (Deborah Foreman), who thwart his plan. Like I said, Waxwork isn’t good.

But Owen was right – the house is fabulous . . . and fabulously creepy!

Though burned to the ground by Mark and Sarah at the end of Waxwork, in real life the pad still stands proudly at 255 South Rossmore Avenue. (In actuality, a miniature was used in the filming of the fire scene.)

While it looks much the same as it did onscreen in 1988, sadly views of it from the street are largely eclipsed by a massive hedge that now lines the front of the property.

Only the exterior of the residence appeared in Waxwork. The interior of Lincoln’s eerie home was just a set, as evidenced by the double doors that opened from the living room into his onsite wax museum.

Originally built in 1924 for L. Milton Wolf, in real life the dwelling boasts 7 bedrooms (!), 3 baths, 3,878 square feet of living space, a pool, a detached garage with what looks to be an upstairs in-law unit, and a 0.43-acre plot of land.

The house is somewhat historically significant, too! As Owen informed me, its longtime owner Loretta Lindholm was responsible for the installation of the many ornamental lights that now dot the streets of Hancock Park. For her efforts, she received a Los Angeles City Council Commendation!

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

Big THANK YOU to my friend Owen for telling me about this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Waxwork house from Waxwork is located at 255 South Rossmore Avenue in Hancock Park.

September 4, 2019April 13, 2020

The Union Theological Seminary Rotunda from “The Ice Storm”

Locations have been making impressions on me for ages, long before I even knew stalking was a thing. Case in point – way back in 1997 while watching The Ice Storm, I became fixated on the ornate stone staircase Libbets Casey (Katie Holmes) walked down in an early scene. Even though I only saw the movie once, those stairs were ingrained in my head. So when I started location hunting years later, I, of course, put some time into searching for them. Though I knew they had to be in New York or Connecticut, where the bulk of The Ice Storm was shot, I came up empty. Then, shortly before my April 2016 trip to the Big Apple, I saw the stairs pop up in an episode of White Collar and decided to revisit the hunt. Once again, I was unsuccessful. So I called in my friend Owen for an assist. And while I had yet to send him screen captures of the steps, he miraculously wrote me back in a matter of minutes saying he had come across a mention on the White Collar TV Live Journal site that noted the show did some filming at Union Theological Seminary in Morningside Heights, which he thought might be the spot I was seeking. One look at photos told me it was! I also quickly gleaned that while the school is closed to the public, it is available for special events. So I wrote to an events coordinator on staff, explained my fascination with the staircase, and asked if I might be able to tour it while in NYC. I was thrilled to receive a response shortly thereafter with a date and time to show up!

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As my tour guide explained, the staircase used in The Ice Storm is known as The Rotunda in real life. It is situated in the John Crosby Brown Memorial Tower, just beyond the campus’ main entrance.

Situated at the corner of West 120th Street and Broadway, the sprawling English Gothic-style campus is actually Union Theological Seminary’s third location. The Christian school, which educates those wishing to lead a life dedicated to the church, was initially established in a small building in Lower Manhattan in January 1836. With space for only a scant thirty pupils, it was not long before the need for a new, larger facility arose. Union Theological Seminary first re-located to Lenox Hill in 1884, but by the 1890s that site had been outgrown as well. So in 1904, a 36-lot plot of land in Morningside Heights was secured for a new school location. Architects Francis Richmond Allen and Charles Collens were tapped to design it. Construction began in 1908 and was completed in 1910.

As professor emeritus Daniel Johnson Fleming said of the new campus, “The Directors of the Seminary had as one of their aims that the very buildings should become an element in the education of those who live and study within its walls.”

I’d say Allen and Collens certainly delivered on that goal.

The Rotunda, constructed of marble and featuring a vaulted ceiling with rosette detailing, is literally breathtaking.

The three-story vestibule, which serves as Union Theological Seminary’s entrance hall, boasts fan tracery ornamentation that culminates in a central point showcasing the shields of the University of Edinburgh, the University of Cambridge, the City of Geneva, and the Westminster Assembly.

As I explained in my email plea for a tour, “I have to admit that I did not even like the movie The Ice Storm. But I took one look at Katie Holmes walking down the curved staircase and thought it was one of the most beautiful spaces I had ever seen.”

In person it was even more striking!

I literally couldn’t stop taking photos of the grand space.

It is not at all hard to see how The Rotunda wound up onscreen.

Because Union Theological Seminary itself is such a prolific film star, I decided it best to just focus on The Rotunda’s many onscreen cameos for this particular post.

I’ll cover the school as a whole in a future article.

It is on The Rotunda stairwell that Paul Hood (Tobey Maguire) attempts to make a connection with Libbets over the writings of Dostoyevsky at the beginning of The Ice Storm. Hauntingly beautiful, it is no surprise that the space stayed with me all these years.

As I mentioned, The Rotunda also popped up in an episode of White Collar. In Season 3’s “Upper West Side Story,” which aired in 2012, Neal Caffrey (Matt Bomer) and Peter Burke (Tim DeKay) walk down the staircase while investigating a case at what is said to be Manhattan Prep.

Our tour guide was kind enough to fill me in on several of The Rotunda’s other cameos.

Claire (Mimi Rogers) walks through The Rotunda with her sister, Rose Morgan (Barbra Streisand), on the way to her wedding ceremony in the 1996 dramedy The Mirror Has Two Faces.

Detectives Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni) and Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) descend the staircase and walk through the halls of Union Theological Seminary, which is standing in for The Crestborne School, while investigating a former teacher in the Season 2 episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit titled “Abuse.” The episode, which aired in 2001, features a very young Hayden Panettiere in a guest role.

Interestingly, Benson and Stabler briefly revisit The Rotunda (the bottom level of it is visible behind them in the cap below) in another episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit that guest-starred Hayden Panettiere – Season 6’s “Hooked,” which aired in 2005.

The duo once again heads to Union Theological while investigating the murder of a student at the fictional Morewood School in the Season 10 episode of SVU titled “Hothouse,” which aired in 2009.

Katherine Ann Watson (Julia Roberts) is told by President Jocelyn Carr (Marian Seldes) that she has gotten complaints regarding her teaching methods while in The Rotunda in 2003’s Mona Lisa Smile.

Max Carrigan (Joe Anderson) and his friends slide down the bannister of The Rotunda stairs in the 2007 musical Across the Universe.

In 2010, The Rotunda popped up very briefly in the Season 4 episode of Gossip Girl titled “Goodbye, Columbia,” in the scene in which Blair Waldorf (Leighton Meester) talks with her minions about the teaching assistant job she is hoping to land.

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Danny Reagan (Donnie Wahlberg) closed a case in the grand space in the Season 3 episode of Blue Bloods titled “Higher Education,” which aired in 2012.

The Rotunda appeared in the pilot episode of Masters of Sex, which aired in 2013, as the spot where Virginia Johnson (Lizzy Caplan) registers for classes at what is supposedly Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.

Jason McCord (Evan Roe) gets into a fistfight with a fellow student in The Rotunda in the Season 1 episode of Madam Secretary titled “The Ninth Circle,” which aired in 2015.

Beck (Elizabeth Lail) talked to Professor Paul Leahy (Reg Rogers) on The Rotunda staircase before class in the Season 1 episode of You titled “The Last Nice Guy in New York,” which aired in 2018.

And Abe Weissman (Tony Shalhoub) chased Simon (Michael Countryman) up The Rotunda stairs, supposedly located at Columbia University, in the Season 3 episode of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel titled “Marvelous Radio,” which aired in 2019.

Big THANK YOU to my friend Owen for tracking down this location! 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: Union Theological Seminary is located at 3041 Broadway in Morningside Heights. You can visit the school’s official website here. The Rotunda, from The Ice Storm, can be found just past the main entrance. Please keep in mind that the seminary is closed to the public and that I was only able to see it via a pre-arranged tour.