Category: Movie Locations

The “L.A. Story” Gas Station

Last week, while doing research for my post on L’Orangerie, aka Chez Quis restaurant from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, I came across some information on The Worldwide Guide to Movie Locations website about the Gilmore Gasoline Service Station on Highland Avenue in Hollywood – a very cool-looking, old-time gas station that appeared in the 1991 movie L.A. Story. Thanks to the place’s unique, Art Deco architecture and historic feel, I became just a wee-bit obsessed with it and immediately added the address to my ever-growing “To-Stalk” list.

I think part of the reason that I became so enamored with the Gilmore Gasoline Service Station is that it reminded me of the circular, 50s-style drive-in restaurant that was used in Britney Spears’ “For Those Who Think Young” Pepsi commercial – which was sadly just a set that was built inside of a soundstage. For reasons that are beyond my comprehension, I have long been obsessed with all of the Pepsi ads featuring Britney. I honestly cannot get enough of ‘em. In fact, I just watched about twelve different versions of both “The Joy of Pepsi” and “For Those Who Thing Young” videos. But I digress. Anyway, because he has an affinity for all things historic, I figured that the Gilmore Gasoline Service Station was one location that the Grim Cheaper would actually not mind being dragged to. Sadly though, when we arrived, we found the structure to be in a pretty pitiful state. Such a shame!

The Gilmore Gasoline Service Station has an absolutely fascinating backstory. The structure was originally built for the Gilmore Oil Company, which was founded by one of the most influential and prominent families in Los Angeles history. Arthur Freemont “A.F.” Gilmore, a dairy business owner from Illinois who migrated to Southern California during the 1880s, found fortune in 1903 when he accidentally struck oil while drilling a water well on some property that he owned in the Rancho La Brea area. In 1919, after A.F. had passed away, his son, Earl, founded the Gilmore Petroleum Company, which later became the Gilmore Oil Company. Their Red Line service stations, which bore the motto “Someday you will own a horseless carriage. Our gasoline will run it.”, soon became common fixtures across all of Los Angeles. The Gilmore family is most famous, though, for founding the Gilmore Bank and the world-famous Farmers Market at 3rd & Fairfax, and for building Gilmore Field – the now-defunct minor league baseball park that was once home to the Hollywood Stars baseball team.

The double-canopied Gilmore Gasoline Service Station was designed in 1935 by an engineer named R.J. Kadow. It was one of the first Gilmore stations to be constructed and is now, sadly, one of the last remaining of its kind. After the Gilmore Oil Company was sold in 1945, the station went through a succession of different owners and, in early 1990, after the then-tenant decided not to renew his lease, there was talk of possibly tearing the structure down. Thankfully, the Melrose Neighborhood Association stepped in and, on March 23rd, 1992, the building was declared a Los Angeles Historic Cultural Monument. Despite the station’s historic status, though, it has somehow been allowed to fall into disarray in recent years. According to a November 1990 Los Angeles Times article, there were once plans to restore the building and open a snack shop/gas station/classic car rental on the site, but I am not sure if those plans ever came to fruition and, as you can see above, the place is currently in dire straights. You can check out some photographs of the station taken during better days here.

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In L.A. Story, Harris K. Telemacher (Steve Martin) and Sara McDowel (Victoria Tennant) stop at the Gilmore Gasoline Service Station, where they ask for a “full service” treatment – their tank filled, car washed, and all four tires removed and exchanged LOL – before heading to a fund-raising dinner. As you can see in the screen captures pictured above, at the time that the movie was filmed in 1991, the gas station was an incredibly cool little place. I cannot express how disheartening it was to discover that a unique piece of Southern California’s history – one with historic cultural status, no less – has been allowed to deteriorate in such a way. As I said earlier, what a shame!

Fellow stalker Chas, of the It’sFilmedThere website, also let me know that the station was featured in the 1982 movie 48 Hours as the supposed San-Francisco-area gas station where parolee Reggie Hammond (Eddie Murphy) told detective Jack Cates (Nick Nolte) where he had hidden the stolen money.

On an L.A. Story side-note – I would so love to find the supposed-Santa-Barbara-area El Pollo del Mar (the Chicken of the Sea – LOL) motel that appeared in the flick. I know that the interior scenes were filmed at the since-demolished Ambassador Hotel, but I am interested in tracking down the exterior. Does anyone happen to know where it is?

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The former Gilmore Gasoline Service Station, from L.A. Story, is located at 859 North Highland Avenue in Hollywood.

January 20, 2012
The Mansion from “The Beverly Hillbillies” Movie

Last week, I received an email from a fellow stalker named Chris who wanted to know if I had any information on the mansion where the Clampett family – Jed (Jim Varney), Jethro Bodine (Diedrich Bader), Elly May (Erika Eleniak), and Granny (Cloris Leachman) – lived in the 1993 movie The Beverly Hillbillies. Well, not only did I have information on the place, but I had actually written a post about the Pasadena-area residence way back in November of 2008. Because it was in the early days of my blog, though, and therefore a very brief write-up sans screen captures, I thought that the dwelling was most-definitely worthy of a re-stalk. So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on back out there this past weekend.

The Beverly Hillbillies movie mansion has a history that reads like a Hollywood script. The property was originally built in 1913 for Henry House, a wealthy lumber company executive from Houston, Texas, and his wife, Carrie Bruce. At the time, the Italian-Renaissance-Revival-style residence, which was designed by the Hunt & Burns architecture team, measured 10,714 square feet and was numbered 1284 South Oakland Avenue. (For whatever reason, the address was changed to 1288 South Oakland Avenue in 1989.) Henry’s cousin, Colonel Edward House, just so happened to be the Chief of Staff to President Woodrow Wilson, and it is said that the President visited the estate on occasion, earning it the nickname “Wilson’s Western White House”.

In 1971, following the death of Henry and Carrie’s daughter, Minnie B.R. Davis, the property was purchased by one-time child actor/real estate investor Mario Milano, who quickly angered neighbors by repeatedly renting out the premises for filming. In 1979, the dwelling was sold yet again, this time to Dovie Beams de Villagran, a former B-movie actress and once-mistress of Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos. Dovie and her husband, Sergio, continued on with the tradition of renting out the residence to filming companies (at a rate of $3,000 per day) and the place became a favorite of location scouts. Ten years after purchasing the mansion, though, the flamboyant couple, who at one time owned 215 properties and 16 automobiles, found themselves unable to pay their debts, which totaled $22 million, and were forced to file for bankruptcy.

Shortly thereafter, the house was purchased by a wealthy Japanese investor, who immediately set about restoring the once-grand mansion. Sadly though, on September 1, 1988, tragedy struck when a pipe-welding accident led to a massive fire which destroyed most of the dwelling. Not to be deterred, in 1990 the owners razed the charred remains and started construction on a new, 20,900-square-foot Neoclassical-style mansion on the same site. They hired Santa Monica architecture firm Warner & Gray to design the residence and it wound up looking much like the original. According to a history of the mansion that was put together by Tim Gregory, the Building Biographer, construction permits were again filed in 1998 – this time to remodel the home, demolish a portion of it and add on 9,701 square feet of space. So, a mere eight years after the place had been completely rebuilt from the ground up, the owners decided to rebuild it all over again. Makes no sense to me, but, then again, I am not a millionaire. The monstrous mansion pictured above, which looks nothing like the original, is the result of that 1998 redesign. In 2006, the residence, which oddly enough has never been lived in, was offered for sale for a cool $52 million, making it the most expensive house ever listed in the area at the time.

The now-31,415-square-foot, 15-bedroom, 19-bath residence features a 4.63-acre plot of land, a man-made lake complete with a waterfall, a topiary zoo, a guest house, a guard shack, European-style gardens, an outdoor Grecian-style pool, a koi pond, an elevator, a huge Porte-cochere, a media room, a wine cellar, a ballroom, a subterranean 8-car garage, a two-story detached garage, a stream room, and a massage room. And while the mansion itself does not really float my boat, the grounds are pretty darn spectacular, as you can see above! You can also check out some close-up photographs of the exterior of the property here.

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In the 1972 movie The Eyes of Charles Sand, the original mansion that stood on the property was where Emily Parkhurst (Sharon Farrell) lived and saw visions of her dead brother.

The interior of the mansion, with its distinctive wallpaper, was also used in the production.

In the Season 2 episodes of Dallas titled “John Ewing: Part I” and “John Ewing: Part II”, the mansion stood in for the supposed Forth Worth, Texas-area rehab center where a pregnant Sue Ellen Ewing (Linda Gray) was sent to recover from alcohol abuse.

The interior of the home was also used as the interior of the rehab in those episodes.

In the Season 4 episode of Charlie’s Angels titled “One of Our Angels is Missing”, the mansion stood in for the supposed Bel-Air-area property where Kelly Garrett (Jaclyn Smith) and Tiffany Welles (Shelley Hack) set up a sting operation in order to entrap a parolee named Rick Devlin (Jonathan Goldsmith).

The real life interior of the property was also featured in the episode.

In the Season 3 episode of The Incredible Hulk titled “Falling Angels”, the mansion was where Mrs. Taylor (Arline Anderson) lived.

The gate that The Incredible Hulk (Lou Ferrigno) ran through in the episode is located on Woodland Road, around the corner from the mansion’s main entrance.

The interior of the property also appeared in the episode.

In the Season 4 episode of Hart to Hart titled “In the Hart of the Night”, the mansion was where King Raschid (George Innes) stayed while visiting Los Angeles.

Thanks to the Knight Rider Online forum, I learned that the mansion also appeared in the Season 1 episode of Knight Rider titled “The Topaz Connection”, as the home where Escape Magazine publisher Phillip Royce (John Ericson) lived.

The home’s real life interior was also featured in the episode.

Also thanks to the Knight Rider Online forum, I learned that in the Season 3 episode titled “Knight in Disgrace”, the mansion was where Boyd LaSalle (aka John Considine) lived.

In the Season 4 episode of Murder, She Wrote titled “Curse of the Daanau”, the mansion belonged to Richard Hazlitt (aka Richard Bradford).

The interior of the property also made an appearance in the episode.

The Beverly Hillbillies movie was filmed in 1993, a few years after the mansion had burned down and been rebuilt. As you can see above, the rebuilt residence bore a strong resemblance to its predecessor, albeit for a drastic change in paint color. Pepto-Bismol, anyone?

Only the exterior of the property was used in the filming of The Beverly Hillbillies. According to the Ultimate Hollywood Tour Book, the interior of four different Beverly Hills mansions stood in for the interior of the Clampett residence in the film.

In The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement, the grounds of the mansion were used as the grounds of the Genovian palace, where Queen Clarisse Renaldi (Julie Andrews) lived. Fellow stalker JC posted a comment on my November 2008 post about the mansion which said, “For about 3 or 4 months at the end of 2003/beginning of 2004 I worked on a movie called The Princess Diaries 2 and we filmed for about 2 or 3 weeks at this house. The sheer enormity of it was breath-taking, but at that time the house was simply a giant shell, with a beautiful exterior and grounds, but basically nothing but sheetrock and concrete on the inside”. Oddly enough, I think that the property still remains in an unfinished state to this day, which explains why it has never been lived in.

The mansion’s garden area also appeared in Gwen Stefani’s 2004 “What You Waiting For” music video.

Gwen Stefani–”What You Waiting For”–1288 S. Oakland Avenue, Pasadena

You can watch that video by clicking above.

While scanning through the Season 6 episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation titled “Rashomama” while making screen captures for my post on Frank’s Coffee Shop and Restaurant from Larry Crowne a couple of weeks back, I was shocked when I spotted the mansion pop up. In the episode, the property stood in for Cupid’s Kiss, the supposed Las-Vegas-area wedding venue where Diane Chase (Veronica Cartwright) was murdered.

And while several websites have stated that a 2006 episode of CSI: Miami was also filmed at the mansion, I believe that information is incorrect. Because the property’s now-defunct real estate listing had mentioned that there was an indoor, subterranean pool and spa with his-and-her locker rooms on the premises, I assumed that the Season 4 episode “Driven” – in which a group of women is robbed at gunpoint while at an upscale day spa – had been filmed there. A reader named Brandi posted a comment on this post, though, stating that the indoor spa from the episode was actually located inside of a house on Mapleton Drive in the Holmby Hills. I did a bit of research and quickly found pictures of the property Brandi mentioned and she was indeed correct. After scanning through countless 2006 episodes of CSI: Miami, I have to say that I do not believe the show ever actually filmed at the mansion. I think that when CSI filmed the “Rashomama” episode in early 2006, some websites reported incorrectly that it was CSI: Miami that was filming. If anyone knows any different, please let me know.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The mansion from the Beverly Hillbillies movie is located at 1288 South Oakland Avenue in Pasadena. The Governor’s mansion from the television series Benson is located across the street at 1365 South Oakland Avenue.

January 19, 2012
The “Larry Crowne” Cul-de-sac

The last Larry Crowne location that I stalked recently – and there will be more coming, believe me, because Mike, from MovieShotsLA, has found quite a few others – is the cul-de-sac where Larry Crowne (aka Tom Hanks) and his garage-sale-hosting neighbors, Lamar Johnson (aka Cedric the Entertainer) and wife B’Ella Johnson (aka Taraji P. Henson), lived. Mike tracked down this locale quite a few months back, long before I had ever even seen the movie, in fact. Thanks to the flick’s production notes, he knew that the cul-de-sac was located somewhere in Northridge, so he searched aerial views of the area and, sure enough, it was not long before he found the right place. Whoo hoo! So, last weekend, before heading to West Hollywood to grab some cocktails at Nobu, aka the Ferris Bueller Day’s Off restaurant which I blogged about yesterday, I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to the San Fernando Valley to stalk the Larry Crowne houses.

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Larry’s one-story, ranch-style residence, which he eventually gives back to the bank due to a foreclosure, shows up countless times throughout the movie.

I absolutely love the outfit Larry wore on moving day, by the way. I am so gonna have to get something similar for the GC! But I digress.

In real life, Larry’s house is pretty darn huge, although its appearance from the street is somewhat deceiving. While its façade seems to be rather small, the dwelling actually boasts 4 bedrooms, 4 baths, a whopping 3,900 square feet of living space, and a .52-acre plot of land. I am very happy to report, though, that aside from a change in paint color, the place looks pretty much the same in person as it did onscreen. For some reason, producers covered over the front window and window-box with a large amount of foliage during the filming, though. I am guessing that was done to make the home appear more masculine, ’cause nothing screams “a single man lives here” like a window box full of red annuals. His garage also seems to have been covered over for the movie, most likely to make the residence appear to be smaller than it actually is.

According to the Larry Crowne production notes, the interior of Larry’s house, where he learned the benefits of feng shui, was a set that was built inside of a soundstage at what, I believe, was Universal Studios.

Lamar and B’Ella’s house also shows up numerous times throughout the movie.

And it, too, looks much the same in person as it appeared onscreen.

What I was not expecting, though, was that the Larry Crowne houses were not both located at the end of the cul-de-sac, as they seemed to be in the movie. As you can see above, while Larry’s house is located at the end, Lamar and B’Ella’s is actually on the side.

I had originally envisioned the properties to be situated in the same manner that the two houses are situated above and was a bit thrown off when I got there and realized that they were actually located kitty-corner to where they had seemed to be onscreen.

You can see where the homes are situated in the aerial view pictured above.

And while Larry and Lamar’s street name was referred to as “Derby Court” in the movie, producers did use both of the properties’ real life address numbers.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Larry Crowne’s house from Larry Crowne is located at 8656 Balcom Avenue in Northridge. Lamar and B’Ella’s house is located next door at 8642 Balcom Avenue.

January 13, 2012
L’Orangerie – aka Chez Quis Restaurant from "Ferris Bueller’s Day Off"

Back in 2010, this stalker became just a wee-bit obsessed with tracking down the restaurant interior which was used as the fictional Chez Quis French eatery in the iconic 1986 movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. I knew from listening to director John Hughes’ DVD commentary that the restaurant was somewhere in the Los Angeles area, but try as I might, I just could not seem to locate it. Because I feared that the place had most likely long since closed down and, as such, any hope of finding it would be extremely difficult, I enlisted fellow stalker Chas, of the It’sFilmedThere website, to contact a few crew members on my behalf. Amazingly enough, Chas was somehow able to get his hands on the email address of Jonathan Schmock, the actor who played the Chez Quis Maitre D’ in the movie. Even more amazing, though, was the fact that Jonathan wrote him back almost immediately and let him know that the Ferris Bueller’s Day Off restaurant was none other than L’Orangerie in West Hollywood, an incredibly famous French eatery which had sadly closed it doors in 2006 and had been remodeled and re-imagined as Nobu shortly thereafter. I cannot express how heartbreaking it was to learn this information as I had moved to LA in 2000, six full years before the restaurant, which I would have given my eye-teeth to stalk, closed down. I added Nobu to my “To-Stalk” list regardless, with the hope that some remnant of L’Orangerie might still exist on the premises. And this past Saturday evening, I finally, finally made it out there to investigate.

Before arriving at Nobu, I was nervous that the place would be extremely hoity-toity and not allow photographs of any kind, but I am very happy to report that nothing could have been further from the truth! The staff was not only exceedingly friendly and let me take all of the pictures that I wanted, but everyone that I spoke with was beyond excited to learn that their place of work was the site of the famous Ferris Bueller restaurant scene. Upon leaving, the manager even told me that he could not wait to start informing people of Nobu’s famous cinematic connection. AND, much to the Grim Cheaper’s delight, the eatery offers a very reasonable Happy Hour every single night (even Saturdays and Sundays!) in the bar and lounge area. This obviously goes without saying, being that the restaurant is known for being a culinary giant, but the food there was absolutely incredible! To say that the GC and I are in love with the place would be a gross understatement. And the cherry on top of my evening was when I discovered that the main body and layout of Nobu is exactly the same as that of L’Orangerie, so the place is still somewhat (albeit very, very remotely) recognizable from Ferris Bueller.

A couple of months back, I happened to find a Flikr photo album featuring pictures of L’Orangerie that a foodie blogger named Abby, from the Pleasure Palate website, had posted online. I contacted Abby and asked if she would be willing to let me feature her photographs in this post and she not only wrote me back immediately, but graciously agreed. A HUGE, HEARTFELT thank you goes out to her. All of the pictures of L’Orangerie which appear in this post were taken by her, unless otherwise noted.

According to the book Hollywood & the Best of Los Angeles Alive!, L’Orangerie was one of only two L.A.-area eateries that counted itself as a member of Relais & Chateaux, an extremely exclusive luxury hotel and gourmet restaurant group whose mission is to spread its “unique art de vivre across the globe by selecting outstanding properties with a truly unique character”. Alive!, which was published in 2002, also states, “The only restaurant in Los Angeles that is more expensive than L’Orangerie is Ginza Sushi-Ko in Beverly Hills, a sushi place that is the most expensive restaurant in the US, at around $300 a person.” Can you imagine if the GC and I had actually had a chance to stalk L’Orangerie when it was still in operation? One glance at the menu and he would have had a full-blown heart attack on the spot! L’Orangerie, which is French for “the orangery” – a beautifully-constructed greenhouse- or conservatory-type structure that was popular in Europe from the 17th to the 19th centuries and was used to house orange trees during the cold winter months – was originally founded in 1978 by native French couple Gerard and Virginie Ferry. The restaurant quickly became one of Los Angeles’ most premiere and exclusive eateries and remained so until it closed on December 31st, 2006, at which point the Nobu Group took over and an extensive remodel was begun.

Nobu opened in the Spring of 2008 and, while the dark, sleek, modern design is completely different from L’Orangerie’s bright, white, terraced-look, the overall shape and layout of the structure remains exactly the same. L’Orangerie was composed of four dining areas – the bar and lounge;

the main dining room (the picture above is from Mariani’s Virtual Gourmet Newsletter, but I believe it originally came from the now-defunct L’Orangerie website);

the outdoor terrace;

and the central courtyard . . .

which featured a retracting roof.

Nobu is also comprised of those same four dining areas – the bar and lounge;

the main dining room, which is on the northern side of the restaurant;

the terrace, which has since been enclosed and is now where one enters the restaurant;

and the central courtyard, which still features a retractable roof. If you will notice above, the room has six curtained doorways which are in the same spot where the French doors which opened to the courtyard were located when it was L’Orangerie. So incredibly cool!

There is also an additional lounge area which links all of the rooms together. That lounge area is the former L’Orangerie lobby, aka the spot where Ferris Bueller (aka Matthew Broderick) famously had his girlfriend, Sloane Peterson (aka Mia Sara), call Chez Quis to ask for Abe Froman, the Sausage King of Chicago.

In Ferris Bueller’s Day Off , Ferris, Sloane, and Ferris’ best friend, Cameron Frye (aka Alan Ruck), dine at Chez Quis while playing hooky from school. And while the exterior of the restaurant was actually the exterior of a private home located at 22 West Schiller Street in Chicago . . .

. . . all of the interiors were shot on location at L’Orangerie.

Including, I believe, the bathroom scene, in which Ferris delivers a long narrative to the camera while his father is, unbeknownst to him, using a nearby stall. I am kicking myself right now that I did not send the GC into Nobu’s men’s room to see if at all resembled the shape and size of the Ferris Bueller bathroom. Ah well, next time.

Because L’Orangerie was so incredibly picturesque, it saw more than its fair share of filming over the years. In the Season 1 episode of The Colbys titled “A House Divided”, L’Orangerie played itself as the spot where Sable Scott Colby (aka Beverly Hills, 90210’s Stephanie Beacham) had lunch with Zach Powers (aka Ricardo Montalban). As you can see in the second screen capture above, the entryway area looks exactly the same in The Colbys as it did in Ferris Bueller. Even the podium is a perfect match. Love it!

In the Season 3 episode of Hart to Hart titled “Blue and Broken-Harted”, L’Orangerie was where Jonathan Hart (aka Robert Wagner) and Jennifer Hart (aka Stefanie Powers) had lunch and ran into gossip columnist George Christy, who played himself. While there, Jennifer confronts Jonathan about her fear that he is having an affair. In 1982, when the episode was filmed, L’Orangerie did not have a front patio area, but one was later built, along with a large cement wall which surrounded it.

In the “Blue and Broken-Harted” episode, Jonathan and Jennifer dined in pretty much the same spot where the Ferris Bueller gang dined.

In 1982’s Bare Essence, L’Orangerie popped up as “the chicest restaurant in town” where clothing designer Matt Phillips (aka Joel Higgins) took New-York-newcomer Tyger Hayes (aka Genie Francis) for lunch.

In the 1983 made-for-television movie Making of a Male Model, L’Orangerie stood in for the supposed New York restaurant where Kay Dillon (aka Joan Collins) met male model Tyler Burnett (aka Jon-Erik Hexum) upon his return to Manhattan.

In 1985’s St. Elmo’s Fire, L’Orangerie stood in for the supposed Washington, D.C.-area restaurant where Kirby Keger (aka Emilio Estevez) and Dale Biberman (aka Andie MacDowell) went on a very brief date.

In 1985’s Brewster’s Millions, L’Orangerie was where Montgomery Brewster (aka Richard Pryor) took hundreds of random people for lunch immediately after inheriting $30 million.

In 2003’s Intolerable Cruelty, L’Orangerie was featured as the spot where Miles (aka George Clooney) met Marylin (aka Catherine Zeta Jones) for an introductory dinner.

Most recently, L’Orangerie appeared in the Season 2 episode of The Closer titled “Aftertaste” as L’Amboise, the eatery where Walter LaSalle (aka Francois Giroday) was arrested and where restaurant critic Tom Newman (aka John Billingsley) confessed to the murder of Karen Bevis (aka Julie Wagner).

I also spotted L’Orangerie pop up in a movie or television show that I watched a few months back, but, for whatever reason, I failed to write the information down in my stalking notebook and now, for the life of me, I cannot remember what it was. I have been wracking my brain for the past two weeks trying to figure it out, all to no avail. Ironically enough, while I had mentioned the movie or television show to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, back when I spotted it, he also cannot remember what it was. He has spent countless (and I do mean countless) hours over the past few weeks trying to help me figure it out, though. At one point, he texted me that he was looking through the 60th page of L’Orangerie search results on Google. The 60th page!!!!! All of the information in this post actually came from his extensive research. So thank you, Mike! All that work, though, and neither of us did ever figure it out. L’Orangerie’s courtyard (a photograph of which – one that I got off of the EaterLA website, who in turn got it from the Relais & Chateaux website – is pictured above) is the room that I remember appearing in the production. Does it look familiar to anyone? I know the answer will come to me as soon as I stop thinking about it, and when it does, I will update this post.

Fellow stalker Gilles in France also let me know that L’Orangerie was featured in both the pilot episode of L.A. Law and the 1982 Danielle Steele made-for-television movie Secrets, but unfortunately neither of those productions are available for rent or download anywhere, so I was unable to make screen captures of them for this post.

I can say with certainty, though, that L’Orangerie was not the restaurant that appeared in Some Kind of Wonderful, as some websites have stated. Some Kind of Wonderful was filmed just down the street at the former L’Ermitage restaurant, now Koi, located at 730 North La Cienega Boulevard.

There have also been some online reports that The Blues Brothers was filmed at the same restaurant as Ferris Bueller, but, as you can see above, that information is incorrect, as well. The Blues Brothers was actually filmed at Chez Paul, the legendary French establishment that was formerly located at 660 North Rush Street in Chicago, Illinois. You can read more about that location on The Blues Brothers Central website here.

Besides being a filming location, L’Orangerie was also a major celebrity hotspot. Motley Crew’s Vince Neil and former Playboy Playmate Heidi Mark were married there on May 28th, 2000, as were Fred Savage and Jennifer Stone on August 7th, 2004. Rob Lowe’s 40th birthday party was held at the restaurant. Teri Hatcher and Ryan Seacrest once had a date there, Ronald and Nancy Reagan were regulars, and Brad Pitt and my girl Jen Aniston shocked fellow patrons by cuddling during a three-hour candlelit dinner just a few weeks after announcing their separation. Brad also supposedly took Angelina Jolie to L’Orangerie for a meal during the filming of Mr. and Mrs. Smith, which I, of course, was not especially happy to hear.

L’Orangerie- the Ferris Bueller restaurant

You can watch a video which shows the interior of the former L’Orangerie restaurant by clicking above.

Big THANK YOU to Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, for finding this location and an even BIGGER THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for going above and beyond the call of duty (of both stalking and friendship) by spending countless hours doing research for me and reading through 60-plus pages of search results on Google while trying to figure out what movie it was that I had seen recently that had been filmed at L’Orangerie.

And a HUGE thank you to Abby, of the Pleasure Palate website, for so graciously allowing me to feature her photographs of L’Orangerie restaurant on my website. This post would not have been the same without her fabulous pictures! You can read Abby’s write-up on her dining experience at L’Orangerie here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Nobu, aka the former L’Orangerie restaurant, aka the interior of Chez Quis from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, is located at 903 North La Cienega Boulevard in West Hollywood. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.

January 12, 2012
Mercedes’ Apartment Building from “Larry Crowne”

The only Larry Crowne filming location that fellow stalker Mike, from MovieShotsLA, did not track down was the mid-century-style apartment building where East Valley Community College professor Mercedes Tainot (aka Julia Roberts) – that’s “T-A-I-N-O-T, not Tae Bow, not Tai Chi, not Tie Knot” – lived with her philandering husband, Dean Tainot (aka Bryan Cranston). And I just have to say here that I absolutely LOVED the scene in which “professional blog writer” Dean, trying to defend the fact that he does not have an actual job, says to Mercedes, “I had four postings today alone! Blog-caster . . . Sky-scan . . . Parse-it-twelve.com . . . ”, to which she responds, “They are not postings, they’re comments!” Cracks me up every time! Anyway, although Mercedes’ apartment building looks very much like a San-Fernando-Valley-area structure, I had an inkling that it might actually be located in Pasadena and, sure enough, it was! A quick input of the terms “Larry Crowne”, “filming” and “Pasadena” led me to this link on the Before the Trailer website, which stated that the flick had done some shooting at 325 South Orange Grove Boulevard on May 25th of last year. So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out there to stalk the place this past weekend.

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Mercedes and Dean’s apartment building showed up numerous times throughout Larry Crowne and, because I just really liked the look of the place, I had been absolutely desperate to stalk it.

And I am very happy to report that it did not disappoint – the complex looks EXACTLY the same in person as it did onscreen! The portion of the building that appeared in Larry Crowne is not actually the structure’s main entrance on Orange Grove Boulevard, but a side entrance located just around the corner on Arbor Street.

Which is the same area where Dean was dropped off by a taxi cab after spending the night in jail.

While we were stalking the place, we happened to speak with some residents of the building who honestly could NOT have been nicer. They not only answered all of my silly little questions about the filming and told me that Tom Hanks had been extremely nice and that the shoot, which took one day to complete, was an incredibly fun experience, but they also pointed me in the exact direction of Mercedes’ apartment. Whoo-hoo!

So I, of course, just had to take a photograph in front of her door.

As you can see above, Mercedes’ apartment looks exactly the same in person as it did onscreen.

As does the neighbor’s apartment, which appeared in the background of the scene in which Larry Crowne (aka Tom Hanks) brought Mercedes home on his scooter.

Only the exterior of the apartment building was used in the filming. According to the Larry Crowne production notes, the interior of Mercedes and Dean’s (what they call) townhouse was just a set that was built inside of a soundstage at what I believe was Universal Studios. I am seriously in love with the Tainot’s kitchen, by the way. Sigh!

And I also so LOVE how the art department matched the interior detailing of the apartment to the real-life iron detailing of the building, as you can see above. Talk about attention to detail!

The actual unit where filming took place, Unit 325, which measures 2 bedrooms, 2 baths, and 1,396 square feet, was for sale recently. As you can see above, the interior looks nothing like the set that was created for the filming. You can check out the place’s real estate listing here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Mercedes’ apartment building from Larry Crowne is located at 325 South Orange Grove Boulevard in Pasadena. The side of the building that is shown in the movie can be found on Arbor Street, just around the corner from the main entrance.

January 11, 2012
The “Larry Crowne” Apartment Building

Two additional Larry Crowne filming locations that I stalked this past weekend were Talia’s, the vintage clothing store owned by Talia Francesco (aka the adorable Gugu Mbatha-Raw), and the apartment building where Larry Crowne (aka Tom Hanks) lived at the very end of the flick, both of which are housed inside of the same corner edifice in Altadena. I found this locale thanks to fellow stalker Mike, from MovieShotsLA, who, while doing some online research on the movie, came across an old listing on the Cazoodle Apartment website which not only announced that Tom Hanks’ Larry Crowne apartment was then available for rent, but also provided its exact location. Yay! So last Saturday afternoon, while doing some New Year’s Eve stalking, I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out there to stalk the place.

The non-descript two-story building shows up several times in Larry Crowne – first in the scene in which Talia, while driving around on her scooter, notices a “For Rent” sign in a vacant storefront window and stops to take a closer look.

It next appears in the scene in which Larry stops by Talia’s new store to reprimand her for dropping out of East Valley Community College. It is while there that he informs her that her new tattoo does not in fact spell out “courageous spirit” in Japanese as she had intended, but “soy sauce”. LOL

And finally, the building is featured in the ending scene in which Larry invites his former teacher Mercedes Tainot (aka Julia Roberts) to his new apartment for some homemade French toast. (If you’ll notice in the first screenshot pictured above, the apostrophe in the signage for Talia’s store is ostensibly missing. Larry was right – Talia definitely should have stayed in school. Then perhaps she would not have made such an egregious error. It looks like I need to submit this one to When Write is Wrong, my good friend Owen’s typos and grammatical errors blog.)

As you can see above, Talia’s store (or should I say Talias store? ) was dressed heavily for the filming of Larry Crowne and does not look at all in person as it did onscreen. The building was vacant during the time of the filming (and still is today), so producers were able to do with it what they wanted without having to disturb any operating businesses.

And although we are only given a brief view of the interior of the store through the front windows in the movie, I just had to snap some pics of it, nonetheless.

When I first watched Larry Crowne, I had assumed that the little courtyard area outside of Larry’s apartment had been a set due to the fact that it was so incredibly idyllic and picturesque. But I am very happy to report that the courtyard is, in fact, real!

Sadly though, as you can see above, the stairwell that leads to the second floor, where Larry’s courtyard is located, is gated and not accessible to the public. Boo! If only I had known about this place back when it was available for rent, I totally would have scheduled a viewing!

You can catch a minor glimpse of the courtyard if you venture across the street, though. According to the Cazoodle Apartment listing that Mike found, the 530-square-foot, 1-bedroom, 1-bath unit where Larry supposedly lived at the end of Larry Crowne was being offered for lease back in August of last year at a rate of $895 per month. And no, that was not a typo – the asking price was $895 per month for 530 square feet! Welcome to California. LOL

Pictured above are the photographs from that real estate listing and, as you can see, Larry’s apartment is pretty darn adorable.

In the movie, Larry’s address is noted as being 4225 Harbor #7.

And, as you can see above, producers even went so far as to change the address number plaque for the filming, so had the real estate listing not touted the apartment’s Larry Crowne connection, this would have been a very tough find! Nice work, Mike!

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On a Larry Crowne side-note – Back in June of last year, fave website AltadenaBlog posted a fabulous story about the filming, which you can read here. Apparently, during a break from the shoot, Tom Hanks wandered a few blocks up Lake Avenue to do some shopping at Webster’s Fine Stationers and not only posed for a picture with the owners, but also told them that he loved family-owned stationary stores. So incredibly cool! Especially since the GC and I had our own little run-in with Tom Hanks a few years back and let’s just say that he was less than friendly. Ah, let’s call a spade a spade here – the guy was a complete and total jerk and for a long while after that the GC refused to see any of his movies! But after reading the Webster’s Fine Stationers story on AltadenaBlog and after hearing how nice Tom was to Jose, the owner of Frank’s Restaurant where Larry Crowne filming also took place, it would seem that the actor has since changed his ways. One can hope, at least!

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Larry Crowne apartment building is located at 906 Boston Street in Altadena. Thalia’s store from the movie is located at 2104 North Lake Avenue in Altadena.

January 6, 2012
The Reno Main US Post Office from “Sister Act”

While visiting my grandmother in Sparks, Nevada over Christmas, I dragged her, along with my parents, out to stalk the Reno Main US Post Office, which masqueraded as the Reno Police Station in the 1992 movie Sister Act. I first found out about this location from fave book Shot on This Site: A Traveler’s Guide to the Places and Locations Used to Film Famous Movies and TV Shows (which was gifted to me by fellow stalker Lavonna ) while doing research on the area in preparation for my July trip out to the Silver State. For some reason, though, while I had managed to stalk the Washoe County Courthouse from The Misfits during my visit, I had somehow forgotten all about the post office – which is a pretty incredible feat being that the two buildings are located directly across the street from each other! As I have said countless times before on this blog, I am such a blonde! So during this recent visit, I made it a point to trek the family out to Downtown Reno once again so that I could finally do some Sister Act stalking.

The Reno Main US Post Office was originally constructed in 1932 by Frederic DeLongchamps, the prolific Nevada-area architect who also designed the Washoe Country Courthouse, the Riverside Hotel, and countless other noteworthy buildings across the Silver State. The structure was built on the site of what was formerly Reno’s very first public library. When the library was moved to a new location in 1931, DeLongchamps set to work on building the post office, which did not officially open for business until 1934. The Reno Main US Post Office, which also houses several Federal agency offices, is considered to be one of the finest examples of Zigzag Moderne architecture – a highly decorative style of Art Deco design that employs sunken vertical panel windows, flat roofs, geometric ornamentation, repetitive angular patterns, and astrological imagery – in all of Nevada. The structure was added to the National Register of Historic Places on February 28th, 1990.

The interior of the Reno Main US Post Office is nothing short of breathtaking and not at all what I had been expecting when I first walked in. I mean, the Pasadena Post Office is quite beautiful as well, but nothing like this!

The detail in the design of the interior was absolutely astounding! There are ornate cast aluminum fixtures, like the one pictured above, fastened to the corner of every single marble tile which covers the lobby walls.

And each bank of mailboxes is adorned with an elaborately-carved border. Every time I turned around, I found myself discovering some new miniscule detail that I had not previously noticed. Simply amazing!

The original blue prints for the Reno Main US Post Office were even on display in the lobby, which I thought was so incredibly cool!

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The Reno Main US Post Office shows up twice in Sister Act. It first appears very briefly in the beginning of the movie, in the scene in which Deloris Van Cartier (aka Whoopi Goldberg) reports to the police that her boyfriend, Vince LaRocca (aka Harvey Keitel), has just killed his limo driver. According to the IMBD Sister Act trivia page, producers decided to film at the post office because they did not think that the actual Downtown Reno police station looked like a police station. LOL Ah, Hollywood!

The post office next shows up in the scene in which Vince leaves the police station with his lawyers after having been interrogated for six hours.

And while I had originally assumed that the interior of the Reno Main US Post Office had been used as the interior of the police station in Sister Act, as you can see above, that does not appear to have been the case. The interior does not look to have been a set, though, either, so I guess I am going to have to do a bit of digging to track down where filming actually took place.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Reno Main US Post Office, aka the police station from Sister Act, is located at 50 South Virginia Street in Reno, Nevada. The Washoe County Courthouse, from The Misfits, is located across the street at 117 South Virginia Street.

January 5, 2012
Frank’s Coffee Shop and Restaurant from “Larry Crowne”

A few days before Christmas, while I was wallowing in a horrible head cold, the Grim Cheaper and I sat down to watch the 2011 flick Larry Crowne. Neither of us had very high hopes for the movie as it had received such horrible reviews, but I am very happy to report that we both ended up loving it. So much so that we watched it again a few days later when my parents came to town to celebrate Christmas with us. The whimsical storyline centers around Larry Crowne (aka Tom Hanks), a middle-aged former Navy chef who is forced to rethink his life after being fired from his job at the local U-Mart Store. He decides to enroll in a nearby community college where he not only makes friends with a group of wildly eccentric and endearing characters, but also finds his life finally start to take shape. If you have yet to see Larry Crowne, I highly recommend ignoring the critics and renting it! Anyway, one of the main locations featured in the flick was Frank’s Coffee Shop and Restaurant – a Burbank-area eatery that I had passed by countless times during my ten-plus years of living in Los Angeles, but had, for whatever reason, never dined at. So I immediately added the place to my “To-Stalk” list and dragged the GC right on out there as soon as we returned home from visiting my grandmother in Reno this past weekend.

As we pulled up to Frank’s Coffee Shop and Restaurant, I spotted an article about Larry Crowne posted on the café’s front door and knew right away that I was going to LOVE the place.

And I am very happy to report that I did! Frank’s Coffee Shop and Restaurant, which is also sometimes called Frank’s Steak House, first opened its doors in 1957 and not much has changed since. Walking into the diner is like stepping back in time about fifty years – and I mean that in the best way possible.

The interior of Frank’s, with its dark vinyl booths, popcorn ceiling, and Formica countertops, is straight out of the 1950s and it is not at all hard to see why countless location managers have flocked there over the years. The place also serves up some FABULOUS food at very reasonable prices, which pleased the GC to no end. I opted for a mushroom cheeseburger with French fries and a side of ranch dressing and it was all simply amazing – especially the steak fries, which were extremely thick and seasoned in a way that was reminiscent of the fries served at fave restaurant chain Red Robin. The GC ordered the homemade split pea soup and it was also out of this world.

I was absolutely floored when I spotted a photograph of Tom Hanks posing with Jose, Frank’s owner, on display on the wall next to the kitchen. As fate would have it, Jose happened to come over to chat with us while we were dining and, let me tell you, the guy could NOT have been nicer! He sat with us for a good twenty minutes and filled us in on the Larry Crowne shoot, which took six days to complete. Jose informed us that the cast and crew were some of the nicest that he has ever encountered – and he has encountered quite a few. He also told us about the restaurant’s vast filming history and showed us countless photographs that he had stored on his cell phone of the various filmings that have taken place on the premises and the numerous celebrities that have posed with him. As you can imagine, I was pretty much drooling the entire time.

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In Larry Crowne, Frank’s Coffee Shop and Restaurant is featured repeatedly as the eatery where Larry and his scooter-riding friends hang out.

Later on in the movie, Larry gets a job working as a line cook in the restaurant’s kitchen.

That kitchen is pictured above.

Jose, who has been a chef for over forty years, actually acted as Tom Hanks’ cooking consultant during the filming of Larry Crowne and at one point had to step in to do some chopping for the actor. The hands you see above, which are supposedly Larry’s in the movie, are actually Jose’s. So incredibly cool!

In the Season 5 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 titled “Squash It”, the exterior of Frank’s stood in for the Reno, Nevada-area diner where Valerie Malone (aka Tiffani Thiessen) convinced Ray Pruit (aka Jamie Walters) to return to Beverly Hills.

As you can see above, though, a different restaurant was used for the interior filming.

Jose informed us that Frank’s Coffee Shop had been featured in no less than 5 episodes of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, one of which is the upcoming “Willows in the Wind”, which just so happens to be Marg Helgenber’s final episode. Unfortunately, Jose was unsure of the titles of the other four episodes filmed on the premises, but I was able to do some digging and tracked down two of them. Then, after publishing this post, a CSI message board led me to the other two. Win! Frank’s first appeared in the Season 6 episode titled “Rashomama” as the supposed Las Vegas, Nevada-area coffee shop where the car belonging to Nick Stokes (aka George Eads), as well as all of the crime scene evidence inside of it, was stolen.

And in the Season 7 episode titled “Law of Gravity”, Frank’s stood in for the restaurant where Michael Keppler (aka Liev Schreiber) ran into Frank McCarty (aka Len Cariou).

In the Season 9 episode titled “Mascara” (CSI’s 200th episode), Frank’s is where Dr. Raymond Langston (aka Laurence Fishburne) met up a few times with his former thesis student Sylvia Mallick (aka Aimee Deshayes).

And in the Season 11 episode titled “The List”, Catherine Willows (aka Marg Helgenberger) met up with Detective Vartann (aka Alex Carter) to discuss the case she was working on.

In the Season 2 episode of Parks and Recreation titled “Ron and Tammy”, Frank’s stood in for the supposed Pawnee, Indiana-area restaurant where Ron Swanson (aka Nick Offerman) took his ex-wife, Tammy Swanson (aka Megan Mullally), out for lunch.

Jose also let us know that Frank’s was featured in the 2003 flop Gigli, but I scanned through the movie yesterday while doing research for this post and did not see it anywhere. I did, however, spot it briefly in the flick’s trailer, so the scene that was filmed at Frank’s appears to have been left on the cutting room floor.

That scene can be viewed at the 2:18 mark when Larry Gigli (aka Ben Affleck) tells Ricki (aka Jennifer Lopez), “I got a confession. I think we’re good together.”

Fellow stalker Jason also let me know that Frank’s Restaurant was featured in Chris Daughty’s “No Surprise” music video.

Chris Daughty–“No Surprise” Video Filmed at Frank’s Coffee Shop & Restaurant in Burbank

You can watch that video by clicking above.

Jose also told us that Frank’s Coffee Shop and Restaurant was featured in the A&E Network mini-series Stephen King’s Bag of Bones, but I scanned through it yesterday and did not spot the restaurant anywhere. He also told us that Criminal Minds had filmed on the premises recently, but I scanned through all of the Season 7 episodes that have aired so far and did not see it, so I am guessing that it will pop up in an upcoming episode in the very near future.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Frank’s Coffee Shop and Restaurant, from Larry Crowne, is located at 916 West Olive Avenue in Burbank.

January 4, 2012
The Brass Monkey Bar from “Bad Santa”

Another Christmas-themed location that I stalked recently was the Brass Elephant bar – the Monrovia-area watering hole that stood in for the similarly-named “Brass Monkey” bar where Sue (aka Lauren Graham) worked in my least-favorite holiday movie of all time, 2003’s Bad Santa. Fellow stalker Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, had tracked down the establishment a while back and once I learned that it was located inside of the Aztec Hotel, an extremely unique structure that had intrigued me ever since I first moved to the San Gabriel Valley over eleven years ago, I decided that I just had to stalk the place. And this past Tuesday morning, I finally did just that.

The Aztec Hotel was originally built in 1925, on what was then the historic Route 66, by Robert Stacy-Judd, the English-born architect who also designed the Masonic Temple in North Hollywood, the First Baptist Church in Ventura, and the incredible Atwater Bungalows in Echo Park. The hotel was Stacy-Judd’s first commercial design job in the United States and he credited his inspiration for the project to John L. Stephen’s 1841 tome Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan. Although technically Mayan in design, the architect named the property the “Aztec Hotel” because, as he is quoted as saying in the 1993 book Robert Stacy-Judd: Maya Architecture and the Creation of a New Style, “When the hotel project was first announced, the word Maya was unknown to the layman. The subject of Maya culture was only of archaeological importance, and, at that, concerned but a few exponents. As the word Aztec was fairly well-known, I baptized the hotel with that name, although all the decorative motifs are Maya.”

And while the Aztec Hotel enjoyed immense success and was one of the most exclusive lodgings in the area for a brief period, it fell upon hard times due to both the Great Depression and the realignment of Route 66 and was forced to shutter its doors in 1935, less than a decade after opening. It was sold, by auction, shortly thereafter for $50,000. The new owners renovated the place and it once again became a popular retreat thanks to the proximity of the newly-opened Santa Anita Park race track. Such luminaries as Bing Crosby, Mickey Rooney, Clark Gable, and my girl Marilyn Monroe were all reportedly counted as guests at one time or another. Sadly though, the property fell, once again, into disrepair in the years following and served as everything from a drug den to a brothel. The 44-room, two-story hotel, which was named a National Historic Landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, was just recently purchased by new owners who have set about restoring the historic site to its former glory. Amazingly, numerous elements of Stacy-Judd’s original design remain in place to this day, including the tile floor in the lobby, ceiling light fixtures, stained glass windows, several murals, and a fireplace.

Sadly, the Brass Elephant bar, which is located just off of the Aztec Hotel’s lobby, was closed when I showed up to stalk it, but I did manage to snap the above pictures through an open window.

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In Bad Santa, the Brass Elephant stood in for the Brass Monkey – the supposed-Phoenix, Arizona-area mall bar where disgruntled Santa Willie (aka Billy Bob Thornton) first met bartender Sue. It popped up in two scenes in the movie – first in the scene in which Willie successfully hits on Sue before getting into a fist-fight with a fellow patron.

And later in the scene in which Gin (aka Bernie Mac) tries to blackmail Willie and his partner-in-crime, Marcus (aka Tony Cox). As you can see in the screen captures above, the Brass Elephant was dressed heavily for the filming, with special booths brought in, walls retouched, and bright lighting installed, and is virtually unrecognizable from its appearance onscreen.

Because the Brass Monkey was supposed to be located adjacent to a mall in Bad Santa, the real life exterior of the Aztec Hotel did not appear in the flick. A fake exterior for the bar was instead created at the Del Amo Fashion Center in Torrance, where the vast majority of the movie was lensed.

The Aztec Hotel was also featured extensively in the 2009 movie Spooner, as the place where Rose Conlin (aka the adorable Nora Zehetner), the object of Herman Spooner’s (aka the even more adorable Matthew Lillard’s) affection, stays for a few days after her car breaks down.

Quite a bit of the hotel appeared in the movie, including the front entrance;

the lobby;

several hallways;

the Aztec Barber Shop, which is an actual place;

one of (what I believe is) the hotel’s real life rooms;

and the Brass Elephant bar. And while I only scanned through Spooner in order to make screen captures for this post, I have to say that it looks like an incredibly cute movie that I definitely need to watch in its entirety in the very near future.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Chas, of the It’sFilmedThere website, for finding this location. You can check out Chas’ extensive Bad Santa filming locations page here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Brass Elephant, aka the Brass Monkey from Bad Santa, is located at 311 West Foothill Boulevard, inside of the Aztec Hotel, in Monrovia. You can visit the hotel’s official website here and you can visit the bar’s official Facebook page here.

December 23, 2011
Arthur Abbott’s House from “The Holiday”

Another location from the 2006 movie The Holiday that I set out to track down last week for my Christmas-themed stalking posts was the large Mediterranean-style abode where Arthur Abbott (aka The Misfits’ Eli Wallach) lived. Thanks to the flick’s production notes, I knew that the property was located somewhere in Brentwood and that it “reflected the glamour of old Hollywood”. So I spent quite a few fruitless hours searching aerial views of the area before coming up completely empty-handed. Enter Mike, from MovieShotsLA, who so graciously offered up his stalking services and spent almost the entire day scouring Brentwood streets looking for the house. And I am very happy to report that he did, indeed, find the place – without the help of a crew member or knowledge of an address number to guide him. Whoo-hoo! Thank you, Mike! So, I, of course, ran right out to stalk the residence this past weekend.

Amazingly enough, while we were stalking the place, not only was the front gate standing open, affording us a small peek at where filming of The Holiday had taken place, but two different super-nice neighbors also happened to walk by and informed us that the property has belonged to comedienne Phyllis Diller for over forty years now! How incredibly cool is that? And, in an ironic twist, fellow stalker E.J., of The Movieland Directory website, wrote to me yesterday morning after seeing my post on Miles’ house from The Holiday to let me know that he was fairly certain he knew where Arthur’s abode was located – he thought it might just be Phyllis Diller’s residence in Brentwood. As it turns out, E.J. has a good friend who formerly lived near Phyllis and when E.J. watched The Holiday for the first time over five years ago, he recognized the home immediately. As I responded in my email to him yesterday, “Where the heck were you last week when we were looking for the place???” LOL

In real life, Arthur Abbott’s home, which was originally built in 1914, boasts 8 bedrooms, 5 baths, 9,266 square feet of living space, and a 1.23-acre plot of land.

And, as you can see in the above aerial view, it also features an incredibly cool central courtyard that I am undeniably in love with!

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In The Holiday, Iris Simpkins (aka Kate Winslet) befriends Arthur Abbott, the elderly man who lives next door to the house where Iris is spending a two-week Christmas vacation thanks to a home swap with Amanda Woods (aka Cameron Diaz). (I blogged about Amanda’s residence way back in June of 2010.) As Iris soon discovers, Arthur is an accomplished Hollywood screenwriter and he winds up changing her life and infusing her with “gumption”, a trait that she had somehow lost along the way.

The neighbors that we spoke with also informed us that filming at the property took about three weeks to complete, which leads me to believe that the real life interior was used in the production.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Arthur Abbott’s house from The Holiday is located at 163 South Rockingham Avenue in Brentwood.

December 22, 2011