Category: Movie Locations

Noodles’ House from “A Star Is Born”

News outlets are reporting that Lady Gaga can’t seem to let go of her A Star Is Born character. Well, I am apparently having a hard time letting go of the movie’s locations because here I am yet again with yet another site from the film (you can read my other ASIB posts here, here, and here) – a film that I did not even enjoy, oddly enough. Yes, I did finally sit down to watch it recently, but found myself bored and wound up turning it off about ninety minutes in. I don’t know if my apathy was completely legitimate or had to do with the fact that I was dreading the sad ending, but either way, the portions I did see were just “meh.” The only time I did perk up was when the supposed Memphis home belonging to George ‘Noodles’ Stone (Dave Chappelle) came onscreen as I was fairly certain it was a spot I had stalked long ago. A quick visit to my website verified my hunch – Noodles’ pad is none other than the Teen Wolf party house! Researching further, I was shocked to discover that the property boasts yet a third notable claim to fame! So, even though I already blogged about it back in 2011, I figured it was definitely time for another go-around.

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Per a couple of commenters on my 2011 post, in real life Noodles’ house was built in 1915 for a man named Dr. Hubert Shearin, who was the head of the Occidental College English Department at the time. A distinguished member of the community, Dr. Shearin also served as director of the Eagle Rock School Board and director of Eagle Rock Bank, as well as belonging to countless local clubs. Considering his prominence, it should come as no surprise that when Eagle Rock became part of the City of Los Angeles in 1923 and many roads were required to be renamed, the street his former residence is on was dubbed “Shearin Avenue” in his honor.

Hubert passed away suddenly on August 12th, 1919 at the age of 41, leaving behind his wife, Ruth, and their two children. Ruth continued to live in the 4-bedroom, 1-bath, 2,346-square-foot property (which you can see interior photographs of here) until 1952, at which time she moved to Glendale. In the ensuing years, the house went on to become quite famous cinematically.

It is there that Scott Howard (Michael J. Fox) and his friends attend a raucous high school party in the 1985 classic Teen Wolf.

A woman named Valerie who grew up in the house and lived there during the Teen Wolf shoot wrote a comment on my 2011 post informing me that the closet where Scott kissed his BFF Boof (Susan Ursitti) was not real, but a set piece built specifically for the filming on the home’s rear deck, which is what I had suspected upon first viewing images of the interior. In actuality, the closet doors seen in the movie are French doors that lead from the dining room to the backyard. You can check out an image of the spot where the prop closet was built here.

It was thanks to my obsessive study of the closet and dining room area while writing my original post that I recognized the pad in A Star Is Born. Actually, what I recognized were the unique arched built-ins situated on either side of the home’s French doors. I had spent quite a bit of time scrutinizing them, so when they popped up in A Star Is Born, I immediately took note. You can check out some actual images of the residence’s dining room, which was massively repainted for the ASIB shoot, here and here.

Along with the dining room . . .

. . . the kitchen (which you can see a photo of here) also briefly appeared in A Star Is Born . . .

. . . as did an upstairs bedroom (matching photo here) . . .

. . . the side yard (matching photo here) . . .

. . . and the street out front (matching Google Street View image below).

As I mentioned earlier, along with Teen Wolf and A Star Is Born, the dwelling boasts yet another Hollywood connection. On the television series This Is Us, it serves at the supposed Pittsburgh residence of the Pearson family. It is this home that burns down in the much-maligned episode titled “Super Bowl Sunday.” For whatever reason, the property was only utilized on the show starting in Season 2.

During the series’ inaugural season, a different home at 1960 Fletcher Avenue in South Pasadena appeared as the Pearsons’.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Noodles’ house from A Star Is Born, aka the Teen Wolf party house, aka the Pearson residence from This Is Us, is located at 5223 Shearin Avenue in Eagle Rock. Rachel’s (Chloë Grace Moretz) home from (500) Days of Summer can be found right next door at 5231 Shearin Avenue.

March 13, 2019
Hummingbird Nest Ranch from “Book Club”

One of my favorite stalking stories involves the Grim Cheaper and Sex and the City: The Movie, which I saw right when it came out in late May 2008. I was gifted Amy Sohn’s book about the film for my birthday just a few days later and while it did a fabulous job of breaking down the locales, one that I desperately wanted to find was only mentioned in passing. Of the Mexican restaurant where Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) dined with the girls during her non-honeymoon, all that was said was that filming took place in Simi Valley. As soon as I read those words, though, I knew what I had to do – call up every Mexican eatery in the area and ask if the flick was shot there, obvs! Now I should mention here that I hate telephone calls. The GC likes to say that I am scared of the phone and he’s not far off. So I enlisted his help with this endeavor. It was a rather humorous undertaking being that none of the people who answered his calls had any earthly idea what he was talking about. Needless to say, after spending hours on the task, we came up empty – but the whole thing sure was good for a few laughs. It was not until Mike, from MovieShotsLA, saw the film that the mystery was finally solved. He recognized the Mexican restaurant, which – spoiler! – isn’t really a restaurant at all, as none other than Hummingbird Nest Ranch, an oft-filmed compound nestled north of the 118 freeway in Santa Susana. The property is, unfortunately, closed to the public, but is available to lease for special events. So, since I was newly engaged at the time, it went to the top of my list of spots to tour as a possible wedding venue. I headed out there soon thereafter, but was struck with bad luck thanks to the reality series Tool Academy which had taken over the property for a weeks-long shoot, thereby severely limiting what I could photograph. Regardless, when I saw the site pop up as the idyllic “Sedona” ranch belonging to Mitchell (Andy Garcia) in Book Club (one of my favorite movies of 2018 – available on DVD here and via streaming here), I knew I had to finally blog about it.

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Hummingbird Nest Ranch was the brainchild of Metro Networks founder David Saperstein who, in 2000, purchased a 123-acre plot of picturesque land in the hills of Simi Valley for his second wife, Suzanne. Though a gorgeous 1920s home known as Sitting Bull sat on the property, David envisioned something grander for Suzanne and commissioned architect Richard Robertson to build a massive 17,000-square-foot Spanish-style estate on the grounds for the couple to live in.

Several other structures were also added including 3 riding arenas, 16 guest and staff houses, and a 20,000-square-foot barn. That’s the barn below. Yeah, I know – it’s grander than most homes!

There is also parking for 400 vehicles, numerous swimming pools, a spa, a large pond, a helipad, and a solar-panel farm on the premises.

Saperstein filed for divorce from Suzanne in 2005 and subsequently put the ranch on the market in 2007 for $75 million. When there were no takers, he switched gears and decided to turn the property into a massive 5-star resort complete with 105 rooms, 98 casitas, numerous restaurants and swimming pools, conference facilities, and a convention center.

The city of Simi Valley greenlighted the plan, but once the permits were in place in 2014, Saperstein changed gears yet again and re-listed the site, this time for $49.5 million. It finally sold in December 2015 for $33 million.

Though the purchaser was said to be transforming the place into a wellness hotel, so far those plans have not yet come to fruition.

Because the place sat largely vacant for close to a decade, it became the perfect venue for filming (not to mention a few celebrity weddings including that of Kaley Cuoco and Ryan Sweeting, Nazanin Mandi and Miguel Pimentel, and Morgan Stewart and Brendan Fitzpatrick).

For Book Club, producers chose to use Sitting Bull, Hummingbird Nest Ranch’s original 1920s house, instead of the massive main residence as Mitchell’s charming Arizona pad. Per a 2018 Architectural Digest feature, the property was love at first sight for production designer Rachel O’Toole. Of the home, she says, “It was just so perfect with the archways and the way that the light dapples through the yard and the pool. Standing at the front door you can see all the way through the kitchen into a bathroom, through an arched brick passageway and then outside through leaded glass to a fountain. I said to Bill [director Bill Holderman], ‘We shouldn’t waste our time looking elsewhere because this is it.’”

Diane Keaton, who plays Mitchell’s love interest in the film, also became smitten with the dwelling. When AD asked about her favorite Book Club locale, she responded, “I liked Andy Garcia’s house best. Andy’s house is an old Spanish. I wanted to buy it. That place is gorgeous.”

Of dressing the location for the shoot, O’Toole told AD, “For the color palette, we had burgundies and browns and tans with lots of textures like Persian rugs. We wanted Andy’s character to be grounded and approachable with things he collected from all his travels.”

Not much of the home was altered for the flick. Along with digitally adding the Arizona desert into the background of a scene . . .

. . . production also updated the pad’s 1970s kitchen, though it was only seen in a brief shot from outside the front door towards the end of the movie.

Sitting Bull also portrayed Gregory Sumner’s (William Devane) ranch on the popular nighttime soap Knots Landing, which aired from 1979 to 1993.

Though most of the Mexican resort scenes in Sex and the City: The Movie were shot at this house in Malibu, Hummingbird Nest Ranch masked as the hotel restaurant where a waiter guts Carrie by referring to her as “Mrs. Preston.”

Shortly after Sex and the City: The Movie debuted, the ranch popped up as Destinies, the rehabilitation center where Joan McCallister (Judy Davis) worked during the second season of The Starter Wife.

That same year, the ranch portrayed yet another rehab, this time on the Season 1 episode of 90210 titled “There’s No Place Like Homecoming” as the spot Adrianna Tate-Duncan (Jessica Lowndes) was sent after almost overdosing.

As I mentioned earlier, Hummingbird Nest Ranch was used extensively as the home of the competing couples on Tool Academy, which began airing in 2009.

Also in 2009, Hummingbird Nest Ranch masqueraded as Calistoga Canyon Resort and Spa where the CBI team investigated a murder in the Season 1 episode of The Mentalist titled “Crimson Casanova.”

In the Season 7 episode of NCIS titled “Rule Fifty-One,” which aired in 2010, the Nest portrays the Mexican estate of Paloma Reynosa (Jacqueline Obradors).

The massive main house plays Steve Jobs’ (Ashton Kutcher) tony Silicon Valley mansion in the 2013 biopic Jobs.

On July 27th, 2014, Scheana Marie (one of the most miserable brides ever!) married Michael Shay at Hummingbird Nest Ranch. The event was chronicled in the Season 3 episodes of Vanderpump Rules titled “For Better or Worse” and “Ring on a String” which aired the following year.

In the 2015 Entourage movie, the ranch masks as the Texas home of Larsen McCredle (Billy Bob Thornton) and his son, Travis (Haley Joel Osment).

That same year, Hummingbird Nest showed up in the Season 1 episode of Stitchers titled “The Root of All Evil” as the mansion belonging to Joe Parks (Cameron Daddo) and his wife, Suzanne (Courtney Henggeler).

Also in 2015, the ranch popped up as the home of Dr. Irving Pitlor (Rick Springfield) in the Season 2 episode of True Detective titled “Night Finds You.”

Hummingbird Nest masked as the Palm Springs Hotel where Ace Amberg (Rob Reiner) trysted with Jeanne Crandall (Mira Sorvino) in the Season 1 episode of Hollywood titled “(Screen) Tests,” which hit Netflix in 2020.

The couple stayed in Sitting Bull in the episode.

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 finding this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Hummingbird Nest Ranch, aka Mitchell’s house from Book Club, is located at 2940 Kuehner Drive in Santa Susana. You can visit the venue’s official website here. Please be advised that the ranch is private property and not open to the public.

March 11, 2019
Tacos Jalisco from “A Star Is Born”

Stumbling upon filmings used to be a regular occurrence when I lived in L.A. Sadly, that is not the case in Palm Springs. So I was thrilled – and shocked – to happen upon A Star Is Born being shot at desert eatery Tacos Jalisco while on a Windmill Tour with the Grim Cheaper and our friends Nat and Tony back in April 2017. Though I had no intention of ever seeing the flick due to its sad storyline, I made a mental note to do a proper stalk of the restaurant once it came out. After a few failed attempts in which I showed up only to find the place closed, I was finally able to do so this past week.

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Sitting adjacent to Jalisco Tires auto repair shop, Tacos Jalisco is located quite a ways off the beaten path on a sleepy road in North Palm Springs.

If not for the Windmill Tour, I never would have known the place existed.

And that is a shame because it serves up uh-ma-zing food. The GC and I, of course, partook while there and he quickly proclaimed the tacos some of the best he’s ever had.

The small, casual eatery consists of two rooms – a main dining area and a bar.

Surprisingly, I could not find much information about the place’s history online aside from the fact that it formerly housed a market.

In A Star Is Born (which is out on DVD now!), Tacos Jalisco masks as the roadside eatery where Jackson Maine (Bradley Cooper) and Ally (Lady Gaga) stop to grab a bite to eat upon arriving in Jackson’s hometown of Arizona.

While there, Ally jots down lyrics for a song she is writing titled “Look What I’ve Found” and Jack discusses the fact that he doesn’t return home very often.

The restaurant’s interior was changed a bit for the shoot, with the booths that usually sit along the side wall moved to the middle of the dining area.

Otherwise, the place looks much as it did onscreen.

The exterior of Tacos Jalisco also appears in A Star Is Born – and is the site of a rather large gaffe. Notice below that as Ally walks up to Jack outside of the restaurant, she does not have a jacket on . . .

. . . but seconds later, as she embraces him, she magically does!

It was that portion of the scene that we saw being shot during our Windmill Tour. I was even able to snap a few pics of the production as we drove by. (I believe that is Bradley Cooper standing in the forefront of the top image below as the outfit seems to match what he was wearing onscreen – but don’t quote me on that as it could just as easily be his stand-in.)

Interestingly, prop gas pumps were brought in for the shoot to make Tacos Jalisco and the adjoining Jalisco Tires appear to be a service station. Because I had never seen the locale prior to the filming, I assumed the tanks were real and was shocked when I showed up to stalk the place and discovered there were no pumps to be found anywhere on the premises!

The scene that follows that of the roadside diner, in which Jack discovers that his childhood ranch has been sold and turned into a wind farm, was shot just around the corner on Dillon Road, about half a mile west of where it intersects with North Indian Canyon Drive. (I did not realize that when I stalked the restaurant and, as such, failed to take any photographs, so the Street View image below will have to do for now.)

In the interest of being thorough, I’ve denoted exactly where Ally and Jack were standing in the segment in the aerial view below. Ally’s position, in the bare patch of dirt, is marked with a pink “X,” while Jack’s, which is slightly west in the nearby foliage, is denoted with a blue “X.”

While stalking Tacos Jalisco, I happened to chat with its super-nice owner who informed me that the restaurant also appeared in the 2005 thriller Constantine as the spot where Manuel (Jesse Ramirez) stole a car in what was supposed to be the Mexican desert.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Tacos Jalisco, from A Star Is Born, is located at 17725 North Indian Canyon Drive in North Palm Springs. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here. Jack’s childhood-ranch-turned-windmill-farm from the movie can be found just around the corner on Dillon Road, about half a mile west of where it intersects with North Indian Canyon Drive.

March 1, 2019
Pappy & Harriet’s Pioneertown Palace from “Ingrid Goes West”

Ingrid Goes West is perhaps the most topically poignant movie I’ve ever seen! Centering around Ingrid Thorburn (Aubrey Plaza), a fragile young woman who picks up and moves from Pennsylvania to L.A. in the hopes of ingratiating herself into the life of influencer Taylor Sloane (Elizabeth Olsen), the 2017 black comedy highlights the pitfalls of social media and the dangers of buying into the illusory nature of Instagram. I first learned about the film (which is available to rent or purchase on Amazon and free for subscribers on Hulu) thanks to our friends Kim and Katie who visited us in Palm Springs last May. (That’s me and Katie pictured above.) On their flight to the desert, they watched Ingrid Goes West and were shocked when just a few days later, the Grim Cheaper and I brought them to Pappy & Harriet’s Pioneertown Palace, one of our favorite local spots, to grab a bite to eat. As it turns out, the Joshua Tree watering hole made a prominent appearance in the flick. Upon learning the news, the saloon went right onto my To-Blog List. But when I finally sat down to write about it this week, I could not find any of the photos I had taken on my many visits. So Kim and Katie were kind enough to loan me theirs for this post.

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The GC and I first discovered Pioneertown shortly after moving to Palm Springs in early 2013. Consisting of a small array of ramshackle wooden structures dotted along a patch of dusty road, the unique desert enclave was the brainchild of a team of Hollywood heavyweights including Bud Abbott, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, and Dale Evans who came up with the innovative idea to build a “living, breathing movie set” in a semi-desolate area easily accessible from L.A. In 1946, the group purchased 32,000 acres of land a few miles northwest of downtown Yucca Valley and, thus, Pioneertown was born.

The buildings erected included a jail, stables, a bank, a grocer, a restaurant, a barn, an ice cream parlor, a bowling alley, a shooting gallery, and a saloon known as the “Cantina.” It was that spot that would later become Pappy & Harriet’s. But more on that in a bit.

Each of the structures was not only practical, meaning both the interior and exterior could be utilized for filming, but functional as well. The bowling alley façade actually housed a working bowling alley, the ice cream parlor contained an operational ice cream parlor, and actors filming on the premises could hang out in the spaces between takes.

There was even a motel on the premises where cast and crew could stay during a shoot.

As Atlas Obscura explains the extraordinary site, “Its remote location made it more efficient to build era-appropriate lodgings for the talent right there on set, creating a tiny but functional town that served as both a shooting location and an unincorporated community village.”

Pioneertown took off and countless productions like The Cisco Kid, The Range Rider, The Gene Autry Show, Annie Oakley, and Judge Roy Bean made use of the locale throughout its first two decades. When Westerns fell out of favor with audiences in the late ‘60s, though, filmings on the premises began to dry up until eventually the place sat vacant and forgotten.

Then in 1972, a woman named Francis Aleba came along, purchased the Cantina space and transformed it into a burrito/biker bar. The rousing joint, which you can see images of here and here, was popular with desert denizens and people passing through from the get-go. When Francis wanted to retire ten years later, her daughter, Harriet, took over the place and with husband, Claude “Pappy” Allen, re-opened it as Pappy & Harriet’s Pioneertown Palace, a restaurant/bar/live music venue.

Countless bands showed up to play and Pappy and Harriet, musicians themselves, even graced the stage most nights.

After Pappy passed away in 1994, Harriet sold the bar to a friend, who wound up selling it herself a few years later. The menu changed, as did the décor and the clientele, and the musical acts eventually dried up. When Robyn Celia and Linda Kranz, longtime fans of the eatery who lived in New York, learned the place was for sale yet again in 2003, they decided the only thing to do was relocate to the high desert, snatch it up, and restore it back to its honky-tonk heyday. The watering hole quickly took off once more.

Former patrons returned in droves and new people discovered the place.

Today, Pappy & Harriet’s Pioneertown Palace is as popular as ever, thanks to its fabulous fare, unique décor, and excellent musical lineup. Just a few of the acts who have graced the venue’s stage include Rufus Wainwright, Robert Plant, the Artic Monkeys, Sean Lennon, Lorde, Kesha, Cracker, and, most famously, Paul McCartney who played an impromptu gig there in October 2016 while in the area for Desert Trip.

Pappy & Harriet’s has even attracted its fair share of celeb fans, like Helen Mirren, Emma Stone, Anne Hathaway, Brody Jenner, and Eric Szmanda, who have all been spotted dining on the premises.

Thanks to is whimsical aesthetic, it is no surprise that the place has showed up onscreen. (Though Pioneertown is, obviously, a Hollywood stalwart, as well, I thought it best to focus solely on Pappy & Harriet’s many cameos for this post. I promise to do a write-up on Pioneertown itself soon.)

In Ingrid Goes West, Taylor takes Ingrid to Pappy & Harriet’s for a wild night out while in Joshua Tree (ahem, #JTree) for a brief visit. As the incredibly vapid Taylor describes the place twice in film (first to Ingrid and later to a fellow influencer), “Pappy’s is the best. I mean, like, the crowd, it is a bit sketch, but they always have great live music and the best desert vibes.”

In a later scene, Taylor publishes a fake Instagram post alluding to being at the restaurant and Ingrid shows up in an attempt to talk to her and patch things up.

Pappy & Harriet’s is also where Ted Smith (Clive Turner) gets a job upon arriving in Pioneertown in 1995’s massively panned direct-to-video horror flick The Howling: New Moon Rising.

The eatery portrays a café known as “Last Chance” in the 1999 movie of the same name.

Anthony Bourdain and his friend Josh Homme pop by Pappy & Harriet’s, which he describes as being “out in the a**-end of nowhere,” in the Season 7 episode of Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations titled “U.S. Desert,” which aired in 2011.

Pappy & Harriet’s was also supposedly featured in Jeopardy, but I scanned through the 1953 thriller and didn’t see it anywhere. Being that the locale has likely been altered significantly since that time, though, it is possible I just didn’t recognize it.

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

Big THANK YOU to my friends Kim and Katie for providing all of the photos that appear in this post.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Pappy & Harriet’s Pioneertown Palace, from Ingrid Goes West, is located at 53688 Pioneertown Road in Pioneertown. You can visit the watering hole’s official website here.

February 22, 2019
Carlotta’s House from “Hail, Caesar!”

Today’s locale involves something I’ve never come across in all my years of stalking! Last June, a reader named Molly posted a comment on my Challenge Lindsay page asking for some help in tracking down the house where Carlotta Valdez (Veronica Osorio) lived in the 2016 Coen Brothers comedy Hail, Caesar! She mentioned that two places had actually been used to portray the exterior of the residence and that while she had found one, she was still looking for the other. Somehow I had never heard of the film (and I love a good Hollywood farce!), but was fascinated by the query. A Google search led me to an L.A. Weekly article chronicling a few of the movie’s sites which backed up Molly’s claim – the segment taking place outside of Carlotta’s pad was indeed lensed in two different spots. Though location trickery is old hat in Hollywood, this was the first I’d heard of a scene shot in two entirely different places, then stitched together to appear as one. Appropriately intrigued, I set out to help Molly on her quest.

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Carlotta’s house pops up in one brief scene in Hail, Caesar! in which the starlet, who was inspired by real life “Brazilian Bombshell” Carmen Miranda, is picked up by cowboy actor Hobie Doyle (Alden Ehrenreich) to go to a movie premiere. In the bit, the two characters are shown standing outside of Carlotta’s pad on a picturesque street greeting each other and making small talk. In reality, the two sides of the segment were lensed miles apart. Watching the illusory scene, which you can can do here, is quite jarring. Despite knowing the logistics, the whole thing was done so seamlessly that I could hardly believe it was not all shot in the same spot.

Though Molly had already tracked down the Hollywood Hills street where Hobie’s portion of the segment was lensed, she was looking for the gorgeous Spanish Colonial Revival that served as the backdrop for Carlotta’s.

As denoted in the L.A. Weekly article (and as Molly informed me), Hobie’s side of the scene was filmed at the intersection of Grace and Whitley Avenues in the Hollywood Hills. Location manager John Panzarella, who also worked on L.A. Confidential, explains, “Joel and Ethan [Coen] are not shy about cheating reverses; they really embrace it. They want the visual they have conceived.” That visual consisted of Hobie performing a dazzling array of lasso tricks while waiting for Carlotta on a sleepy street corner. Panzarella says, “Whitley Terrace was perfect for that, with the view of Hollywood in the background.” The only trouble was, there was no dwelling in the vicinity that matched the Cohens’ vision of Carlotta’s pad.

The directors instead found a place that fit the bill about three miles away in Los Feliz. While the L.A. Weekly article did not denote the home’s exact location, it did mention that the pad was designed by famed architect Paul Revere Williams in 1927. So I headed over to Google, where a quick search for “Paul Williams,” “Los Feliz,” and “1927” led me to this page on the Paul Revere Williams Project website about a dwelling at 4791 Cromwell Avenue. One look at the images posted told me it was the right spot!

The stunning 5,211-square-foot, 4-bedroom, 4-bath property looks much the same in person as it did onscreen, though the film definitely showcased it through a 1950s-style Hollywood filter which muted its color palette a bit.

In real life, the home is known as the Blackburn Residence in honor of its initial owners Bruce and Lula Blackburn, who hailed from Missouri, but moved to Los Angeles in the early 1900s. Initially settling in West Adams, once Bruce found financial success thanks to his invention of a roll-up window screen, he commissioned Williams to design the large Los Feliz estate.

Williams (who also gave us Johnny Weissmuller’s Bel Air home, the famed Perino’s restaurant, and Sloane’s house from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off) incorporated Bruce’s innovative screens into his design. They made such an impression on the prolific architect that he used them in many of his later works, as well.

The sprawling Blackburn Residence also boasts 12 rooms, 2.5 stories, an elevator, a triple fireplace, ornate tile work, wrought iron detailing throughout, vaulted ceilings, a grand 2-level arched entry, and a lush 0.35-acre plot of land.

The home continued to be owned by the Blackburn family until 1978, when it was offloaded by Bruce and Lula’s daughter, Elizabeth. The property, which is Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument #913, last sold in November 2003 for $2,199,000 and, per Zillow, is worth a whopping $4.5 million today!

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

Big THANK YOU to Molly for challenging me to find this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Blackburn Residence, aka Carlotta’s house from Hail, Caesar!, is located at 4791 Cromwell Avenue in Los Feliz. The portions of the scene featuring Hobie were filmed at a different spot – on Grace Avenue in the Hollywood Hills. More specifically, Hobie’s car was parked in front of the entrance to the condominium complex at 1979 Grace Avenue and he practiced his rope tricks at the intersection of Grace Avenue and Whitley Avenue.

February 20, 2019
Salvation Mountain from “Into the Wild”

Desert X 2019 is finally up and running! For those who missed the 2017 iteration, the large-scale biennial exhibition features temporary art installations dotted throughout the Coachella Valley. This year even boasts a few works at the Salton Sea! Since the Grim Cheaper and I never miss an opportunity to visit the area, we headed right on out there with some friends last weekend to check the pieces out. And they did not disappoint! (You can see some photos of them here and here, as well as pics of those located in other parts of the desert here, here, here and here.) During our journey, we also made our regular pilgrimages to the North Shore Yacht Club, Bombay Beach, and Salvation Mountain. The latter, a colorful manmade bluff located in the CDP of Niland, I have visited copious times over the years (including in April 2015, when the above photo of my mom, my grandma and me was taken), but somehow failed to ever blog about it. And the time to change that is now!

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Salvation Mountain was the creation of Vermont native Leonard Knight who found his way to the desert in 1984 with the intention of constructing a monument to God’s love. He first settled in Arizona and got to work building a hot air balloon stitched with the words of the Sinner’s Prayer and a simple message spelled out in large red letters: God Is Love. But every attempt at flying it failed. Then, one fateful weekend, he headed to the Salton Sea with a friend. Immediately taken with the area, he soon returned, hot air balloon in hand, and settled upon a desolate 5-acre patch of dusty land to try to pilot it again. It was a lost cause, though. Leonard’s balloon would never take flight. Defeated, he switched gears and decided to instead erect a small temporary monument at the site before leaving town for good.

Leonard never left, though, and that small temporary tribute soon became a large mountain fashioned out of cement, sand, and discarded trash he acquired from the local dump. The mound was then painted over with colorful designs and the same messages and prayer that had been stitched onto the balloon. Unfortunately, the building materials proved too heavy, though, and within four years, the original Salvation Mountain toppled. You can see what it looked like before the collapse here and after here.

The failure did not deter Leonard and he soon began construction on another mountain, this one built of adobe and straw, as well as local junkyard trash, which proved much more sustainable. The mountain was then covered over, once again, in gallons upon gallons of paint, much of it donated. Knight constantly added to the structure, growing it and enhancing it and adding paint as needed. Maintaining the site became his full-time job.

During his almost thirty-year tenure, he lived in a small truck on the premises, sans running water, electricity or air conditioning, and used nearby hot springs to bathe. (I believe Leonard’s truck is the one pictured farthest away with the word “Bible” on the side in the photo below, though I haven’t been able to confirm that.)

As a plaque placed by the E Clampus Vitus organization at the base of the mountain explains, “Leonard found ‘religion’ mid-life; he found frustration as well. All religions were too complicated for Leonard. He saw it all very simply: repent to Jesus Christ and be forgiven of your sins. His struggle for a simple faith took him across the United States to end up here in Niland; he never left. For just under 30 years, without the benefits of electricity or running water, Leonard passionately labored daily to create a message for the world to hopefully see: “God Is Love.” Embarrassed to call himself an artist, Leonard perfected his artistic technique using only what was at hand, what he could scrounge at the local dump and what was donated by the faithful or the curious.” Salvation Mountain was definitely a labor of love.

In the late ’90s, Leonard built an annex to the mountain in the style of a traditional Navajo hut, aka a “Hogan,” using 9,000 bales of hay, more acquired trash, and tree limbs.

The exterior of the Hogan is unique in and of itself . . .

. . . but the cave-like interior is downright fascinating . . .

. . . especially the tree branch ceiling

I mean, come on!

And it is even more spellbinding from above!

Leonard also constructed “The Museum,” a small two-room alcove built into the side of Salvation Mountain, at around the same time,

Serving as an altar of sorts, visitors place notes, gifts and offerings in the tiny domed space.

Sadly, after years of suffering from dementia and diabetes complications, among other health issues, Leonard was moved into an assisted living facility in December 2011. He passed away there on February 10th, 2014.

His message lives on, though, thanks to legions of devotees who have taken on the job of maintaining and preserving Salvation Mountain.

Due to their efforts, the place is still welcoming visitors today – and is more popular than ever, largely thanks to Instagram.

Slightly reminiscent of Whoville, Salvation Mountain is a true work of art that has to be seen to be believed.

Though entirely over the top, at its core is a very simple message of love.

The Salvation Mountain experience is an interactive one – visitors are encouraged to explore, touch, and photograph.

There is even a pathway to climb to the top . . .

. . . as my mom, who is extremely afraid of heights, is pictured doing below.

Along with the colorful mountain, there is other unique scenery to enjoy.

Not surprisingly, Salvation Mountain has found its way to the screen, most notably in the 2007 biopic Into the Wild.

In the film, Tracy Tatro (Kristen Stewart) and Chris McCandless (Emile Hirsch) get a tour of Salvation Mountain from none other than Leonard Knight himself.

In 1997, Huell Howser interviewed Leonard and toured the mountain in the Season 7 episode of California’s Gold titled “Slab City,” which you can watch here.

Howell returned in 2009 to interview Leonard for another episode of California’s Gold, Season 11’s “Desert Adventures,” which you can check out here.

Heidi Klum hosted a challenge at Salvation Mountain in 2013 for a Season 8 episode of Germany’s Next Topmodel.

That same year, the site popped up in Hurt’s “Somebody to Die For” music video.

Coldplay’s 2015 “Birds” video was partially shot at Salvation Mountain.

As was Kesha’s 2017 video for “Praying.”

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Salvation Mountain, from Into the Wild, is located at 603 Beal Road in Niland. You can visit the mountain’s official website here.

February 13, 2019
The Millennium Biltmore Hotel from “A Star Is Born”

It’s not everyday you’ll find photos of a public restroom on my site. It’s not everyday you’ll find me stalking one either. But a couple of years ago, the Grim Cheaper and I were granted an extensive private tour of the Millennium Biltmore Los Angeles that included a visit to the hotel’s Regency Room men’s lavatory. Our guide thought we would want to see the space thanks to a bit of cinema history that exists there. (More on that in a bit.) Flash forward to last week – while scanning through the 2018 A Star Is Born prior to writing my recent post on East Hollywood bar The Virgil, I was shocked to see the very same bathroom (well, the women’s version, at least) pop up in an opening scene and decided I just had to chronicle it here. When I sat down to write the post, though, I discovered that the entire Biltmore property – not just its bathroom – has ties to three of the A Star Is Born movies. So I figured a more all-encompassing article about the hotel was in order.

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The Biltmore’s Regency Room was originally part of the Sala De Oro ballroom, which was constructed during the hotel’s 1928 expansion. You can see what the stunning venue looked like in its early days here and in its current state below.

The grand space, surprisingly located on a sublevel of the hotel, ran 140 feet long and 107 feet wide and boasted three open stories, an insane vaulted ceiling, a large mezzanine, box seating for 46 groups, a stage (built on hydraulics that allowed it to be raised and lowered), a dance floor, a check room with a capacity for 100 guests, and its own kitchen. So stunning was the massive hall that it was chosen as the site of eight different Academy Awards ceremonies.

In 1934, management decided to change things up by turning the ballroom into a hopping nightclub named the “Biltmore Bowl.” Architect Wayne McAllister, who also gave us Bob’s Big Boy in Burbank, was brought in to revamp the room. And revamp it he did. He moved the stage, making it the central focal point, and also, oddly, split the venue into two levels, a two-story upper floor and a single-story lower floor. You can see what the upper level looked like during its heyday here and here.

Sadly, the nightclub was gutted by a fire in the 1950s and subsequently renovated, at which time the grand ceiling and elegant stage were removed. But the split levels remained, with the top floor becoming a ballroom that retained the Biltmore Bowl name and the sub-level becoming an exhibit hall initially dubbed the “Rex Room” and later the “Regency Room.” The gilded, gated entrance to both spaces is pictured below.

The Biltmore Bowl underwent a re-do again in 2001, during which the venue’s tiered seating was removed and its decorative aesthetic shifted to match that of the rest of the hotel.

The Regency Room, which is largely unchanged from its 1950’s post-fire state, is much less opulent than its upstairs neighbor, as you can see below.

In fact, the only ornamentation the space really has is some decorative grillwork, which is leftover from its days as part of the Sala De Oro ballroom.

The ornate ceiling in the Regency Room’s foyer is also original to the Sala De Oro.

Today, the Regency Room boasts 17,000 square feet of space – and a set of famous bathrooms.

At the beginning of A Star Is Born, Ally (Lady Gaga) breaks up with her boyfriend via phone from a stall in the Regency Room women’s bathroom, which is said to be the restroom of the hotel kitchen where she works.

Though I did not see the women’s bathroom during my tour, I was shown the very similar-looking men’s room.

It was there that Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) and his pals tied up and threatened Police Commissioner Jacobs (Pat McNamara) in the 1999 drama Fight Club.

Our tour guide highlighted the space not only because of its onscreen cameo, but also because of some damage that occurred during the shoot, which she figured I would be fascinated by. And I was! Apparently, while Pitt and McNamara were filming the fight scene, the base of one of the pedestal sinks was splintered. For whatever reason, the chip was never filled in and the sink currently remains in its post-Fight-Club state, a little piece of filming ephemera left behind for the ages.

You can see said chip in the images above and below, as well as what an intact sink base looks like directly next to it.

The Biltmore’s 25,000-square-foot basement kitchen, which I did not get to stalk during my tour, makes a couple of appearances as Ally’s workplace in A Star Is Born, as well.

That very same kitchen also appeared as the kitchen of a Radisson hotel in East Lansing, Michigan in the Season 4 episode of The West Wing titled “College Kids,” which aired in 2002.

It can also be seen in the Season 4 episode of Bosch titled “Rojo Profundo,” which aired in 2018. As I said in my recent post on the hotel’s South Galleria, every single area of the Biltmore has been utilized in multiple major productions!

The hotel’s loading dock, which leads directly down to the Biltmore Bowl and Regency Room, also pops up a couple of times in A Star Is Born – first in the scene in which Ally leaves work to head to her gig at Bleu Bleu and then later when she and Ramon (Anthony Ramos) get picked up by Jackson Maine’s (Bradley Cooper) driver to go to one of his shows.

The loading dock pops up in the “College Kids” episode of The West Wing, as well.

As I mentioned earlier, the Biltmore had ties to A Star Is Born long before the latest version was filmed. In the 1937 original, Vicki Lester (Janet Gaynor) and Norman Maine (Fredric March) attend an Academy Awards ceremony at what is said to be the Biltmore Bowl.

I am unsure if filming actually took place in the ballroom or on a studio-built set, though.

My hunch is that a set was utilized being that not much of what was shown onscreen matches early photographs of the Bowl. The wide shot of the room featured in the movie (pictured below) also looks to me like a matte painting of some sort.

I can say with certainty that the Biltmore Bowl was the site of the Grammy Awards in the 1976 version of A Star Is Born. You can see some behind-the-scenes photos of the segment being shot here.

Esther Hoffman (Barbra Streisand) and John Norman Howard (Kris Kristofferson) even head up the escalators situated adjacent to the South Galleria in the scene. It is on the escalator landing that Howard punches a paparazzi.

The Biltmore Bowl is also the site of the Leadership in Journalism Awards gala in the Season 1 episode of The Morning Show titled “A Seat at the Table,” which aired in November 2019.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Millennium Biltmore Los Angeles, from A Star Is Born, is located at 506 South Grand Avenue in downtown L.A. You can visit the property’s official website here. The Regency Room and its bathrooms are situated underneath the Biltmore Bowl on the south side of the hotel and can be reached via the South Galleria. The kitchen from the film is also located in the basement of the hotel. Unfortunately, neither area is open to the public. The loading dock can be found just south of Coffee on Grand at 530 South Grand Avenue.

February 11, 2019
The Virgil from “A Star Is Born”

I got a text from my friend Liz the other day saying, “Don’t see A Star Is Born . . . OMG!” followed by a bunch of crying face emojis. As Liz and most of my fellow stalkers are well aware, I do not like sad or depressing movies – at all. Liz needn’t have worried. While I have never watched any of the A Star Is Born iterations, I am familiar enough with the storyline to know that they are just not my cup of tea. My friend Lavonna is on the other end of the spectrum, though. She saw the latest installment as soon as it came out, became absolutely obsessed, and, during a recent visit to L.A., stalked a bunch of its locations, including The Virgil, which masked as Bleu Bleu in an opening scene. As fate would have it, upon arriving at the East Hollywood bar, she stumbled upon some crew members from Glow striking set pieces from a shoot that had been done on the premises the day prior. Lavonna struck up a conversation with one them who invited her inside to take a closer look and snap pictures. Figuring it would make for a good blog post, she forwarded the photos on to me. And while I still have yet to see A Star Is Born, thanks to Vudu, where it is available for streaming, I was able to scan through the beginning to familiarize myself with it a bit in preparation for this write-up.

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The Virgil was originally established in June 2012 by nightlife impresarios Louie and Netty Ryan, of Temple Bar Concepts, who also founded Townhouse/The Del Monte in Venice and Santa Monica’s famed Temple Bar (which is now closed), among a slew of others.

The lounge, known for its specialty craft cocktails, occupies a space on the corner of Santa Monica Boulevard and North Virgil Avenue that formerly housed Little Temple, another of the Ryans’ watering holes which opened in mid-2004. Prior to that, the site was the longtime home of The Garage, a rock club owned by Steve Edelson.

Comprised of two spacious areas, the “Stage” room and the “B Side” (the latter of which Lavonna did not get any photos of, but you can see what it looks like here), The Virgil has a distinctly bohemian vibe . . .

. . . with some Moroccan elements thrown in.

With curtains flanking wide openings . . .

. . . and unique carvings adoring various doorways, The Virgil looks like a really cool place to hang out.

In A Star Is Born, Jackson Maine (Bradley Cooper) pops by “Bleu Bleu” to get a drink while on his way home from a performance. The exterior of the bar is only shown briefly in the segment.

Though, as Lavonna informed me, the billboard out front does provide some foreshadowing of the movie’s ending. (And she wonders why I’m resisting watching it! Yeah, that’s gonna be a hard ‘no’ from me!)

It is at The Virgil that Jack first lays eyes on Ally (Lady Gaga) as she spectacularly performs “La Vie en Rose.”

Due to low lighting and rather tight camera angles, not much of the bar can be seen in the movie. We do get a better glimpse of it later in the scene, when Jack is invited to perform onstage while he waits for Ally after Bleu Bleu has closed for the evening. Despite some major set dressing that was added for the shoot (which, per Vulture, took two days to complete), the place is still definitely recognizable from its appearance.

I am unsure if the Bleu Bleu dressing room segments were shot at The Virgil, as well, but I am guessing that they were.

The Virgil is also featured twice in the Season 1 episode of Strange Angel titled “The Sage,” which aired in 2018. The B Side area first pops up as the bar where Jack Parsons (Jack Reynor) laments to his friend Ernest Donovan (Rupert Friend) about not being allowed in to an important business function.

The Stage room then masks as the gentleman’s club that Jack and Ernest visit later in the episode.

As I mentioned earlier, Glow also did some filming at The Virgil, so be sure to look for it in an upcoming episode of the third season.

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

Big THANK YOU to my friend Lavonna for stalking this location for me!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Virgil, aka Bleu Bleu from A Star Is Born, is located at 4519 Santa Monica Boulevard in East Hollywood. You can visit the bar’s official website here.

February 6, 2019
The Westin Bonaventure Hotel & Suites from “True Lies”

There is no shortage of unique architecture in Southern California. The Bradbury Building, LADWP, and the 8500 apartment complex all immediately come to mind as highly individualistic spots. One structure stands heads and shoulders above the rest, though, as being extra extraordinary – The Westin Bonaventure Hotel & Suites in downtown Los Angeles. If you’ve ever found yourself on the 110 Freeway, you are sure to have spotted its futuristic edifice gracing the skyline. It’s been called “the world’s largest cappuccino machine,” “a bronzed grain elevator,” and “Camelot in glass” (all per a 1976 Baltimore Sun article that is not available to link to online). Regardless of one’s feelings about the aesthetic of the massive towered building, its Hollywood allure can’t be argued. Location managers have flocked to it like a beacon since its inception. I happened to pop into the exceptional hotel last month and when my eyes landed upon the fountain Harry Tasker (Arnold Schwarzenegger) famously rode a horse through in True Lies, I realized that, although I wrote a brief post on the place back in 2008, it was definitely time for a redux.

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The Westin Bonaventure Hotel & Suites, originally known simply as the Los Angeles Bonaventure, was constructed from 1974 to 1976 at a cost of $110 million. Designed by architect John C. Portman Jr., at the time it was the most expensive lodging ever built and the city’s largest. It still holds that latter distinction today.

The 367-foot-tall Postmodern structure, which consists of 5 mirrored cylindrical towers flanked by 12 glass elevators, makes for a strikingly unique vision along the downtown horizon.

Housing 35 floors, the goliath hotel boasts a lobby with a 6-story atrium and a rambling indoor fountain so large it is often referred to as a “lake.”

The Bonaventure also features 1,358 rooms, 135 suites, an outdoor pool, a gym, 155,000 square feet of meeting and event space, and a plethora of restaurants and watering holes including the famed BonaVista Lounge, a revolving bar situated on the 34th floor.

There’s even a mall on the premises with more than 40 stores and a food court!

The Grim Cheaper and I have checked into the Bonaventure several times over the years and have always enjoyed our stay. The rooms are small, but well-appointed and modern . . .

. . . and boast views for days!

And days!

To say that the Bonaventure is unique would be an understatement.

With its cement-clad interior, the hotel is almost post-apocalyptic in its minimalism and starkness . . .

. . . and I mean that in the best way possible.

Though no longer the case, the Bonaventure formerly boasted a highly unusual open-air gym on its third floor with pod-like overhangs holding exercise machinery cantilevered over the lobby below . . .

. . . each of which branched off a small indoor track, as you can see in the images above and below that the GC and I snapped during a 2005 visit.

The exercise equipment has long since been removed and today the former gym area remains eerily vacant.

The place even has a few ties to true crime! On October 7th, 1979, a North Hollywood couple was shot, killed and dismembered in one of the Bonaventure’s rooms (their bodies were later removed via trash bags!) thanks to a drug deal gone wrong. And it was there that John DeLorean was videotaped agreeing to smuggle cocaine as part of an FBI sting operation on September 28th, 1982, which is rather ironic being that a few years prior the hotel was used as a futuristic backdrop in an ad for the businessman’s infamous DMC-12 car.

Though management likely doesn’t relish those moments in the hotel’s past, great pride is taken in its cinematic history. Not only is the hallway leading from the parking garage to the lobby lined with posters from the various productions lensed on the premises . . .

. . . but the elevators that have cameoed onscreen are outfitted with plaques denoting their respective résumés. (Oddly, the In the Line of Fire placard pictured below boasts some erroneous info. The action hit was released on July 8th, 1993, so there is no way that any filming of it took place on the Bonaventure grounds in September of that year, a full two months later!)

A poster noting the hotel’s use in Interstellar was even on display in the lobby the last time we checked in.

The Bonaventure has been featured in so many productions over the years, it would be impossible for me to chronicle them all here.

But I’ve corralled a list of some of my favorites.

As I mentioned earlier, the Bonaventure most famously figures in a climatic action sequence in the 1994 hit True Lies in which Harry Tasker, on horseback, chases a motorcycle-riding Salim Abu Aziz (Art Malik) through the hotel’s lobby . . .

. . . into one of its elevators . . .

. . . and onto the roof, which he subsequently almost falls from.

The BonaVista Lounge masked as the restaurant Above the Top in the 1980s sitcom It’s a Living. Though all actual filming took place on a soundstage, the hotel was featured regularly in establishing shots as well as in the weekly opening credits.

The BonaVista Lounge is also where David Addison Jr. (Bruce Willis) ambushed Maddie Hayes’ (Cybill Shepherd) date in the pilot episode of Moonlighting, which aired in 1985.

MacGyver (Richard Dean Anderson) lands on top of the Bonaventure via helicopter at the beginning of the Season 1 episode of MacGyver titled “Deathlock,” which aired in 1986. (The chopper apparently experienced dangerous “ground resonance” during the filming, as detailed here.)

Dr. Bruner (Gerald R. Molen) attempts to buy off Charlie Babbitt (Tom Cruise) while walking around the Bonaventure’s pool in the 1988 drama Rain Man.

The following year, Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson) and Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover) got into a car crash in front of the hotel while chasing a suspect in Lethal Weapon 2.

Mason Storm (Steven Seagal) is ambushed at the Bonaventure in 1990’s Hard to Kill.

It is at the hotel that Mitch Leary (John Malkovich) sets up his plot to assassinate the President (Jim Curley) in 1993’s In the Line of Fire.

Many areas of the property appeared in the thriller, but I am unsure if the California Ballroom is where the actual assassination attempt took place as has been asserted on a few websites. That particular venue looks considerably smaller than the one featured, as you can see in these photos as compared to the screen captures below.

The Bonaventure also prominently appears in the 1995 thriller Nick of Time as the spot where accountant Gene Watson (Johnny Depp) is sent to kill Governor Eleanor S. Grant (Marsha Mason).

Dr. Eugene Sands (David Duchovny) visits the Bonaventure to perform surgery on a gunshot victim in the 1997 thriller Playing God.

Usher made great use of the place in his 2002 “U Don’t Have to Call” music video.

In 2005, the outside of the Bonaventure was utilized in exterior shots of the hotel where Roberts (Michael Kenneth Williams) met with Carter (Paul Ben-Victor) in the Season 4 episode of Alias titled “Another Mister Sloane.” The property’s elevators also appeared in the episode, but all other interior filming took place at The L.A. Grand Hotel Downtown, which I blogged about here.

The hotel portrays a top secret NASA facility in the 2014 sci-fi drama Interstellar.

That same year, the outside of the Bonaventure popped up as the Manhattan hotel where David Clarke (James Tupper) stayed in the Season 4 episode of Revenge titled “Repercussions.” As was the case with Alias, interiors were filmed at The L.A. Grand Hotel Downtown.

In the Season 4 episode of Bosch titled “Dreams of Bunker Hill,’” which aired in 2018, Harry Bosch (Titus Welliver) and Honey Chandler (Mimi Rogers) visit Michael Harris (Keston John) who is sequestered at the Bonaventure.

The hotel is also said to have been featured in Forget Paris, but I scanned through the 1995 romance and didn’t see it anywhere.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Westin Bonaventure Hotel & Suites. from True Lies, is located at 404 South Figueroa Street in downtown Los Angeles. You can visit the property’s official website here.

February 4, 2019
The Firehouse Restaurant from “Speed”

Pop quiz, hotshot! You’re hanging around Venice Beach, in dire need of a latte, and you happen to pass by The Firehouse Restaurant from the 1994 action hit Speed. What do you do? What do you do? Why, you head in for some stalking and a cup of joe, of course! I’m really reaching into my reserves with this particular post because I actually visited the landmark café waaaay back in September 2009 (I wasn’t even married yet!) and then somehow promptly forgot about it until doing some research on the Venice area last week. It was such an ancient stalk, in fact, that I had to practically do an archeological dig through the Grim Cheaper’s computer to find the photos I took there. Talk about delving into the archives!

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As the name suggests, the Firehouse is situated inside of an actual former fire station located on the corner of Main Street and Rose Avenue, just a few short blocks from the beach. Known as the Ocean Park Firehouse, it served as the home of Engine Co. #62 from the time it was built in either 1902, 1904, 1907 or 1909, depending on which report you happen to be reading, until it was decommissioned in the ‘50s. You can see what it looked like when it was still in operation here and here.

The building housed several different entities in the years that followed including an antique store, an art studio and a lingerie shop. Finally, in 1986, it was taken over by Leiko Hamada and transformed into The Firehouse Restaurant. With its hearty breakfasts, the site initially catered to the body builders who worked out in the sand at nearby Muscle Beach, but soon became popular with locals and tourists alike. It remains a neighborhood favorite today, more than thirty years after opening.

The Firehouse pops up briefly at the beginning of Speed as the spot where Jack Traven (Keanu Reeves) picks up a morning coffee moments before being unexpectedly looped into a deadly game with Howard Payne (Dennis Hopper).

Though some changes have been made to the interior in the 25 years since filming took place, the restaurant is largely recognizable from its cameo. (Love, love, love the ladder hanging from the ceiling above the counter.) And yes, I realize that my photos are almost ten years old, but per images featured on Yelp, not much has been altered since my visit.

It is directly kitty-corner from The Firehouse, in front of LADOT Parking Lot 740, that the bus explodes in the scene.

And it is directly across from the explosion site that Jack receives the ominous call from Howard alerting him that there is a second bomb on a different city bus.

The payphones featured in the scene were not real, but set pieces placed pretty much exactly where the bus stop is situated today.

Fellow stalker/Emergency! expert Richard Yokley (you may remember him from this post and this post) informed me that Wick Lobo (cutie Christian Kane) and his team also popped by The Firehouse in the Season 1 episode of Rescue 77 titled “Remember Me: Part 1,” which aired in 1999.

The GC and I didn’t eat at The Firehouse that day in 2009 – I made like Keanu Reeves and just grabbed a coffee – so I can’t really attest to the quality of the food, but the place is adorable and I highly recommend stopping by for a visit.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Firehouse Restaurant, from Speed, is located at 213 Rose Avenue in Venice. You can visit the eatery’s official website here. In the movie, the bus explodes kitty-corner from The Firehouse, on Main Street just south of Rose Avenue in front of LADOT Parking Lot 740. The payphones were set up directly across the street from the parking lot on the opposite side of Main in the area where the bus stop now stands.

January 23, 2019