Category: Movie Locations

The Wormwood Home from “Matilda”

Every time I open up Instagram lately I’m inundated with videos of the so-called “Matilda Challenge.” For those whose feeds haven’t been flooded by the clips, in the challenge fans of the 1996 film re-create this scene in which Matilda Wormwood (Mara Wilson) perfects her magic powers. Though I’ve never seen the movie (or read the 1988 Roald Dahl novel on which it was based), I did stalk the home where Matilda lived with her parents, Harry (Danny DeVito) and Zinnia (Rhea Perlman), and her brother, Michael (Brian Levinson), in it a few years back. The challenge served as a reminder that I somehow never blogged about the place and, being that there’s no time like the present, here goes!

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I first learned about the Wormwoods’ zany ranch-style residence via this image posted by fellow stalker Tony Hoffarth on his fabulous Flickr filming locations page. I immediately became fixated on the unique property, especially its cantilevered front steps, rock detailing, and double-peaked roof. Though I knew from Tony’s photo comparison that the actual home barely resembles its onscreen self, I ran right out to stalk it nonetheless.

In person, the dwelling is much more ordinary and non-descript than it appeared in Matilda, with a muted color palate and an abundance of foliage. Missing are the Wormwoods’ tanbark and rock front yard and odd decorative paneling, as well as many of the other elements that made it so eccentric onscreen.

The most glaring difference between the real house and its movie counterpart, though, is the front porch area. As you can see in my photos, while the Wormwood home has a flush front with a central window, the actual pad boasts a recessed entrance.

Several palm trees are planted in the space and the roof above it has an opening through which said palm trees grow.

There are also two dormer windows which sit behind the roof cutout, as well as a wrought iron gate enclosing it all. None of these elements are present in the film.

The property looks so different from the Wormwood pad that when I first sat down to make screen captures for this post, I thought Tony may have pinpointed the wrong locale. The dormer windows (which have to be fake being that the house is one-story) especially threw me for a loop – though, truth be told, it wasn’t the first time faux dormers figured into a filming locations hunt. Thanks to street signs visible in the background of a few scenes, though, as well as landmarks such as neighboring homes that were easily identifiable, I was able to verify his information. 15811 Youngwood Drive in Whittier did indeed portray the Wormwood residence. I am unsure if the many differences we are seeing today are the result of renovations done by the homeowners in the 22+ years since Matilda was lensed or if the dwelling was altered significantly by the production team for the shoot and then restored to its original state after filming wrapped, but I am guessing the latter.

In real life, the 1965 pad features 4 bedrooms, 3 baths, 2,366 square feet of living space, and a 0.46-acre plot of land.

The property does boast one fantastical, Matilda-esque element – an ornate leaf-covered wrought iron mailbox. I am unsure if it is original to the home or a left-over set piece, though.

The first time I scanned through the movie, I did not see the mailbox pop up at all, so I assumed it was an element authentic to the house. But during a second viewing I noticed the piece – painted red – in the very background of the scene in which Matilda confronts some FBI agents searching her parents’ garage. If the mailbox was just a set piece added for the shoot, I’d think it would have been made more visible and prominent throughout the flick, which leads me to believe it is actually genuine to the home.

Either way, the mailbox is one of the most fabulous I’ve ever encountered.

I am 99.9% certain that only the home’s exterior was utilized in the filming and that the interior of the Wormwood pad was a studio-built set.

And what a magical set it was! Production designer Bill Brzerski truly created a masterpiece with the Wormwoods’ congested, over-the-top, gaudy décor. Amazingly, Matilda was Brzerski’s inaugural feature film job! Talk about hitting it out of the park your first time up! You can read an interesting article about how he got started in the business here.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Tony Hoffarth for finding this location. You can check out his Flickr page here.

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 Wormwood home from Matilda is located at 15811 Youngwood Drive in Whittier.

August 20, 2018
Oliver’s House from “A Lot Like Love”

A Lot Like Love is a movie I can’t not watch. Even though I’ve seen it at least a dozen times and own the DVD, if I happen to catch it on TV, need to scan through it for a post, or it pops up in my Netflix recommendations, I’m pretty much viewing it in its entirety. And thank goodness, too, because doing so led me to find a new location from the film recently, one that I thought I had already pinpointed – the house belonging to Oliver Martin’s (Ashton Kutcher) parents in the 2005 romcom. First, let me back up a bit.

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Ten years ago (egads!), my buddy Mike, from MovieShotsLA, tracked down what I thought was the Martin residence via a 2006 Los Angeles Times article chronicling homes featured onscreen. In the blurb, author Danny Miller states, “Encino resident Ramona Hennesy creates brochures showing her house’s best features and sends them off to location scouts all over town. Her efforts have paid off. Several commercials have been filmed in her ranch home. Last year, the house had a featured role in the film A Lot Like Love. Both the interior and the backyard were used, and her carport was even transformed into Ashton Kutcher’s bedroom.” A quick scan through public records provided us with the property’s address (17050 Magnolia Boulevard) and I ran right out to stalk the place shortly thereafter. Upon arriving, I was surprised to see the pad fronted by large hedges that obscured it almost entirely from view, as you can see below. What little was visible did not look familiar from the movie, as I mentioned in the post I wrote about the locale a few days later.

Google Maps imagery from 2007 (two years after the movie was released) show the hedges in a much less mature state, so figuring they were a post-A Lot Like Love addition, I did not think much further on the subject.

Flash forward to this past April. While making screen captures of the flick in preparation for this post, I fell into the familiar trap of viewing it through to the end and was shocked to see an address number of “17204” posted by the front door of the house across the street from Oliver’s parents’ place in the closing scene in which Oliver and his longtime on-again/off-again paramour Emily Friehl (Amanda Peet) finally get together. That number, though close, did not exactly coincide with the 17050 address of the property I’d blogged about all those years ago. What the whaaat? So I headed over to Google to search for homes numbered 17204 in the Los Angeles area and quickly came across one at 17204 Otsego Street in Encino that matched the residence Emily and Oliver kissed in front of, albeit with quite a bit more foliage.

From there, I flipped Google Street View’s little yellow man around to see the property across the street and, sure enough, Oliver’s parents’ house was staring me right in the face (again, with quite a bit more foliage). Had the article gotten things wrong?

Confused, I pulled up the old Los Angeles Times article and quickly realized that I had read too much between the lines all those years ago (that was back when I was an amateur stalker, after all ). I’d simply assumed the Magnolia Boulevard residence had been used for exteriors and interiors, as well as backyard shots, but the article never actually mentions the front exterior at all. D’oh! As I soon came to find out, Oliver’s parents’ house was a mash-up of both properties, which are located right around the corner from each other. The Otsego Street house was utilized in all scenes featuring the front of the Martin home . . .

. . . including the final scene, which was my favorite of the movie. While there, I couldn’t help but re-enact the hissy fit Oliver’s sister, Ellen (Taryn Manning), has over the fact that Oliver is holding up her wedding. (Lucifer fans – that’s Aimee Garcia, aka forensics expert Ella Lopez, in the pink dress below! She plays Ellen’s best friend in the movie.)

All interior filming took place just around the corner at the Magnolia Boulevard house.

As you can see in the screen capture as compared to my photograph below, the roofline and window framing of 17050 Magnolia match that of the Martin home.

The shape of the Martin’s pool and its location in regard to the house, as well as the residence’s rear roofline . . .

. . . all also match what is visible of the Magnolia Boulevard dwelling in aerial views.

As mentioned in the Los Angeles Times article, the property’s carport was transformed into Oliver’s bedroom for the movie.

Luckily, the Magnolia Boulevard home’s front gates were open when I stalked the place back in 2008, so I got to snap a couple of photos of said carport.

Why producers chose to use two properties in the film is unclear to me, but I am guessing it has something to do with the hedges surrounding the Magnolia Boulevard residence, which I now believe were there at the time of the A Lot Like Love shoot. The movie’s final scene, in which Emily runs from Oliver’s house to her car parked across the street, required a location that was open to the road. I think the production team likely fell in love with the Magnolia pad’s interior, but found the exterior too closed-off for the end sequence, so they searched for a secondary property to utilize. I was hoping the DVD commentary with director Nigel Cole and producers Armyan Bernstein and Kevin Messick would provide some clarification on the subject, but, other than the fact that filming of the wedding segment took place in the Valley, nothing was said about the Martin residence.

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 house used for exterior shots of Oliver’s parents’ residence in A Lot Like Love can be found at 17201 Otsego Street in Encino. The pad Emily parks in front of at the end of the movie is directly across the street at 17204 Otsego. The home utilized for interior and backyard sequences is located around the corner at 17050 Magnolia Boulevard.

August 13, 2018
The Pierre Hotel’s Grand Ballroom from “Trainwreck”

I know I am in the minority when I say that I don’t think Amy Schumer is funny. And it’s not for lack of trying on my part. I first learned of the comedian when she appeared on Kaitlyn Bristowe’s season of The Bachelorette and found her schtick to be a bit annoying. Despite that, I have since seen all of her movies, including 2015’s Trainwreck, 2017’s Snatched and 2018’s I Feel Pretty. The latter is the only one I remotely liked, though I thought it could have been so much better – and a little shorter. I guess I just don’t get Amy’s humor. I was still thrilled to learn while touring The Pierre’s Cotillion Ballroom during my April 2016 trip to NYC, that the hotel’s Grand Ballroom was utilized in a prominent scene in Trainwreck, and ran right over to the space to snap some pics. Since returning home, I’ve come across a couple of the venue’s other onscreen cameos and figured it was high time I blog about it.

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I covered The Pierre’s history in my recent post on the Cotillion Ballroom, but figured a brief recap is in order here. The extravagant hotel was designed by the Schultze & Weaver architecture firm in 1930 for restaurateur Charles Pierre. The opulent property has defined luxury lodging in New York ever since. Known for its lavish décor and large public spaces, The Pierre is one of the city’s most popular event venues, thanks in large part to its Grand Ballroom.

Per The Pierre’s official website, the 86-by-86-foot space is the “largest pillarless ballroom amongst all five-star properties in NYC and offers uninhibited views.” The 7,500-square-foot venue also boasts 20-foot ceilings and a 1,500-person capacity. In 2005, the hotel underwent a four-year, $100-million renovation, during which The Grand Ballroom was overhauled by interior designer Alexandra Champalimaud. The result of her efforts is a sprawling room with a bowed ceiling, richly-colored draperies, gilded mirrors, and sparkling chandeliers hung from chains designed to resemble bows, which I was completely enamored with.

Even the stairs and hallway leading to The Grand Ballroom are stunning.

I mean, check out that ceiling!

In Trainwreck, Amy (Amy Schumer) attends an awards luncheon in The Grand Ballroom in which her new boyfriend, Dr. Aaron Conners (Bill Hader), is honored.

During Aaron’s acceptance speech, Amy takes a work call and winds up having to leave the venue – a huge no-no. Did she not learn anything from Mr. Big in Sex and the City’s “The Chicken Dance” episode?

The hallway leading to The Grand Ballroom is featured in the scene, as well.

As is the hotel’s Regency Room . . .

. . . which we also got to check out during our April 2016 tour.

The Grand Ballroom is also the spot where Ramona Singer and friends (well, all friends except for Kelly Killoren Bensimon) attend a fundraiser in the Season 4 episode of The Real Housewives of New York City titled “March Madness,” which aired in 2011.

In the Season 2 episode of Jessica Jones titled “AKA Start at the Beginning,” which aired earlier this year, Trish Walker (Rachael Taylor) and Griffin Sinclair (Hal Ozsan) are shown walking down the steps leading to The Grand Ballroom after attending a literacy fundraiser.

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 Pierre is located at 2 East 61st Street on New York’s Upper East Side. You can visit the hotel’s official website here. The Grand Ballroom can be found at the rear of the property, east of the Rotunda, on the 2nd floor.

August 8, 2018
The Great Wall Chinese Restaurant from “I Love You, Man”

In Pretty Woman, Edward Lewis (Richard Gere) states that very few people surprise him. I could say the same about filming locations. One that did recently surprise me, though, was The Great Wall Chinese Restaurant in Reseda. For years I had been under the impression that the engagement party scene from the 2009 comedy I Love You, Man had been shot at Hop Louie. But when I sat down to write my post about the landmark Chinatown eatery back in March, I realized that, despite a misleading establishing shot pictured at the beginning of the segment, the restaurant’s interior most certainly did not match what was shown onscreen. What the wha? I got to Googling and eventually discovered that filming had actually taken place at The Great Wall. What’s more, the eatery’s official website noted several other productions lensed on the premises! So it, of course, went straight to the top of my To-Stalk List and the Grim Cheaper and I headed out there for lunch a few weeks later.

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The Great Wall Chinese Restaurant is one of those rarest of Los Angeles anomalies – an eatery that has been around for multiple decades.

Originally established in 1984, the Mandarin/Szechwan restaurant is a neighborhood landmark.

The site’s rather drab exterior (excluding those fabulous red doors pictured above) belies little of the grandiosity of its interior.

Featuring Mandarin décor . . .

. . . and a striking gilded ceiling, the place is absolutely stunning!

I mean, look at that chandelier!

The restaurant is also much larger than its exterior would have you believe and consists of three areas – a massive main dining room;

a rear banquet room;

and a bar area situated near the entrance.

The eatery is extremely old school – in the best way possible.

The GC and I both commented on the fact that we hadn’t seen a Chinese restaurant like it in ages.

The place even has a Lazy Susan and serves hot tea via ceramic teapots upon entering! Talk about bringing me back to my childhood!

Per LoopNet, The Great Wall, which appears to be for sale, raked in $38,350 in filming income last year alone! And it is not very hard to see why. The restaurant is just begging to be photographed! Somehow, it even manages to come across more beautifully in pictures than it does in real life. As such, location managers flock to it.

Though an establishing shot of Hop Louie was shown at the beginning of I Love You, Man’s engagement party scene and the restaurant was even referred to by that name in the segment . . .

. . . all actual filming took place at The Great Wall.

Peter Klaven (Paul Rudd) and Zooey Rice’s (Rashida Jones) friends and family first gather in the bar area in the scene . . .

. . . and then head to the rear banquet room for dinner.

The interior of The Great Wall also pops up a few times as the inside of the Golden Wonton Restaurant & Orphanage in the 2007 comedy Norbit.

That same year, the restaurant appeared in Lucky You as the spot where Huck Cheever (Eric Bana) takes Billie Offer (Drew Barrymore) for a celebratory dinner.

Though the place isn’t referred to by name and is supposedly located in Las Vegas in the flick, “The Great Wall Restaurant” is visible on the menu Huck is holding in the scene.

At the end of the 2011 drama Drive, Driver (Ryan Gosling) meets with Bernie Rose (an unrecognizable Albert Brooks) at The Great Wall.

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 Great Wall Chinese Restaurant, from I Love You, Man, is located at 18331 Sherman Way in Reseda. You can visit the eatery’s official website here.

August 3, 2018
7th Street/Metro Center Station from “Cruel Intentions”

We all have those movie scenes – the ones so dramatic, so full of romance or even so disturbing (like this, for example) that, for better or worse, they remain ingrained in our memories. Two of my favorites happen to be from the same film and, oddly, it’s a film I don’t even like – 1999’s Cruel Intentions. The first, as mentioned in my recent post on the Fletcher-Sinclair Mansion, is the scene in which Annette Hargrove (Reese Witherspoon) implores Sebastian Valmont (Ryan Phillippe) to take himself less seriously by making adorably silly faces. The other is the escalator scene. Ladies, you know what I’m talking about, amirite? For those who haven’t seen it (and if not, I urge you to check it out ASAP), here’s a rundown – after a major argument, Sebastian shows up at what is supposedly Penn Station in New York to surprise Annette. As she heads up an escalator upon debarking her train and sees him waiting for her at the top, she says “I’m impressed,” to which he responds, “Well, I’m in love.” Hearts of teenage girls everywhere broke wide open for Phillipe while watching the scene – mine included. So when I recently learned via The Worldwide Guide to Movie Locations that the 7th Street/Metro Center Station in downtown L.A. portrayed Penn Station in the bit, I just about fell over from excitement and immediately added the site to my To-Stalk List. I made it out to the station a few weeks later and was thrilled to see the place looking virtually frozen in time from its onscreen stint almost twenty years ago.

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7th Street/Metro Center Station is located beneath Figueroa Tower on the corner of South Figueroa and West 7th Streets in downtown’s Financial District.

Completed in 1988, the 24-story structure, originally known as Home Savings Tower, mixes Chateauesque and post-modern styles.

The station’s entrance can be found at the building’s southwest corner, beneath a gorgeous mural titled “City Above.”

Painted by Terry Schoonhoven in 1991, the imagery of the colorful piece appears to change drastically as riders journey up the escalators to the street or down to the subway.

The depot itself, the first subway station to open in Los Angeles since the city shut down subterranean transportation in 1955, debuted in February 1991 to much fanfare. The site’s lower level, which was behind schedule, opened two years later.

Very little of the terminal can actually be seen in Cruel Intentions. Thankfully, an elevator is visible behind Sebastian at one point which helped me pinpoint the exact spot where filming took place.

In the iconic scene, Annette and Sebastian reunite on the station’s first level mezzanine, at the set of escalators that abut the elevator just past the turnstiles near the 7th & Figueroa Street entrance. That area is pictured below.

The escalator that Annette rides up in the segment actually moves downward in real life, so it was a bit hard to get a matching shot of her POV. The image below is the closest I got.

Despite the directional switch, thanks to the fact that the camera pans down in the scene, stepping onto that escalator made me feel like I was actually living out the movie. I swear I could almost make out “Colorblind” playing in the background.

The segment also features a blurred view of the station’s ceramic tile art installation titled The Movies: Fantasies and The Movies: Spectacles, hand-painted by Joyce Kozloff, as Annette and Sebastian inevitably kiss. Sigh!

Amazingly, the escalator bit wasn’t an original element of the Cruel Intentions storyline. Per a script I found online dated February 10th, 1998 (which is about four months before filming began), the train station scene initially lacked dialogue and simply consisted of Annette disembarking from a train at Grand Central Station to find Sebastian standing in the busy concourse waiting for her. She runs to him and they kiss. End scene. I would love to know what motivated the change. Did the director take one look at 7th Street/Metro Center Station’s escalator layout and become inspired? Being that locations typically serve as my inspiration, I’d like to think that was the case.

Cruel Intentions is not the only production to have made use of 7th Street/Metro Center Station. Lt. Sam Cole (Tom Sizemore) ventures out of the depot at the end of the Season 1 episode of Robbery Homicide Division titled “Hellbound Train,” which aired in 2003.

In the 2004 thriller Collateral, Annie (Jada Pinkett Smith) and Max (Jamie Foxx) run into the station and onto a train in an attempt to escape from Vincent (Tom Cruise).

That same year, the site appeared in two episodes of 24. It is at 7th Street/Metro Center Station that Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) and his team set up a stakeout to catch Arthur Rabens (Salvator Xuereb) in Season 3’s “11:00 A.M. – 12: 00 P.M.” . . .

. . . and “12:00 P.M. – 1:00 P.M.”

The entrance to the station also appears in the Season 6 episode of 24 titled “7:00 A.M. – 8 A.M,” which aired in 2007 . . .

. . . though interiors were shot about 15 miles away at North Hollywood Station located at 5391 Lankershim Boulevard in North Hollywood.

Both the subway’s Figueroa and 7th Street entrance . . .

. . . as well as its other entrance at West 7th and South Flower Street make brief appearances in the 2009 family comedy Hotel for Dogs.

Richard Castle (Nathan Fillion) and Kate Beckett (Stana Katic) investigate the death of a subway maintenance worker at the station in the Season 3 episode of Castle titled “Murder Most Fowl,” which aired in 2010.

The depot and its 7th & Flower entrance also pop up in Castle’s Season 7 episode titled “Kill Switch,” which aired in 2014.

Taylor Swift dances at 7th Street/Metro Center Station (barefoot, no less!) in her 2018 music video for “Delicate,” which you can watch here.

The station’s 7th & Flower entrance masks as the entrance to New York’s Chamber Street Station in the Season 1 episode of For the People titled “Rahowa,” which aired in March of this year.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: 7th Street/Metro Center Station, aka Penn Station from Cruel Intentions, can be reached from the bottom level of the Home Savings Tower, which is located at 660 South Figueroa Street in downtown Los Angeles. The escalator that appeared in the movie is situated just beyond the turnstiles at that entrance, in front of the elevator. Be advised, you will need to purchase a TAP card and buy a fare to access the area featured in the scene.

August 1, 2018
The Otto Kahn and James Burden Mansions from “A Perfect Murder”

For someone who is so well-versed in all things movie-related, I know very little about Old Hollywood – a fact my mom often admonishes me for. Case in point – though A Perfect Murder has long been a favorite thriller, I have never seen Dial M for Murder, the 1954 Alfred Hitchcock masterpiece from which it was adapted. Truth be told, up until doing research for this post, I had no idea that the 1998 flick had been based upon anything. (Insert monkey-covering-face emoji here.) Sadly, my ignorance didn’t end there. Somehow I also failed to realize that three different spots were utilized to represent the Manhattan penthouse where Steven Taylor (Michael Douglas) and his wife, Emily Bradford Taylor (Gwyneth Paltrow), lived in the film. The mashup included a studio-built set and two adjacent Upper East Side estates – the Otto Kahn Mansion at 1 East 91st Street and the neighboring James Burden Mansion at 7 East 91st. Prior to writing this post, I had only been aware of the former, which I learned of via the book New York: The Movie Lover’s Guide shortly before my 2016 trip to NYC. So I, of course, ran right out to stalk it while in town.

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The neo-Italian Renaissance-style Otto Kahn Mansion was designed by architects C.P.H. Gilbert (who also gave us the Harry F. Sinclair House from Cruel Intentions) and J. Armstrong Stenhouse for wealthy banker Otto Kahn and his wife, Adelaide Wolff. Otto was once quoted as saying, “It’s a sin to keep money idle” (Why oh why can’t the Grim Cheaper share that belief?), so money was no object when it came to the property’s construction which began in 1914 and took four years to complete.

The 80-room manse was modeled after Rome’s Palazzo della Cancelleria and boasts an oak-paneled library, a garden, a Caen stone entry and stairwell, a large inner courtyard, an enclosed driveway (to keep away prying eyes), a reception room, a ballroom, a music room with parquet floors and an Adams-style ceiling, and accommodations for a staff of forty!

The property’s French limestone exterior is actually rather non-descript and belies the utter extravagance and opulence of the interior, which you can see photographs of here, here and here.

When Kahn passed away in 1934, Adelaide sold the massive home to the Convent of the Sacred Heart, a private Catholic all-girls school.

Six years later, the Convent of the Sacred Heart purchased the James Burden Mansion next door and combined the two sites. While I did not snap any photographs of that property, you can check out what it looks like here. The 1901 estate was designed by the Warren and Wetmore architecture firm (who also designed Grand Central Station and the New York Yacht Club) and is just as palatial and lux as its neighbor with a grand Hauteville marble spiraling staircase situated underneath a Tiffany glass skylight, a banquet hall lined with Campan vert marble, and an extravagantly-arched carriageway. You can catch a glimpse of its striking interior here.

The Otto Kahn and James Burden Mansions pop up numerous times throughout A Perfect Murder. For exterior shots of the Taylors’ upscale apartment building, the estates were made to appear as one singular property, as you can see below.

The James Burden Mansion’s carriageway . . .

. . . as well as its rotunda and central staircase portray the apartment building’s entrance and lobby . . .

. . . while the Otto Kahn Mansion’s rooftop masks as the Taylors’ private terrace.

The interior of Steven and Emily’s massive penthouse cannot be found in either mansion, though. Per the film’s production notes, their apartment was part of a massive 11,000-square-foot set built at the Jersey City Armory in New Jersey.

A Perfect Murder is hardly the first production to make use of the two properties.

In the 1946 noir The Dark Corner, the James Burden Mansion pops up as the Cathcart Galleries.

The two estates together portray the building where Ingrid Everly (Dyan Cannon) lives, which Robert ‘Duke’ Anderson (Sean Connery) sets out to rob, in 1971’s The Anderson Tapes.

In the 1982 drama The Verdict, the Otto Kahn Mansion masquerades as a Boston archdiocese.

The James Burden Mansion plays the Union Club, where Tess McGill (Melanie Griffith) and Jack Trainer (Harrison Ford) crash a wedding in the 1988 comedy Working Girl. Only the interior of the property appears in the scene, though. The building used for exterior shots is the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum (aka the British Consulate from Jumpin’ Jack Flash) located directly across the street at 2 East 91st Street.

Larry Daley (Ben Stiller) heads to the Otto Kahn Mansion to pick up his son, Nick (Jake Cherry), from school only to learn upon arrival that he has missed Parent Career Day in the 2006 comedy Night at the Museum.

The James Burden Mansion’s Dining Room and Music Room mask as the Rome hotel suite where Ray Koval (Clive Owen) and Claire Stenwick (Julia Roberts) stay in the 2009 thriller Duplicity . . .

. . . while the Otto Kahn Mansion’s stairwell and foyer simulate the outside of the suite in the flick.

The Otto Kahn Mansion’s courtyard and the James Burden Mansion’s ballroom mesh together to portray the Roland family estate, where Neal Caffrey (Matt Bomer) and Peter Burke (Tim DeKay) head to authenticate a will, in the Season 3 episode of White Collar titled “Where There’s a Will,” which aired in 2011.

The exterior of the Otto Kahn Mansion portrays Harry Osbourne’s (Dane DeHaan) house in 2014’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2, though interiors were filmed elsewhere.

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 Otto Kahn and James Burden Mansions, aka Convent of the Sacred Heart school, aka the A Perfect Murder apartment building, are located at 1 East 91st Street and 7 East 91st Street, respectively, on New York’s Upper East Side. You can visit the properties’ official website here. Right across the street at 2 East 91st Street is the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, aka the British Consulate from Jumpin’ Jack Flash.

July 11, 2018
The Benjamin N. Duke House from “The First Wives Club”

They say revenge is a dish best served cold. Well, I think revenge movies are a dish best served with a side of comedy. The Other Woman? 9 to 5? The Sting? The First Wives Club? All perfection! The latter is one of my ultimate favorites, so when I saw the address of the spectacular Upper East Side townhouse where wealthy socialite Gunilla Garson Goldberg (Maggie Smith) lived in the 1996 flick listed in the book Manhattan on Film, I promptly added it to my To-Stalk List for my April 2016 trip to the Big Apple. The Beaux Arts-style structure, known as the Benjamin N. Duke House in real life, turned out to be even more stunning in person than it appeared onscreen. It is easily one of the prettiest pads I have ever laid eyes upon!

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The Benjamin N. Duke House, also known as the Duke Semans Mansion, was originally constructed as part of a spec development of four adjacent Fifth Avenue estates. Brothers William W. and Thomas M. Hall commissioned the Welch, Smith & Provot architecture firm to design the elaborate dwellings. Sadly, the Duke house is the only one that remains standing today.

Completed in 1901, the 8-story property boasts a stately limestone and brick edifice, a French Renaissance interior, hand-carved wood paneling, trompe l’oeil accents, plaster friezes, a 5-story staircase, hardwood flooring, 12 bedrooms, 14 bathrooms, 2 rooftop patios, 11 wood-burning fireplaces, 3 elevators, a whopping 20,000 square feet of living space, and views of Central Park and The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The pad even has a separate penthouse level complete with a private entrance and staircase.

Though the townhouse fronts Fifth Avenue . . .

. . . it is its 82nd Street side that is most impressive. The building reminds me quite a bit of the Cravens Estate in Pasadena, but on a much grander scale.

Shortly after its completion, the 100×27-foot property was purchased by American Tobacco Company founder Benjamin N. Duke.

The manse continued to be owned by members of the Duke family for more than one hundred years. It was not until 2006 that Benjamin’s granddaughter Mary Duke Biddle Trent Semans (hence the name Duke Semans Mansion) sold the townhouse to real estate mogul Tamir Sapir. The purchase price? A cool $40 million!

Sapir subsequently sold the pad in 2010 to the richest man in the world at the time, Mexican business tycoon Carlos Slim, for $44 million. Five years later, Slim put the residence on the market with an asking price of $80 million (!!!), but it does not appear that there were any takers.

The Benjamin N. Duke House is not only listed on the National Register of Historic Places, but is also a New York City Landmark.

Sadly, there are not many photographs of the mansion’s interior floating around online, but you can catch a glimpse of a few here, as well as watch some videos that show portions of the inside of the structure here and here.

In The First Wives Club, Shelly Stewart (Sarah Jessica Parker) heads to the Benjamin N. Duke House for a “super social luncheon” with Gunilla.

I am unsure if the actual interior of the mansion was utilized in the scene, but I do not believe so. None of the photographs of the inside of the townhouse that I have come across match what was shown onscreen, so I am guessing that interiors were filmed at another Manhattan estate or on a studio-built set.

The First Wives Club is not the only production to feature the Benjamin N. Duke House.

In The French Connection, the property portrays an apartment building where actor Dom Ameche and a criminal named Weinstock (Harold Gray) are both said to reside.

The mansion looked quite a bit different when the Best Picture-winning thriller was shot in 1971 than it does today, as you can see below.

The townhouse also portrayed the home of Henry Turner (Harrison Ford) and his family in the 1991 drama Regarding Henry.

Scenes taking place inside the Turner residence were shot elsewhere, though, on what I believe was a studio-built set.

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 Benjamin N. Duke House, aka Gunilla’s mansion from The First Wives Club, is located at 1009 Fifth Avenue on New York’s Upper East Side.

July 9, 2018
The New York Yacht Club from “Hannah and Her Sisters”

While filming locations are, of course, my first love, I am all about discovering unique, off-the-beaten-path, non-Hollywood-related landmarks and hidden gems, as well (as evidenced here, here and here). So my interest was immediately piqued when, shortly before my 2016 trip to the Big Apple, my friend/fellow stalker Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, informed me of a building known as the New York Yacht Club that boasts highly unusual ship-like windows. Photos of the structure I found online only served to further my intrigue and I promptly added the site to my stalking itinerary. In person, it did not disappoint. I was completely taken with the whimsical property and snapped numerous photographs of it, never imagining it was a filming locale. So imagine my excitement when I spotted it pop up in Hannah and Her Sisters while scanning through the 1986 dramedy in preparation for my recent post on Bemelmans Bar. Though its appearance in the flick is extremely brief, I figured the building was still most-definitely deserving of a write-up.

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The New York Yacht Club was originally established in 1844 by 9 sailing enthusiasts. Though initially headquartered in Hoboken, New Jersey, the group moved to its current home, a Beaux Arts-style stunner located at 37 West 44th Street in Midtown, in 1901. Designed by the Warren and Wetmore architecture firm, who also gave us Grand Central Terminal, the stunning structure, which cost $350,000 to complete, features an elaborate maritime-inspired limestone façade with a grand main entrance, fourth floor rooftop terrace, and massive wooden pergola.

The building’s pièce de résistance, though, is a set of 3 towering bay windows that were built to resemble the sterns of 16th Century Dutch ships. The mammoth oriels, situated on the club’s second floor, are held up by carved cascading waves that appear seconds from spilling onto the pavement below.

The galleon-style windows are fanciful, cartoonish, and striking all at the same time and very reminiscent, to me at least, of those located at the rear of Captain Hook’s pirate ship.

Of the Yacht Club’s eccentric design, The New York Times stated in a 1906 article, “Except for the absence of motion, one might fancy oneself at sea.”

Though the NYYC’s exterior is exquisite, its interior is even more impressive, with a Grill Room modeled after the hull of a wooden ship, a sprawling library that houses more than 13,000 books, and an extravagant 100-foot long Model Room that is capped by a giant Tiffany-designed stained glass ceiling. Sadly, only members and invited guests are allowed past the front door to see the spectacle. The rest of us have to make due with admiring the stunning interior from afar via the various photos and videos that can be found online.

In addition to its architecture, the private, invitation-only club is famous for its extensive roster of prominent past and current members which include John Jacob Astor, William F. Buckley Jr., Ted Kennedy, Michael Bloomberg, Cornelius Vanderbilt III, Walter Cronkite, Ted Turner, J.P. Morgan, and Franklin D. Roosevelt. The NYYC is also known for having not only won the America’s Cup in 1851, but managing to hang on to the coveted trophy until 1983, when it was lost to the Australia-based Royal Perth Yacht Club.

And the club can add “filming location” to its already-impressive bio. In Hannah and Her Sisters, David (Sam Waterston) takes April (Carrie Fisher) and Holly (Dianne Wiest) on a tour of some of his favorite architectural landmarks, which includes a brief drive-by of the New York Yacht Club.

The club is also visible in the background of the scene in which “Wall Street King” Eli Colton (Tate Donovan) and his drug dealer Harry Ingram (Will Brill) discuss a payoff in the Season 18 episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit titled “Net Worth,” which aired in 2017.

Though some online sources have claimed that the Yale Club scene from the 2000 drama American Psycho was lensed at the NYYC, that is not, in fact, correct. The segment was actually shot at the Consort Bar at The Omni King Edward Hotel in Toronto, Canada.

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

Big THANK YOU to my friend Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, for telling me about and taking me to this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The New York Yacht Club, from Hannah and Her Sisters, is located at 37 West 44th Street in Midtown Manhattan.

July 6, 2018
The Pierre Hotel’s Cotillion Ballroom from “Scent of a Woman”

“No mistakes in the tango, Donna. Not like life. Simple. That’s what makes the tango so great. If you make a mistake, if you get all tangled up, you just tango on.” So advises Lt. Col. Frank Slade (Al Pacino) in the iconic tango scene from the 1992 drama Scent of a Woman. Though the segment is widely regarded as one of the most famous in moviedom, conflicting rumors have raged online for years as to where it was shot. At the very least I knew filming had occurred in New York, so prior to my April 2016 trip to the Big Apple, I decided to take a flamethrower to all the misinformation floating around. The various reports I came across online and in stalking books stated that the bit was lensed everywhere from a Plaza Hotel ballroom to the Grand Ballroom at The Pierre to a Waldorf Astoria venue, but none of the spaces seemed to match what was shown onscreen. While perusing the internet for other possibilities, I finally came across an ad for The Pierre in a 1994 issue of New York magazine which mentioned that Scent of a Woman’s famed tango sequence had been shot in the property’s Cotillion Ballroom. One look at images of the site showed me that, although it had changed a bit since filming took place over 25 years ago, it was without a doubt the right spot. So I promptly contacted The Pierre’s marketing department to ask if I could tour the venue during my trip and was thrilled when a very friendly executive sent back an almost immediate response saying she’d be pleased to show me the space. Hoo-ah!

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Overlooking Central Park on New York’s Upper East Side, The Pierre was designed by the Schultze & Weaver architectural firm, who also gave us The Spring Street Tower, the Millennium Biltmore Hotel Los Angeles, and the landmark Waldorf Astoria. Commissioned by Sicilian-born restauranteur Charles Pierre, the opulent 714-room lodging opened its doors to the public in October 1930, delighting guests with its Georgian-style detailing, large suites, and multilevel public spaces, including the Cotillion Ballroom which originally served as a supper club. (While The Pierre is a noted New York landmark and has played host to countless filmings over the years, for this post I thought it best to solely cover the Cotillion Ballroom. I will be blogging about the hotel itself soon.)

The stunning 91×45-foot ballroom boasts 19-foot recessed ceilings, gilded mirrors, a sunken main floor, two massive crystal chandeliers, Central Park views, tiered draperies, marble railings, relief wall sculptings, and a 500-patron capacity.

In Scent of a Woman, Frank and his young chaperone, Charlie Simms (Chris O’Donnell), pop into the Cotillion Ballroom for cocktails. While there, Frank, who is blind, takes note of a woman named Donna (Gabrielle Anwar) sitting nearby thanks to Ogleby Sisters Soap that permeates her skin and winds up inviting her for a spontaneous tango.

The ballroom was transformed into an luxe restaurant for the scene, with seating, tables, and a buffet set-up added to space.

Pillars, additional marble balustrades and a large bar were also installed for the shoot.

Though the Cotillion Ballroom has been altered over the years, certain elements, such as the ornamental mirrors that line the room and the railings that edge the two raised landings, remain untouched.

Thanks to those details, the Cotillion Ballroom is amazingly still recognizable from its onscreen appearance despite the passage of more than two decades.

Per the AFI Catalog of Feature Films, Scent of a Woman’s ten-minute tango scene took four days to shoot. For the dance itself, which lasted about two and a half minutes, Pacino and Anwar underwent three and half weeks of training with choreographers Jerry Mitchell and Paul Pellicoro.

According to an Entertainment Weekly interview with Anwar, she and Pacino never rehearsed the piece together as the actor “wanted to keep a spontaneity and a freshness to the dance.” His methodology worked because the duo’s performance is effortless, flawless and completely engaging. It is easily one of the best few minutes ever recorded on film.

You can watch the Scent of a Woman tango scene by clicking below. I viewed the clip numerous times while writing this post and could not stop smiling from ear to ear. It just makes me so gleeful. I swear I’ve never been happier writing a post than I was while penning this one!

A couple of other productions have made use of the Cotillion Ballroom, as well.

In the Season 3 episode of The Real Housewives of New York City titled “Rebuked, Reunited, Renewed,” which aired in 2010, Ramona Singer tours the Cotillion Ballroom . . .

. . . and winds up hosting the reception for her vow renewal there.

In the Season 2 episode of Jessica Jones titled “AKA Start at the Beginning,” which aired earlier this year, Jeri Hogarth (Carrie-Anne Moss) receives a Women in Law award in the Cotillion Ballroom.

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 Pierre, from Scent of a Woman, is located at 2 East 61st Street on New York’s Upper East Side. The Cotillion Ballroom, where Frank and Donna tangoed in the film, can be found on the hotel’s second floor, just off the Rotunda.

July 2, 2018
The Valmont Mansion from “Cruel Intentions”

I have never been a fan of the movie Cruel Intentions (though the 1999 drama does feature one of my favorite onscreen moments). But during my April 2016 trip to the Big Apple, my good friend/fellow stalker Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, took me to stalk the Upper East Side estate that portrayed the Valmont Mansion – where step-siblings Kathryn Merteuil (Sarah Michelle Gellar) and Sebastian Valmont (Ryan Phillippe) lived and wreaked havoc on their friends and enemies – in the flick, and I pretty much fell in love with the place on sight. Known as the Harry F. Sinclair House as well as the Fletcher-Sinclair Mansion in real life, the massive French Gothic-style pad is nothing short of stunning. So, in spite of my disdain for Cruel Intentions, I figured the residence was most-definitely blog-worthy.

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Commissioned by railroad tycoon Isaac Fletcher in 1897, the Harry F. Sinclair House took two years to complete. The impressive C.P.H. Gilbert-designed dwelling was modeled after William K. Vanderbilt’s Petit Chateau, formerly located about 30 blocks south at 660 Fifth Avenue. The limestone masterpiece was furnished with an extensively carved façade, a mansard roof, an ornate wooden staircase, a library, a parlor, a ballroom, and an elevator. When Fletcher passed away in 1917, he left the estate, as well as his extensive art collection, to The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which immediately turned around and sold the place to industrialist Harry Ford Sinclair.

Shortly after serving 6.5 months in jail for his part in the infamous Teapot Dome Scandal, Sinclair departed the UES manse, selling it to longtime bachelor Augustus Van Horne Stuyvesant Jr., who lived out the remainder of his days there as a virtual recluse. Upon Stuyvesant’s passing in 1953, his furnishings and décor were sold off and the residence was left vacant.

Around that time, the Ukrainian Institute of America, a foundation established to promote Ukrainian art, culture, music, and literature, was looking to expand into a new, larger headquarters. The group quickly honed in on the Fletcher-Sinclair Mansion, snatching it up for $225,000 in 1955. Today, the site, which has been painstakingly restored and preserved, plays host to special events, art exhibitions, auctions, performances, concerts, lectures, and, of course, filming. Best of all – it is open to the public! Sadly, neither Owen nor I realized that when we stalked it, otherwise we most certainly would have ventured inside to see the stunning interior, which you can check out some photographs of here, here, and here.

The Fletcher-Sinclair Mansion popped up numerous times throughout Cruel Intentions.

Only the exterior of the estate was featured in the flick, though.

The lavish interior of Sebastian and Kathryn’s home was just a set built inside of a soundstage in Los Angeles. Production designer Jon Gary Steele had this to say of his concept of the Valmont Mansion, “Most of the story takes place in modern-day New York, but when you walked into the Valmont townhouse, I wanted you to feel like you were walking into a Parisian ballroom. The furniture in the living room was very Louis XIV. We stripped the wood and reupholstered it in a much more modern fabric so the room didn’t feel totally period. Then we added bronze chairs and a bronze table. I didn’t want it to feel like only one piece of the film was period and everything else was modern-contemporary. I wanted the audience to feel like it was a period piece, but once they examined the room and noticed the detail, they would realize the contemporary additions. Because these people have blue-blood money and are very much world travelers, I put in a little bit of everything. There are a lot of French buildings in New York. It’s not uncommon to find people like this now living in places like this.” Interestingly, the set was constructed long before locations managers had secured an estate to serve as the exterior of the Valmont Mansion. When the Harry F. Sinclair House was ultimately chosen, Steele was shocked to discover that the interior closely mirrored his design, “right down to the similar moldings and comparable room dimensions.”

Cruel Intentions is hardly the first production to feature the pad.

In the 1987 comedy Hello Again, the Fletcher-Sinclair Mansion portrays the home of Junior Lacey (Austin Pendleton), where Lucy Chadman (Shelley Long) and her sister, Zelda (Judith Ivey), go to ask for funding to start a day care center at the Knickerbocker Hospital.

The interior of the property appears in the movie, as well.

The manse pops up as the exterior of the Manhattan pied-à-terre of Estella (Gwyneth Paltrow) and Ms. Dinsmoor (Anne Bancroft) in 1998’s Great Expectations. Interiors were shot elsewhere, though.

The Fletcher-Sinclair Mansion appears numerous times as the both the 1876 and present-day interior of “Albany House,” the home of Leopold (Hugh Jackman), in the 2001 romance Kate & Leopold.

Only the inside of the pad is featured in the flick. The exterior of Leopold’s mansion can be found at 1 Hanover Square in New York’s Financial District.

The property also portrays the alternate-reality home of the Suarez family in the Season 4 episode of Ugly Betty titled “Million Dollar Smile,” which aired in 2010.

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

Big THANK YOU to my friend/fellow stalker Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, for taking me to this location.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Harry F. Sinclair House, aka the Fletcher-Sinclair Mansion, aka the Valmont Mansion from Cruel Intentions, is located at 2 East 79th Street on New York’s Upper East Side.

June 27, 2018