Be sure to read today’s Scene It Before post for Los Angeles magazine – about Phil’s Halloween open house from Modern Family. My columns typically get published in the late morning/early afternoon hours.
The Chandler Estate from “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”
The Chandlers are widely considered to be one of L.A.’s “first families.” Patriarch Harry not only served as publisher of the Los Angeles Times for 27 years, but was largely responsible for developing the San Fernando Valley, the Hollywood Hills and Dana Point in the O.C., as well. He was also instrumental in the construction of some of the city’s most famous structures including the Biltmore Hotel, the Hollywood Bowl, the California Institute of Technology and the Los Angeles Coliseum. So when I found out that his Los Feliz estate had been used in the 1956 science fiction thriller Invasion of the Body Snatchers, I ran right out to stalk the place.
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The 8,891-square-foot, red-brick, Georgian-style manse was built from 1914 to 1916 and boasts 24 rooms, including eight bedrooms and four baths, a two-story entrance hall, a library, a solarium, a butler’s pantry, a pool, a detached four-car garage, and a one-bedroom guesthouse. Sadly, outside of a long tree-lined driveway, little else of the place is visible to the public. The views from the street out front are pretty darn spectacular, though.
An aerial view of the Chandler estate is pictured below. As you can see, it is quite impressive. You can also check out some close-up and interior photographs of the pad here.
After Harry Chandler passed away in 1944, his wife Marian continued to live at the mansion until her own death in 1952. The Chandler family held onto the property for quite some time and in 1972 leased it at a rate of $1,000 a month to the Source Family (the cult that operated The Source Restaurant on Sunset Boulevard, which I blogged about here). During their time there, the Source Family dubbed the estate “Mother House.” The Chandler’s opted not to renew the group’s lease after the first year, so in 1973 the Family moved elsewhere. In September 2008, the mansion was put on the market for $6,799,000. There were no takers, though, and in January of the following year the price was dropped to $5.499 million. The residence finally sold in October 2009 for $3,696,000.
It is well-documented online that the Chandler estate served as the home of Jack Belicec (King Donovan) and his wife, Theodora (Carolyn Jones), in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Having scanned through the flick in preparation for this post, though, I cannot say with certainty that the reports are correct. So little of the house can been seen in the movie that it is virtually impossible to confirm or deny the location.
It has also been reported on several Invasion of the Body Snatchers websites and message boards that the Chandler estate was demolished sometime after filming took place. I think what led to that assumption is the fact that most sites list the address of the residence as 2330 Hillhurst Avenue. There is no such address is Los Feliz. The Chandler estate is actually located at 2411 Inverness Avenue. But as you can see below, both addresses point to the same spot, which leads me to believe that the home was originally numbered 2330 Hillhurst. In its early days, the Chandler estate boasted five acres. The majority of the land was sold off over the years, though, and the residence currently sits on 0.83 acres. I am guessing that the address was changed to 2411 Inverness at some point due to that division of land, leading Invasion fans to believe that the residence was no longer. Thankfully though, it is still standing in its original state.
The interior of the Belicec home was also shown in two Invasion of the Body Snatchers scenes, but I am uncertain if the the Chandler estate’s actual interior (if filming did, in fact, take place there) was used or a set. I am leaning toward the latter, though.
In 1985, the estate was used in a few Season 4 episodes of Falcoln Crest as the home of Gustav Riebmann (Paul Fremann), although very little of it could be seen in the episodes.
The Chandler estate was also where Matthew Winfield (a very young George Clooney) hid out in the Season 3 episode of Hunter titled “Double Exposure,” which aired in 1987. Both the exterior . . .
. . . and the interior of the property appeared in the episode.
For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: The Chandler estate, from Invasion of the Body Snatchers, is located at 2411 Inverness Avenue in Los Feliz.
Harbor Steps Apartments from “The Ring”
I am reaching deep into my stalking vault for today’s location. I visited the Harbor Steps Apartments from The Ring during a trip to Seattle well over four years ago – shortly after being caught in a torrential downpour, which explains my hat in the above photograph – but somehow failed to blog about them. Since the building’s appearance in the 2002 thriller was decidedly macabre, I figured what better time to write about it than during my annual Haunted Hollywood postings. So here goes!
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The 734-unit Harbor Steps Apartments, which are situated overlooking downtown Seattle and Puget Sound, were completed in 2000.
The upscale complex, which consists of four high-rise buildings, features three fitness centers, a basketball court, a volleyball court, three Jacuzzis, a sauna, a climbing wall, an indoor pool, a business center, a media room/theatre, stunningly gorgeous views, and (my personal favorite) 24-hour concierge service.
The Harbor Steps Apartments sit directly across from the Seattle Art Museum and one of Jonathan Borofsky’s Hammering Man sculptures. (There are several others situated throughout the world.) The 48-foot-tall instillation was constructed in 1991 out of hollow-fabricated steel and, according to the City of Seattle’s official website, “celebrates the worker’s contribution to society.”
Thanks to an electric motor, the sculpture’s arm makes a hammering motion every 15 seconds, 24 hours a day, every single day of the year. Well, except each Labor Day, that is, when Hammering Man is programmed to take a rest – a fact which I thought was so incredibly cool.
In The Ring, the Harbor Steps Apartments were where Rachel Keller (Naomi Watts) lived with her son, Aidan (David Dorfman). According to the movie’s production notes, director Gore Verbinski chose to shoot the flick in Washington because, “The Pacific Northwest winter provided a seemingly perpetual overcast and cold, gloomy weather that only added to the story’s atmosphere of dread. The lack of sun also lent itself perfectly to the soft light and lack of shadows that Verbinski and cinematographer Bojan Bazelli were employing to complement the story’s surrealistic moments.” Production designer Tom Duffield based the film’s coloring on the paintings of Andrew Wyeth. He says, “In Wyeth’s work, the trees are always dormant, and the colors are muted earth tones. It’s greys, it’s browns, it’s somber colors; it’s ripped fabrics in the windows. His work has a haunting flavor that I felt would add to the mystique of this movie, so I latched on to it. “
He did a fabulous job, too, because, as you can see below, even moments after a downpour, the building is much more vibrant in person than Duffield made it appear to be in The Ring.
Rachel supposedly lived in Unit 601 in the movie.
But I am fairly certain that the interior of her apartment was a set. You can check out a few interior photographs of some real life Harbor Steps Apartments here and here.
The interior of Rachel’s unit seemed to be much larger and more open than those of the actual complex.
For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: The Harbor Steps Apartments from The Ring are located at 1221 First Avenue in Seattle, Washington. You can visit the complex’s official website here.
Anoakia Mansion from “Doppelganger”
There’s no denying that Doppelganger is a pretty horrible movie. But part of the fun of the Halloween season is watching ridiculously terrible horror flicks from years past – and stalking their locations, of course. I had long been on the hunt for the psychiatric institution from the 1993 thriller and was given a tip a couple of years ago that a historic, since-demolished mansion named Anoakia in Arcadia was the right spot. (For the life of me, I cannot remember who gave me the information. To whomever it was, I apologize.) Even though the place is long gone, I figured that it still proved blog-worthy being that several people have asked me about its location over the years.
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Anoakia was originally constructed in 1913 for Anita Baldwin, the daughter of Elias Jackson “Lucky” Baldwin, the founder of Arcadia. The 50-room estate was designed in the Italian Renaissance style and boasted 17,000 square feet of space, a bowling alley, a gym, wood-paneled rooms, etched glass doors, a pool, an aviary, a bee yard, tennis courts and murals painted by artist Maynard Dixon. The 20-acre grounds featured ponds, gardens, stables, a bathhouse and a chapel. Upon Anita’s death in 1939, the property was turned into a boarding school for girls. In 1944, it was purchased by Lowry McCaslin, a former manager of the Baldwin estate. He continued to operate a school on the premises for several decades. Unfortunately, after the Whittier earthquake in 1987, McCaslin was forced to make costly upgrades to the mansion to keep it up to code. Maintaining the site was no longer feasible for the 82-year-old, so he had the school moved and made plans to develop Anoakia’s grounds, keeping the mansion intact.
City officials rejected all of McCaslin’s proposals and Anoakia sat vacant for the next decade and began to dilapidate. In 1999, a developer from Orange County purchased the site from Lowry’s estate (McCaslin passed away in 1995) and came up with a plan to build a gated community of 31 homes on the land. To do this, the Anoakia would need to be demolished. While the developer met with some opposition from preservationists, the city eventually approved of his plans and the historic mansion was leveled in 2000. You can see some pictures of how it looked in its last days here.
Today, the upscale community is known as Anoakia Estates.
The only part of the original property to remain intact are the perimeter wall and a guard house located in the southeast corner of the grounds (circled in the two aerial views below).
I did not know about the guard house at the time that I stalked the location so I did not take any photographs of it, but you can see what it looks like it via the Google Street View image below.
In Doppelganger, Anoakia stood in for Our Lady of Mercy Psychiatric Institute, where Holly’s (Drew Barrymore) brother, Fred, was institutionalized.
True to life, the institute was said to be located in Arcadia in the movie.
Anoakia showed up a couple of times in Doppelganger.
The real life interior of the mansion was used in the movie, as well.
From what was shown in Doppelganger, it is obvious that Anoakia was an absolutely idyllic estate. What a shame that it is no longer standing!
For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: Anoakia Mansion, aka Our Lady of Mercy Psychiatric Institute from Doppelganger, was formerly located at around 1200 North Baldwin Avenue in Arcadia.
The American Cement Building from “Scream 3”
While I am admittedly not a fan of MacArthur Park, there is a property situated on the border of it that I would absolutely LOVE to live in – The American Cement Building. Mike from, MovieShotsLA, pointed out the dramatically stunning structure many moons ago during one of our very first stalks together and I have been obsessed with it ever since. And while Mike also informed me that the edifice had appeared in the 2000 horror flick Scream 3, for some reason I never thought to blog about the place during my Haunted Hollywood postings. That changes today!
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The American Cement Building was constructed in 1964 and originally served as the American Cement Company’s headquarters. The Daniel, Mann, Johnson and Mendenhall (DMJM) architecture firm designed the 13-story structure, which was, fittingly, manufactured out of reinforced concrete.
The north and south sides of the building are covered in latticework comprised of 450 X-shaped pieces of precast concrete. While the design adds beauty to the structure’s façade and is striking to look at, it serves a functional objective, as well. According to the Los Angeles Conservancy website, “The primary purpose of the latticework is to provide external support for the structural system so the building’s interior can be free of columns.”
The American Cement Building underwent a multi-million dollar renovation in 2002 during which time the office spaces were transformed into 71 live/work lofts. You can check out some great interior photographs of the property here. The units – and their views – are breathtaking!
In Scream 3, The American Cement Building housed the office of horror movie producer John Milton (Lance Henriksen).
At the time of the filming, the interior of the building was far less modern than it is today.
I absolutely LOVE the fact that Milton had a diving board attached to his window in the flick. Anyone care for a swim? 
The American Cement Building also appeared in Pharrell Williams’ music video “Come Get It Bae,” which featured Miley Cyrus.
The building’s parking garage was where The Bride (Uma Thurman) learned how to wiggle her toe again in Kill Bill: Vol. 1.
The Entourage movie also apparently did some filming at the building in March of this year.
For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.
Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for telling me about this location! 
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: The American Cement Building, from Scream 3, is located at 2404 Wilshire Boulevard in Westlake. You can visit the building’s official website here.
Latest “L.A.” Mag Post – About Buster’s Coffee from “Revenge”
Don’t forget to head over to LAMag.com to read today’s Scene It Before post – about Buster’s Coffee from my new favorite show Revenge. My columns typically get published in the late morning/early afternoon hours. And you can check out a bonus post I did about filming locations from Gone Girl, which comes out tomorrow, here.
Whitey Bulger’s Former Apartment
It is finally that time of year again – October 1st, the start of my Haunted Hollywood postings. And I could not be more excited, so let’s get to it! The October 2013 issue of Los Angeles magazine featured an absolutely enthralling article about the arrest of the infamous Boston mobster James “Whitey” Bulger. I read the column, titled “The Old Man Next Door,” in one short sitting and was elated that author Steven Mikulan had included the address of Bulger’s former Santa Monica apartment building. I finally made it out to stalk the place in January of this year, but held off on blogging about it until now as I figured the locale would make for a perfect Haunted Hollywood posting.
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James Bulger was born in 1929 in Boston’s North End. He was given the nickname “Whitey” thanks to his bright blonde hair and reportedly hated the moniker as much as fellow mobster Benjamin Siegel hated being called “Bugsy.” Whitey moved to a South Boston housing project with his family at a young age and his life of crime began shortly thereafter. By the age of fourteen, he had been arrested for larceny and was eventually sentenced to a juvenile facility. By 30, he was serving time at Alcatraz for a bank robbery conviction. After his release, it was not long before he was running South Boston’s infamous Winter Hill Gang. (Jack Nicholson’s Frank Costello character in The Departed was based on Bulger.) In 1993, a task force was implemented to catch and arrest Whitey for numerous crimes, including 19 murders. The task force was ready to take Bulger in the following year, but he was tipped off and immediately fled Boston. Oddly enough, he originally went on the lam with a longtime girlfriend named Teresa Stanley. She tired of life on the run fairly quickly and, upon her return to Massachusetts, Whitey asked a different longtime girlfriend, Catherine Greig, to flee with him. Apparently, Greig didn’t mind playing second fiddle.
Upon arriving in Santa Monica in 1996, James and Catherine took up residence at the Princess Eugenia apartment building located at 1012 Third Street. They lived for the next 15 years under the aliases of Charlie and Carol Gasko. Their life at the Princess Eugenia was a fairly quiet one, though Whitey could often be seen on his balcony looking through a pair of binoculars. The couple went on daily walks, were friendly with neighbors and took care of a couple of local stray cats. Their two-bedroom, two-bath apartment hid a more sinister existence, though. Holes in the walls concealed a stash of $822,198 in cash and a collection of thirty guns.
The Gasko’s lurid past caught up with them on June 22, 2011. The previous day, a former Icelandic native named Anna Bjornsdottir had randomly watched an FBI video about Bulger and Greig on TV and recognized the couple immediately. Anna had lived at the Embassy Hotel Apartments (now named Palihouse) across the street from the Princess Eugenia many years prior and had become friendly with Catherine thanks to a stray neighborhood cat that both women cared for. She called the FBI and less than 24 hours later they had infiltrated Whitey’s building. Shortly thereafter and thanks to some help from Josh Bond, the Princess Eugenia’s manager, Bulger and Greig were arrested without incident in the building’s garage.
Greig wound up pleading guilty to identity fraud and conspiring to harbor a fugitive and was sentenced to 8 years in prison. She is currently serving her time at the Wyatt Detention Center in Central Falls, Rhode Island. Whitey’s trial lasted two months and he was convicted of 31 counts, including murder involvement, drug trafficking, racketeering, money laundering, and extortion. He was given two life sentences plus five years and is currently serving that time at the United States Penitentiary in Tucson, Arizona.
During their stint at the Princess Eugenia, Whitey and Catherine lived in Apartment 303, a corner unit located on the western side of the building’s third floor. Their unit is denoted with an orange arrow below. You can check out some photographs of the interior of the apartment from the time that the couple lived there here. To say the place was odd would be an understatement. Why there was a bed in the living room is beyond me. You can also see some interior photographs of what the space currently looks like here.
In an eerie twist, while writing this post I learned that Whitey’s former apartment unit is blurred out on Google Street View, as you can see below. I looked up Google’s privacy policy and apparently anyone can request to have their residence blurred from view. Whether this request was made by Whitey himself (a distinct possibility considering he had plastic sheets, duct tape, and black curtains covering all of his windows when he lived at the Eugenia) or the new tenants is anyone’s guess, but I was pretty spooked when I came across it. Freaaaaaaky!
For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: Princess Eugenia, aka Whitey Bulger’s former apartment building, is located at 1012 Third Street in Santa Monica.
New “L.A.” Mag Post – About the Queen Mary
Don’t forget to check out my latest Los Angeles magazine blog post – about the 80th birthday of the Queen Mary – on LAMag.com. My columns typically get published in the late morning/early afternoon hours.
The Culver City Hobbit Houses
I have a major affinity for unique architecture. So when I came across this CurbedLA article about the Lawrence and Martha Joseph Residence and Apartments, a grouping of Storybook-style structures in Culver City colloquially known as the “Hobbit houses,” I just about foamed at the mouth. The complex looks like something straight out of a Disney cartoon and it was not long before I was rushing out to see it with my own two eyes.
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The Lawrence and Martha Joseph Residence and Apartments compound consists of three buildings – a main house and two cottages that contain seven individual apartment units. The dwellings were constructed between 1946 and 1970 by Lawrence Joseph, a former Walt Disney Co. artist and Lockheed aircraft designer. Lawrence first designed the main residence (pictured below), which he lived in with his wife, Martha.
He then built the two additional apartment cottages.
Joseph incorporated two of his main hobbies, carpentry and sailing, into the design of the structures. While the exterior boasts hand-carved wooden detailing, the interiors were made to look like that of a ship, with galley kitchens, built-in furniture, and latches and pulls used as doorknobs. You can check out some photographs of the whimsical interior of one of the apartment units here.
The property’s detailing is downright incredible. I fell in love with the lamp pictured below.
And check out the spider-web design of the main residence’s front door.
In 1996, the complex was declared Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument #624.
Though not a filming location (at least not that I am aware of), the Lawrence and Martha Joseph Residence and Apartments do boast a celebrity connection. Tony Award-winning actress Gwen Verdon called one of the apartment units home for a time, as did Nick Nolte, Paula Prentiss and Richard Benjamin. And in a more nefarious twist, Joseph Amsler, one of the kidnappers of Frank Sinatra Jr., lived on the premises during the time of the abduction. It was inside of one of the apartments that the FBI wound up tracking down a majority of the $240,000 in ransom money that Ol’ Blue Eyes had paid for the return of his son. You can read more about the kidnapping here.
For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: The Lawrence and Martha Joseph Residence and Apartments, aka the Hobbit Houses, are located at 3819 Dunn Drive in Culver City.
This Week’s “L.A.” Mag Post – About the “Golden Girls” House
Don’t forget to check out this week’s L.A. magazine blog post – about the Golden Girls house – here.