Category: This and That

My Favorite Pasadena Places – Part II

As promised, today’s blog is a continuation of my top ten favorite places in Pasadena. If you missed the first installment, you can check it out here. And now, on with the post! (Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for taking the above photograph of Pasadena City Hall. I swear, that guy takes THE BEST pictures. I was just telling him the other night that if I ever get rich, I am hiring him to take photos for my site fulltime. I’ll do the writing and he can handle the pics. We’d so be unstoppable! )

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6. Old Town Pasadena Historic District – If there’s one thing this stalker loves almost as much as stalking, it’s shopping. I absolutely hate being inside, though, so when I first moved to Pasadena and discovered Old Town’s historic shopping district, I thought I had died and gone to heaven.

Old Town Pasadena, which is comprised of blocks upon blocks of fabulous boutiques, restaurants and specialty stores (like The Soap Kitchen, which makes the best lip balm I have ever owned), features stunning architecture, spacious courtyards and lots and lots of brick. It is hands down my favorite place to shop in all of Southern California. And because I used to live about a mile from it, walking there daily provided me with my only form of exercise. See, shopping can be good for you! The area also has a bit of a celebrity twist. In the 1940s, Old Town Pasadena fell into serious disarray and became a haven for criminal and drug activity. Thankfully though, in the early ‘90s, the site’s potential was realized by several real estate developers and businessmen who set about revitalizing the district and wound up turning it into what is now one of L.A.’s most popular shopping and dining venues. One of the men who was involved in that revitalization was none other than producer Garry Marshall, although he ended up backing out after the project almost bankrupted him. He talks quite a bit about the venture in his fabulous book My Happy Days in Hollywood.

The area also sees quite a bit of filming. In fact, just the other day I learned that the Urban Outfitters in Old Town was featured in the 2004 movie National Treasure, in the scene in which Benjamin Franklin Gates (Nicolas Cage), Abigail Chase (Diane Kruger) and Riley Poole (Justin Bartha) go shopping for new clothes.

The center of Old Town Pasadena is located at 1 Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena. You can visit the district’s official website here.

7. The Starbucks at Lake & Green – Not the closest Starbucks to my former apartment, but my most-favorite one and easily the best in all of Pasadena. I would walk about a mile out of my way each day to visit this particular branch, that’s how much I love the place. At most Starbucks locations, the wait is atrocious and items are invariably out of stock – there is one in particular in the Pasadena area that shall remain unnamed (753 S. Arroyo Parkway) that is constantly out of whole milk and it drives me up the wall. This particular store, though, has GOT IT DOWN! I can honestly say that in the six years I frequented the place, I never had to wait longer than five minutes from the time I walked through the front door to the time I walked out, drink in hand. I love, love, love this Starbucks. The GC would often try to get me to stop at other Sbux outposts that happened to be on the way to wherever we were going on that particular day, and every single time he got his way and we ended up at another store, we would get stuck in some god-forsaken line and lose about ten minutes time. Men! I became such a regular at Lake & Green that when one of my favorite baristas, Eve, won Partner of the Quarter for her district, I was invited to the event, as were a few other customers. That’s just the way the Lake & Green store is. It is like the Cheers bar of Starbucks stores – where everybody knows your name. My favorite Starbucks is located at 82 South Lake Avenue in Pasadena.

8. Betty Nails & Spa – Anyone who lives in L.A. knows that most nail salons there are conveyor-belt type places that can be found on pretty much each and every street corner. Some are even downright skeevy. Not Betty Nails & Spa, though. As soon as I walked in for my first visit, I immediately felt comfortable and welcomed. The place was clean and laid-back, the stylists friendly and the prices extremely reasonable. What I liked best, though, was the fact that the manicurist took her time. In all of my visits there, I never felt like they were trying to rush through the process to move on to the next customer. They also never tried to upsell me. Quite the contrary, actually – the first time I asked for a callus removal (Cat, from the Pasadena Blo-Out Lounge, had told me how fabulous callus removals are and she was right!), I was told that I really did not need one. The best part about Betty’s manicures and pedicures, though, are the massages. Sigh! After I discovered Betty’s and became a regular, I recommended the place to my mom and she subsequently became a regular, too. When she moved to desert, she would often lament to me that she could not find a nail salon that she liked nearly as much that didn’t cost an arm and a leg – which doesn’t bode well for me now that I live there, as well. Needless to say, my nails – and hair – will be suffering due to my move. Betty Nails & Spa is located at 766 East Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena.

9. El Portal – Our favorite Pasadena-area Mexican eatery. El Portal is a family-owned and operated place that specializes in Yucatan cuisine and has been awarded Pasadena Weekly’s “Best Mexican Restaurant” more times than I can count. The Grim Cheaper has long been addicted to their shredded beef tacos and while I typically do not have a hard time sticking to my carb-free diabetic-friendly diet when dining out, whenever I am at El Portal I canNOT resist their cheese quesadillas! They are like my kryptonite. I do not know how one can make a quesadilla stand out from others (I mean, aren’t they just tortillas and cheese?), but no other quesadilla that I have ever sampled even compares to the ones at El Portal. They are that good! El Portal’s champagne, unfortunately, wasn’t, though. The restaurant used to serve a very sweet brand of sparking wine that I was not at all a fan of, so one day I decided to ask El Portal’s owner, Abel Ramirez, if he would ever consider stocking a different variety. I mentioned that the rather inexpensive Freixenet brand was one of my favorites (my best friend actually calls me “The Freixenet Girl”) and the very next week when we sat down at the bar, our favorite bartender popped a Freixenet split down in front of me! How incredible is that? I just about fell over I was so excited. The bartender also later told us that the restaurant has been selling quite a bit more champagne now since they made the switch, which I was over the moon about. For the best quesadillas in the world, head to El Portal, which is located at 695 East Green Street, inside of Arcade Lane, in Pasadena. You can visit the restaurant’s website here.

10. Our Former Loft – The GC and I have both long been obsessed with New York loft-style architecture, so when we toured the one pictured below while looking for our first apartment together in 2008, we signed the lease immediately. We absolutely LOVED living in what we took to calling “our perfect little loft”, despite the fact that it was only 750 square feet. And while we did end up desperately needing more space as the years went on, it was truly heartbreaking to leave the place and not a day goes by that I don’t miss it.

Especially the floor-to-ceiling brick wall.

One thing I will NOT miss about our loft, though, is the tiny closet, which I actually had to split with the GC! For a hyper-organized clotheshorse like myself, sharing such a small closet was miserable.

As you can see, because the closet was so small and because I have so many clothes, the result was a rather disorganized storage system, which was enough to drive the Monica Geller in me crazy on a daily basis. I get an eye twitch just looking at the pictures below.

So when we decided to move to the desert, I stole a line from Carrie Bradshaw and told the GC, “Just get me a really big closet!” Which he did, and which my dad, who is quite the craftsman (he constructed the bookshelves, ladder and butcher block pictured in the above photographs of our loft), custom-built for me. The original closet, as it came with our new apartment, is pictured below.

I asked my dad to base the design on Emily Schuman’s closet (from fave website Cupcakes and Cashmere), which you can take a look at here. The result is pictured below and, while it is still not completely finished, I could NOT be happier with it. I feel like I’ve died and gone to closet heaven! I keep calling it my Barbie Dream Closet and literally can’t get enough of it. I think it is safe to say that I will be spending the vast majority of my time in there, just gazing around in awe.

Although two of my very favorite area locales, I purposely left The Huntington Library and the Walsh house from Beverly Hills, 90210 out of this post because both are featured quite prominently on My L.A. Must-Stalk List, which you can read here.

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

February 4, 2013
My Favorite Pasadena Places – Part I

While the Grim Cheaper and I are absolutely loving our new apartment and desert locale, I am, of course, feeling quite nostalgic about Pasadena, the fabulous city that I called home for over thirteen years. There are so many things that I am going to miss about the place – even my former building’s Ugly Naked Guy. Well, I’m not going to miss him, per se – just the fact that my building had one and that I once shared that small similarity with the Friends gang. But that is a different story for a different time (and it’s a doozy, let me tell you!). For today and Monday, though, while caught up in memories of my beloved Rose City, I thought I would go a little off-topic by blogging about my ten favorite places in Pasadena. None have a filming or celebrity angle, necessarily, but I hope my fellow stalkers will enjoy this walk down memory lane nonetheless. So without further ado . . .

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1. Lula Mae Gift Shop – My very favorite store in the entire world! While planning for this post, I made a list of all of the places that I needed to take photographs of and Lula Mae was one of them. Then I realized that the two pictures below (which my dad took last year of me with Marci, Lula’s owner, and Julia, a longtime employee) perfectly encapsulate what the shop is all about. Walking into Lula Mae is like walking into a giant hug and what I love most about the place – besides the fabulous merchandise, which is truly one-of-a-kind – is the people who work there. There are honestly no words to describe how much I am going to miss Marci and Julia (as wells as Alison and Reyana). The Lula ladies have all become my good friends and saying good-bye to them was the hardest part of leaving Pasadena for me. I bawled for a full two blocks after I left the store that evening and still haven’t fully recovered. Ironically enough, Marci was the one who gave me the last push I needed to move. The GC and I had been going back and forth over the decision for weeks and one day Marci said, “Well, what are you going to regret more? Leaving Pasadena or not being with your parents?” We gave notice to our apartment building just a few days later. Marci is one of the most amazing people I have ever met – she is the absolute embodiment of Kathleen Kelly (Meg Ryan) from You’ve Got Mail. In fact, I am convinced that Nora Ephron met Marci one day while writing the screenplay for the 1998 flick and then based the character off of her.

Lula Mae was where I would go whenever I needed inspiration, a good laugh, a cheering-up, some girl talk, or a fabulously unique gift. LA Weekly awarded the site “Best One-Stop Shopping” in 2011 and had this to say, “You know that friend of yours who always upstages the $10 bottle of wine you pull out of your purse when she shows up at parties with the most adorable, clever little trinket wrapped perfectly in a colorful vintage gift bag? Well that smug b*tch probably has been shopping at Lula Mae for years now.” That smug b*tch was me. Friends learned long ago to stop asking where I purchased a certain card or gift because the answer was invariably “Lula Mae”. When I told my parents we were moving to the desert, the first words out of my mom’s mouth were, “But what are you going to do without Lula Mae?” Not joking. The store was that much a part of my life. In fact, the GC asked if Marci factored our move into her 2013 revenue projections. LOL I honestly don’t know how I will survive without my weekly (oh, who am I kidding) daily Lula dose. It’s the most adorable store I have ever visited in my life (the place even has a shop kitty!) and I cannot more highly recommend a visit. Lula Mae is located at 100 North Fair Oaks Avenue in Old Town Pasadena. You can visit the store’s website here.

2. Vroman’s Bookstore – My very favorite bookstore. Because I love Vroman’s so much and shop there so often, I have written countless posts about the place over the years. Consequently, in the hopes of sparing y’all any redundancy, I will keep this blurb brief. Let me just say that Vroman’s is the type of place where you can walk in and say, “I heard about this book and I can’t remember the title or who wrote it, nor what it is even about. I know it has to do with a bookseller and that it takes place in a past era and the cover is a mustard yellow color and has a Sherlock Holmes-looking guy on it.” And they will know exactly the book you are talking about. I walked in the other day and said just that and, sure enough, it wasn’t two minutes before I had the novel I had so poorly remembered, The Shadow of the Wind, in my hands. The picture below was taken back in 2011 on a day when Parks and Recreation was filming at Vroman’s. You can read my post about that filming here. Vroman’s Bookstore is located at 695 East Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena. You can visit their website here. Be sure to check out their Special Events page as celebrity authors stop by regularly for signings.

3. The Slaw Dogs – I discovered this place (thanks to Marci from Lula Mae) about two years ago and it became such a favorite that before long I was dining there a good four or five times a week. The eatery serves the. best. hot. dogs. ever. And this is coming from a true frankfurter connoisseur. The dogs are so good, in fact, that when I took my friends Beth and Kim, who were in town visiting from Ohio, they actually later dreamed about their meal! Yes, The Slaw Dogs has the power to enter your dreams! And the establishment even serves champagne! What more could a stalker ask for?

Pictured below is my regular order – a turkey dog with melted cheddar cheese and ranch dressing. I am salivating just looking at it right now! To stay diabetic-friendly, though, I don’t eat the bun. For those of you who aren’t diabetic, The Slaw Dogs serves a variety of carb-loaded options, including a Mac and Cheese Dog (with macaroni and cheese, bacon, grilled onions, and Dijon mustard), The Picnic Dog (with homemade potato salad, BBQ sauce, onion rings, and a dill pickle spear), and the TNT Super Dog, aka “The Good Timer” (with beer chili, cheddar cheese, bacon, pastrami, French fries, grilled onions, and a fried egg, all wrapped in a giant tortilla). There are also vegetarian options and salads, for those who prefer a healthier meal. If you’re in the area, skip Pink’s (the lines are long and the dogs just average) and hit up The Slaw Dogs instead. Several celebs have even been known to stop in on occasion, including Wentworth Miller, whom I once dined next to. The eatery has a few locations, but the Pasadena outpost can be found at 720 North Lake Avenue. You can visit The Slaw Dogs website here.

4. The Pasadena Blo-Out Lounge – I discovered this place in all of its white marble and pink-accented glory in June 2011 and never looked back. And while the GC likes to say, “You pay someone to wash your hair!”, what I am actually paying for is a professional blow-dry. Because the Blo-Out Lounge prices are so incredibly reasonable, I was able to buy a monthly membership and get my hair done every four or five days. (Yes, I know – I am spoiled!) The Lounge was a lifesaver for me because I have extremely curly and extremely thick hair. Blowing it out on my own takes a good two hours and is a huge pain in the butt, so, before discovering the Lounge, I would often just leave it curly and pull it back in a clip. After becoming a member, though, everyday became a good hair day. So much so that Miss Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog, once called me up to ask if I had gotten a makeover at some point before meeting her. She had been going through my old celebrity photographs and, apparently, I used to be a hot mess. LOL My answer, “No, I just discovered the Blo-Out Lounge.”

Not only did the Lounge change my hair-life, but the stylists who work there all became my close friends. Even if I went back to wearing my hair curly, I would still want to visit the salon regularly just to hang out. I honestly do not know what I am going to do now that I live in Palm Springs. I can say this, though – the Lounge will be my VERY FIRST stop on every single visit back to L.A. And while I have my favorites [Noelle (who is pictured), Cat, Yvette, Arlyn and Dinga], ALL of the girls who work at the Lounge are fabulous and, in almost two years time, I have NEVER received a single bad blow-out. The Pasadena Blo-Out Lounge is located at 62 North Raymond Avenue in Old Town Pasadena. You can visit their website here.

5. Vertical Wine Bistro – Sadly, while the GC and I had dined once before at Vertical (I blogged about it here), we only just discovered the wonder that is their happy hour about six weeks prior to our move. I can easily say that Vertical Wine Bistro has Pasadena’s BEST happy hour, hands down! The prices are reasonable, the food spectacular and the servings huge. We love the place so much that it became our regular Friday night spot. It was also where we chose to eat dinner our last night in Pasadena. Because we had only been dining at Vertical habitually for a short time, we did not know any of the bartenders very well, but, amazingly, when one of them heard that we were moving the following day, she ended up purchasing our entire meal! She said that she and the other servers would often comment on how nice we were and how they wished more of their customers were like us! How AMAZING is that?!? It was the perfect way to spend our last night in Pasadena and made me love the eatery all the more. (Because I had blogged about the place before, I thought I had plenty of pictures of it and therefore did not take any new ones for this post. When I looked through my old photos, though, I realized that they had been taken on an iPhone and were of very poor quality. D’oh! So I had to “borrow” the one below off of the Vertical website.)

While the GC LOVES Vertical’s Sliders (I have to say that I even like them and I am NOT a hamburger fan), I am absolutely addicted to the Sautéed Mushrooms side order (pictured below). It is literally one of the best things I have ever eaten in my life. The Fried Calamari is also amazing! I canNOT wait to go back there the next time we are in town. Vertical Wine Bistro is located at 70 North Raymond Avenue in Old Town Pasadena. You can visit their website here. The restaurant’s happy hour is offered Tuesday through Saturday from 4 to 7 p.m. and all day on Sunday.

Stay tuned for My Favorite Pasadena Places – Part II, which will be posted on Monday.

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

February 1, 2013
Villa de Leon

Back in September, while doing research on the Glendale Amtrak Station from Bulletproof (which I blogged about here), I came across a fabulous post on the Paradise Leased website about Villa de Leon – a huge Pacific Palisades-area estate that was also designed by architect Kenneth MacDonald Jr. I quickly became entranced by the ginormous manse, which overlooks the Pacific Ocean, because not only is it an oft-filmed-at locale, but it is also one of the most consistently mis-identified buildings in all of Los Angeles. In fact, until reading the Paradise Leased post, even yours truly had gotten this one wrong. I had seen the dwelling countless times in the past whenever driving along the Pacific Coast Highway and had always assumed that it was the Getty Villa – as do most people, even native Angelinos. It is an easy mistake to make, though.

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As you can see in the images below, Villa de Leon is situated directly above a sign for the Getty Villa, confusing tourists and residents alike. In fact, even The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal have mis-identified the place, so I guess I am in good company.

In actuality, the Getty Villa sits hidden from the road, directly behind and just north of Villa de Leon. As you can see below, both buildings are also Mediterranean in style and quite significant in size, which only furthers the confusion.

And while the Getty Villa is, I’m sure, spectacular (I’ve never actually been there), Villa de Leon is a masterpiece in and of itself – easily one of the most stunning properties that I have ever laid eyes upon. The 35-room Beaux Arts/Mediterranean-style estate was built for a wealthy wool magnate named Leon Kauffman and his wife, Clemence, in 1927. The three-story structure took over five years to complete and cost a whopping $1 million to construct – about $12 million today. At the time that the Villa was built, it was the only residence in the area. In fact, even the Pacific Coast Highway had yet to exist. Access to the beach from the home was made possible thanks to a funicular (yeah, I had to look that one up, too).

Sadly, Clemence Kauffman passed away in 1933, only five years after the house was completed, and Leon followed soon after in 1935. The Villa remained unoccupied, except for a caretaker, for the next twenty years, until it was finally put up for auction in 1952, where it sold for the unbelievably-low price of $71,000. The property then went through a succession of different owners and was last purchased in 2007 for $10 million.

The massive Villa de Leon boasts ten bedrooms, ten baths, 10,277 square feet of living space, a one-acre plot of seaside land, a 67-foot tall entry hall, a library with coffered ceilings, a master suite with mahogany-paneled walls, a spiral staircase, a living room with a 35-foot tall hand-stenciled ceiling, a circular-shaped formal dining room with ocean views, a seven-car garage(!) with its own car wash (!), formal gardens (many of which have been destroyed over the years due to landslides), a working elevator, two vaults, a central vacuum system (one of the first to ever be built), and several terraces. You can check out some fabulous photographs of the mansion’s interior here. What I wouldn’t give to go inside that place!

Thankfully, unlike most Los Angeles-area mega-mansions, this one is quite visible from the road.

As I mentioned above, Villa de Leon has been featured in countless productions over the years, most notably photo shoots. I actually dragged the Grim Cheaper out to stalk the location twice as, on our first visit, I was not able to get any faraway photographs. Amazingly enough, there was something being shot on the premises BOTH times that we were there, as you can see below.

The exterior of Villa de Leon was featured on the cover of Procol Harum’s Grand Hotel album in 1973.

In 2008, Victoria Beckham did a photo shoot for Harper’s Bazaar Indonesia at the mansion.

Villa de Leon was one of two estates used in the music video for Lady Gaga’s 2009 song “Paparazzi”. While the majority of the video was filmed at 10425 Revuelta Way in Bel Air (which was also the location of this week’s group date on The Bachelor), portions of the Villa were featured, as well, including the back patio area . . .

. . . and parts of the interior.

You can watch the “Paparazzi” video by clicking below.

Also in 2009, the home appeared in Michael Bay’s “A Thousand Fantasies” commercial for Victoria’s Secret.

Villa de Leon was the site of Heidi Klum’s photo shoot for the February 2010 issue of InStyle magazine, although very little of the property can actually be seen in the final spread. (The stills below came from a behind-the-scenes video of the shoot posted on the InStyle website.)

Robert Pattinson shot the (extremely NSFW) cover story for the March 2010 issue of Details magazine at Villa de Leon.

Angelina Jolie posed for the cover of the December 2010 Vogue there.

Reese Witherspoon’s spread for the October 2011 issue of Marie Claire also took place at the Villa.

The promotional pictures for Britney Spears’ 2011 album Femme Fatale were shot on the premises.

The estate appeared in the music video for Foster the People’s 2011 song “Call It What You Want”. Both the exterior . . .

. . . and the interior of the house were used extensively in the video.

You can watch the “Call It What You Want” video by clicking below.

Robert Downey Jr. did a photo shoot for the May 2012 issue of Esquire magazine at Villa de Leon.

As did Freida Pinto for the July 2012 issue of Flaunt Magazine.

Rod Stewart’s 2012 Christmas special, Rod Stewart: Merry Christmas, Baby, was also filmed at the estate.

The Kardashians, Maria Menounos, Katy Perry, Ginnifer Goodwin, and Justin Long have also done shoots at the house – all of which you can see photographs of here.

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Villa de Leon is located at 17948 Porto Marina Way in Pacific Palisades.

January 16, 2013
Antonio’s Pizzeria – A Shannen Doherty Fave

Way back in September 2011, while the Grim Cheaper and I were out and about doing some stalking in the San Fernando Valley area, we happened to drive past Antonio’s Pizzeria and the GC suggested that we pop in. He had dined at Antonio’s several times in the past and remembered that the place had quite a few autographed headshots on the walls. Um, autographed headshots? Count me in! So we immediately pulled the car over and, let me tell you, I just about died when I walked through the front doors and spotted a photograph of my girl Shannen Doherty prominently displayed! Because the GC and I had just eaten prior to passing by Antonio’s, though, we were not able to dine there that day, unfortunately. But I did add the restaurant to my To-Stalk list and finally made it back out there this past October, when fellow stalkers Lavonna and Kim were in town visiting from Ohio. After watching a taping of The Ellen DeGeneres Show, the three of us headed over to the Italian eatery, with Miss Pinky Lovejoy, from the Thinking Pink blog, in tow.

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The eatery, which was first known as Miceli’s (and which I believe, but have been unable to determine, may have been opened by the same family behind the famous Miceli’s in Hollywood), was originally founded in 1957 by a man named Antonio Miceli. At the time, it was the San Fernando Valley’s very first Italian restaurant and all of the recipes were authored by Antonio’s mother. The pizzeria quickly became a Sherman Oaks staple and Frank Sinatra was even known to have dined there once. In 1988, the establishment was purchased by Alexandra and Steven Lunardon. The siblings, who were longtime Antonio’s regulars, had been looking to buy a franchise restaurant at the time, but when they learned that Antonio was selling Miceli’s, they jumped at the chance to buy it. Antonio’s one stipulation? That the brother-and-sister duo not change anything about the decades-old site. Um, LOVE IT. As you can see below, the place definitely does look like something straight out of the ‘50s, but in a good way.

Absolutely LOVE the vintage sign out front!

Because I am diabetic and carbs are on my no-no list, I could not partake in an Antonio’s pizza, which the restaurant is famous for. Lavonna, Kim and Pinky did opt for a pie, though, and they absolutely loved it. I instead ordered up Chicken Marsala (my fave), which was not actually on the menu. The eatery serves a Veal Scallopini A La Marsala and because I do not like veal, I asked if they would be willing to swap it out for chicken and they happily obliged. It was quite delicious, too. I highly recommend stalking the place if you are in the area.

Besides Shannen Doherty, other celebs who have been known to frequent Antonio’s include Adam Sandler, David Spade, Monica Potter, Keanu Reeves, Alyssa Milano, Larry Miller, Fred Willard, Kirk Cameron, Jay Leno, Alex Trebek, Jennie Garth, Peter Facinelli, Jerry Seinfeld, and Michael Richards. Sadly though, the headshots that I so loved looking at during my first visit to the eatery have since been removed and put into storage after the one of Frank Sinatra (which was autographed!) was stolen by a patron. Such an incredible bummer!

And I just have to say here that, while I know it sounds crazy and I would never say it about any other celeb, while watching the WE tv reality series Shannen Says, I came to the conclusion that Shannen Doherty and I would most-definitely become good friends if we ever were to meet. (Shannen, are you listening? ) Love that girl! I mean look at how AWESOME she is to her fans in the clip below. Oh, if only all celebs could be that cool.

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Antonio’s Pizzeria is located at 13619 Ventura Boulevard in Sherman Oaks. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here. Ironically enough, located directly next door to Antonio’s, at 13625 Ventura Boulevard, is a vacant eatery that was once the site of Prezzo’s restaurant, where Dylan McKay (Luke Perry) took Toni Marchette (Rebecca Gayheart) for their first date on fave show Beverly Hills, 90210.

January 11, 2013
The House from Rihanna’s “Take a Bow” Video

Way back in April 2010, fellow stalker Virginie (who lives in Belgium!) contacted me to let me know that she had tracked down the Venice-area home featured in Rihanna’s 2008 “Take a Bow” music video. And while I had never seen said video, nor am I a particularly big fan of Rihanna, I did absolutely love the Glee version of the song, so after receiving Virginie’s email, I decided to take a gander. And, let me tell you, I fell head over heels in love with the gorgeous “Take a Bow” house on sight. To be honest, I was practically foaming at the mouth! So I immediately added the place to the very top of my To-Stalk list, but because I do not often find myself in the Venice area, the residence, sadly, remained un-stalked until two weeks ago. I am very happy to report, though, that it was well worth the wait because the dwelling is nothing short of spectacular in person!

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The 7,456-square-foot property, which houses both a private loft-style residence and a 40-foot by 40-foot art gallery, was originally built in 2007 by du Architects for Steve Shaw, a prominent Los Angeles fashion photographer who drew up the floor plans himself. The structure, which was constructed out of wood, concrete, glass, and steel, boasts five bedrooms (the master bedroom suite features an eight-foot movie screen!), five baths, a rooftop infinity pool (with a special sensor that drains excess water whenever it rains!), an atrium, a terrace, and a sunken living room with a built-in custom sofa, gas fire pit and 11-foot movie screen (yes, the place has not one, but TWO movie screens!). Not bad for a house that sits on a miniscule 0.09-acre plot of land.

In 2009, Shaw sold the abode (how anyone could ever bear to part with this house is beyond me!) for a cool $5.6 million to none other than Robert Downey Jr. and his wife, Susan, who are now using the property as their production offices. You can check out some interior photographs of the spectacular pad here, here, here, and here. Warning – have a drool cloth ready!

The interior of the house was used extensively in “Take a Bow”. (See what I mean? Definitely drool-worthy! Sigh.)

The front entrance also made a brief appearance.

As did the three-car garage area.

The video’s driving sequence was shot just one block south of the home, in front of the residence located at 1309 Cabrillo Avenue . . .

. . . which was apparently for rent at the time of the filming.

You can watch Rihanna’s “Take a Bow” video by clicking below.

While doing research on the property, I was absolutely FLOORED to discover that the interior had been used as the supposed San Francisco-area residence where Brad (Vince Vaughn) and Kate (Reese Witherspoon) lived in the 2008 flick Four Christmases. I am ashamed to admit that I had been trying to track down this particular locale for years, but because the place was so much brighter in Four Christmases than it appeared to be in “Take a Bow”, I failed to recognize it! D’oh! (I am still on the hunt for the exterior of Brad and Kate’s house, which is apparently located somewhere in San Francisco’s Twin Peaks.)

You can see the home’s movie screen (complete with curtain!) in the background behind Vince Vaughn below. So incredibly cool!

The red-tiled bathroom that appeared in the flick, which you can see a real life photograph of here, is absolutely amazeballs!

The video for Usher’s 2008 song “Trading Places” was also filmed at the abode.

You can watch that (NSFW!) video by clicking below.

Thanks to fellow stalker Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, I learned that the dwelling was also used as the office of celebrity psychiatrist Dr. Henry Carter (Kevin Spacey) in the 2009 flick Shrink. Both the exterior . . .

. . . and the interior of the property were used extensively throughout the flick.

And, when he owned the place, Steve Shaw conducted a photo shoot on the premises with actress Evan Rachel Wood (which you can check out some pictures from here).

Speaking of music videos, have y’all seen the John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John jewel “I Think You Might Like It”? The thing actually rendered me speechless! All I can say is “LOL!”

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Virginie for finding this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The house from Rihanna’s “Take a Bow” music video is located at 1311 Abbot Kinney Boulevard in Venice. The garage area that appeared in the video can be viewed from the opposite side of the residence on the 1300 block of Electric Avenue. And the driving scene was filmed just around the corner, in front of the home located at 1309 Cabrillo Avenue.

December 11, 2012
Justine’s House from “The Good Girl”

Today’s post is going to be a rather short one as I spent most of the day yesterday with my girl Miss Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog, attending the annual craft fair at her work – which was loads of fun, but, unfortunately, did not leave much time for blogging. So please pardon my brevity. Anyway, last Tuesday morning, when I texted Mike, from MovieShotsLA, to let him know that I was heading back out to Santa Clarita to stalk Bill Cozbi’s Auto Body Shop from Bridesmaids, he suggested that I also make a stalking stop at the house where Justine Last (Jennifer Aniston) and her pothead husband, Phil Last (John C. Reilly), lived in The Good Girl. And even though I was not a huge of the ultra-depressing 2002 film, because Justine and Phil’s residence was only a short two miles away from the auto body shop, I figured why not. Then, when I found out there was a Starbucks in between the two locations, that pretty much sealed the deal.

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Mike, who does not live too far from Santa Clarita, first learned about this location way back in 2001 when The Good Girl was being filmed. I never had occasion to stalk the place, though, as I do not get out to Canyon Country very often and, for some reason, whenever I did happen to be in the area, I completely forgot to drive by.

Justine and Phil’s house was one of the main locations used in The Good Girl and the pad showed up repeatedly throughout the movie. As you can see below, though, the residence looks quite a bit different in person than it did onscreen. The front door that appeared in the film has since been swapped out with a new, glass-paned one, a stone façade has been added to the home’s exterior, the garage door has been replaced, and the wood paneling removed from the side of the garage. Boo! Thankfully though, the abode is still, for the most part, recognizable as The Good Girl house.

Of the locale, The Good Girl production notes state, “Although the design concept was naturalistic, finding locations in sunny California to pass for small town Texas was difficult, specifically the search for Justine and Phil’s house, which is painstakingly defined in the script. ‘Our principal character lived physically and emotionally in the very last house on the street, out from which stretched miles of dry, barren nothingness,’ clarifies [production designer Daniel] Bradford. ‘And of course, everywhere, everywhere, everywhere there are palm trees which are not appropriate for West Texas.’” I really have to give kudos to The Good Girl location managers for finding the property because when I pulled up and saw the large telephone poles, flat streets and general ruralness of the area, my first thought was, ‘This neighborhood does not look AT ALL like an L.A. neighborhood.’

In real life, Justine’s house, which was originally built in 1961, boasts three bedrooms, two baths, 1,125 square feet of living space, and a 0.16-acre plot of land.

And while I would have bet money on the real life interior of the home being used in The Good Girl, that does not appear to have been the case. As you can see in the photographs below, which I got off of an old real estate listing for the property, while the living room very closely resembles what appeared onscreen . . .

. . . the kitchen area does not. And while the real estate listing does mention that the kitchen was “recently remodeled”, it differs far too much from the Last kitchen for me to believe it was used in the flick.

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Justine’s house from The Good Girl is located at 25103 Fourl Road in Santa Clarita. Ricardo’s Auto Upholstery, aka Bill Cozbi’s Auto Body Shop from Bridesmaids, is located nearby at 24347 Main Street. Judy’s home from Bridesmaids is located right around the corner from Ricardo’s at 23418 8th Street. And Officer Rhodes’ residence is located directly across the street from Judy’s at 23425 8th Street. Note – the Bridesmaids houses cannot be reached via Calgrove Boulevard, as that street is blocked just east of Creekside Drive. To gain access to the sites, you can take either Apple or Valley Street south off of Lyons Avenue to 8th Street.

December 7, 2012
Halloween 2012 at Dick Van Dyke’s House

Christina Aguilera–But I Am a Good Girl Number

As I have mentioned countless times before, this stalker is just a wee bit obsessed with the movie Burlesque. Upon first seeing the flick in 2010, I fell head-over-heels in love with the “But I Am a Good Girl” number (which you can watch by clicking above) and Ali’s (Christina Aguilera’s) feathered costume, and promptly announced to the Grim Cheaper that we would be dressing up as Ali and Jack (Cam Gigandet) the following Halloween. His response, “I am SO NOT wearing eyeliner!” LOL Because we were invited to a prom-themed Halloween party last year, though, we ended up instead dressing up as Dylan McKay (Luke Perry) and Brenda Walsh (my girl Shannen Doherty) from the Beverly Hills, 90210 “Spring Dance” episode (which you can see photographs of here). But believe you me, as soon as November 1st rolled around, I immediately began hunting for the perfect “But I Am a Good Girl” outfit – which was not as easy as I had hoped.

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I thought for sure that I would be able to find something resembling the “But I Am a Good Girl” costume (pictured below) quite easily online, but, unfortunately, that was not the case. While plenty of Burlesque-style outfits seemed to be available, none of them looked a thing like Ali’s. Then, in March, I happened to come across Madame Gigi L’amour’s Esty page which featured a slew of handmade Burlesque ensembles. And while Gigi did not have one that resembled the “But I Am a Good Girl” corset, I wrote to her and asked if she would be able to custom-make one for me. Thankfully, I heard back from her just a few hours later and she said that she would be happy to. She even provided some suggestions to help keep the costs down – i.e. using less Swarovski crystals than were used on the movie costume and swapping out the ostrich feathers for turkey feathers, which are much less expensive. Oh, and she also threw in some nude-colored fishnet stockings. At the time, I was not even aware that Ali had worn nude fishnets in the scene, but as it turns out she had! Thank you, Gigi!

I received the finished product at the end of May and, let me tell you, when I opened the package I just about had a heart attack! I was absolutely BLOWN AWAY as the costume FAR exceeded my expectations. I was devastated that I would have to wait a full five months to wear it! And believe me, if I thought I could have gotten away with walking around Old Town Pasadena in a Burlesque costume during the summer, I so would have! Having that thing in my closet, unworn, for five months was like the Tell-Tale Heart in Edgar Allen Poe’s story of the same name – I could almost hear it calling out to me, “Wear me! Try me! Come on – just put me on!” So when Halloween did finally roll around, I was BEYOND excited to finally don the costume. I was a little nervous, though, being that it looks quite delicate, but I am very happy to report that the outfit was completely wearable and even comfortable!

Thankfully, the GC’s costume was much easier to find. To become Jack, he just wore a derby-style hat (which my girl Miss Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog, tracked down for us), a black shirt and black slacks. Oh, and eyeliner, which he finally (and begrudgingly) agreed to wear.

Not too shabby, if I do say so myself. The “But I Am a Good Girl” outfit turned out to be my favorite Halloween costume of all time! I did NOT want to take it off and am already trying to figure out where I can wear it next. Words cannot express how much fun it was to walk around in that thing!

Halloween day actually turned out to be a completely amazing whirlwind! In the early afternoon, Miss Pinky (who dressed as, what else, Princess Pink) invited me to attend a Mad Hatter Tea Party at Walt Disney Imagineering, where she works. Um, Halloween and Disney mixed together? Count me in!

The party was held outside and, as you can see below, the decorations were absolutely amazeballs. There were tea-themed trinkets as far as the eye could see.

The display below had all sorts of fun surprises, like a tea pot that spit water at passersby, spinning tea cups and a hidden monster who would grab at people’s feet from underneath the tablecloth.

My favorite, though, was the Venus Flytrap that would come to life intermittently. You could feed the plant gummy worms, stick your hand in its mouth or scratch its chin and it would respond accordingly. So incredibly cool!

There was also a professional photo booth set up where guests could pose for pictures with props while pretending to kill a giant octopus. Love it!

And no visit to WDI would be complete without a stop at the onsite Starbucks.

At night, the GC and I headed, once again, to Malibu to visit our friends who live next-door to Dick Van Dyke. As I mentioned in my 2011 Halloween post, DVD puts on a massive annual Halloween extravaganza at his house in the gated Serra Retreat community. Thankfully, our friends were nice enough to invite us over again this year (even though they JUST had a baby) so that we could check out the festivities. And while I didn’t think it would be possible, amazingly enough, this year’s spooktacular was even better than the last! That’s Dick’s front porch pictured below . . .

which he had decked out with a creepy hologram picture of himself;

along with a few mannequins that writhed and shook constantly.

As I said last year, being at Dick Van Dyke’s house on Halloween is like being in the middle of a huge horror movie set. It is simply incredible to witness (especially for this Halloween-obsessed stalker) and there is so much to look at and so much detail put into the whole thing that it is virtually impossible to see it all. In the video below, Dick says, “We’ve got the Haunted House in Disney beat!” and he couldn’t be more right!

As you can imagine, I ate it all up with a spoon – from huge mannequins that moved, talked and jumped out at passerby;

to a witch stirring a bubbling caldron;

to figurines in various states of undead;

to the burn victim below, who looked so real it was almost unbelievable –

check out his shoes, the attention to detail is amazing! –

to a huge graveyard made complete with with cauldrons, crows and random severed heads;

to a second huge fenced-off graveyard with writhing bodies and, like last year, an invisible screen on which was projected a video of skeletons doing the Thriller dance, which I (obviously) LOVED.

The animatronic attack dog from last year was also back.

And the GC somehow convinced me to try to hold its leash, which was one of the scariest things I’ve ever done in my life! The dog of course attacked just as I got ahold of it and I pretty much jumped right out of my skin. SO MUCH FUN!

There were also random creatures walking around, scaring people and posing for pictures.

At the perimeter of the extravaganza was a GINORMOUS 12-foot statue that I just had to pose in front of.

What I did not realize at the time was that the darn thing would not only come to life, but that a guy also jumped out of it! Thank God that didn’t happen while I was posing for a picture – I probably would have had a heart attack!

The highlight of the night, though, had to be when James Cameron and his wife, Titanic actress Suzy Amis, came to our friends’ house – in costume! – to trick-or-treat with their kids . And while I was too scared to ask them for a photo last year, nothing was stopping me this year! And I am very happy to report that they honestly could NOT have been nicer! They even told me that they had been admiring my costume earlier in the evening! Like seriously???? James Cameron and Suzy Amis liked my costume??? OMG dying! I know I said it last year, but I’m going to say it once again – hands down the Best. Halloween. Ever. Can’t wait for 2013’s!

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Unfortunately, because Dick Van Dyke lives inside of Serra Retreat, a gated community that is not accessible to the public, there is no stalking location for this one. You can check out the Madame Gigi L’amour Etsy page here and her Fackbook fan page here. And my exact costume can be purchased here.

November 2, 2012
A FABULOUS Halloween!

Well, I didn’t think anything could top last year’s Halloween, but this year’s honestly did! I was running around all day yesterday, though, and did not have time to write a new post, but I will be writing all about my Halloween adventures for tomorrow’s blog.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

November 1, 2012
Johnny Weissmuller’s Former Home

I would like to start off today’s post by wishing all of my fellow stalkers a very Happy Halloween! And while I could not be more excited to celebrate the day that I pretty much spend all year waiting for, my heart is broken over the devastation to the East Coast (especially New York, one of my favorite cities in the entire world) caused by Hurricane Sandy. My prayers go out to those affected by the storm. Here’s wishing for a speedy and safe recovery process and that those on the East Coast are still able to somewhat enjoy Halloween. And now, on with the post! Knowing how much I love me some historical properties, fellow stalker E.J., from The Movieland Directory website, recently told me about a massive Bel Air estate that had once belonged to Tarzan-actor/five-time Olympic-gold-medalist Johnny Weissmuller. E.J. thought that I might be interested in stalking the place for my Haunted Hollywood posts being that it has been abandoned for almost two and a half decades now. An abandoned mansion with a Hollywood history? Um, sold! So I immediately added the site to my To-Stalk list and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on over there this past weekend.

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According to Wikipedia, the property, which was named a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument on April 6, 1990, is known as the Nicolosi Estate and it was designed in 1931 by Paul Revere Williams, the legendary architect who also designed Perino’s restaurant (which I blogged about here) and the residence that stood in for Wayne Manor on the Batman television series (which I blogged about here). The mansion was named in honor of one of its lesser-known residents, sculptor Joseph Nicolosi, who lived on the premises beginning in the 1950s until his death in 1961. According to property records, the Mediterranean Revival-style pad still belongs to the Nicolosi family, although it has not been lived in for over 24 years. As you can see below, sadly, not much of the place can currently be seen from the street.

Thankfully though, E.J. was kind enough to share some photographs that he took of the home back in 1988, when the property was much more visible to the public. As you can see, thanks to some fire damage, the place looks like a real life haunted house.

The Nicolosi Estate was commissioned by Johnny Weissmuller, who portrayed the legendary character Tarzan in twelve of the series’ films. The actor was also a lifelong competitive swimmer and the house reflects his passion. While the 8,700-square-foot, 4-bedroom, 5-bath abode looks to have been pretty spectacular during its heyday, it is the GINORMOUS 300-foot-long serpentine swimming pool (which is visible from the road) that circles around the dwelling, complete with rock bridges and grotto-style hot tubs, that had me drooling. What I would not give to have seen that pool in its glory days!

The pool also featured a cascading 150-foot electric waterfall made out of rocks, which you can see a portion of in the photograph below.

There seems to be quite a bit of confusion, as well as a slew of rumors, surrounding the history of the Nicolosi Estate. In fact, some people doubt that the house ever even belonged to Weissmuller. In The Ultimate Hollywood Tour Book, author William A. Gordon states, “Weissmuller’s only biographer was unable to substantiate this claim, and Jeff Hyland, a prominent Beverly Hills realtor and author of The Estates of Beverly Hills, told me he believes tour guides concocted the story because ‘it sounded good.’” According to the official Paul Revere Williams website, though, the house was indeed built for the Tarzan actor. And judging by that spectacular pool, I would say that the place definitely had to have been commissioned by a professional swimmer.

The rumors don’t stop there, though. In the book Miss O’Dell: My Hard Days and Long Nights with The Beatles, The Stones, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, and the Women They Loved, author/groupie Chris O’Dell says of the house, “The grounds were equally extravagant, with a swimming pool the size of a football field, another pool made to look like a river and big enough for a rowboat, tennis courts, four pink stucco guest houses, and stately old trees with overarching branches and dense foliage. Newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst had bought the house for his mistress, actress Marion Davies; Howard Hughes had been a guest there in the grand old days of Hollywood, and John and Jackie Kennedy had honeymooned there in 1953. At least that’s what I was told, and I believed it.” And while the William Randolph Hearst/Marion Davies story is, most likely, true, I do not believe that JFK and Jackie ever spent any time on the premises.

Not that the place didn’t have its fair share of celebrity inhabitants. In 1972, actress Mackenzie Phillips lived there for a short time with her father, The Mamas & the Papas’ John Phillips, and step-mom, actress Genevieve Waite. In her 2009 book High on Arrival, Mackenzie says, “Dad gave me my own wing of the mansion. It was that kind of place – a pink Italian palace that was designed by Paul Williams for Johnny Weissmuller, the Olympic swimmer and on-screen Tarzan. We also heard it had been rented or owned by William Randolph Hearst for his long-term paramour, Marion Davis. Whatever the case, the house was clearly built as a place for rich people to play. First Mick and Bianca Jagger had rented it at my dad’s recommendation, and when they left, Dad and Genevieve moved in from the Chateau Marmont. Dad liked to live large, to show everyone what a big star he was. The ceilings were twenty feet tall. The moldings had hand-painted fleur-de-lis. There was a mirrored hall and countless antiques. The vast ballroom was surrounded by Moroccan murals of guys on horses and temples with pointed tops. There was a stage, mirrors, a ballet bar, and a supply of wax to restore the floor to an optimal surface for dancing.”

Of the pool, Mackenzie states, “Outside, there was a swimming pool that Johnny Weissmuller must have had built so he could do his laps. To say the pool was long is an understatement. It was 301 feet long, but skinny, and winding like a snake through exotic landscaping and funhouse weirdness. An arched bridge crossed over the pool and led to a stone tunnel with Gothic windows. Near the tunnel was a wall of hand-painted stucco cabanas. All the structures, including the bottom of the bridge over the pool (the part you saw when you swam under it) were decorated with hand-painted murals. It looked like the hybrid child of an Italian church and a Hawaiian lagoon. At the end of the pool closest to the road was a massive waterfall. What made the enormous, serpentine swimming pool most extraordinary was that it was kept empty. Who could maintain a pool that size? Dry and collecting dead leaves, it wound a deep, smooth path through the gardens with the mysterious aura of ancient ruins – the indestructible relic of other people’s lives. It may have been empty and eerie, but we put the pool to good use. It would have made an excellent skateboard park, but we didn’t have skateboards, so we rode Big Wheels down the length of it at four in the morning, racing back and forth in the deep darkness of the long, sunken pit.” So incredibly odd!

The Phillips family was evicted from the Nicolosi Estate after only a few short months due to non-payment of rent. Apparently, when Mackenzie was on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 2009, a video clip of the house was shown, but I, unfortunately, could not find a copy of the episode anywhere with which to make screen captures for this post.

Sadly, the massive abode was completely gutted by a fire sometime in the late ‘80s and, for whatever reason, has been left to rot, abandoned, ever since. You can see some of the fire damage in E.J.’s photographs below. According to Yahoo Answers poster Cortney K., another rumor about the house states that the then owner of the property set fire to it, while his family was inside, one Christmas Eve night before fleeing the scene. Who knows if that story is true or not, but Cortney said she did once spot old Christmas lights and bows on the premises. Oh, if only those walls could talk! Whatever the truth behind the mystery of the abode may be, there is no discounting the fact that it is a fabulous place to stalk and I was absolutely in awe while there.

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Big THANK YOU to E.J., from The Movieland Directory website, for telling me about this location and for providing the fabulous pictures for this post!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Johnny Weissmuller’s former house is located at 414 St. Pierre Road in Bel Air. Alfred Hitchcock’s first Los Angeles home (which I blogged about here) is located just around the corner at 609 St. Cloud Road.

October 31, 2012
Halloween Countdown

I was running errands all day yesterday and, unfortunately, did not have time to write a new post for today, but I will be back tomorrow (HALLOWEEN!) with this year’s final Haunted Hollywood locale.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

October 30, 2012