Category: This and That

The “American Horror Story” House

Last week, fellow stalker Owen sent me an email with a tip, as well as this Curbed LA article, about a Haunted-Hollywood-type location that he thought I might be interested in stalking – the imposing brick and marble abode which figures as the focal point of the new television series American Horror Story. And right he was! I had just TiVo-ed the premiere episode of the show the previous night and could hardly wait to sit down and watch it. And I was not disappointed – American Horror Story is absolutely riveting! The fact that Owen had already tracked down the main location used in it was like icing on the cake! Randomly enough, another fellow stalker named August sent me an email this past Thursday evening in which he also tipped me off to the location of the American Horror Story house, along with a link to the exact same Curbed LA article that Owen had also sent! I figured the universe was most definitely trying to tell me something, so I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the place this past weekend.

The American Horror Story house was originally built sometime during the early 1900s (the home’s official website says it was built in 1902, but Curbed LA and various other sites state that it was most likely constructed in 1908) by Alfred F. Rosenheim as his personal residence. The prominent Los Angeles architect also designed the Majestic Theatre on Broadway, the Herman W. Hellman Building in Downtown Los Angeles (L.A.’s very first first ten-story building), the Doheny Mansion’s glass conservancy and palm house in West Adams, and the Second Church of Christ Scientist, also in West Adams. The Rosenheim residence, which in 1999 was declared Los Angeles’ Historic-Cultural Monument Number 660, features a 9,660-square-foot, three-story main house, 7 bedrooms, 7 baths, Tiffany stained-glass windows, as well as Tiffany glass doors and light fixtures, maid’s quarters, a library, a hand-painted Japanese gold- and silver-leafed ceiling, a formal dining room, six different Batchelder fireplaces, a solarium, and a 1,600-square-foot basement. According to the Paradise Leased blog, upon its unveiling, the Los Angeles Times stated that the mansion was “magnificently appointed” and featured “almost every conceivable modern convenience and luxury” – including an intercom system that is still in working condition to this day!

In 1918, Rosenheim sold his self-designed abode to a mining tycoon named A.J. McQuatters, who used the mansion as his winter home. The property went through a succession of different residents in the following years, including character actor Edward Everett Horton, who leased the home for a short while, and the Sisters of Social Service, who converted the dwelling into a convent. In 1954, the Sisters also built a 50-foot-long, 4,500-square-foot detached chapel on the premises. That chapel has since been transformed into a recording studio. According to Curbed LA, the Rosenheim house has been on and off the market since 1999 and is currently for sale for a cool $4.5 million.

As you can see above, the residence, which sits on a 3/4-acre, corner plot of land and is truly magnificent in person, is actually much larger than its façade would lead you to believe. The place is absolutely GINORMOUS!

American Horror Story House–For Sale

You can watch the home’s real estate video by clicking above.

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The pilot episode of American Horror Story opens up in the year 1978 and shows two twin boys wreaking havoc on a dilapidated old mansion.

The real life interior of the property, which you can see pictures of here, was used in the filming of those scenes, although it was dressed considerably to appear neglected and run-down.

The episode then switches to the present day where it begins to follow the story of the Harmon family – mother Vivien (aka Connie Britton), father Ben (aka Dylan McDermott), and daughter Violet (aka Taissa Farmiga, who, in real life, is the younger sister of Up in the Air’s Vera Farmiga) – who has moved from Boston to Los Angeles in order to start a new life after suffering a considerable series of misfortunes. The family purchases the old mansion, which has since been fixed-up, despite being told about the previous owners’ murder-suicide, which took place shortly beforehand.

The real life interior of the house, in its actual state, is used extensively as the interior of the Harmon residence. You can see more interior photographs of the property here.

Oddly enough, though, the series does not make use of the property’s kitchen, which you can take a look at here. As you can see, it looks nothing like the kitchen that is shown on TV.

Thanks to fellow stalker Robert, from the Movie Locations and More website, I learned that the Rosenheim home was also used in the Halloween-themed Season 4 episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer titled “Fear, Itself”, as the Alpha Delta fraternity house where Buffy Summers (aka Sarah Michelle Gellar) and her friends attended a Halloween party.

The interior scenes look to have been shot at a different location, though.

Except for the scene in which Oz (aka Seth Green) turned into a werewolf, which was filmed inside of one of the property’s real life bathrooms.

There seems to be quite a bit of erroneous information about the home’s filming history floating around online. According to the property’s official website, it appeared in a 1950’s movie named Old Blue Eyes which starred Frank Sinatra, although I can find no such production listed on Frank’s IMDB page. And according to this website, the house was also used in 2002’s Spiderman and 2007’s Because I Said So, but I scanned through both of those movies earlier today and did not spot the place anywhere. That same website also states that the residence appeared in Seabiscuit, but because I do not own the film and could not find it to rent or stream anywhere, I was not able to verify that.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalkers Owen and August for telling me about this location!

Stalk It: The American Horror Story house is located at 1120 Westchester Place in the Country Club Park section of Los Angeles.

October 12, 2011
Bob Hope’s Former House – A Trick-or-Treating Mecca

As I have mentioned a couple of times before on this blog, this stalker absolutely loves herself some Los Angeles Magazine – especially the ever-witty and always-informative “Ask Chris – The City Explained” write-in column, in which Associate Editor/author Chris Nichols answers Angelenos’ random questions about life in the City of Angels. This month’s column featured a letter from a Valley-area reader with a tidbit of Halloween information that I had never before heard. She wrote, “When I was a kid, we always went trick-or-treating at Bob Hope’s house in Toluca Lake, where they handed out whole candy bars. Does his widow keep up the tradition?” (Sadly, the issue hit newsstands just a few days before Dolores Hope passed away on September 19th.) Chris replied, “The Hope house has long been known for doling out the best Halloween loot, from those full-size candy bars and silver dollars to nose-shaped kazoos and Frisbees imprinted with a caricature of the funnyman, who passed away in 2003. At 102, Dolores Hope leads a pretty active life (I reached her on vacation in Europe), but after chartered buses showed up with scores of children last Halloween, Dolores decided to end the tradition at her historic estate.” Well, I thought that was just about the coolest thing I had ever heard (aside from the whole chartered buses showing up thing, of course) and as soon as I finished reading Chris’s words, I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the place.

Sadly, not much of the home, which was built in 1939 and boasts 8 bedrooms, 11 baths, 34 rooms, 14,876 square feet, and sits on over 4 acres of land, is visible from the street.

Bob and Dolores purchased the residence, which as you can see in the above aerial view is absolutely GINORMOUS, in 1940 and it was there that Bob, sadly, passed away on July 27th, 2003. Amazingly, the legendary comedian was making people laugh right up until the very end. According to this CNN interview with Bob’s grandson Zachary, when asked where he wanted to be buried while on his deathbed, Bob replied, “Surprise me.” Gotta love it!

While we were stalking the home, the GC and I ventured around to the property’s side gate on Ledge Avenue where several mourners had placed flowers in memory of Dolores. So incredibly sweet.

And I do have to say here that I think the fact that Bob and Dolores maintained such an awesome Halloween tradition for so many years is absolutely extraordinary. What an amazing couple! As Candy Waldron, one of the Hope’s longtime neighbors, said in this July 2003 Los Angeles Times article, “He could have closed his gate and ignored the holiday. But every year he’d give out hundreds of toys.” Apparently, one Halloween the couple even handed out autographed photos of Bob! Oh, how I wish I had grown up in Toluca Lake! All Hallow Steve, from the FABULOUS Halloween Addict blog (which I somehow only recently discovered), was just as fascinated as I was with the Hope’s Halloween traditions and managed to dig up a comment on the Trend Hunter website from a Toluca Lake native which said, “I always think fondly about Bob Hope around Halloween. His old estate is right by my parents’ house, and we’d go trick-or-treating there. Each year, his butler would pass out a sack filled with king-sized candy bars, one sack to each child. There would always be a Bob Hope toy too, like a mini glow-in-the-dark Frisbee with his profile and “Bob Hope 1990″ or something like that. I’ve never forgotten his generosity.” All Hallow Steve even managed to track down a photograph of one of those Frisbees (pictured above). LOVE IT!

In the Ask Chris column, Chris Nichols finished up his response about the Bob Hope house with, “Dedicated trick-or-treaters might think about taking their chances in Las Vegas, where Mayor Oscar Goodman is said to give out lucky poker chips.” Randomly enough, while vacationing at the Hotel Del Coronado in San Diego a few years back, the GC happened to spot Oscar Goodman sitting next to us at one of the property’s outdoor patios. And, let me tell you, I literally almost had a heart attack when the GC walked right up to him to ask for a picture! Yes, the Grim Cheaper, a man who could care less about the Alicia Silverstones, the Kyra Sedgwicks, and the Jermaine Jacksons of the world, not only recognized, but actually went up to and asked the Mayor of Las Vegas for a photograph! Oscar happily obliged and then gave him one of the aforementioned poker chips (the front and back of which is pictured above), which the Mayor apparently uses as a business card. SO COOL!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Bob and Dolores Hope’s former house is located at 10346 Moorpark Street in Toluca Lake.

October 11, 2011
The “Double Indemnity” House

A couple of weekends ago I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to the Beachwood Canyon area of the Hollywood Hills to stalk one of the most famous macabre movie locations of all time – the Spanish-Colonial-Revival-style abode that was featured in Double Indemnity. Incredibly, up until a few weeks ago I had yet to see the 1944 film noir classic, which was directed by Billy Wilder, even though it is largely considered to be one of the greatest movies of all time. And I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised when I finally did sit down to watch it. Not only did the film not seem dated, but I was absolutely riveted to my chair for the entire 107 minute run time. Sure, some scenes were a bit cheesy – especially the love scenes between Pacific All Risk Insurance Company salesman Walter Neff (aka Fred MacMurray) and disgruntled housewife Phyllis Dietrichson (aka Barbara Stanwyck), not to mention Walter’s silly pronunciation of the word “baby” – but overall the film was incredibly well-done and thoroughly suspenseful, which is shocking being that it was made almost a full seven decades ago. If you have yet to see it, I cannot more highly recommend doing so!

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In Double Indemnity, the supposed-Glendale-area hillside abode pictured above is where Phyllis lives with her abusive oilman husband, Mr. Dietrichson (aka Tom Powers), and his daughter, Lola Dietrichson (aka Jean Heather). It is while walking up to the home at the very beginning of the film that Walter Neff utters what is arguably its most famous line. Of the residence, he says, “It was one of those California Spanish houses everyone was nuts about ten or fifteen years ago. This one must have cost somebody about thirty thousand bucks – that is if he ever finished paying for it.” It is at the house that Phyllis and Walter first meet and fall in love. The two later cook up a scheme to purchase an accident insurance policy for Phyllis’ unknowing husband and then murder him to collect on the claim. The “double indemnity” of the title refers to a clause in the policy which stipulates that in the case of certain more unlikely accidents, i.e. a death on a train, the amount of the insurance payout would double.

Amazingly enough, as you can see above, the house has remained virtually unchanged since 1944 when Double Indemnity was filmed. I simply cannot express how cool I think that is!

The only real difference is the garage door, which has since been modernized. Otherwise though, the home looks pretty much exactly the same in person as it did onscreen in all of its black-and-white glory.

The view has obviously changed a bit in the ensuing years, though.

The screenplay for the movie, which was co-written by Raymond Chandler and Billy Wilder, was based on an 8-part serial written by James M. Cain that was first published in Liberty Magazine in 1936. Cain based his story on the real life 1927 murder of Albert Snyder by his wife Ruth Snyder and her lover Henry Judd Gray, the trial of which Cain had covered while working as a journalist in New York. And amazingly enough, it seems as if the house that wound up being used in the movie was the very same house that Cain had written about in his story. In the book he calls the abode the “House of Death” and, of it, he says, “I drove out to Glendale to put three new truck drivers on a brewery company bond, and then I remembered this renewal over in Hollywoodland. I decided to run over there. That was how I came to this House of Death, that you’ve been reading about in the papers. It didn’t look like a House of Death when I saw it. It was just a Spanish house, like all the rest of them in California, with white walls, red tile roof, and a patio out to one side. It was built cock-eyed. The garage was under the house, the first floor was over that and the rest of it was spilled up the hill any way they could get it in. You climbed some stone steps to the front door, so I parked the car and went up there.” Cain’s words could not be a more perfect description of the residence that appeared in the movie, which leads me to believe that the abode must have served as the inspiration for the home in the story and that Cain then later suggested the place to producers to use for the filming. So incredibly cool!

According to an October 17, 2009 Los Angeles Times article, an almost exact replica of the interior of the house was recreated on a soundstage at Paramount Studios in Hollywood for the filming.

As you can see above, in real life the home’s front door is much closer to the bottom of the central staircase than it was onscreen. The actual residence, which was built in 1927 and boasts 4 bedrooms, 3 baths, and 3,077 square feet of living space, currently belongs to interior designer/set decorator Mae Brunken. You can check out some fabulous photographs of the actual interior of the property here. (The photograph of the home pictured above does not belong to me, but remains the sole property of the Los Angeles Times and photographer Ricardo DeAratanha).

In an interesting twist, as you can see above, producers had the address number of the Double Indemnity house changed from “6301” to “4760” for the filming. I would not have thought that sort of thing happened back in the days before DVD players, pause buttons, and the internet, but all evidence to the contrary.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Double Indemnity house is located at 6301 Quebec Drive in the Beachwood Canyon area of the Hollywood Hills.

October 10, 2011
The “Doppelganger” Mansion

Another location from the 1993 thriller Doppelganger that I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to stalk this past weekend was the mansion where Holly Gooding (aka Drew Barrymore) grew up in the flick. I found this locale, once again, thanks to Tony, my friend and fellow stalker who has the amazing Flickr photostream which I mentioned yesterday. Incredibly enough, Tony has somehow managed to track down almost every single location featured in Doppelganger and he was kind enough to share them all with me so that I could blog about them during my Haunted Hollywood month – well, every location that is except for the supposed-Arcadia-area Our Lady of Mercy Psychiatric Institute which I have now become just a wee bit obsessed with finding. But I digress. Anyway, last weekend, after stopping by the apartment building featured in the movie, the GC and I headed a short two miles north to Los Feliz to do some stalking of the mansion.

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The Doppelganger mansion is featured twice in the flick. It first pops up in the scene in which Holly and her new roommate, struggling mystery writer Patrick Highsmith (aka George Newbern), meet with Holly’s family lawyer, Mike Wallace (aka George Maharis), in order to get the keys to her former home which has been locked up and sealed since her father’s murder four years prior. While there, Patrick says that the abode is “right out of a Bette Davis movie” – a line which I, of course, loved.

The large, English-country-style abode later pops up in the movie’s climactic, rather odd, and definitely spooky final scene in which Holly returns to her childhood home in the middle of the night to confront her evil doppelganger and finally end the nightmare in which she has been living.

Patrick, of course, follows Holly and, carrying a baseball bat, climbs up the side of the house and through a second story window in the hopes that he can save her.

I believe that the interior of the mansion that was shown in the movie was just a set and not the home’s real life interior.

According to fave website Zillow, the Doppelganger mansion, which was originally built in 1923, boasts 5 bedrooms, 2 baths, and 3,500 square feet of living space, although I would have guessed it to be much, much larger. And amazingly, the property still looks almost exactly the same today as it did 18 years ago when Doppelganger was filmed. Even the three large circular trees which flank the home’s front door and front window still look exactly the same. Love it!

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Tony for finding this location! You can check out Tony’s FANTASTIC Flickr photostream, which features countless filming locations, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Doppelganger mansion is located at 2421 Glendower Avenue in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles. Donna Martin’s house from the B.Y.O.B. episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 is located just two doors south of the Doppelganger mansion at 2405 Glendower Avenue. And the so-called “Los Feliz Murder House”, which I blogged about back in January, is located just around the corner at 2475 Glendower Place.

October 7, 2011
The “Doppelganger” Apartment Building

Last week, while perusing through my friend and fellow stalker Tony’s Flickr photostream – which is comprised of an absolutely AMAZING collection of pictures of hundreds upon hundreds of filming locations – I came across his photographs of the apartment building that was used in the thriller Doppelganger. And while I had absolutely loved me some Doppelganger when it first came out way back in 1993, I had not seen the movie in such a long time that I had somehow forgotten Drew Barrymore was even in it! So I decided it was most definitely time for a re-watch and ran right out to rent the flick that very night. Unfortunately, it was not nearly as good as I had remembered it to be, especially the ending which I did not understand at all. But I, nevertheless, still had to drag the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the apartment building that very same weekend – especially since it fit in so perfectly with my Haunted Hollywood theme!

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In Doppelganger, Holly Gooding (aka Drew Barrymore) migrates from New York to Los Angeles after being cleared of a murder charge, whereupon she moves into an apartment building with a struggling mystery writer named Patrick Highsmith (aka Father of the Bride’s George Newbern).

In the movie, the idyllic little building, which has a central courtyard, a two-tiered fountain, and a communal birdcage, is named “Angel’s Court” and it is supposedly located at 1167 North Orange Grove Avenue in the Hollywood area.

In reality, the building is located just east of Hollywood and south of Thai Town and is, sadly, not nearly as inviting or picturesque in person as it appeared to be in Doppelganger. Don’t get me wrong, the building is by no means unattractive, but the neighborhood where it is located is, unfortunately, a bit on the iffy side and the courtyard that seemed so charming onscreen is rather bare in real life. I am guessing that the fountain and birdcage that appeared in the movie, along with the archway that was situated over the front gate, were just props that were brought in solely for the filming as they are no longer there.

In Doppelganger, Patrick and Holly lived in Apartment #2 and I am guessing that the real life interior of that particular unit was also used in the filming.

And, according to my buddy E.J. over at The Movieland Directory website, the building, which was originally constructed in 1922, was once also home to a few celebrities – cinematographer Harry Zech lived there during the 1920s and silent film actress Frances Deamer lived there in the 30s.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Tony for finding this location! You can check out Tony’s FANTASTIC Flickr photostream, which features countless filming locations, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Doppelganger apartment building is located at 1165 North Hobart Boulevard in Los Angeles. In the movie, Patrick and Holly lived in Apartment 2 and FBI Agent Stanley White (aka Dan Shor) lived in Apartment 6.

October 6, 2011
The Macy’s at Burbank Town Center Mall from “The Mentalist”

One spooky-type location that I have had on my To-Stalk list for just about forever now is the Macy’s department store located inside of the Burbank Town Center Mall, which was featured as a murder site in the Season 2 episode of fave show The Mentalist titled “Redemption”. And while I had recognized the location immediately while watching the episode way back in September of 2009 and had even stalked the Burbank Town Center Mall recently due to its appearance in another episode of The Mentalist, for whatever reason I had completely forgotten about Macy’s. So I promptly dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the place this past weekend after doing some shopping at a nearby Ikea.

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In the “Redemption” episode of The Mentalist, CBI Agent Teresa Lisbon (aka Robin Tunney) and her ne’er-do-well consultant Patrick Jane (aka Simon Baker) are called in to investigate the murder of a man in a supposed-Sacramento-area department store. The scene in which the two arrive at the store was filmed at the bottom of the escalators on Macy’s Second Floor, next to the MAC Cosmetics counter.

Lisbon and Jane are immediately escorted by Police Captain Bocanegra (aka Geoffrey Rivas) to the murder site in the store’s Men’s Department. It was due to this particular segment of the scene, in which Patrick and Jane walk over some unique green tile and wood flooring, that I recognized the episode had been shot at the Macy’s in Burbank. The GC and I once did some shopping in the Burbank Macy’s Men’s Department quite a few years back and while we were there I had commented on how pretty I thought the floors were. They did not look like typical department store floors and made me think of the upscale Herald Square Macy’s on 34th Street in New York in which the Men’s Department is composed of dark woods. Anyway, the image of those floors stuck with me, for whatever reason, so when I saw Lisbon and Jane walk over them in “Redemption”, I recognized them immediately.

Lisbon and Jane are then shown the bludgeoned body of Ivar Rasmussen, which was found in a little waiting area outside of the men’s dressing rooms. It is there that Patrick proceeds to smell the body in order to gather clues, infuriating Captain Bocanegra in the process.

Sadly, the area used for the filming of that scene was being redressed when we showed up to the stalk the place and was not very accessible.

But I did manage to snap a picture of a similar alcove located in a different section of the store.

After properly “sniffing out” the body, Jane proceeds downstairs to the Ground Level Furniture Department in order to interview the patrons who were in the store at the time of the bludgeoning.

It is there that he performs a ritual using the hands of one of the witnesses to lead him to the murder weapon, which turns out to be the base of a crystal wineglass.

After the murder weapon is found, a huge fight breaks out among the killer and the security guards, which ends up causing $250,000 worth of damage to the store. When Lisbon admonishes him for creating the ruckus, Jane says, “What? The case is closed isn’t it?” Ah, I so love Patrick Jane!

That portion of the scene was filmed in Macy’s furniture/bedding/cookware department, which, amazingly enough, looks pretty much exactly the same in person as it did onscreen. I thought for sure the production crew had dressed the area for the filming, but that does not actually appear to have been the case.

On a Mentalist side note – A couple of weeks ago, my good friend Miss Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog, called me up for some help after she discovered that she had locked her keys inside of her car while doing some shopping at the Burbank Town Center Mall. I headed over there and after calling Roadside Assistance and having them jimmy open the lock, we discovered that her keys were not, in fact, inside of the car after all. So I ventured inside the mall to see if anyone had turned them in to the security office. No one had and Pinky’s poor dad ended up having to drive all the way from Ventura to bring her a spare set – and, sadly, her originals have still yet to be found. FAIL! But every cloud does indeed have a silver lining, as they say, because a few days later I was watching the Season Premiere of The Mentalist, which was titled “Scarlet Ribbons”, and just about died when I noticed that a scene was filmed at the Burbank Town Center Mall security office! As I mentioned in the post I wrote about the show’s Season 3 Finale back in June, Patrick Jane finally killed Red John (aka Bradley Whitford) in the middle of the Burbank Town Center Mall at the very end of the episode. Well, when Agents Kimball Cho (aka Tim Kang) and Wayne Rigsby (aka Owain Yeoman) set out to investigate the killing in the Season 4 opener, one of their first stops was the mall’s real life security office, looking exactly as it had when I visited it only days before. SO incredibly cool!

That security office is pictured above. I had to take the photograph a bit on the down-low as I was afraid that one of the security guards might get upset if he saw me snapping any pictures of the place.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Macy’s at Burbank Town Center Mall, from the “Redemption” episode of The Mentalist, is located at 200 East Cypress Avenue in Burbank.

October 5, 2011
The Stimson House from “House II: The Second Story”

After stalking Mills View, the Monrovia-area residence that appeared in the 1986 movie House, I started doing some online research on the flick’s 1987 sequel, House II: The Second Story, and came across information about the Stimson House, an incredibly unique, castle-like property located in Los Angeles’ West Adams District. I was immediately intrigued by the home and, because it has been featured in several spooky productions over the years, figured it would fit right in with my Haunted Hollywood theme and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the place a short time later. Incredibly though, thanks to the abode’s unusual beauty and prominent history, this was one location that he actually did not mind being dragged to!

The 3 1/2-story Stimson House was originally built in 1891 as a retirement home for Chicago lumberman/financier Thomas Douglas Stimson. The 12,800-square-foot, 30-room property was designed in the Richardsonian Romanesque style by architect Carroll H. Brown and featured an Arizona red sandstone façade, a 4-story octagonal corner tower, stained glass windows, gabled Gothic arches, Palladian windows, and brick chimneys. The interior, which was dubbed “a shrine to lumber” by Jake Doherty in a January 1994 Los Angeles Times article, consisted of oak flooring, hand-carved wood-paneled walls, beamed ceilings, custom-built china cabinets, and made use of over 8 different kinds of wood, including ash, sycamore, walnut, gumwood, birch, mahogany, oak, and monkeypod. Construction on the residence was completed in 1893 and cost approximately $130,000, making it, at the time, the most expensive home in all of Los Angeles. After Stimson passed away in February 1898, his widow, Achsah, continued to live at the residence until her death in 1904. The property was then sold and underwent several ownership changes until 1940, at which time it was purchased by the USC chapter of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity for $20,000. For the next 8 years, the Stimson House became the site of boisterous parties, elaborate pranks, and late-night frolicking.

At the time, Carrie Estelle Doheny, the widow of oil tycoon Edward L. Doheny, lived in the mansion located directly behind the Stimson House and was not at all happy with her rowdy neighbors. After filing countless complaints with the USC president, she decided to take matters into her own hands and offered the Pi Kappa Alphas $70,000 for the residence. They agreed, moved out, and Carrie promptly deeded the home to a much quieter set of neighbors, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet. The Sisters transformed the abode into a convent where they lived until 1969, at which point they allowed the neighboring Mount St. Mary’s College to use the property as student housing. In 1993, the Sisters returned to the house and set about an extensive $1 million restoration of the property. They continue to live there to this day and often rent the place out for filming in order to offset the mansion’s expensive upkeep and to finance their retirement fund. The Stimson House was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on March 30, 1978 and became Los Angeles’ 212th Historic-Cultural Monument on May 16, 1979.

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In House II: The Second Story, the Stimson house was the haunted residence inherited by Jesse (aka Arye Gross) and his girlfriend, Kate (aka Lar Park-Lincoln).

The Aztec-inspired interior appears to have been a set, though, as it does not match up with these interior photographs of the actual home.

In the Season 2 episode of The Bionic Woman titled “Black Magic”, the Stimson mansion was used as the island home of wealthy inventor Cyrus Carstairs (aka Vincent Price). Both the exterior . . .

. . . and the interior of the property were featured in the episode. And, according to the aforementioned Los Angeles Times article, Vincent Price became so enamored of the house’s echo-y acoustics during filming that he returned there later to tape a few productions of his own.

In the 1989 horror movie After Midnight, the Stimson house appeared in the segment titled “The Old Dark House” as the spot where Joan (aka Nadine Van der Velde) and Kevin (aka Marc McClure) sought help after getting two flat tires while driving late at night. Ironically enough, though, only the front porch and the interior of the Stimson house appeared in the flick.

As you can see above, for the wide angle shots of the mansion’s exterior another location altogether was used.

In the Season 1 episode of Pushing Daisies titled “The Fun in Funeral”, the Stimson House stood in for the Schatz Brothers Funeral Home in Couer d’Couers, where grave-robbing twins Lawrence and Louis Schatz (who were both played by Brad Grunberg) worked and also died.

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

Two television mini-series, 1976’s Captains and the Kings, and 1977’s Testimony of Two Men, were also filmed at the mansion, but unfortunately I could not find copies of either of them to make screen captures for this post.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Stimson house, from House II, is located at 2421 South Figueroa Street in the West Adams District of Los Angeles.

October 4, 2011
The Mills View House from “Picket Fences”

Well, my fellow stalkers, it is finally that time of year again, the month I look forward to all year long – October! With it comes fall leaves, cooler temperatures, and my favorite holiday of them all, Halloween. And you know what that means – I will once again be devoting the entire month of blog posts to locations having to do with Haunted Hollywood! First up is the Mills View house, a Monrovia-area property that I learned about way back in March from a journalist named Toni Momberger who interviewed me for an Inland Valley Daily Bulletin newspaper article she was writing about famous movie homes. Toni told me that she had toured the huge, Victorian-style abode as part of her research for the article and she was shocked to discover that I had never before heard of the place. As fate would have it, the house had been featured prominently in not one, but two spooky productions over the years, so I figured it would be the perfect start to my Haunted Hollywood theme and I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk it a few weeks back.

The 5-bedroom, 2-bath, 3,140-square-foot Mills View house, which was built in 1887 by architects Luther Reed Blair and Uriah Zimmerman, was originally situated on a 5-acre plot of land on what was then the corner of Banana Avenue (now Hillcrest Boulevard) and Melrose Avenue. The Eastlake-Victorian-style home was commissioned by William N. Monroe, the founder of Monrovia, as a wedding gift for his son, Milton Monroe, and his new bride, Mary Nevada. Construction on the property began in May of 1887, shortly after Milton and his wife were married, and was completed a mere seven months later. Sadly, the Monroes divorced a short time after tying the knot and ended up selling their wedding home to Colonel John H. Mills and his wife, Elizabeth Cook Mills, in 1893. The Mills dubbed their new residence “Mills View” because on a clear day the island of Catalina was supposedly visible from one of the third floor windows. Unfortunately, Colonel Mills passed away only three months after moving into the home and it went through several ownership changes after Elizabeth subsequently died in 1905. Mills View, which boasts numerous stained glass windows, a third floor attic, hardwood flooring throughout, and five fireplaces with original tilework, became a Monrovia City Landmark on June 4, 1996.

According to this Monrovia Patch article, Mills View has appeared in over 20 productions since 1980 alone. Sadly though, I know of only two – both of which, as I mentioned above, fit the thriller genre. And the property definitely does give off a spooky vibe in person – I think primarily due to its gargantuan size – so it is not very hard to see why location scouts have flocked to it over the years.

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In the Season 1 Halloween-themed episode of fave show Picket Fences titled “Remembering Rosemary”, Mills View was where Rosemary Bauer committed suicide ten years prior by jumping out of a third-floor window, and where Sheriff Jimmy Brock (aka Tom Skerritt) and his deputies Maxine Stewart (aka Lauren Holly) and Kenny Lacos (aka Costas Mandylor) returned to investigate the case after deciding to re-open it a few days before Halloween.

I am fairly certain that the real life interior of the house, which you can see some photographs of here, was used in the episode.

Mills View was also the primary location used in the 1986 horror flick House. In the movie, it was the haunted property that mystery-writer Roger Cobb (aka William Katt) inherited from his Aunt Elizabeth (aka Susan French). According to the House production notes, for the onsite filming, which lasted two weeks, production designer Gregg Fonseca repainted the exterior of the property and added Victorian gingerbread detailing, a few spires, a wrought-iron fence, and a sidewalk. At the rear of the residence, he covered up the home’s real life clapboard siding with a fake brick edifice and added some much-needed landscaping.

No filming took place inside of the actual home, though. For all of the interior scenes, a replica of the house, which included two full stories, a living room, a den, a staircase, and three upstairs bedrooms, was built on a soundstage at Ren Mar Studios in Hollywood.

And I am fairly certain that the pool shown in the movie was either a fake built on the property solely for the filming or that a second location was used, as Mills View does not currently appear to have a pool.

Two very lucky British House fans were given a personalized tour of Mills View last year and wrote a great blog post about it which you can check out here.

On a Halloween side note – I was finally able to dig up a photograph of me dressed up as Agent Dana Scully for Halloween one year during college, which I had mentioned in the blog post I wrote about meeting David Duchovny back in June. The only picture I could find, though, was not a very good one as my eyes are closed in it. Ah well. That is my good friend Alex, who was dressed up a Parrothead, posing with me.

While going through boxes at my parents’ new house looking for the Dana Scully picture, I also stumbled upon my Fox Mulder doll, which I could NOT have been more excited about! I am so going to have to stalk DD again and get him to sign the doll for me. How incredibly cool would that be??

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Mills View, from the movie House and the “Remembering Rosemary” episode of Picket Fences, is located at 329 Melrose Avenue in Monrovia.

October 3, 2011
Castelli’s Ristorante in Palm Desert

Early last week, one of my mom’s friends told her about a Palm Desert-area eatery named Castelli’s Ristorante that he had just dined at the previous evening. While he was lauding the place’s authentic Italian fare, he happened to mention that its walls were decorated with hundreds upon hundreds of photographs of the various celebrities who had been spotted there over the years. Well, once my mom heard that she immediately called me up to see if I was aware of the establishment. Amazingly enough, I was not! I, of course, just about died of excitement upon hearing those two magic words – “celebrity photographs” – and quickly added the place to my Coachella Valley “To Stalk” list. And while we were in the area this past Sunday night, I dragged my parents and the Grim Cheaper right on over there to grab a cocktail.

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Castelli’s Ristorante is a very old school-style eatery that closely resembles my former San Fernando Valley-area favorite Vitello’s, which, as I mentioned last week, drastically changed its menu (and not for the better) earlier this year. But I digress. With its wood-beamed ceilings, dark lighting, lace curtains, Rat Pack music and painted frescos, walking through Castelli’s front doors I was instantly transported back in time and, like one reviewer on Yelp stated, I half expected to see Tony Soprano sitting at a nearby booth. The restaurant, which is owned and operated by brothers John and Michael Castelli, first opened over 23 years ago and, thanks to its authentic, fresh-cooked Italian cuisine, has been going strong ever since.

Since we had already eaten dinner at the La Quinta Cliffhouse shortly before hitting up Castelli’s, we sadly did not order any meals while there, but the menu looked absolutely amazing. And once I heard that the place served cannoli (I learned today that “cannoli” is actually a plural noun, the singular form of the word is “cannolo”), I just about died and promptly ordered up a serving. Amazingly enough, I had actually never sampled a “cannolo” until this past June and have been absolutely obsessed with the ricotta cheese-filled desert ever since. Because I am diabetic, I can only have them on special occasions, but, let me tell you, my cravings for them are so strong I feel like I a pregnant woman! And I have to say that Castelli’s cannoli were some of the BEST that I have ever had. Oh my god were they good! My dad liked them so much, in fact, that he ordered up a second serving immediately after we had finished the first.

The best part about Castelli’s – even better than its cannoli – though, had to be its celebrity photographs. Oh, the fun that my parents, the GC, and I had roaming around the restaurant trying to figure out who was who in each of the pictures. We even had the waiters running around trying to help us out. Just a few of the luminaries who adorn Castelli’s walls include Martin Short, Bob Hope, Burn Notice’s Jeffrey Donovan, Kevin Nealon, Gary Valentine, Norman Schwarzkopf, Dick Cheney, Robert Wagner, Stefanie Powers, Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi, Andy Garcia, Don Cheadle, Dick Butkus, Joe Pesci, Sylvester Stallone, Craig T. Nelson, Dennis Franz, Emmitt Smith, Samuel L. Jackson, Gary Sinise, Jerry Lewis, Kurt Russell, James Caan, Dennis Farina, Hal Linden, John O’Hurley (aka “Mr. Peterman” from Seinfeld), and sportscaster Chris Berman. I think it goes without saying that I cannot more highly recommend stalking this restaurant! In fact, I think it is safe to say that the place is my new favorite Desert eatery.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Castelli’s Ristorante is located at 73-098 Highway 111 in Palm Desert. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.

September 9, 2011
Marilyn Monroe’s Former Palm Springs Home – Revisited

This past Friday afternoon the Grim Cheaper and I headed out to Palm Springs to spend Labor Day Weekend with my parents at their new desert abode. And even though most of our time was devoted to relaxing (and to watching Dance Moms, which has to be one of the most addicting shows I have EVER seen, but I digress), I was able to get a little bit of stalking in while we were there, including a LONG overdue visit to the Cabazon Dinosaurs which were made famous thanks to an appearance in the 1985 flick Pee Wee’s Big Adventure. But more on “Dinny” and “Mr. Rex”, as they are known, later. For today I thought I would write about one of my VERY favorite locations that I ever stalked – Marilyn Monroe’s former Palm Springs home, which I originally visited – and blogged about – back in March of 2008. Because I had lumped the dwelling in with several other properties in a post about Palm-Springs celebrity vacation homes and because I had only included one photograph of the place in that post, though, I figured that this was one location that was most definitely worthy of a re-stalk. So I dragged the GC right on over there on our way into town.

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I originally found out about Marilyn’s former desert oasis thanks to a Map of the Stars’ Homes that I picked up – for free! – at the Palm Springs Visitors’ Center on one of my very first trips to the Coachella Valley. And even though it was long before my MM obsession took hold, I absolutely fell in love with the charming little bungalow as soon as I laid eyes upon it. With its Spanish-tiled steps, black-and-white striped awnings, abundant foliage, and gold-trimmed wrought iron front gate, the dwelling just screamed “fifties” to me and I immediately envisioned the starlet tending to some flowers in her quaint little garden, all the while wearing a pink scarf in her hair. According to an article titled “The Road to Fame and Fortune”, which was written by Greg Archer and appeared in the September 2010 issue of Palm Springs Life Magazine, the exterior of the home still looks exactly the same today as it did back in the days when Marilyn lived there. LOVE IT! In the article Greg also states that the property is the “most beautiful house on the block”. I couldn’t agree more! In fact, I would even go so far as to say that it is one of the most beautiful houses that I have ever seen in my entire life. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to take a tour of the inside! Sigh!

Unfortunately, I have not been able to pinpoint the exact dates that Marilyn owned the dwelling as there seems to be a bit of conflicting information online. According to “The Road to Fame and Fortune” article, Marilyn owned the the four bedroom, three bath, 2,978 square foot bungalow from 1960 to 1961, but according to the home’s property records, which I found via fave website Property Shark, the place was not even built until 1961, so something is mixed up somewhere. UPDATE – fellow stalker E.J., of The Movieland Directory website, has done quite a bit of research on the home and has never been able to find any property records which tie it to MM, so he is guessing that she never actually owned the house, but may have rented it for a time.

As you can see in the above photographs (the one on the left was taken when I first visited the house in March 2008 and the one on the right was taken this past weekend), the foliage in front of the property has grown considerably in recent years, blocking quite a bit of the home’s exterior from view. It is still an absolutely adorable little abode, though, and I cannot more highly recommend stalking it.

On a VERY exciting side-note: This past Friday morning, the powers that be at the About Me website sent me a tweet alerting me to the fact that they had featured me on their “Spotlight Directory” page, which you can check out here. (I appear on a different portion of the page each time it is opened, so you may have to scroll through a bit to see me.) SO INCREDIBLY EXCITING!!!!!!!!!!!! THANK YOU, ABOUT ME! And thank you so much to everyone who has been voting for me to be the new face of the company! I appreciate it so much and, amazingly, I am currently in the top 5%! So please keep those votes coming, my fellow stalkers! You can vote by clicking on the green “Vote for this profile!” tab in the upper right-hand corner of my About Me profile. You can only vote once every 24 hours – and the voting clock does not reset at midnight, which means that if you vote at 2:31 p.m. on a particular day, you will not be able to vote again until the following day at 2:32 p.m. Annoying, I know.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Marilyn Monroe’s former Palm Springs home is located at 1326 Rose Avenue in Palm Springs.

September 7, 2011