This and That – Page 59 – IAMNOTASTALKER

November 17, 2009November 16, 2009

A Haircut With Nicole from Shear Genius

This year, while visiting New York, my mom, of course, booked her annual haircut appointment with famed stylist Nick Arrojo, from the TLC makeover show What Not To Wear. As I first blogged back in December of 2007, for years my mom has been absolutely obsessed with the hair guru and had long dreamed of booking a session with him. So, for her birthday two years ago, the whole family got together and surprised her with an appointment with Nick during our annual New York vacation. Well, Nick’s cut turned out so incredibly fabulous that my mom won’t even consider visiting the Big Apple now without also making an appointment with him. It has become one of our annual New York traditions! 🙂 And, of course, this year was no different!

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – Nick Arrojo is absolutely AMAZING. I don’t know what it is, but he must have some magic dust in that razor of his, because my mom’s hair always turns out absolutely incredible whenever he cuts it. Sadly, we have yet to find a stylist in LA who can even come close to doing whatever it is he does to my mom’s hair. Some people just have an innate talent, I guess, and Nick is definitely one of those people! Not only that, but he has to be one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met. He is a total sweetheart and he always makes my mom feel like a movie star when she visits the salon. I honestly can’t say enough about the guy – he’s simply FABULOUS – and I can’t recommend booking an appointment with him enough! Even at $500 a cut – which is truly outrageous – he’s worth every single penny! Which is why I can’t believe that he’s no longer appearing on What Not To Wear. For some incredibly odd reason, Nick was replaced this season by celebrity stylist Ted Gibson, who, in my humble opinion, is just plain BLAH! And the fact that Ted is a former stylist of that little homewrecker Angelina Jolie only adds to my dislike of the guy. UGH! Even though, due to Nick’s absence, my mom no longer watches What Not To Wear, I can pretty much guarantee that no matter what happens with the show, she will still be returning to Nick for a haircut year after year.

Oh, and here’s my mom’s new ‘do! 🙂 Unfortunately, it’s not the best picture of it, though, because just prior to it being taken, she got caught in the rain and her hair, like mine, does not do well in inclement weather. 🙁

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Those of you who read my blog regularly know that last year while visiting New York I was lucky enough to get my hair cut by Nick’s former assistant and Shear Genius Season 2 Second Runner-Up Nicole Obert and she did an absolutely amazing job!!!! And while I really wanted to book another appointment with her during this year’s New York vacation, the Grim Cheaper talked me out of it. 🙁 I swear, why I listen to him I’ll never know!!! LOL Anyway, during my mom’s appointment, my fiancé, fellow stalker Owen, and I stopped in to Arrojo Studio so that I could say hi to Nick and Nicole and, let me tell you, Nicole gave me quite the talking-to!!! She was very disappointed that I had not booked an appointment with her this year despite the Grim Cheaper’s many objections. And, as fate would have it, Nicole just so happened to have an opening in her following day’s schedule. So, I, of course, immediately snatched said opening right up. 🙂 Being that I had just gotten a haircut about ten days prior to leaving for New York, the Grim Cheaper was NOT at all happy about that decision. LOL LOL LOL He kept saying, “Didn’t you JUST get a haircut???”

So, bright and early the following morning, my parents, my fiancé, and I all headed down to SoHo so that I could once again get my hair cut by Nicole. And, let me tell you, I had an absolute blast!!!! Nicole is so much fun to spend time with that I’m fairly certain I would book an appointment with her even if I didn’t like the way she cut hair, just so that I could hang out with her for an hour or so. 🙂 She’s really that much fun! Like me, Nicole just recently got engaged, so the two of us spent a lot of time talking about wedding planning. And, let me just say here that Nicole’s ring, which was designed by her fiancé and features a huge rock flanked by two butterflies made entirely out of diamonds, is absolutely amazing!!! I LOVED it. Oh, and I just about died when Nicole told me that she had run into Cynthia Nixon, aka Miranda from Sex and the City, a few days beforehand on a New York City subway! She said she immediately thought of me when she saw her. Love it! 🙂 And how incredibly cool is it that CYNTHIA NIXON actually rides the subway???? Also LOVE IT!

Nicole ended up cutting quite a bit of length off my hair and once again gave me a whole new look that was completely different from last year’s whole new look! 🙂 I find it incredible that she was able to create two such varying and unique haircuts the past two years when she really didn’t have that much to work with being that my hair was already short! I honestly don’t know how she does it! Needless to say, my hair turned out absolutely ADORABLE. I LOVE it. Nicole somehow always manages to make me look so much hipper and edgier than I normally do! And, amazingly enough, while last year’s cut was pretty hard for me to style on my own, this year’s was incredibly easy. I can safely say that it is the easiest-to-maintain haircut I’ve ever had in my life! In fact, my new ‘do is so simple to style that my getting-ready time each morning has literally been cut in half! So LOVE that! I did have to purchase a new flat-iron because of it, though, much to the Grim Cheaper’s chagrin. When I came home with it, he said “Wow, this haircut is the gift that just keeps on giving, isn’t it?” LOL LOL LOL But even though the GC is not a fan of my new ‘do, everyone else in my life is. The compliments on it have been literally non-stop. 🙂 Oh, how I wish I could go to Nicole regularly. 🙁

Before . . .

. . . and after.

I honestly cannot recommend booking an appointment with either Nick or Nicole enough!!!! They are both incredible stylists and my mom and I feel so fortunate to have found them!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Arrojo Studio is located at 180 Varick Street in New York’s SoHo neighborhood. To book an appointment with Nick or Nicole, you can call (212)242-7786. You can also visit the Arrojo Studio website here. Haircuts with Nick cost $500, but he often runs specials, announced via his website, where you can book them for around $350. A haircut with Nicole will only set you back $68.

November 13, 2009December 6, 2013

The Central Park Boathouse Cafe

One of the locations that I was most excited about stalking while in New York last month was a little restaurant named the Central Park Boathouse Cafe, also known as the Loeb Boathouse. And although I’ve stalked this location once before – and even blogged about it – because the restaurant is not open for business during the winter months when we usually visit New York, I’d never been able to actually eat there. Until my most recent trip to the Big Apple, that is. This year, because my parents had only ever seen Manhattan during the cold winter months, we decided to change things up a bit and schedule our annual NYC vacation in early October. And I couldn’t have been more excited, as that meant that I’d FINALLY be able to grab a bite to eat at the famous Boathouse Cafe! 🙂

The first Central Park Boathouse was originally built in 1873 by park designer Calvert Vaux and cost $2,360 to construct. Vaux’s design consisted of a two-story Gothic inspired structure with open terraces lining the second level. For over eighty years, the Boathouse provided park-dwellers with a place to dock and store their vessels, grab a bite to eat, or just simply people-watch. But, in the 1950s it became clear that the eighty year old structure was in desperate need of a renovation. Thanks to a $305,000 donation from American Metal Company founder Carl M. Loeb and a $100,000 supplement from the Parks foundation, the original Boathouse was torn down and a new building was assembled in its place. The new structure, which was dubbed the Loeb Boathouse and was constructed in the neo-classical style by designer Stuart Constable, opened in March of 1954 and remains standing to this day. Although a bit more upscale than its predecessor, the Loeb Boathouse still provides visitors with a place to grab a bite to eat or an evening cocktail, rent a rowboat, or just simply take in the beautiful park scenery.

Because the Loeb Boathouse is so incredibly picturesque, it has, of course, been featured countless times over the years in various movie and television productions. With its lakeside setting, frequent rowboat passersby, and view of of the park and Manhattan skyscrapers in the distance, it’s really no wonder why producers have returned to film there time and time again.

Just inside the Boathouse’s main entrance is a large display of photographs from the many filmings that have taken place there over the years. So love it!

And, let me tell you, I just about died when I noticed an old picture of my girl Marilyn Monroe on the wall! As it turns out, though, according to the hostess that I talked to, the picture was not actually from a movie that was filmed on the premises, but was a candid that was taken while Marilyn rowed a boat one evening on the nearby Central Park Lake. You can just make out the outline of the Boathouse above her left shoulder in the photograph. So cute!

Ostensibly missing from the Boathouse’s picture wall, though, was a photograph of fave show Sex and the City, which filmed a VERY memorable scene from the Season 3 episode entitled “Cock A Doodle Do” at the restaurant. When I asked the hostess about it she said, “Sex and the City was filmed here? Really?” LOL LOL LOL In the episode, Carrie reluctantly agrees to a lunch date with Mr. Big at the waterside cafe, but, as often happens with those two characters, trouble, of course, ensues. Just before Carries enters the restaurant, she stops outside to make a quick call to Miranda on a nearby payphone. During the course of their conversation, Miranda makes Carrie promise that no matter what happens during the lunch she will NOT let Big kiss her. (On a side note – I tried to stalk Carrie’s payphone, but, unfortunately, it was nowhere to be found, which leads me to believe that it was either a prop that was brought in solely for the filming or it was a real payphone that was removed sometime after the filming took place. Such a bummer!)

Carrie then proceeds to enter the restaurant and spots Big waiting for her in the Bar & Grill area, which is pretty much the exact spot where my family and I sat while dining there. 🙂

Upon Carrie’s arrival, Big immediately goes to kiss her and, in backing away to avoid him, Carrie winds up falling into the water, pulling Big down with her. The two immediately collapse into fits of laughter until Carrie realizes that her Christian Dior purse has gone missing, at which point Big screams out “I’ll get it!” and then proceeds to heroically dive under the water to save the purse . . .

. . . with the whole rest of the restaurant looking on. LOL LOL LOL So love that episode! 🙂

So, of course, when I first visited the Cafe back in 2005, I just had to take a picture reenacting that scene. Too bad I couldn’t also reenact Carrie’s Richard Tyler dress from that scene, too! LOL 🙂

The Boathouse is also the spot where Sally lunched with her friends, one of whom was Carrie Fisher, at the beginning of the 1989 romantic comedy When Harry Met Sally.

In the more recent 27 Dresses, the Boathouse figures prominently as the place where Katherine Heigl’s character’s parents were married and where she also intends to someday hold her own wedding. As fate would have it, though, her younger sister gets engaged first and books the restaurant for her wedding instead. Towards the end of the movie, a scene takes place at the Boathouse in which Katherine attends a food tasting for the upcoming nuptials with her secret crush, who also just so happens to be her sister’s fiancé, Edward Burns.

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The Boathouse also appeared in the 2005 movie Little Manhattan and in an episode of the Showtime series Nurse Jackie. The upcoming Drew Barrymore/Justin Long movie entitled Going the Distance also apparently did some recent filming at the Boathouse and a fake Boathouse set was even built in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park this past summer for the Tina Fey/Steve Carell comedy Date Night.

Besides being a filming location, the boathouse has also long been a favorite dining spot for celebrities. In recent years, stars like Lindsay Lohan, Becky Newton, Orlando Bloom, and Victoria’s Secret model Miranda Kerr have all been spotted eating at the Cafe. The Boathouse has also played host to numerous celebrity events, including the premiere after-parties for the movies Pride and Prejudice, Mamma Mia, and My Sister’s Keeper.

And while the Boathouse was at the very top of my list of locales to stalk during this year’s trip, as fate would have it, we actually got “stuck” there after being caught in a brief rainstorm while walking through Central Park. Because the Cafe was the nearest shelter we came to and because it was on my stalking list, we decided to kill two birds with one stone and ducked inside. 🙂 Thankfully the rainstorm didn’t last more than a few minutes and once it was over we immediately grabbed seats on the patio in the Boathouse’s Bar & Grill area (pictured above) and ordered up a few cocktails. And, I have to say, the place was A-MA-ZING! It is worth a visit just for the setting alone! I honestly can’t recommend stalking the Boathouse Cafe enough! It has to be one of my favorite places in all of New York. It is the absolute PERFECT place to spend a sunny – or even a not so sunny, as was the case for me – Manhattan afternoon.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Central Park Boathouse Cafe is located at East 72nd Street and Park Drive North in Central Park. The restaurant is seasonal and is only open from April through November. You can visit their website here.

November 2, 2009September 29, 2017

Halloween 2009 at The Nest!

I hope my fellow stalkers had an absolutely fabulous Halloween 2009! As I’ve mentioned many times before, Halloween is downright my favorite holiday. I pretty much look forward to it all year long! So, today I thought I’d take a little break from my New York blogging to write a post about this year’s Halloween adventure, which took place, yet again, in Palm Springs, where my fiancé and I had been invited to a little All Hallows’ Eve party. As you know, the two of us always dress up as either a famous celebrity couple or characters from a movie or TV show for Halloween. Well, after seeing Dirty Dancing: The Classic Story On Stage back in June, I decided that this year my fiancé and I just had to dress up as Baby and Johnny! And yes, I always plan my costumes that far in advance. 🙂 I told you, I LOVE Halloween. I practically live for the holiday! So, pretty much immediately after seeing the Dirty Dancing stage show, I started scouring the internet and local thrift shops for a pink chiffon dress that would resemble the frock Baby wore in the movie’s famous final dance sequence. And, unbelievably, I came up completely empty-handed! I am still in shock, actually, that no one, not even an EBay seller, had a dress like Baby’s to hawk!! In fact, the only pages I came across while performing a Google search for “Baby’s pink dress from Dirty Dancing” were entries posted from women like myself who wanted to know where they could purchase an outfit similar to Baby’s. Thankfully, in answer to one of those queries, a woman had posted a link to a dress pattern that was a pretty close match to the one Jennifer Grey wore in the movie. So, I begged and pleaded with my mom, who is an excellent seamstress, to make me Baby’s dress. Begrudgingly she agreed, and did quite the excellent job on it, I might add. THANK YOU, mom! 🙂

Because my fiancé and I were dressed as one of filmdom’s most famous dancing couples, before heading out to our Halloween party we just had to hit up the hottest dance spot in the entire Coachella Valley – a little place known as The Nest. The Nest is actually a combination bar/eatery/piano lounge/dance club which first opened up in 1965 and is now known as Indian Wells’ most famous restaurant and night club. My fiancé and I refer to it, though, as the “Cougar Den”. Contrary to how it might sound, trust me when I say that the nickname is a term of endearment as The Nest is quite simply one of my very favorite places to visit in all of Palm Springs. And while the food is great, the drinks are strong, the music is live, and the atmosphere is hopping, none of those attributes are the restaurant’s main draw. No, going to The Nest for the food or drinks or even the music is entirely beside the point. The Nest’s main attraction has to be its lively, dressed-to-the-nines, up-all-night-on-the-dance-floor patrons, who are almost all between the ages of 65 and 100. Yes, you read that right! You’d be hard pressed to find any Nest regulars who don’t fall under the senior citizen category. You’d also be hard pressed to find any of them sitting down! On no, the Nest’s patrons don’t let a little thing like age stop them from dancing all night long! And, let me tell you, I can only hope that I look and feel as good as they do when I am their age. But who am I kidding, I don’t even look or feel that good now! My fiancé and I always feel a bit cadish when asking for our check – usually yawning while doing so – at around 10 p.m. – 11 at the latest – while all of the club’s more senior regulars are still on the dance floor and showing absolutely no signs of stopping! It’s truly unbelievable! And so are the outfits, which are usually quite risqué. And thanks to A LOT of medical enhancement, the women look far better than I would in such clothing. LOL It’s an absolute hoot to see and something that everyone visiting Palm Springs should experience at least once!

Ironically, I thought my fiancé and I would be a big hit at The Nest come Halloween thanks to our dance-themed costumes. I could not have been more wrong about that one, however! No, thanks to the many aged 75 and older women who were dressed in extremely sexy Halloween costumes, no one even gave my fiancé and I a second glance! LOL LOL LOL Our costumes were far too tame for The Nest, I guess. I’ve actually never seen anything quite like The Nest on Halloween. It was like a Leg Avenue Catalog had come to life, right before my very eyes. In attendance were a sexy Batgirl, a sexy Catwoman, a sexy cop, and even a cougar! 🙂 But the costume that really caught my eye? A Playboy Bunny, complete with a bowtie, fishnet stockings, and . . . a thong leotard. Yes, you read that right! LOL I honestly didn’t think such a thing was possible, but The Nest is even more of a sight to see on Halloween than on any other night!

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Besides cougars, celebrities have also been frequenting The Nest since it first opened over forty years ago, and they’ve got the autographed pictures on the walls to prove it. 🙂 In fact, crooner Frank Sinatra and some of his famous friends were regulars during the bar’s early days. Today a bevy of different celebs and sports stars (mostly professional golf and tennis players) can be spotted dancing or singing along with the club’s live “piano” – it’s actually an electronic keyboard – on a nightly basis. Country star Toby Keith recently spent a few nights at The Nest and even obliged some fans by stepping up to the mic to sing a few songs. 🙂 So cool! Even without the celeb connection, though, I’d still recommend stalking the place, as it is just so darn entertaining! It’s DEFINITELY a Palm-Springs-Must-See! If you arrive after 9 p.m., be prepared to wait, though, as you’ll be hard pressed to find a seat, or even standing room, for that matter!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Nest is located at 75-188 Highway 111 in Indian Wells, just outside of Palm Springs. You can visit their website here. The live music starts at 7 p.m. nightly. And if you would like to make your own Dirty Dancing dress, the pattern my mom used is Vogue’s Vintage Pattern #2902.

October 29, 2009September 29, 2017

John Barrymore’s Apartment Building

Another Greenwich Village location that Owen, my fiancé, and I stalked during our recent whirlwind day in New York City was the Greek Revival townhouse where beleaguered actor John Barrymore – Drew’s grandfather – once lived. For three years, from 1917 to 1920, John rented the top floor penthouse of the building pictured above, which was originally constructed in 1839. Barrymore decorated his apartment, which he nicknamed the “Alchemist’s Corner”, with Gothic elements including gold wallpaper, fake wooden beams, ironwork accoutrements, and stained glass windows. His piece de resistance, however, was a garden oasis, which consisted of a cottage, a reflecting pool, and large trees, that he erected on the building’s roof. To build his little rooftop paradise a vast amount of soil had to be brought in – over 35 tons, actually – eventually causing the roof of the building to collapse! LOL Barrymore was nothing if not eccentric! And while his garden has long since been removed, the cottage Barrymore had built remains standing to this day. You can even see a photograph of it here. It was while living in this apartment that Barrymore carried out his illicit affair with married poet Blanche Thomas, who nicknamed herself Michael Strange – no that’s not a typo, she actually called herself Michael. Strange indeed! In 1920, the two married and moved to Westchester County. Two years later, on November 16, 1922, Barrymore began his legendary Broadway portrayal of Hamlet. This was to be his defining role and, in fact, he has even been called history’s “definitive Hamlet”.

My interest in the townhouse had little to do with the fact that John Barrymore had lived there, however, and more to do with something that occurred on the premises about seventy years later. In 1987, screenwriter/playwright Paul Rudnick, who later penned the screenplays for In & Out, Addams Family Values, and The Stepford Wives, moved into Barrymore’s former penthouse and became inspired to write a two-act comedic play entitled I Hate Hamlet. The play centers around a mediocre television actor named Andrew Rally who, like Rudnick, lives in John’s former dwelling. Rally has just landed the lead role in a Shakespeare in the Park production of Hamlet and is having a little trouble getting into character. One night the ghost of John Barrymore returns from the dead, in full Hamlet regalia no less, to help Andrew get a grasp on his new role. Of course, hilarity ensues when Andrew fails to live up to Barrymore’s ridiculously high expectations. I Hate Hamlet opened on Broadway at the Walter Kerr Theatre on April 8, 1991 and starred none other than Evan Chandler, who later became famous for playing Charlotte’s husband Harry Goldenblatt on fave show Sex and the City. The show received mixed reviews and, thanks to actor Nicol Williamson, who played Barrymore in the production, was closed after a scant 88 night run. Apparently Williamson, who seems to be just about as eccentric as the real Barrymore, didn’t like to share the stage or the audience’s attention with his fellow actors. To remedy his problem he decided to actually stab Evan during one of the performances! Evan was harmed, but managed to walk off the stage, never to return to the show. Needless to say, I Hate Hamlet was shut down shortly thereafter. You can read a great article that Paul Rudnick wrote about the play’s Broadway run here. And, even though the show didn’t enjoy much success on Broadway, I Hate Hamlet has since become an acting class staple. I have seen monologues and scenes from it performed in pretty much every acting class I’ve ever attended in my entire life. You’d think I’d be tired of it by now, but surprisingly that has not been the case. Even though I’ve seen its most pertinent scenes and monologues performed countless times, I Hate Hamlet is still one of my very favorite plays. And even though by now I can probably recite the entire show by heart, I still laugh out loud every time I see it! 🙂 I absolutely LOVE I Hate Hamlet!

Surprisingly enough, though, I never knew of the play’s history until I read a passage about John Barrymore’s former abode in fave stalking book New York: A Movie Lover’s Guide. And, once I learned the story behind I Hate Hamlet, the play became all the more fascinating to me, if that’s at all possible. And, as you can probably imagine, once I heard that the setting of the comedy was in fact a real place and that John Barrymore and Paul Rudnick had actually lived there, I just HAD to stalk it!! 🙂 I cannot tell you how exciting it was for me to be able to see the townhouse in person, after countless years of loving the play that was inspired by it. I highly recommend both catching a performance of I Hate Hamlet if you ever have the opportunity and, of course, stalking the house where the story took place.

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Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: John Barrymore’s former apartment building is located at 132 West 4th Street in New York’s Greenwich Village area.

October 21, 2009June 16, 2011

The Central Park Conservatory Water

Because I spoke only very briefly about the Central Park Conservatory Water in yesterday’s post regarding the filming of Gossip Girl, today I thought I’d do a more in-depth blog on that location and the myriad of filming that has taken place there over the years. So, here goes. 🙂 The Conservatory Water is so named because in the original plans for Central Park, which were drawn up in 1857 by designers Frederick Law Olmstead and Calvert Vaux, an oval-shaped conservatory, or greenhouse, containing tropical plants was to be situated in the area where the Model Boat Pond now stands. When the money for that particular project fell through, Olmstead and Vaux instead decided to place an oval-shaped model boat pond, designed after those in Paris’ Jardin du Luxembourg, in the exact spot where the conservatory was originally positioned. Hence the name “Conservatory Water”. Over the years, the Pond became incredibly popular with children and adults alike and, thanks to the model yacht races which are held there each weekend, the area has come to be more commonly known as the “Model Boat Pond”. In fact, ask any New Yorker for directions to the Conservatory Water and I doubt they’d know what you were talking about. 🙂

Besides its weekend boat races, the Conservatory Water is also famous for two statues which are situated along its perimeter. The statue pictured above is of children’s author Hans Christian Andersen, who penned the stories “The Little Mermaid”, “The Snow Queen”, and “Thumbelina”, among countless others. In the statue Hans is depicted reading his tale “The Ugly Duckling” to an attentive little duck. So cute!!! And please don’t ask what the heck I am wearing in the above picture – it was a freezing cold and rainy day in New York and I threw on whatever warm clothes I could find. LOL

At the North end of the pond sits the famous Alice in Wonderland statue, in which Alice cavorts atop a life-sized mushroom with her friends the Mad Hatter, the Cheshire Cat, the Dormouse, and the White Rabbit. The statue was commissioned in 1959 by George T. Delacorte, founder of the Dell Publishing Company, in honor of his wife. Legend has it that George’s face was the model for the face of the Mad Hatter in the statue. 🙂

The Model Boat Pond is so incredibly beautiful and picturesque, with its flat pool of reflecting water, curving benches running along its perimeter, lush green foliage and pink cherry trees juxtaposed against the towering skyscrapers of Manhattan’s Upper East Side, that it’s not very hard to see why producers have returned to film there time and time again.

In fave movie 13 Going On 30, the Model Boat Pond shows up very briefly during the montage scene in which Jenna is shown enjoying her newfound age. You can see the Alice and Wonderland statue in the background of the first screen capture pictured above.

In fave show Sex and the City, the Model Boat Pond shows up in the Season One episode entitled “The Power of Female Sex”, in the scene in which Carrie takes French Architect Gilles on a tour of the city. While at the Pond, Carrie says, “I felt like I had landed in a Claude Lelouch film”, Lelouch being a French film director known for his picturesque cinematography. The Alice and Wonderland statue shows up in this scene, as well – Carrie is sitting on top of it in the first screen capture pictured above.

In Just My Luck, yet another of my favorite teeny-bopper movies, cutie Chris Pine has some incredibly bad luck while visiting the Model Boat Pond at the very beginning of the film. Again you’ll notice the Alice in Wonderland statue pictured in the background above. It seems to be a favorite of filmmakers. 🙂

In the 1998 movie The Object of my Affection, it is while sitting on a bench overlooking the Pond that my girl Jen Aniston tells Paul Rudd that she is pregnant.

In fave movie Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Fred is followed by Doc Golightly, Holly’s former husband, while taking a stroll near the Conservatory Water.

And in the 1999 movie Stuart Little, Stuart (who was voiced by none other than Alex P. Keaton himself – Michael J. Fox) and his pal Jonathan Lipnicki race a model sailboat at the Pond. (That’s Hugh Laurie, aka Dr. House M.D., who plays Stuart and Jonathan’s dad in the flick, pictured in the second screen capture above!)

The producers definitely took some liberties while filming this scene, though, because while the race starts out at the Model Boat Pond, it ends up in the Central Park Reservoir, which, contrary to what the movie would have you believe, is not actually connected to the Pond and is, in fact, located quite a few miles away.

At one point, the boats even sail under a small bridge, but, being that the Model Boat Pond has no bridge, I am going to go out on a limb here and say that I’m fairly certain this scene wasn’t actually filmed in Central Park. My guess is that the scene was filmed a few thousand miles away on a soundstage at Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City. LOL When watching that scene, you’ll notice that the camera never pans back far enough to show the entire Pond, leading me to believe that producers built their own version of it at the studio in Los Angeles which they then used for the filming.

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The Pond also showed up in I’m Not Rappaport, F/X, Jungle 2 Jungle, The Mirror Has Two Faces, Key Exchange and in 1964’s The World of Henry Orient. And it has even been immortalized in print, as well! In J.D. Salinger’s famous Catcher in the Rye novel, Holden Caulfield laments his problems to the Conservatory Water’s resident ducks.

I honestly cannot recommend stalking the Model Boat Pond enough!! It is one of my very favorite places in all of New York! In fact, one of my favorite things to do while visiting the city is to grab a bagel from a street vendor and eat it while sitting on one of the many benches surrounding the Pond – weather permitting, of course. 🙂 Which is exactly what my best friend, Kylee, and fiancé are doing in the above photograph which was taken during my 30th birthday trip to the Big Apple. 🙂 Ironically enough, while doing research on the Pond for today’s post, I kept running across the following sentence – or some variation of it – written again and again: “The Conservatory Water is so relaxing and peaceful that you almost forget you are in New York.” But to me, the Pond is a perfect representation of what it is that makes New York so incredibly unique. I mean where else can you find a huge and incredibly quiet and picturesque piece of nature located smack dab in the middle of a beautiful, bustling, towering city? 🙂 No, for me, the Model Boat Pond couldn’t be more New York and I never forget what city I am in while visiting it! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Conservatory Water, aka the Model Boat Pond, is located in Central Park on New York’s Upper East Side and can be reached from 72nd through 75th Streets.

October 13, 2009December 6, 2013

The Carlyle Hotel

Yet another of my favorite New York haunts is the ultra-exclusive Carlyle Hotel, located on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. I blogged about the Carlyle’s famous Bemelman’s Bar, which was featured in Sex and the City: The Movie, after last year’s trip to the Big Apple, but didn’t include much information on the actual hotel itself. So, here goes. The Carlyle Hotel, which was named after author Thomas Carlyle, was built by Moses Ginsberg and designed in the Art Deco style by architects Sylvan Bien & Harry M. Prince. The thirty-five story building first opened its doors in November of 1930 and was actually a residential hotel at the time, with apartments leasing for approximately $20,000 a year. To show you how times have changed, today there is a room at the Carlyle which rents for approximately $15,000 a night! LOL Due to the Great Depression, the hotel did not fare well during the early years. In 1932, it was sold to new owners who managed to keep it afloat and occupied, but failed to really put the hotel on the map. In 1948, businessman Robert Whittle Downing purchased the building with the intent of transforming it into an exclusive, upscale hotel property. And transform it, he did! Shortly after the change of ownership, then-president Harry S. Truman stayed at the Carlyle, and the rest, as they say is, history. Every president since that time has stayed at the Carlyle at least once during their presidency. In fact, JFK owned an apartment at the hotel from 1953 until the time of his death and was such a frequent visitor that during his tenure the Carlyle earned the nickname “the New York White House”. (By the way, I have absolutely no idea what I was looking at when my dad snapped the above picture, but it’s the only one I have of the front of the hotel. LOL)

JFK’s wife Jackie was also a frequent guest at the Carlyle during her lifetime. The hotel honored her patronage by placing the above framed photograph just inside the main entrance. Ironically enough, rumor has it that Marilyn Monroe was also a frequent visitor to the Carlyle – but only when JFK was in town and only when Jackie wasn’t able to accompany him. According to legend, there is a secret tunnel system located below the hotel which allows the rich and famous to enter and leave the property without being spotted by the masses. Thanks to the discretion and privacy that the Carlyle affords, it has long been a celebrity magnet. In fact, the New York Times just recently dubbed it “a Palace of Secrets”. Just a few of the celebs who have been spotted at the hotel through the years include Elizabeth Taylor, Steve Martin, Debbie Reynolds, Princess Diana, Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Christian Slater, France’s First Lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, Scarlett Johansson, Jack Nicholson, Gwen Stefani, Nicole Kidman, Jay Z, Beyonce, Ryan Reynolds, Britney Spears, Swiss tennis star Roger Federer, Kate Bosworth, Victoria Beckham, Kate Hudson, Katie Holmes, and Tom Cruise. And, of course, Sarah Jessica Parker. In fact, SJP and Matthew Broderick are such fans of the Carlyle that they not only honeymooned at the hotel, but hosted an after-after party for the Sex and the City: The Movie premiere there.

The Carlyle is an absolutely beautiful place, with sparkling marble floors, dark wood paneling, crystal chandeliers, and antique elevators complete with real gloved operators. And I highly recommend stalking the place! If you can’t afford to stay there (the average cost of a room is about $525!), you can grab a drink in the hotel’s Bemelman’s Bar or dine in their restaurant, Cafe Carlyle. On our last trip to the Big Apple, we stopped in to the hotel and I asked my dad to snap some photos of of it for me while I went to ask the concierge about the filming that had taken place there over the years. The two pictures shown above were the result of that request. LOL Why he took only two photographs, both of me and not of the hotel, I’ll never know! LOL My apologies! Anyway, to get a better idea of what the Carlyle looks like inside, take a peek at the photo gallery on the hotel’s website. 🙂

The Carlyle is also, of course, a filming location. Woody Allen met ex-wife Tea Leoni at the Carlyle’s Bemelman’s Bar for a drink in the 2002 movie Hollywood Ending. Woody also shot a date scene with Dianne Wiest in the hotel’s restaurant, Cafe Carlyle, for the 1986 movie Hannah and her Sisters.

According to the book New York: A Movie Lover’s Guide, the penthouse where Anthony Hopkins lived in Meet Joe Black was actually one of the Carlyle Hotel’s deluxe suites. The exteriors of his building, however, were filmed elsewhere.

Also according to New York: A Movie Lover’s Guide, the Carlyle stood in for the European hotel where Glenn Close first met Jeremy Irons in the 1990 movie Reversal of Fortune, but I’m not entirely sure that information is correct. As you can see in the above screen captures, the decor just doesn’t seem to match that of the Carlyle.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Carlyle Hotel is located at 25 East 76th Street on New York’s Upper East Side.

October 12, 2009December 6, 2013

The St. Regis Hotel

Last year while visiting Manhattan, I dragged my boyfriend out to the posh St. Regis New York hotel on 55th Street. I had wanted to see the St. Regis not so much because it is an oft-used filming location, but because my girl Marilyn Monroe stayed there back in 1954 while on location in New York filming favorite movie The Seven Year Itch. I found this spot thanks to favorite Manhattan stalking book New York: The Movie Lover’s Guide, which claimed that the hotel was the site of a monumental fight between Marilyn and her then-husband Joe DiMaggio. According to the book, and just about everything else ever written about The Seven Year Itch, Joe and Marilyn’s relationship was not in a good place at the time of the filming. Things came to a head on September 15, 1954 – the night Marilyn filmed the famous subway grate scene. Joe was on hand for the shoot that night and became absolutely irate at the fact that 5,000 spectators had showed up to catch a glimpse of his wife’s unmentionables. Legend has it that the fight between Marilyn and Joe started out on the 52nd street set and continued all the way back to their suite at the St. Regis Hotel, where their screaming awakened the entire floor! Now, I’m not sure if the story about the St. Regis brawl is true or not, but I just had to stalk the hotel regardless. 🙂

The St. Regis New York was built in 1904 by millionaire businessman John Jacob Astor IV and at the time was considered to be the finest hotel in all of Manhattan. Today it is considered to be one of the finest hotels in all of the world. Astor’s goal was to build a hotel where guests would not only experience the utmost in luxurious accommodations, but at the same feel as if they were staying in a private home. To give his hotel that “home away from home” feel, each of the St. Regis’ 229 rooms (164 regular rooms and 65 suites) featured a doorbell. 🙂 At the time of its opening each room also boasted such state-of-the-art amenities as personal thermostats, fire alarms, central air conditioning, telephones, Steinway pianos (yes, each room had its own Steinway piano!!!!), and – my personal favorite – a centralized vacuum system. Rather than lugging around vacuum cleaners all day long to each and every room, the housekeeping staff had only to attach a small hose to sockets that were located in the hotel walls and the dirt would simply be sucked away. My former boss had a centralized vacuum system in his house and, let me tell you, it’s just about the COOLEST THING EVER! The fact that the St. Regis had one back in 1904 is mind-boggling to me! In today’s world, the St. Regis name has become synonymous with luxury, splendor, and the utmost in hospitality. The amenities of 2009 include a spa, a fitness center, a business center, and twenty-four hour butler service!! The St. Regis New York has won countless awards over the years, including most recently “Top 75 Hotels in the United States” by Conde Nast Traveler, “World’s Best” by Travel & Leisure Magazine, the “Five-Star Award” by the Mobil Travel Guide, and – for the past fourteen years in a row – the “Five Diamond Award” by AAA! The above photographs were taken during last year’s New York vacation in a sitting room located just off of the St. Regis lobby. As you can see, the hotel is absolutely BEAUTIFUL inside and I just love visiting it. I would also LOVE to stay there sometime, but being that rates start at around $600 per night, there is no way in heck the Grim Cheaper would ever go for that!

The exclusive St. Regis has long been a celebrity haven. Besides Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio, past guests of the hotel include Humphrey Bogart, Salvador Dali, Russian Prince Colonel Serge Obelensky, Marlene Dietrich, Rex Harrison, Alfred Hitchcock, Ernest Hemingway, John Lennon, Yoko Ono, John Huston, Joseph Pulitzer, William Paley, and Gertrude Lawrence, just to name a few. In more recent years Demi Moore, Nathan Lane, Pierce Brosnan, Sean Penn, Victor Garber, Scarlett Johansson, Tara Reid, Thora Birch, Courteney Cox, and Martin Short have all been spotted at the hotel.

And, of course, the St. Regis is also a filming location! 🙂 The hotel’s King Cole Bar showed up in fave movie The First Wives Club, as the location where Goldie Hawn lamented over being asked to play the character of “Monique’s mother” – instead of “Monique” – in her next movie. The King Cole is famous in and of itself thanks to the massive Maxfield Parrish mural of Old King Cole and his knights flanking the bar. In 1906, John Jacob Astor IV paid $5,000 for the commission of the eight foot by thirty foot mural and first hung it in another of his hotel properties, the Knickerbocker. When the Knickerbocker closed its doors in 1932, the mural was brought over to the St. Regis and hung above the bar, where legends about it abound – two in particular. The first story states that the face of King Cole in the painting is actually that of the hotel’s owner, John Jacob Astor IV. Legend also has it that the reason behind the King’s mischievous expression in the mural is that he has just passed gas. I’m not kidding! LOL And yet another legend asserts that the King Cole Bar is where the first ever Bloody Mary was served on U.S. soil. 🙂

The King Cole Bar was also featured very briefly in the movie The Devil Wears Prada as the location where my love Simon Baker gave Anne Hathaway the unpublished manuscript for the 7th “Harry Potter” book. I so LOVED The Devil Wears Prada, by the way. The movie is worth seeing just for Anne Hathaway’s wardrobe alone! 🙂

The St. Regis also popped up in the 1976 movie Taxi Driver as the location where Cybil Shepherd caught a ride with cabbie Robert De Niro.

In 2000’s Miss Congeniality, Michael Caine and Sandra Bullock dined at the St. Regis’ now-defunct Lespinasse Restaurant.

Joe Jackson’s (not MJ’s father) music video for his 1982 song ‘Steppin’ Out’ was also filmed at the hotel. And Woody Allen has shot no less than THREE movies on location at the St. Regis – Anything Else, Hannah and Her Sisters (the hotel was the site of Michael Caine and Barbara Hershey’s illicit affair), and Radio Days (Mia Farrow was a cigarette girl in the King Cole Bar).

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I honestly can’t recommend stalking the St. Regis New York enough. It is a truly beautiful, truly unique hotel. And I’d also recommend stalking the King Cole Bar – if you can get a seat, that is. My fiancé and I have tried to grab a cocktail there countless times on each of our numerous trips to New York, but have never been able to get a seat in the popular bar. 🙁

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The St. Regis New York hotel is located at 2 East 55th Street, at Fifth Avenue, in Manhattan. You can visit their website here.

October 2, 2009October 1, 2009

Cafe Luka

One of my very favorite places to grab a bite to eat in all of New York is a small restaurant located on Manhattan’s Upper East Side named Cafe Luka. The tiny, little cafe also just happens to be the spot where I ate my first ever New York meal on my first ever New York vacation just about four years ago. My family and I actually happened upon the restaurant quite accidentally one freezing cold morning in December of 2004. We had just taken the red-eye in from L.A. as my dad was scheduled to have surgery at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in the upcoming week. Because our plane was due to arrive at 5 O’clock in the morning, my mom had called our hotel at the last minute and added on what she thought was an extra day at the beginning of our trip. That way, as soon as we landed, we could go straight to the hotel and go to sleep. But, as fate would have it, what my mom actually booked was an extra night at the END of our stay. LOL Now you know where I get my air-headedness from. 🙂 So, there we were at 5 O’clock a.m., exhausted, hungry, and absolutely freezing in the middle of Manhattan with no place to go! Rather than hang out in the hotel lobby until they could get a room ready for us, we instead flagged down a cab-driver and asked him to take us to the nearest open restaurant. That restaurant just so happened to be Cafe Luka. When we arrived, the front door was unlocked, so my parents, my fiancé, and I walked right in and sat down at a booth. As we looked around at the empty seats, my mom said “I don’t think this place is open yet.” My dad, who has absolutely no inhibitions whatsoever, replied “I don’t care if it’s open or not. I’m about to curl up in that booth right there and take a nap.” LOL LOL LOL And curl up he did, right there in the middle of the empty restaurant! A few minutes later a busboy wandered out of the kitchen area, took one look at our motley crew and said “We don’t open for another 45 minutes, but you are welcome to sit here and get warm and I’ll bring you some coffee.” And they say New Yorkers are rude! Well, that was it for us! We had found our new favorite restaurant! 🙂 My family and I went back for breakfast pretty much every morning during that trip and got to know Cafe Luka’s two owners, Jon and Marc, pretty well. Flash forward to a year later during our next trip to the Big Apple. After landing in NYC, at 5 a.m. yet again, my parents headed to our hotel room – which my mom had managed to book correctly this time – to get some sleep, while my boyfriend and I headed to Cafe Luka for some coffee. When we walked in, Jon greeted us BY NAME and then said “How’s your dad doing?” Well, let me tell you, I almost fell on the floor! I could NOT believe that this guy that we had met so briefly an entire year beforehand not only remembered us, but also recalled our names and the fact that my dad had had surgery! My fiancé, ever the pessimist, said to me “OF COURSE he remembers us! Your dad curled up in one of his empty booths and took a nap!!!!!” LOL LOL LOL Even had my dad not done that, though, I’m pretty sure Jon would have still remembered us. He just seems like that kind of guy. Since that visit we’ve become regular patrons of Cafe Luka, and its sister restaurant Fratelli Brick Oven Pizza, usually eating there several times during our New York vacations. And, without fail, Jon and Marc remember us by name on every single visit! And this review of the restaurant on Insider Pages let me know that we haven’t been alone in our experiences there.

So, last year when we stopped into Cafe Luka for our traditional first-morning-in-New-York-breakfast and Jon asked what we had been up to, I, of course, told him about my blog. My dad piped up and said “Hey, you should write about this place.” To which I replied, “That’s a good idea, but have any celebrities ever eaten here?” Jon laughed and said that he had heard buzzings about celebs every now and again, but had no idea which stars in particular had actually dropped by. That’s the difference between L.A. and New York – while Angelinos pretend they are too cool to care about celebrities, New Yorkers actually are too cool – or too busy, for that matter – to care. LOL Anyway, Jon told me that several New York sports stars stop in to eat at the cafe on a regular basis, but I couldn’t tell you specifically who, as I pretty much tune out whenever people start talking sports to me. 🙂 But my ears did perk up when he mentioned that Conan O’Brien stops in to Cafe Luka every morning for a cup of coffee and that Eric Roberts dined next door at Fratelli with some fellow actors shortly after it opened last year. Of course, Jon didn’t know either Conan or Eric by name – he referred to Eric Roberts as the actor with the really famous sister who has curly hair and to Conan as the red-headed comic with a TV show LOL – so I had to play a bit of a guessing game to figure out who he was talking about. Anyway, I decided that if Cafe Luka is good enough for Conan O’Brien and Eric Roberts, it’s definitely good enough for my blog. 🙂

And while I’ve never spotted Conan grabbing his daily cup of coffee while eating at Cafe Luka, I honestly can’t recommend stalking the place enough. Besides the great service (that’s me and owner Marc pictured above), they also serve up some of the BEST chicken strips, mashed potatoes, and chicken noodle soup that I’ve ever tasted! What can I say? I am WAY into comfort food. 🙂 Their sister restaurant, Fratelli, which is located right next door, is equally as tasty! Especially the pizza!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Cafe Luka is located at 1319 1st Avenue #A on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Their sister restaurant, Fratelli Brick Oven Pizza, is located right next door at 1317 1st Avenue.

September 25, 2009April 20, 2010

Michael Jackson’s First L.A. Home

Last week, on the recommendation of fellow stalker Grant, I picked up a FABULOUS new book about the life and times of the King of Pop by author J. Randy Taraborrelli named Michael Jackson: The Magic, The Madness, The Whole Story, 1958-2009. For anyone who is at all interested in MJ’s life, the 765 page tome is a must-read! Taraborrelli first met Michael on May 2, 1970, at a Jackson 5 concert in Philadelphia. Both boys were just youngsters at the time. Taraborrelli went on to become a best-selling author and journalist and a trusted friend of the King of Pop, writing many feature articles about him throughout his life and career. Besides sharing some amazing insight on what really took place behind-the-scenes of MJ’s life, Taraborrelli also divulges some fabulous tidbits of information in his book, such as the address of the home that Michael and his family lived in when they first moved to Los Angeles in 1969. YAY! So, I, of course, had to run right out and immediately stalk it. 🙂

In November of 1969, just as the Jackson 5 group was starting to hit it big, Motown founder Berry Gordy rented a house in West Hollywood for the family to live in. At the time, Joe and the rest of the boys had been living in various L.A. area hotels, Katherine, La Toya, Randy, and Janet were still back in Gary, Indiana, and Michael had spent the past month staying with Diana Ross. It was time to bring the family together. Their new Mediterranean-style home boasted four bedrooms, four bathrooms, a sparkling view of L.A., and a spacious 2,962 square feet of living space. According to Taraborrelli, the Jackson’s new living room alone was twice the size of their entire house back in Gary. But, as it turns out, as much as they liked their new home, they wouldn’t stay long. In May of 1970, just seven months after moving in, the Jacksons were relocated to another house leased by Berry Gordy – this one on Bowmont Drive in Beverly Hills. According to Taraborrelli, Gordy said, “They were kicked out of several houses. You see, they would make too much noise. They had their band, and we would put them in a house, and then they would get kicked out. We’d lease another place, and they would make too much noise, and they would get kicked out.” LOL The Jackson family finally purchased their own home – located at 4641 Hayvenhurst Avenue in Encino – and put an end to their constant moving on May 5, 1971.

While researching this house, I actually came across quite a few conflicting online reports about its exact address. While in the book, Taraborrelli had written that the house was located at 1601 Queens Road, I found several websites which stated that the Jacksons actually lived at number 1616, while still others reported an address number in the 6000 range. I wasn’t quite sure who to believe. But, as luck would have it, while stalking the house I happened upon an older gentleman walking his dog. I asked him if the Jackson family had actually lived at the home I was currently snapping photographs of and he said that yes, indeed, they had. I told him about the differing online reports and he assured me that I was stalking the correct house. He told me that while he didn’t know the Jacksons personally when they lived in the home, he definitely knew of them, as they were just starting to become famous and all of the neighborhood children would go over to their house to play. 🙂

I highly recommend stalking the Jackson family’s first L.A. home as it is a very pretty place and – best part of all – has no front gate blocking it from view, as is the case with their Hayvenhurst mansion! YAY! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Jackson Family’s first Los Angeles home is located at 1601 Queens Road in West Hollywood.

September 1, 2009September 1, 2009

Catalina’s Hamilton Cove

While vacationing in Catalina this past week, I, of course, spent much of my time asking the local merchants which celebrities had been spotted on the island. And I just about died when one store owner told me that Michael Buble, who has recently replaced Josh Duhamel as the celebrity love of my life, had vacationed there! Sigh! But MB is hardly the first celeb to visit Catalina. I was actually quite shocked to learn of the sheer number of famous visitors that the island has seen over the years. In the Golden Age of Hollywood, stars such as Charlie Chaplin, John Wayne, authors Zane Grey and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, John Barrymore, Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Jean Harlow, Mickey Rooney, Clark Gable, Orson Wells, Judy Garland, Robert Mitchum, Henry Fonda, and presidents Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover all spent time on the island. In more recent years, Nicolas Cage, Lisa Marie Presley, Barbra Streisand (my least favorite celebrity of all time!), James Brolin, Sharon Stone, Gwen Stefani, Gavin Rossdale, Edward Norton, Rob Lowe, Paul Newman, Robert Downey Jr., Bob Saget, Diane Keaton, and members of the Spencer Davis Group rock bank have all been spotted on Catalina.

For those who have yet to visit, Catalina is a very small, quaint little island measuring 22 miles long and 8 miles wide with a population of only 3,696 residents. Only a small number of cars have been allowed on the island, which has resulted in local homeowners and tourists relying on gas-powered golf carts for transportation. The use of golf carts instead of cars coupled with the fact that there are no chain stores or restaurants of any kind on the island – not even a Starbucks! – has allowed Catalina to retain its quaint, charming feel. In fact, when William Wrigley Jr. – the chewing gum entrepreneur – purchased the island in 1919, he went to great lengths to keep it from turning into a bustling tropical city a la Miami or Honolulu. But because Catalina has been kept small, there are no resort-style hotels whatsover on the island. Most of the hotels are actually very small, bed-and-breakfast type establishments. So, I couldn’t figure out exactly where a visiting celebrity would stay that would afford them some modicom of privacy. Until I learned about a gated, guarded resort-style community named Hamilton Cove (pictured above).

Hamilton Cove is located just a mile and a half outside of Downtown Avalon. The upscale, extremely private, gated condominium community offers a private sandy beach, a sparkling pool and jacuzzi, complimentary golf cart use, a croquet court, an 18 hole putting course, sand volleyball court, BBQs, private dock, three story clubhouse, tennis courts, a gym, and amazing views. And, a majority of the Cove’s “villas” are available as vacation rentals. According to pretty much every local I spoke with, Hamilton Cove is THE place to be on Catalina Island. So, if you want to spot a celeb while visiting Catalina, book a room at Hamilton Cove! Unfortunately, being that the community is closed to the public, I wasn’t able to visit it. 🙁 But I did manage to snap a few photos of the Cove while traveling along Catalina’s coast on a boat we rented one day. Even from far away the place looked beautiful. The 1, 2, and 3 bedroom villas rent for anywhere between $175 to $1000 per night. I am really pushing for my family to book a room at Hamilton Cove for our next Catalina trip, more for the celebrity sightings than anything else, of course. 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Hamilton Cove is located at 23 Camino de Flores Street in Avalon on Catalina Island, but it is a private, gated, guarded community that does not allow visitors of any sort. So, NO TRESPASSING! The only way to gain admission to the complex is to book a stay there, which you can do via this website and this website.