Category: TV Locations

The Empire Hotel from “Gossip Girl”

My friend Mikey, from the Mike the Fanboy website, always teases me for being a huge fan of “Hollywood randoms,” i.e. stars he has never heard of. One of my favorites of the so-called randoms is Ed Westwick, who played Chuck Bass on Gossip Girl. Out of all the male TV characters I’ve ever come across, Chuck is hands-down my most-loved. (Jack Donaghy from 30 Rock runs a close second.) The Grim Cheaper and I were obsessed with Gossip Girl when it was on the air, but haven’t seen the CW series since it wrapped in December 2012. Out of the blue, he put on the pilot last night and I can’t tell you how great it was to once again hear that famous intro speech narrated by Kristen Bell. You know the one – “Gossip Girl here – your one and only source into the scandalous lives of Manhattan’s elite.” Watching the episode got me to thinking about the Empire Hotel, which was owned by Chuck on the series and which I stalked while in New York last April. Somehow I had never gotten around to blogging about the place. So here goes.

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The Empire’s history dates back to 1893 when construction began on a large 7-story lodging at the corner of West 63rd Street and Broadway on New York’s Upper West Side. The Hotel Casa Alameda, as it was set to be called, was never completed, though, and the property went into foreclosure. It was eventually sold, the construction finished and, in 1889, re-opened as the Empire Hotel. Nine years later, the Empire was purchased by Herbert DuPuy, who had lofty goals for the site. He had the building razed in 1922 and replaced it with a new, larger, 15-story hotel. The re-imagined Empire opened to the public on December 5th, 1923.

Its now iconic rooftop sign was erected at the same time.

Though Hotel Online states that the sign is “one of the first ever and longest standing neon billboards in the United States,” according to Curbed New York, it was actually replaced in the 1960s. I am unsure which site’s information is correct, but, regardless, the “Hotel Empire” sign makes for some amazing photo opportunities, as you can see here and here.

In December 2003, the Empire was shuttered after being slated for a condominium conversion project, but the plan was halted by a group of permanent residents who filed complaints with the city.

Instead, the hotel underwent a massive 3-year renovation, re-opening in August 2007.

The interior of the 413-room property was reimagined by interior design firm Goodman Charlton.

The result of their efforts is a very Old Hollywood-esque tapestry of golds, blacks, oranges, and the occasional zebra print.

The sweeping two-story lobby is marked by swaying curtains, tall cushy sofas, and a massive staircase.

It is not at all hard to see how the Empire wound up on Gossip Girl. Its design is so very, very Chuck Bass.

The site first showed up in the Season 3 episode of GG titled “The Lost Boy,” in the scene in which Chuck announces to his longtime girlfriend Blair Waldorf (Leighton Meester) that he has cashed in all of his Bass Industries stock in order to purchase the Empire.

The hotel’s next appearance on the series was in “How to Succeed in Business,” also from Season 3, in which Chuck opens a speakeasy on the premises.

The Empire then went on to be featured regularly in both establishing shots . . .

. . . and in various on-location shoots throughout the remainder of the series’ 6-season run.

The penthouse suite Chuck called home was just a set, though, located on a soundstage at Silvercup Studios East in Queens, where the show was lensed.

According to a January 2010 CNN Entertainment article, the Empire saw a 5-10% increase in bookings and a 50% increase in website traffic due to the filming – at a time when most hotels were experiencing a decrease in numbers. John A. Fox, a senior vice president at hospitality consulting group PKF, noticed the spike in bookings, but “had not thought to attribute it to the hotel’s guest appearance in a television show.” Um, hello! Thankfully, David Bowd, president of the hotels division of Amsterdam Hospitality, the company that owns the Empire, had more foresight. Of his reasoning behind the decision to allow filming on the premises, he said, “I think that teenagers can dictate where their parents stay over vacation and we saw a lot of that over the Thanksgiving holiday and into the bookings for Christmas and New Year’s.” Serious kudos to the Empire! So many hotels, restaurants, and businesses I’ve come across consider filming a nuisance and aren’t too keen on broadcasting their onscreen appearances, which I’ve never understood as cinematic stints can be such a massive draw for potential customers.

Gossip Girl is not the only production to have utilized the Empire. In the 2010 flick Sex and the City 2, the after-party for the premiere of Smith Jerrod’s (Jason Lewis) new movie is held in the property’s lobby, though the hotel is not mentioned by name. Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) simply describes the place as “the VIP room at the after-party.”

It is in the Lobby Bar that Carrie catches Mr. Big (Chris Noth) flirting with the Senior Vice President of the Bank of Madrid, Carmen Garcia Carrion (Penelope Cruz).

As its name suggests, the Lobby Bar is located in a tucked-away corner of the Empire’s lobby.

In the Season 1 episode of Power titled “Not Exactly How We Planned,” which aired in 2014, James ‘Ghost’ St. Patrick (Omari Hardwick) and Tommy Egan (Joseph Sikora) met with Felipe Lobos (Enrique Murciano) at the hotel.

The Empire masked as the Wooster Hotel, where SVU detectives Odafin Tutuola (Ice-T) and Dominick Carisi Jr. (Peter Scanavino) investigated the rape of aspiring Olympic pole vaulter Jenna Miller (Kim Morgan) in the Season 18 episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit titled “Heightened Emotions,” which aired in 2016.

The Empire was also supposedly featured in the Season 2 episode of The Equalizer titled “Solo,” which aired in 1987, but I could not find a copy of it anywhere to make screen captures for this post.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Empire Hotel, from Gossip Girl, is located at 44 West 63rd Street on New York’s Upper West Side. You can visit the hotel’s official website here.

August 30, 2017
The Cunningham House from “Happy Days”

I consider myself a seasoned stalker. I think most would agree. Somehow though, until last month, I had never stalked one of the most iconic homes in television history. I am talking about the Cunningham residence from Happy Days. I did not even realize my colossal blunder until I was contacted by The Meredith Vieira Show about using some of my photographs in a segment they were running called “Name That Hollywood Home” last spring. Producers were interested in utilizing a pic featured in my 2009 post about The Golden Girls pad, but also inquired if I had any images of the Cunningham dwelling. I was ashamed to admit that I didn’t and had never actually seen the place in person. I finally amended that situation last month while in L.A. for the weekend with the Grim Cheaper.

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On Happy Days, the Cunningham family – Marion (Marion Ross), Howard (Tom Bosley), Richie (Ron Howard), and Joanie (Erin Moran) – along with their friend/tenant Arthur ‘Fonzie’ Fonzarelli (Henry Winkler) were said to reside at 565 North Clinton Drive in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Their traditional two-story home can actually be found at 565 North Cahuenga Boulevard in Hancock Park, less than a mile from Paramount Pictures, where the series, which ran from 1974 to 1984, was lensed. (I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that there was actually a third Cunningham child named Chuck, portrayed by Irish actor Gavan O’Herlihy, who was unceremoniously written off the show after its inaugural season, never to be seen again.)

In reality, the Cahuenga Boulevard home, which was built in 1923, boasts 6 bedrooms, 2 baths, 3,904 square feet of living space, a 0.29-acre lot, and a swimming pool (which, per Bing’s Bird’s Eye view, appears to be dry). According to Zillow, the Colonial-style pad is currently worth a whopping $3 million! It last sold in February 1995 for $422,000, so the owners have made quite a profit on the place.

The property did not show up on Happy Days until the series’ third episode, titled “Richie’s Cup Runneth Over,” in the scene in which dancer Verna LaVerne (Louisa Moritz) drove a very drunk Richie home from a bachelor party (pictured below).

The house then went on to be featured regularly in establishing shots throughout the show’s ten-year, eleven-season run.

It is amazing to me how little the residence has changed since Happy Days first premiered more than 43 years ago. Aside from the addition of a railing on the exterior steps and the removal of the planter boxes lining the porch as well as the perimeter of the front yard, the place appears frozen in time from the days when the Cunninghams called it home.

Only the exterior of the Cahuenga pad was utilized on Happy Days. The interior of the Cunninghams’ house was a set built inside of Stage 19 at Paramount Pictures. Eagle-eyed viewers undoubtedly noticed that the set looked a bit different during Seasons 1 and 2 (pictured below) than it did during the rest of the series’ run.

Filming of Happy Days shifted from a single-camera setup with no audience to a three-camera setup with a live studio audience during Season 3 and the set had to be altered to accommodate that change. The altered Cunningham home interior featured during Seasons 3-11 is pictured below.

Though the Cahuenga Boulevard residence does boast a detached garage situated at the rear of the property, the scenes taking place in that area of the Cunningham pad were not shot on location at the actual house, but on a set re-creation built on Stage 19.

According to my buddy E.J.’s book Hollywood Death and Scandal Sites, actress Lupe Velez called the Cunningham residence home in the late ‘20s/early ‘30s while she was dating Gary Cooper, whose parents lived just five houses down at 529 North Cahuenga Boulevard. Supposedly, Cooper’s parents were wildly opposed to his love affair with the “Mexican Spitfire” and would walk by her dwelling on a nightly basis, peering in the windows to see what the two were up to. It wasn’t long before Lupe relocated to a more secluded spot at 1826 Laurel Canyon Boulevard in Hollywood Hills West.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Cunningham home from Happy Days is located at 565 North Cahuenga Boulevard in Hancock Park.

August 25, 2017
Brand Library from “Scorpion”

I am probably the only person you will ever hear say this, but I absolutely loved working as a background actor in Hollywood. Sure, the hours were long and unpredictable and the work tedious and repetitive, but the opportunities I was afforded to be up-close-and-personal with the inner workings of movie and television production were unparalleled. I reveled in observing everything from the rehearsal process to the stars’ make-up application to the Steadicam operators’ choreographed movements. I also got to learn about and was granted access to some fabulous and unique locales, one of which was the Brand Library & Art Center in Glendale. Though I lived in nearby Pasadena at the time, until I was hired as an extra for the movie Loaded in October 2006, I had never heard of the place, and was struck by its beauty and extraordinary architecture as soon as I arrived on set. For the shoot, the library was transformed into a college campus and my job was to mill about the property’s entrance and sprawling front lawn for a couple of scenes. While Loaded turned out to be an undeniable flop (even just scanning through it to make screen captures for this post was painful), Brand Library left an indelible impression on me. So when I spotted it while watching new fave show Scorpion recently, I figured it was high time I blog about the site.

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Brand Library was originally built as a private residence for Glendale developer Leslie Coombs Brand and his wife, Mary Louise, in 1904.

Known as El Miradero (Spanish for “the lookout”), the property was designed by Brand’s brother-in-law Nathaniel Dryden.

Modeled after the East Indian Pavilion from the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago (which you can see a photograph of here), Dryden employed Saracenic, Moorish and Indo-Islamic elements in his design.

Constructed at a cost of $60,000 (and we’re talking 1904 money!), the lavish 13-room, 5,000-square-foot property boasted towering scalloped archways, intricate beveled glass windows, shaded loggias, a pool, a tennis court, orange groves, a miniature lake, ponds and fountains, kennels for the family’s dogs, an airstrip, a conservatory, a sprawling palm tree-lined drive (pictured below), and even a private clubhouse complete with a bar and pool tables that was open to the local elite.

El Miradero was so opulent and palatial that locals began referring to it as “Brand’s Castle.”

When Leslie passed away in 1925, he deeded the manse, as well as the 488 acres surrounding it, to the city of Glendale with the decree that it should be turned into a library and public park. His one stipulation was that the city could not take over ownership of the property until his wife’s death.

Mary Louise continued to live on the premises for the next 20 years, until eventually passing away in a car accident on October 13th, 1945 while on vacation in Arizona. She was 74. The city of Glendale subsequently began transforming the Brand estate into a library. Not just any library, though. El Miradero was instead turned into a specialty art library, housing a collection of over 110,000 LPs, DVDs, art prints, books, and CDs. It opened to the public in 1956. Sadly, during the transformation, much of the residence’s original interior design, which was Victorian in style, was covered over or removed in order to make the site more functional as a municipal space.

A large gallery and 100-seat recital hall were added to the grounds in 1969, though they bear a much more modern look than El Miradero. (You can see the gallery and recital hall spaces to the left in both of my photos below.)

Thankfully, in 1998, a plan was approved to renovate the library and restore much of its original interior detailing. The project did not get underway until 2012, though, at which time the site closed for 2 years and underwent $10-million worth of work.

The results of the renovation are nothing short of spectacular. Though the exterior of Brand Library is striking, the restored interior is absolutely jaw-dropping. Visitors to the site now enter through the property’s former solarium, reportedly Leslie and Mary Louise’s favorite area of the home. All of El Miradero’s rooms are centered around the bright space, which during the Brands’ tenure was decorated with dark wood, a myriad of foliage, a fountain, and bird cages. You can see photographs of it from that time period here and here.

Just off the solarium is the couple’s former dining room. Painted in a rich blue, the space boasts a magnificent window seat with a carved wood frame. You can check out images of the room in its original form here and here.

El Miradero’s former library room is just as impressive, with an intricately painted ceiling and leaded glass windows. Pictures of it during the Brands’ day can be seen here and here.

From the library room, visitors step into what was originally the home’s reception hall, a grand space boasting a stone, brick and wood fireplace. You can check out photos of what it formerly looked like here and here.

Off the reception hall sits the Brands’ drawing room, which is decorated in soft blue tones and features a hand-painted ceiling. You can view an image of the room in its original state here.

As you can see in comparing the historic photos to my recent images, the restorers did an amazing job of bringing the property back to its original splendor. It honestly looks as if no time has passed since the Brands lived on the premises!

El Miradero’s impressive and unique architecture lends itself quite well to the screen.

In the Season 2 episode of Scorpion titled “Sun of a Gun,” the library played the role of President Desta Rahal’s (Hakeem Kae-Kazim) home in Bahari, North Africa.

Only the exterior of the building was used in the shoot. The interior of Desta’s palace was a mash-up of two different spots – a studio-built set . . .

. . . and the Moroccan Room at The Hollywood Athletic Club in Hollywood.

Scorpion is hardly the first production to feature the library. In fact, during the days that Brand lived on the premises, he rented the home out to film companies regularly, figuring the publicity generated by doing so was good for Glendale, the city he was in the process of developing. As such, El Miradero appeared in numerous silent movies including 1915’s Under the Crescent, 1920’s An Arabian Knight, 1925’s Webs of Steel, and 1919’s The Man Beneath (pictured below).

The site’s popularity as a filming locale only increased after it was turned into a library. In the Season 4 episode of The Six Million Dollar Man titled “The Thunderbird Connection,” which aired in 1976, the property masked as Price Hassad’s (Barry Miller) Burdabi palace.

Brand Library portrayed the Love Truth Temple, aka the headquarters of the cult that Page Connally (Heather Locklear) belonged to, in the Season 2 episode of The Fall Guy titled “Just a Small Circle of Friends,” which aired in 1983.

At the beginning of the 1988 comedy The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!, the library masqueraded as the Beirut palace where terrorists plotted to take down the U.S.

As I mentioned earlier, Brand Library was transformed into a college campus for Loaded. It popped up twice in the 2008 movie – first in the scene in which pre-law student Tristan Price (Jesse Metcalfe) and his friends hang out between class.

It then was featured in the scene in which drug dealer Sebastian (Corey Large) tries to befriend Tristan’s girlfriend, Brooke (Monica Keena).

I was an extra in both scenes, though you can only see me in the latter. There I am denoted with a yellow arrow in the screen cap below.

Brand Library also appeared in The Other Side of Midnight, but I could not find a copy of the 1977 flick anywhere to make screen captures for this post.

From what I have read online, the site also popped up in episodes of The X-Files, Alias, and Mission: Impossible, though I am unsure of which episodes specifically. If anyone happens to know, please fill me in.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Brand Library & Art Center, from the “Sun of a Gun” episode of Scorpion, is located at 1601 West Mountain Street in Glendale. The site is open to the public, but closed on Mondays, so plan accordingly.

August 21, 2017
Happy Trails Catering from “Big Little Lies”

UPDATE – Sadly, Happy Trails Catering is no longer open. The restaurant closed in 2018 and its beautiful garden currently sits vacant.

As you probably noticed, I was unexpectedly MIA for most of last week. My dad had an experimental five-day procedure done at a hospital in Orange County, so my family and I spent the week by his side. I fully intended to write new content while there, but the hospital Wi-Fi wasn’t really amenable to that. (What is it with hospital Wi-Fi, by the way? I’ve literally never encountered one even halfway decent!) But I am finally home and ready to get back to my regularly scheduled programming. So, on with the post! As someone who routinely plays tourist in my own town (wherever that happens to be), I counted myself an expert on Pasadena, the Southern California city I called home for more than 15 years. One spot that remained a secret to me for almost a decade, though, was Happy Trails Catering, a bucolic special events site/café/garden located in Old Town. My mom learned about the place while looking for L.A.-area wedding venues shortly after I got engaged in 2008 and, upon seeing photos of it online, told me we had to head out there pronto for a tour. I was dazzled at what awaited us! Situated just steps from the bustling sidewalk lining Fair Oaks Avenue, virtually hidden behind wooden entrance gates, is an absolutely charming garden positioned around a massive camphor tree. While I did not wind up choosing to tie the knot on the premises (the Grim Cheaper and I instead got married at our good friends’ house), Happy Trails made a definite impression. So it is quite surprising that I did not recognize the place upon sight when it popped up on Big Little Lies earlier this year. It wasn’t until the property’s third appearance on the HBO mini-series that I was actually able to identify it!

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Happy Trails Catering was originally founded in 1986.

As its name suggests, the company mainly operates as a catering business, run out of a small brick storefront.

Situated next to that storefront is the entrance to the property’s spectacular garden.

The pristine landscaped grounds serve as the company’s onsite special events venue.

Thankfully, you don’t have to be invited to a soiree on the premises to catch a glimpse of the peaceful idyll, though. Each weekday from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., the Happy Trails kitchen is transformed into a walk-up café open to the public.

Patrons can grab one of the eatery’s homemade soups, sandwiches, salads, or quiches . . .

. . . and head outside to enjoy it in the garden under the canopy of the camphor tree.

While Happy Trails is no-doubt one of the prettiest venues Pasadena has to offer . . .

. . . the site is just as well-known for its fare.

Though my mom and I didn’t sample any of Happy Trails’ offerings the day we toured the place, the GC and I stopped by the café recently for lunch and were thoroughly impressed. The Sage Roasted Turkey Breast Sandwich is honestly one of the best sandwiches I’ve ever had.

Happy Trails Catering, masking as the supposed Monterey-area Side Door Café, was featured three times during the first season of Big Little Lies. It first showed up in the episode titled “Serious Mothering” in the scene in which Celeste Wright (Nicole Kidman) and Madeline Martha Mackenzie (Reese Witherspoon) discuss their sex lives over cocktails, before being interrupted by their frenemy Renata Klein (Laura Dern).

The site was significantly dressed for the scene, with lounge areas, fire pits and outdoor heaters spaced throughout the garden, which is why I did not recognize it.

Happy Trails then popped up twice in the episode titled “Push Comes to Shove” – first as the restaurant where Madeline and her ex-husband, Nathan Carlson (James Tupper), meet to talk about co-parenting their teenage daughter, Abigail (Kathryn Newton). Though the property’s camphor tree was visible in the scene, I am ashamed to say that I still did not recognize the place!

Later in the episode, Jane Chapman (Shailene Woodley) meets up with Ms. Barnes (Virginia Kull) at the eatery to discuss whether or not her son, Ziggy (Iain Armitage), is bullying a fellow student. While watching the scene, I spotted Happy Trails’ rear barn doors behind the two women and placed them immediately. It was definitely a facepalm moment. I cannot believe it took three scenes for me to identify the locale!

The restaurant also makes an appearance in Big Little Lies Season 2 premiere titled “What Have They Done?” as the spot where Celeste and Jane talk about their complicated relationship.

It is not hard to see why Happy Trails was chosen to appear on Big Little Lies. The site has a very Carmel-ish feel to it. Per a Monterey County Weekly article, while filming Season 1 on the Central Coast, the BLL crew frequented Restaurant 1833 (which is now closed) and hoped to locate a similar spot in L.A. to stand in for it on the show. They found exactly what they were looking for in Happy Trails. As you can see in these images of the now defunct 1833, the two spaces bear a striking resemblance to each other. To me, though, Happy Trails is even more reminiscent of Hog’s Breath Inn, the iconic Carmel restaurant that was originally founded in 1972 by none other than Clint Eastwood. Fun fact – when the actor wanted to expand the eatery in 1986, he encountered quite a bit of bureaucratic red tape. He was so frustrated by the situation that he wound up running for mayor so that he could make some policy changes. His run was successful and Eastwood served as Carmel’s mayor for the next two years. Though he sold his interest in the Hog’s Breath Inn in 1999, the restaurant is still in operation today and looks much the same as it did during Clint’s tenure.

Sadly, the other main restaurant featured on Big Little Lies is not accessible to the public. Blue Blues, the supposed Fisherman’s Wharf café where Madeline, Jane and Celeste regularly hung out, was nothing more than a studio-built set located inside of a soundstage. Quite a bit of misinformation about the location seems to floating around online, though. Several sources state that Paluca Trattoria, located at 6 Old Fisherman’s Wharf, masked as Blue Blues on the series. Heck, even Paluca Trattoria’s official website makes that claim. While the restaurant is situated in the same area of the wharf that Blue Blue’s was purported to be, no actual filming took place there. Not only is it obvious when looking at images of Paluca Trattoria in comparison to screen captures of Blue Blues that the two places are not one and the same, but production designer John Paino confirmed the matter in a February 2017 New York Post article, stating “We made the whole thing on a stage, and the background is digitally dropped in.” It is not hard to see why audiences were fooled, though. The café does look incredibly realistic, as you can see below. You can read an in-depth post I wrote about Blue Blues here.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Happy Trails Catering, aka Side Door Café from Big Little Lies, is located at 207 South Fair Oaks Avenue in Pasadena. You can visit the eatery’s official website here. The café and garden are only open Monday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., so plan accordingly.

August 14, 2017
Scorpion Headquarters from “Scorpion”

The Grim Cheaper and I tend to get hooked on a new series every summer. Well, truth be told, we get hooked on new series all throughout the year (The Goldbergs, Veep, and Vanderpump Rules come to mind). But during the summer months, we typically pick out a new-to-us show and binge-watch it nightly to avoid dreaded reruns. In 2014, that show was Revenge. In 2015, Scandal. Last year, it was Suits. And this year, it’s Scorpion, the CBS procedural that focuses on a group of geniuses who aid Homeland Security in solving crimes. The series, said to be loosely based on the real life of software specialist Walter O’Brien (played by Elyes Gabel), can definitely be cheesy and the storylines completely over-the-top at times (you often have to reeeeeallllly suspend disbelief), but we love it. It is the quirky cast of characters – Toby Curtis (Eddie Kaye Thomas), Happy Quinn (Jadyn Wong), Sylvester Dodd (Ari Stidham), Paige Dineen (Katharine McPhee), Ralph Dineen (Riley B. Smith), Agent Cabe Gallo (Robert Patrick) and Walter – who keep us coming back. Not to mention, the show has got some serious heart. I tear up over pretty much every episode. So while in L.A. recently, I was all about stalking a few of its locations, namely the Team Scorpion headquarters.

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For those who haven’t watched Scorpion, I’ll let Walter explain the team and their unique dynamic via his narration from each episode’s intro – “My name is Walter O’Brien. I have the fourth highest IQ ever recorded – 197. Einstein’s was 160. When I was 11, the FBI arrested me for hacking NASA to get their blueprints for my bedroom wall. Now I run a team of geniuses tackling worldwide threats only we can solve. Toby’s our behaviorist, Sylvester’s a human calculator, Happy, a mechanical prodigy. Agent Cabe Gallo’s our government handler. And Paige? Well, Paige isn’t like us. She’s normal, and translates the world for us while we help her understand her genius son. Together we are Scorpion.” (And let’s not forget their pet ferret, Ferret Bueller, which has to be the greatest name ever!) Traditional office space would never suit such a nontraditional team, so the group instead heads to a large graffiti-covered brick warehouse for work each day.

That warehouse is located at 1935 Bay Street in downtown Los Angeles. I found the address thanks to Gary, from Seeing Stars, who has a page on his site dedicated to locations from the series’ early episodes.

As you can see below, Scorpion headquarters looks much the same in person as it does on TV.

The 13,260-square-foot warehouse was originally built in 1925.

It is not hard to see why the building was chosen to appear on Scorpion – its rich coloring, urban layout and industrial design translate extremely well to the screen.

While researching this post, I came across a quote from series creator Nick Santora about shooting in Southern California. He said, “CBS was very supportive of keeping this show in L.A. I imagined it in L.A. and wrote it in L.A., and it just stayed in L.A. I was constantly waiting for the phone call telling us, ‘Hey, let’s go scouting in Louisiana, New Mexico, and Toronto,’ but that call never came. I’m thrilled because though I’m a New Yorker through and through, there are parts of L.A. that are undershot and very interesting visually. L.A. is an old city, and there are old buildings here. There’s great architecture that gets beat down by 110 degree weather, and Santa Ana winds that have been whipping sand against it for a century now, and it just looks great on film. I wanted to try to tell a story in this town.” His quote perfectly encapsulates the warehouse. Though gritty, rough and covered in graffiti, it looks stunning through a camera lens.

I mean, look at it!

The building is just begging to be photographed.

I mean, that alley! Yaaaaaaas!

I want to frame pretty much every image I took of the place.

As is typical with most TV shows, a different location was used as the Team Scorpion warehouse in the pilot. It can be found at 2270 Jesse Street in Boyle Heights. A full view of the exterior of the site was never shown in the episode, oddly. In the early scene in which Walter arrives at work, though he parks in front of the warehouse, due to the camera angle, we only see the building located just to the east of it, at 653 South Anderson Street. You can see a matching shot via the Google Street View image below.

The episode also provided a brief glimpse of the warehouse’s entry doors, which can be seen below via Google Street View.

The interior of the Jesse Street warehouse was also utilized in the pilot as the inside of Scorpion headquarters. As you can see in these real life photographs of the interior, not much was changed for the shoot.

When Scorpion got picked up, the production set up shop at MBS Media Campus in Manhattan Beach, where the interior of the Jesse Street warehouse was very closely re-created on a soundstage.

The warehouse rooftop, where Team Scorpion often hangs out, can also be found at MBS Media Campus.

It is actually a temporary outdoor set constructed when needed on the top level of the studio’s large parking garage, in the area denoted with a red X below.

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

Big THANK YOU to Gary, from the Seeing Stars website, for finding this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Scorpion Headquarters from Scorpion is located at 1935 Bay Street in downtown Los Angeles. When visiting, please exercise caution as the site is not located in the best part of town. The headquarters building from the pilot episode can be found at 2270 Jesse Street in Boyle Heights. The warehouse rooftop is a set constructed on the top level of the MBS Media Campus parking garage at 1600 Rosecrans Avenue in Manhattan Beach.

August 7, 2017
The “Mama’s Family” Houses

I have dreamed of writing this post for so long! One of the locations I get asked about the most (I literally get emails and comments about it all the time!) is the house that portrayed Thelma Harper’s (Vicki Lawrence) residence during the first two seasons of Mama’s Family. For those who aren’t familiar with the series and its locales, three different dwellings were actually used to represent the Harper family home throughout the show’s six-year run. Two of them have long been well-documented online. I even blogged about the most recognizable of the three (pictured above) back in April 2009. The third, though, which was featured in the series’ original opening credits, as well as all Season 1 and 2 establishing shots, remained elusive. While I logged quite a few hours searching for it over the years, I never had any luck pinpointing it, largely due to the fact that the only video I could find of the initial opening was an extremely poor quality YouTube clip. Then, last week, I received a tweet from @RLXREI asking about the locale and I thought I should revisit the hunt. This time, luck was on my side. (As I mentioned in Monday’s post, the stalking gods have seriously been smiling down on me as of late.)

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The first thing I did this go round was look for a high quality version of the original opening and, lo and behold, found a fairly decent upload of the pilot episode on Dailymotion. Upon initially viewing the low quality credits, I believed Mama’s house was located in Los Angeles, most likely in Hancock Park and its environs. But as soon as I watched the higher-res version and saw the lack of fencing and general openness of Mama’s front yard, as well as of the neighboring residences, I knew that the property had to be somewhere outside of California. In a fortuitous move, I headed back over to the YouTube clip to see if any comments had been posted about the home. As it turns out, there were several – and my stomach caught in my throat when I saw that a user named “Kelly Frech” had responded to a query stating that she had grown up in one of the residences shown in the intro. Kelly was even kind enough to provide some location information, stating that filming took place on West 59th Street in Kansas City, Missouri.

Not knowing anything about Kansas City or where to begin searching on West 59th (which runs for miles!), I headed over to Google Maps, randomly dropped the little yellow Street View man into a spot on the road, and my mouth dropped. There, right before my eyes, was the Harper home! Though I had picked the spot arbitrarily, fate had led me right to the Mama’s Family house, which I am thrilled to finally be able to report is located at 18 West 59th Street in Kansas City, Missouri! Thank you, Kelly Frech! Amazingly, per the Street View imagery above and below, the residence looks exactly the same today as it did when Mama’s Family originally aired in 1983!

The other houses seen in the opening credits are located just up the road to the west.

Because Mama’s Family was lensed in L.A., cast and crew could not utilize the Kansas City house for on location shots. So they found a pad closer to home – at 675 South Oakland Avenue in Pasadena, to be exact – to stand in for it when called for in an episode. That house is pictured below. Oddly, it does not resemble the Missouri dwelling in the slightest, though it was typically only featured in tight shots, so not much of it was ever shown.

The Oakland Avenue residence appeared in a handful of Season 1 and 2 episodes, including “Mama Runs for Mayor: Part 1” (pictured above) and “Mama Buys a Car” (pictured below). In the latter, we get one of the only full shots of the home shown on the series.

Due to low ratings, Mama’s Family was cancelled in 1984, after a scant two seasons. That should have been the end of the story, but in an innovative move, producer Joe Hamilton decided to try reviving the series via first-run syndication two years later. The revamped show, complete with a new opening and a new Harper residence (pictured below), premiered on September 27th, 1986. It was a resounding success and went on to air 100 episodes over the course of four seasons before ending its series run in 1990.

The residence utilized during those final four seasons can be found at 1027 Montrose Avenue in South Pasadena.

Interestingly, Mama’s Family’s original opening was replaced with the new one in all of the Season 1 and 2 episodes that aired in syndication, which is why audiences are most familiar with the Montrose Avenue house and why many do not even realize that a different home was ever utilized.

The Montrose Ave. residence also appeared – or at least a portion of it did – as Lynda’s (P.J. Soles) home in the 1978 thriller Halloween. As you can see below, very little of the property was shown in the film.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The house featured in the first two seasons of Mama’s Family is located at 18 West 59th Street in Kansas City, Missouri. The residence used in on location filming during those seasons can be found at 675 South Oakland Avenue in Pasadena. And the property featured in Seasons 3 through 6 (as well as in all syndicated episodes) is at 1027 Montrose Avenue in South Pasadena.

August 4, 2017
The Campbell House from “Soap”

Something must be in the water, because this has been the most fortuitous week I’ve ever had when it comes to stalking. Over the course of the past few days, not only have three of my most-wanted locations been found, but I was even granted access to the interior of one and, remarkably, it still looks exactly the same despite the fact that 27 years have passed since filming took place! A post on that spot is coming soon. Today though, I’m covering the Campbell family residence from Soap, which I have been obsessively trying to track down ever since a reader named Andrew reminded me of the 1977 ABC series in early March. And this past Friday, track it down, I did!

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Thanks to the general look of the Campbell home and the exterior steps leading from the sidewalk to its front porch, I had a fairly solid hunch that it could be found in the Hancock Park/Windsor Square area. Adding to my certainty was the fact that the Tate mansion from the series is located in Hancock Park (511 South Muirfield Road to be exact) and productions often tend to stick to the same vicinity when it comes to shooting locales. So I began the search at 511 South Muirfield and worked my way outward. While I came across a lot of houses with an extremely similar look (like a ridiculous amount – 1524 South Victoria Avenue, 359 North Ridgewood Place, and 367 North Van Ness Avenue, just to name a few) none of them was an exact match to the spot that Burt Campbell (Richard Mulligan), Mary Campbell (Cathryn Damon), Chuck Campbell (Jay Johnson), Jodie Dallas (Billy Crystal), and Danny Dallas (Tedd Wass) called home.

So I decided to revisit my Soap DVDs to see if any episodes provided additional clues and was thrilled to discover some shots of the Campbell house which offered a glimpse of the neighboring property, along with its gambrel-style roof – a design element that is not very common in Los Angeles. Optimistic it was the key to pinpointing the locale, I started scouring aerial views in the Hancock Park area for a gambrel roofline and it was not long before I came across one at 344 North Van Ness Avenue in Larchmont. When I dropped Google’s little yellow man down into Street View, I saw what I was fairly certain was the Campbell house next door at 338 North Van Ness! As it turns out, the place is located just 1.6 miles from the Tate mansion.

Besides the obvious matching facades and gambrel-roofed neighbor, I pinpointed a few additional elements of the Campbell home that lined up with the Van Ness dwelling. Both properties have seven steps leading from the sidewalk to the front porch. Also, the driveway of the Campbell house is located on its left hand side, while its neighbor’s driveway is located just to its right. The driveway schematic is the same at the Van Ness pad.

Though it is just barely visible in the screen capture below, the front porch portico of the Campbell home has crisscrossing woodwork on its lower half. The portico of the Van Ness residence also bears the same design.

And on the frame of the Campbell pad’s front door, a three-digit address number is visible. While the numbers are too blurry to make out, the fact that there are three digits parallels the address of the Van Ness home.

Though many elements of the property line up, there was no smoking gun, no definitive feature that told me it was definitely the right spot. And because there are SO many similar homes in the area, I was not 100% sure of my find – especially considering the fact that the neighboring residence with the gambrel roof was not at all visible on Street View due to a massive amount of foliage, so I could not compare it to my screen shots. Also casting doubt on my find was the driveway of the Van Ness home. On Soap, the Campbell driveway was flush with the front lawn, but the driveway of the Van Ness residence is graded. So I called on my friends/fellow stalkers Michael (you may remember him from his many guest posts) and Owen (from the When Write Is Wrong blog) for their opinions. They both wrote back telling me they thought I had the right spot. As Michael pointed out, not only do the trees that flank both homes’ front yards greatly resemble each other . . .

. . . but the angled lawn lining the curb of the driveway of the Campbells’ neighbor’s home matches that of the neighboring home on Van Ness.

Owen mentioned the front yard trees, as well, and also brought up the matching crenelated roof eaves and notches located at the top of the portico posts, all of which gave me 99.9% certainty that we had the correct locale.

Then, while stalking the home this past Sunday afternoon, I found my smoking gun! During my Soap scanning earlier in the week, I had noticed some sort of metal bar situated at the bottom of the windowpane next to the Campbells’ front door. I wasn’t sure what the bar was, but thought it looked a lot like a mail slot (though it seemed to be a rather odd place for one being so close to the ground). Well, I just about fell over when I arrived at the Van Ness residence and my eyes zeroed in on a metal bar in the exact same spot! As it turns out, it is a mail slot! Bingo!

I was also able to catch a glimpse of the neighboring home with the gambrel roof. Unfortunately, short of actually walking up the driveway, the photograph below is the best shot I could take of the the property’s side. As you can see, the roofline, the half-circle window just below it, the two rectangular windows on the second floor, the first floor overhang, and the lower level windows all match what was seen on Soap. Again, bingo!

A more close-up view of the house next door is pictured below.

I also noticed that the driveway of the Van Ness home had been completely redone since filming took place – it is now comprised of stone instead of cement – which makes the grading of it all the more plausible.

In real life, the Campbell home was originally built in 1920 and boasts 4 bedrooms, 3 baths, and 2,636 square feet of living space.

Only the exterior of it was utilized on Soap. The interior of the Campbell residence was a set built on a soundstage at Sunset Gower Studios, where the series was lensed.

I cannot express how exciting it was to finally be standing in front of the Campbell house and to see a place so ingrained in my childhood memories come to life.

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

Big THANK YOU to my friends/fellow stalkers Michael (aka guest poster extraordinaire) and Owen (from the When Write Is Wrong blog) for their help in verifying this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Campbell family home from Soap is located at 338 North Van Ness Avenue in Larchmont.

August 2, 2017
Carrie and Big’s Penthouse from the “Sex and the City” Movie

I know I am in the minority when I say that I like the 2008 Sex and the City movie. Was it the greatest flick ever? No. But I did enjoy it. Seeing it was like being with old friends again, friends I’d missed ever since the HBO television series went off the air in early 2004. The more I watch it, the more it grows on me. Though, again, I know I am in the minority. One aspect of the movie that audiences did pretty much unanimously adore was the exquisite penthouse apartment that Mr. Big (Chris Noth) purchased for longtime girlfriend Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker). So last April, while visiting New York, I, of course, was all about stalking the Ziegler House, which was used for interior shots of the penthouse. And, oh, what an interior it was!

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Before I get to the Ziegler House, though, I thought I should mention 1010 Fifth Avenue, the Upper East Side building that served as the exterior of Carrie and Big’s penthouse. I covered the property in a brief post back in 2008, but, in the interest of being thorough, figured it would be appropriate to detail it once again here.

The 15-story prewar building was designed by real estate developer Frederick Fillmore French in 1928.

The Italian Renaissance-style property, which was converted to a co-op in 1979, looks much the same in person as it did onscreen.

Located across the street from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the tony site is just the type of place I’d picture Mr. Big calling home. You can check out what a unit in the building looks like here.

1010 Fifth Avenue is also where Chuck Rhoades, Sr. (Jeffrey DeMunn) lives on the Showtime series Billions, though, as you can see below, the address is changed to “10101 Fifth Avenue” for filming.

Now back to the penthouse interior! As soon as Carrie and Big step over the threshold of 1010 Fifth, they are standing in the Ziegler House, located about 20 blocks south at 2 East 63rd Street. I first learned of the locale thanks to a reader named Allie, who wrote a comment on my 2008 post tipping me off about where the inside shots were lensed.

The historic residence was originally built in 1921 for William Ziegler, Jr., heir to the Royal Baking Powder Company fortune.

Designed by architect Frederick Sterner, the ornate 4-story, 75-foot wide pad is laid out with all of the rooms surrounding a central brick courtyard with a fountain. Along with said courtyard, the property boasts a grand entrance hall, two rear gardens, a library, a 25-foot by 40-foot living room, a formal dining room, a servants’ dining room, a massive kitchen that almost looks to be commercial-grade, two master suites (each with its own dressing room), and fireplaces galore. You can see some interior photos of the place here.

For whatever reason, Ziegler and his then wife, Gladys, only lived in the home for a year before moving out and putting it up for sale in 1925. The dwelling finally sold in 1929 to Norman Bailey Woolworth, of Woolworth five-and-dime fame. He owned the property for the next two decades before donating it to The New York Academy of Sciences, a scientific society that was originally founded in 1817.

NYAS put the house on the market in 2001 and it sold four years later to billionaire financier Leonard Blavatnik for $31.25 million. Blavatnik never moved in, though. Instead, the site, which today goes by the name “Academy Mansion,” is mainly used as a special events venue and for filming. While I really wish I could have taken a peek at the property’s stunning interior, I have to admit that the exterior is nothing to shake a stick at.

Seriously, the photo below looks like a postcard!

The Ziegler House popped up twice in Sex and the City. It first appeared in the beginning of the movie in the scene in which Carrie and Big go apartment-hunting with their real estate agent at 1010 Fifth. Sadly, the wrought iron and glass doors that Carrie and Big walk through in the scene cannot be seen from outside. You can check out a photo of them here, though.

The doors are actually located inside the home, behind the massive wooden entry doors pictured below.

In the scene, the Ziegler House’s palatial entrance hall masked as the lobby of 1010 Fifth. You can see a photo of what the entry hall looks like in real life here.

The elevator situated at the rear of the lobby was faked for the movie. In actuality, there is a doorway located in that area, as you can see here and here.

That doorway leads to the Ziegler House’s stunning living room, which actually looks more like a grand ballroom. It is that room that Carrie first sees upon entering the penthouse, causing her to exclaim, “Oh my God, I have died and gone to real estate heaven!” You can check out some pictures of the living room here, here, and here.

Carrie is next shown the penthouse’s rooftop terrace. In actuality, that space is the Ziegler House’s central courtyard and it is located on the ground floor of the property, not on the roof. You can see an image of it here.

The penthouse’s master bedroom was just a set built on a soundstage at Silvercup Studios in Queens, where much of the movie – and the television series – was lensed. You can check out images of the real Ziegler House bedrooms here, here, here, and here.

The Ziegler House was also utilized in the scene at the end of the movie in which Carrie returns to the penthouse to retrieve her never-been-worn $525 Manolos.

Though Carrie and Big have sold the penthouse by that point and broken up, when she sees him standing in the closet he built for her, all is forgiven, the two embrace, and Big gets down on one knee to propose. Heartbreakingly, Carrie’s spectacular custom closet was just a set. You can see what the Ziegler House’s dressing rooms look like here, here, and here. They’re not too shabby, either!

On a side-note – I actually have a version of the Timmy Woods Eiffel Tower purse that Carrie, ahem, carried in the scene in which she and Big first toured the penthouse! A dear and incredibly thoughtful friend named Marie gifted it to me for my birthday last year. I didn’t have it at the time I stalked the Ziegler House, sadly, otherwise I so would have posed with it outside!

The Ziegler House has been utilized in a couple of other productions besides Sex and the City. In the Season 2 episode of White Collar titled “Point Blank,” which aired in 2010, the property masqueraded as the Russian Heritage Museum.

For the shoot, the Ziegler House’s living room, aka Carrie’s piece of real estate heaven, was dressed as a gallery and looked considerably different than it did in SATC.

“Point Blank” also gave us a great view of the property’s terrace.

In the Season 2 episode of Person of Interest titled “Masquerade,” which aired in 2012, the Ziegler House portrayed New York’s Brazilian Consulate.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The exterior of Carrie and Big’s penthouse from the Sex and the City movie is located at 1010 Fifth Avenue on New York’s Upper East Side. The film featured the building’s canopied main entrance, which can be found around the corner on East 82nd Street. The interior of Carrie and Big’s penthouse, aka the Ziegler House, aka Academy Mansion, is located at 2 East 63rd Street, also on New York’s Upper East Side.

July 31, 2017
Frank and Claire’s Townhouse from “House of Cards”

It is a rare occasion for me to lay eyes on a Hollywood-designed set and not immediately want to move in. But such was the case with the townhouse belonging to Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey) and his wife, Claire (Robin Wright), on the Netflix series House of Cards. While I love the handsome brick exterior of the politico couple’s pad (who wouldn’t?), the inside is just a bit too cold and a bit too stark for my tastes. Though undeniably beautiful, Frank and Claire’s décor and furnishings look like something straight out of a magazine – not lived in, very impersonal, and all sleek, shiny and straight lines. The aura the home gives off is a huge testament to the talent of the House of Cards set designers because cold, stark, sleek and shiny are characteristics that perfectly describe Claire and Frank. The townhouse is an exacting reflection of its occupants and, as such, is one of the series’ most notable locations, despite only being featured in two out of five seasons. So it was, of course, on my list of spots to stalk while I was in Baltimore, where House of Cards is mainly lensed, last fall.

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Said to be located at 1609 Far Street NW in Washington, D.C. on the series, in real life, Frank and Claire’s townhouse can be found at 1609 Park Avenue in Baltimore’s Bolton Hill neighborhood.

The 4,600-square-foot, 4-level dwelling features 4 bedrooms, 5 fireplaces (though this article mentions 6 bedrooms and 7 fireplaces, so I am unsure which figures are correct), 3 baths, 12-foot-high ceilings, pine flooring, a rear patio, a 2-car garage with a rooftop deck, a 3-story lightwell, and dual staircases.

Originally built in 1880, the 20-foot-wide townhouse had not only been transformed into a 3-unit apartment building, but had also fallen into serious disrepair by the time Jeff and Norma Epstein purchased it in 1995. The couple spent the next two years restoring it back to its original grandeur, with Jeff, a licensed contractor, doing most of the work himself.

Though the remodel was a labor of love for the couple, they recently decided to move out of state and put the residence up for auction last month with a starting price of $500,000. There do not appear to have been any takers, though, and it looks like the home is now on the market for $824,900.

The townhouse is located in a gorgeous neighborhood . . .

. . . situated directly across from a median that has been fashioned into a park, complete with a sparkling fountain.

The scenery looks like it was taken straight out of the opening credits of Friends.

It took all I had not to jump in the fountain and start dancing.

The townhouse was only utilized during the first and second seasons of House of Cards. By the end of Season 2, Frank and Claire had upgraded their digs by (spoiler alert!) moving into the White House upon Frank taking over the presidency. (When Season 3 began airing, HotPads humorously ran a fictional article about the Underwood residence being available for rent.) Surprisingly, the townhouse’s exterior was rarely shown on the series . . .

. . . and when it was, it was typically in dark, nighttime shots, so not much of it was ever seen onscreen.

The interior, however, which was just a set located at the Joppa, Maryland warehouse where the series is lensed, was featured regularly. Production designers are said to have modeled the set after the actual inside of the Bolton Hill townhome, but as the property’s MLS photos attest to, said interior is staggeringly different from its onscreen counterpart. Most notably, the inside of the actual home is much smaller and much less ornate than Frank and Claire’s residence. For this post, I thought it would be fun to do a little set vs. real life house tour, so here goes! We’ll start with the entrance hall. Though both boast wood embellishments, the Underwood’s hallway is more grand and quite a bit wider than the hallway of the actual home.

A view of the respective entrance halls from the opposite direction is pictured below.

Aside from similar fireplaces, the two living rooms don’t resemble each other at all.

As you can see below, the Underwood living room is much wider than that of the actual townhome.

The same is true of the dining rooms – the set dining room is much wider than the real life residence’s dining room.

Though both boast a white color scheme, the Underwoods’ kitchen is much larger and much more modern than that of the actual townhome.

Another major difference – while the Underwoods’ kitchen is located on the main level of their house, the kitchen of the real life property is, oddly, situated in the basement.

Though the Underwoods do have a basement, it is only semi-finished and, as you can see, looks nothing like the townhome’s actual basement.

Claire and Frank’s master bedroom is much more subdued than its real life counterpart, though, once again, the fireplaces are very similar.

The Underwoods’ patio, one of my favorite aspects of the property, is covered with picturesque foliage and enclosed by a large stucco wall. The actual patio is much less lush and is instead enclosed by a wooden fence, giving it a very different look, though the window and door are similar to those of the set.

Sadly, Frank and Claire’s dining room “smoking window,” which was situated next to the fireplace in the set’s dining room, is nowhere to be found in real life.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Frank and Claire’s townhouse from House of Cards is located at 1609 Park Avenue in Baltimore’s Bolton Hill neighborhood.

July 19, 2017
Freddy’s BBQ Joint from “House of Cards”

I have never been a fan of dark TV shows or movies. Surprising, I know, considering my love for true crime and all podcasts, documentaries and news stories related to the subject. But when it comes to fictional TV and movie watching, I prefer a much lighter fare. One exception to this rule is House of Cards, which the Grim Cheaper and I got really into a couple of summers ago. The Netflix original series is undeniably dark and exceptionally heavy, but the smart writing, incredible acting, and biting political storylines sucked us right in. Another draw is the myriad of dynamic characters, my favorite of which [aside from Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey) – his Southern drawl is fabulous, and that ring knock!] is easily Freddy Hayes (Reg E. Cathey), proprietor of Freddy’s BBQ Joint, the hole-in-the-wall rib restaurant Frank regularly frequents. Not only is Freddy’s advice uniquely sage and storytelling top-notch, but his friendship with Frank is just so endearing. So, last summer, when I found out we were heading to Baltimore, where House of Cards is largely lensed, I told the Grim Cheaper there was no way we were leaving town without stalking Freddy’s – or the storefront used to represent it, I should say.

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Though I knew that Freddy’s BBQ Joint was obviously not a real spot, I figured that the production utilized an actual restaurant of some sort to shoot the scenes taking place there. Sadly, that is not the case. Freddy’s is a completely fictional eatery created by the House of Cards crew at a vacant space on Greenmount Avenue in Baltimore’s Better Waverly neighborhood – a fact I gleaned from this Mix 106.5 article while preparing for my trip. Despite my disappointment over learning the news, I was still absolutely thrilled to see the site in person.

Freddy’s BBQ Joint first popped up in the House of Cards pilot, titled “Chapter 1.” In the episode, Frank makes an early pit stop at the restaurant and, in one of his superb asides, explains, “My one guilty pleasure is a good rack of ribs, even at 7:30 in the morning. I have the whole place to myself. Freddy sometimes opens up just for me. Where I come from in South Carolina, people didn’t have two pennies to rub together. A rack of ribs is a luxury, like Christmas in July.”

Freddy’s goes on to appear regularly on the series, becoming one of its most notable locations.

Well, throughout the first two years, anyway. Towards the end of Season 2, in the episode titled “Chapter 22,” Freddy is (spoiler alert!) caught in the middle of Frank’s political schemings and is forced to sell his restaurant.

In person, the rundown storefront used to portray Freddy’s BBQ Joint looks much the same as it does onscreen.

The Freddy’s signage is missing, of course, but otherwise the site appears as if it jumped right off of the television screen.

I absolutely love that the place’s weathered look is authentic and not a design element fabricated by the House of Cards crew.

I was especially obsessed with the storefront’s tarnished roof eave.

In the House of Cards pilot, Frank does not venture inside Freddy’s, but instead chooses to eat on the restaurant’s side patio.

He mainly dines indoors in the episodes that follow, though.

Mahmut Nazli, owner of the Greenmount Avenue storefront, told the Independent in 2014 that the House of Cards crew re-designed his shop in preparation for filming, installing walls and shelving, which alludes to the fact that the interior was used in the production. Several other articles I’ve come across, though (like this one and this one), stipulate that the inside of Freddy’s BBQ Joint was a set built at the 300,000-square-foot Joppa, Maryland warehouse-turned-soundstage where the series is lensed.

Of the crew’s re-design, Nazli went on to say, “They were supposed to change it back, but I asked them not to,” which leads me to wonder if maybe a couple of House of Cards’ early episodes were shot on location inside of the actual Greenmount storefront and then a set modeled after the site’s interior was eventually built at the Joppa warehouse. I scanned through all of the episodes featuring Freddy’s, though, and never noticed any changes or discernable differences to the interior that would point to a change in filming venues. So I am unsure on this one.

Per the Independent article, the Greenmount Avenue space has previously served as a fried chicken restaurant, a book store, and a community center over the years, though Google Street View shows it as being vacant since at least 2007.

Nazli put the storefront up for sale in 2014 for $119,000, but, despite the locale’s onscreen fame, it does not appear as if there were any takers.

In this fabulous 2014 TODAY article, Reg. E Cathey talks about House of Cards and the Freddy’s BBQ Joint site, stating, “I’ve shot three projects in that same neighborhood, even that same corner.” Though he mentions Homicide: Life on the Street, The Corner and The Wire, because I have never seen any of those productions, I am unsure which of the three were lensed in the vicinity of Freddy’s, nor could I find any information online about filming on that same block of Greenmount Avenue, unfortunately.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The vacant storefront that masks as Freddy’s BBQ Joint on House of Cards is located at 2601 Greenmount Avenue in Baltimore.

July 17, 2017