Category: TV Locations

Kent’s House from “Wicked City”

I cannot express how disappointed I am that ABC cancelled Wicked City. I’ll admit that I was not very impressed with the series’ pilot episode, but I think that was mainly due to the fact that it was rather jarring to see Ed Westwick (one of my absolute faves!) portraying a serial killer. The second episode had me hooked, though, and by episode three I was full-blown obsessed. So it was quite a blow when the show was cancelled just three days after that episode aired. And while ABC has said that the remaining five episodes that have yet to be broadcast will soon be available via streaming, so far that has yet to happen, which has me heartbroken that there might not be any sort of resolution to the show’s core mystery. The cancellation did not stop me from hunting down locations from the series, though. A couple of weeks ago on LAmag.com, I blogged about the Whisky a Go Go, which made several appearances on Wicked City. In the article, I mentioned some other locales featured on the show, but at the time I had yet to track down a few key spots, one of which was the Spanish-style home belonging to Kent Galloway (Westwick).

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I spent a ridiculous amount of time scouring film location databases looking for Kent’s home and, just as I was reaching my wits’ end, decided to call in the Grim Cheaper to ask for his thoughts. I happened to show him a scene from the second episode, which is titled “Runnin’ with the Devil,” and he noticed that a large wall was located across the street from Kent’s residence. He presumed it to be part of a studio and told me to search the neighborhoods surrounding The Walt Disney Studios.

Sure enough, I found the house within seconds, exactly where he said it would be! Sometimes I think he’s better at this stalking stuff than I am! Thank you, GC!

I was so intent on finding the locale not only because I am such a huge fan of Ed Westwick and Wicked City, but also because I just love the look of the place. The residence is picturesque, homey and a perfect representation of the Los Angeles bungalow.

In person it did not disappoint.

Though Zillow states that the property, which was built in 1940, measures one bedroom, one bath, and 1,551 square feet, it looks to be much larger from the outside.

The setting is also quite beautiful. The residence is situated on a 0.21-acre corner plot of land that almost looks like a park.

The house appeared in the first two episodes of Wicked City. I’m sure it was also utilized in the five unaired episodes that were shot prior to the cancellation, as well.

As you can see below, it looks much the same in person as it did onscreen, though it appears that a lot of foliage was brought in for the shoot.

I fell in love with the iron adornment on the front door while watching the pilot and was floored to see that it is an actual feature of the house.

I am fairly certain that the real life interior of the home was used in the filming of the pilot episode.

Unfortunately, I could not find any interior photographs of the place with which to verify that hunch.

The inside of Kent’s residence also made a brief appearance in the third episode of Wicked City, which is titled “Should I Stay or Should I Go,” but I am pretty certain that a set was used for that scene.

Interestingly, in the Google Street View imagery of the house, a film crew is visible shooting some sort of production in one of the neighboring residences.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Kent’s house from Wicked City is located at 2023 West Parkside Avenue in Burbank.

November 30, 2015
The Pasadena Main Branch of Bank of the West from “Falcon Crest”

For years now, I have been trying to track down the bank where Terry Dolittle (Whoopi Goldberg) worked in the 1986 comedy Jumpin’ Jack Flash. It is one of those locations that always sits fixed at the back of my mind, images of it constantly floating around in my head. So when I came across photographs of the Pasadena Main Branch of Bank of the West, which bears a striking resemble to the bank where Terry worked, on a Noirish Los Angeles forum, my heart caught in my throat! I was on vacation at the time and, unfortunately, did not have my Jumpin’ Jack Flash DVD on hand to make comparisons, but was fairly certain I had found the right spot. My parade was rained on as soon as I got home, though, when I popped in my DVD and fairly quickly realized the two banks were not one and the same. I decided to stalk Bank of the West anyway in the hopes that researching it might help me to eventually locate the Jumpin’ Jack Flash bank. So far, my quest has not been fruitful. Hence this post. I am now putting it out there to my fellow stalkers. If any of you happen to recognize the place or want to get in on the hunt, please let me know!

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In the Noirish Los Angeles thread, a commenter named T.J.P. had asked for help in identifying a bank that had appeared in the Season 6 episode of Falcon Crest titled “Perilous Charm” (screen captures from the episode, in which the property masked as San Francisco Merchant Bank, are pictured below). Forum member Tovangar2 quickly recognized the place as the former First Trust Bank Building, now Bank of the West, located at 587 East Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena. Another commenter named HossC then posted a link to photos of the interior of the building and it was those photos that had me so intrigued.

In Jumpin’ Jack Flash, Terry works at First National Bank in Manhattan. Now, I should start off by saying that I am unsure if the bank used in the movie is in New York or Los Angeles, being that filming took place in both cities. I am leaning towards L.A., though – at least for the interior scenes. I am also leaning towards the idea that two different locations might have been utilized as Terry’s bank – one for exteriors and another for interiors. But that is just a guess. Sadly, with this one, I am just not sure about anything.

While I am fairly certain that the bullpen where Terry worked was a set (as evidenced by the fact that it got shot up at the end of the movie) . . .

. . . I believe that the interior of First National Bank is a real location.

The photo of Bank of the West that HossC posted that originally caught my eye was of a large stone staircase, one that I thought was a match to the staircase shown in Jumpin’ Jack Flash. Upon closer inspection, though, I realized the two had some differences. I am not used to seeing staircases in banks, so the one featured in JJF always stuck out to me. What I wouldn’t give to see it in person! If it, or the interior of the bank looks familiar to anyone, please let me know!

In the meantime, the Pasadena Main Branch of Bank of the West is a pretty spectacular property in and of itself. The eight-story Italian Renaissance-style building, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, was designed in 1927 by architects Cyril Bennett and Fitch Haskell.

While the cast stone and stucco exterior makes for a stately and imposing site, it belies nothing of the bank’s stunning interior. The inside of the building is marked by tall walnut wood paneling, travertine walls, and towering stone columns. The gorgeous gilt coffered ceiling was painted by John Smeraldi, the same artist who painted much of the interior of the Millennium Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. The Sicilian-born painter, who is likewise known for his work at the Vatican and The White House, is so synonymous with the Biltmore, in fact, that the property named its signature restaurant “Smeraldi’s” in his honor. Bank of the West also boasts four murals created by American Impressionist painter Alson S. Clark. Because the property is a working bank, I felt a little odd about taking photographs of the interior, but if you are in the area, I highly recommend stopping by for a peek. It is absolutely gorgeous!

Besides being featured in Falcon Crest, Bank of the West also appeared in the pilot episode of Undercovers as the bank where Samantha (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) and Steven Bloom (Boris Kodjoe) attempted to steal security footage. I apologize for the subpar screen captures pictured below – I could not find a copy of the episode anywhere and had to take snaps from a preview of it on YouTube.

The super-nice teller that I spoke with while I was stalking the place informed me that a movie starring John Travolta was also lensed on the premises about twenty years ago, but she was unsure of the name of the film or what it was about.

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 Pasadena Main Branch of Bank of the West, from the “Law and Ardor” episode of Falcon Crest, is located at 587 East Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena.

November 13, 2015
The Daily Dose Café from “Scandal”

UPDATE – After closing and then reopening briefly as Café Société in 2018, this spot shuttered for good early last year. It currently remains vacant.

There’s pretty much nothing I love more than a cool coffee house. So when Cupcakes and Cashmere blogger Emily Schuman wrote about the Daily Dose Café, a downtown Los Angeles coffee shop “nestled between two large industrial buildings” that feels like “your own secret spot” this past August, I was mesmerized! I happened to be in the area when I read the post and ran right out to stalk it just a few minutes later. Emily’s description of the place was spot on and I fell in love with it on sight. I still consider the Daily Dose Café one of the coolest coffee shops I have ever visited. So when it popped up in the Season 5 episode of Scandal titled “Dog-Whistle Politics” a couple of weeks ago, I was floored! And while I had written about the café in My Guide to L.A. – Coffee article in August, I decided it was worthy of its own post. So here goes.

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The Daily Dose Café was founded by a real estate developer named Sarkis Vartanian, who became inspired to establish an “honest food” eatery after receiving a reality check from his doctor. Sarkis had been living on a fast food diet, was feeling crappy most of the time, and, when his doctor informed him that his unhealthy ways were taking a toll on his physical well-being, decided to make a major life change. What better way to do so than by setting up his own organic restaurant? Vartanian soon quit his real estate job and, along with partner/executive chef Christian Page, opened the Daily Dose Café in August 2011.

The tiny restaurant is situated in a small alley that sits tucked in between two non-descript buildings.

So tucked and so non-descript, in fact, that you could easily walk right by it without realizing it was there.

But what lies beyond the clandestine entry is nothing short of magical!

Vartanian set out to create a European-style coffee shop in the heart of downtown L.A. and it took a full two years for his vision to come to fruition.

One look at the space and it is not very hard to see why. Every square inch of it is teeming with charm, warmth and romance. With its canopy of strung Edison lights, towering shrub-covered walls, cobblestone flooring, and reclaimed wood furnishings, the Daily Dose Café evokes all the beauty and allure of a Parisian garden.

The Daily Dose Café also boasts an indoor space, but it was jam-packed while we were there, so I did not snap any photos of it – outside of the mugs on display, that is, which I fell in love with.

The eatery, which serves breakfast, lunch and dinner, as well as a wide array of coffee drinks and fresh juices, is well-known for its organically grown non-GMO food offerings. While the meals I saw being served looked uh-ma-zing, the Grim Cheaper and I only partook of some java while we were there. And I have to say I was quite impressed! The iced latte I ordered was easily one of the best I have ever tasted.

In “Dog-Whistle Politics,” the Daily Dose Café stood in for the Café Graisseux (translation Greasy Coffee Shop) in Paris, where Jake Ballard (Scott Foley) and Charlie (George Newbern) waited for a contact.

Not only was the space dressed heavily for the shoot, but Parisian buildings were digitally added to the background in post-production, making the restaurant virtually unrecognizable.

I identified it immediately, though, thanks to the canopy of Edison bulbs visible throughout the scene.

The Daily Dose Café has appeared onscreen several times throughout the years. In the Season 3 episode of Revenge titled “Endurance,” which aired in 2014, the exterior of the eatery is briefly shown as the spot where Conrad Grayson (Henry Czerny) pays Jess (Nazneen Contractor) for a sneak peek at an upcoming issue of Voulez magazine.

Later that same season, in the episode titled “Impetus,” Margaux LeMarchal (Karine Vanasse) talks to Daniel Grayson (Josh Bowman) about the death of her father while standing outside of the Daily Dose Café, though virtually none of the restaurant is visible in the scene.

In the Season 1 episode of CSI: Cyber titled “Fire Code,” which aired in 2015, the Daily Dose Café masks as the Washington, D.C.-area coffee shop where Elijah Mundo (James Van Der Beek) asks his estranged wife, Devon Atwood (Alexie Gilmore), for another chance.

In the Season 6 episode of Rizzoli & Isles titled “Scared to Death,” it played the role of the Boston, Massachusetts-area cafe where Nina Holiday (Idara Victor) interviewed a hacking victim.

And it is the New York alley Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) runs down in order to escape Candace Stone (Ambyr Childers) in the first episode of the second season of the Netflix series You, titled “A Fresh Start.”

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 Daily Dose Café, from the “Dog-Whistle Politics” episode of Scandal, is located at 1820 Industrial Street in downtown Los Angeles’ Arts District. It is currently closed.

November 11, 2015
New “L.A.” Mag Post – The “Hot to Get Away with Murder” Castle

Don’t forget to read today’s Scene it Before post for Los Angeles magazine. It’s about the castle that has been featured this season on How to Get Away with Murder. My articles typically get published in the early afternoon hours.

November 5, 2015
The Golden Spoon Cafe from “The Brady Bunch”

My best friend, Robin, is currently in town with his girlfriend for a week visiting from Switzerland, so I will not be blogging about this year’s Halloween activities until next Tuesday. I will also be taking most of this week off, though I will, as always, have an article on Los Angeles magazine on Thursday. Today, we have a very special guest post written by my friend, fellow stalker Michael, who lives in Minnesota. Michael and I first connected a couple of years ago when he wrote to ask for help researching a location. Michael and I started corresponding regularly and he has helped me track down several locales, namely Haskell’s Ice Cream Hut from The Brady Bunch and the Griffith Park spots featured in both the opening credits of Full House and the Girls Just Want to Have Fun dance montage. (He also recently helped me find another GJWTHF location, but that’s a different story for a different post.) Through our correspondence, I came to admire Michael’s tenacity in getting things right when it comes to filming locations. He is as tenacious and fastidious as I am about reporting the truth and his researching skills are like nothing I have ever seen. So when he informed me of his quest to right an incorrect locale from The Brady Bunch that had been reported on a few websites, I told him I would be happy to help in any way I could. Turns out he didn’t need much assistance from me. Michael was able to figure things out on his own and the story behind his quest is pretty incredible. I am so glad he was willing to share it here. So Michael, take it away!

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When I was in elementary school, I would watch reruns of The Brady Bunch every day when I got home, and thanks to its healthy dose of establishing shots, it’s one of the first shows that got me curious about filming locations. Consequently, I’ve always gotten a certain nostalgic satisfaction tracking down and seeing locations that I’ve been familiar with since I was little. For those—unlike me—who escaped childhood without the compete works of Sherwood Schwartz engrained in their brains, in the fourth season episode of The Brady Bunch, titled “Goodbye, Alice, Hello,” Alice quits when the Brady Kids start giving her the cold shoulder after they believe she tattled on them to Mike and Carol about a series of wholesome misdeeds. Alice’s friend Kay replaces her, and as the Brady Kids learn the error of their ways, Kay fills the kids in on where Alice now works: The Golden Spoon, at 4th and Oak.

While the interior was created on a soundstage at Paramount, the exterior is shown in a quick establishing shot. Other than looking like the type of location I’d like to visit—the quintessential roadside diner—the location has always piqued my interest since, unlike most establishing shots, extra effort was taken in the script to give it both a name and location.

Over the years, a number of websites have posted a selection of specious locations for The Golden Spoon, but until recently, all were all easy to rule out. That changed when Chas from It’s Filmed There posted a new Golden Spoon address: 3200 Cahuenga Blvd W, surmising it to be the former home of the Freeway Cafe. He suspected the defunct restaurant, listed at 3222 Cahuenga Blvd W in a Brady-era city directory, had changed its address to 3200 at some point. I thought that the building at that site looked properly aged, but the architecture didn’t seem to match up, nor did the power lines, lampposts, or background terrain.

However, there were a number of things that looked promising; the concrete fencing from the Hollywood Freeway was identical to that seen behind the Golden Spoon, cars zooming through the Cahuenga Pass on the freeway would help explain the traffic reflected in the canopy ceiling in the establishing shot, and the 3222 address would jibe if the last digit were removed, for whatever reason, before filming.

Pulling up historic aerial photos, I could see that there was once a structure to the northwest (left) of the 3200 building. [Editor’s note – the structure is denoted in pink and placed on a present-day map below.] And although the aerial photo was blurry, the layout seemed to match that of The Golden Spoon: a square building with a gable roof, a small addition extending left, and a larger addition extending right. Furthermore, in the historic aerial, the 3200 building seemed to match the present-day aerial, meaning it probably hadn’t been renovated much in the last 40 years, and its address most likely hadn’t changed. It was then that I started working under the hypothesis that it was indeed the Freeway Cafe that was shown on The Brady Bunch, but that the Freeway Cafe was not located at the present-day 3200 Cahuenga—it was next door, in what is now a parking lot. But, without stronger proof, I didn’t feel comfortable declaring this the definitive location.

This summer, while vacationing in Los Angeles at the Millennium Biltmore, I thought I’d walk over to Figueroa Plaza to visit the Los Angeles Building Records Department and see if I could find something that would confirm my suspicions. After a brisk walk on a particularly sunshiny day—as the Brady Kids would sing—I arrived at the records office, took a number, and filled out an information request form. Once my number was called, a very helpful clerk pulled the records for the location. While she read through the various permits for that address, I heard her mumble the word “canopy.” Jumping on that, I asked to see a copy of that file. Lucky for me, it was a 1962 Freeway Cafe permit for the addition of an aluminum canopy and screened patio. Better yet, it included a drawn diagram that matched The Golden Spoon perfectly, right down to the cinderblock fence in front of the right patio and notch taken out of the left patio.

All that was left was to confirm the location of the Freeway Cafe. Unfortunately, that confirmation also proved that the building has since been razed. In September of 1989, Mobil, the owner of the cafe property and gas station next door (to the left), obtained three demolition permits for the gas station, its canopy, and the cafe. Mobil then built a new gas station and canopy, but the restaurant wasn’t rebuilt. There’s not a lot of space on that plot of land, and I can see why the the gas station may have wanted to sacrifice a small aging restaurant for some overflow and driveway space for those waiting for a turn at the pumps. Looking at the demolition map, it seems the original restaurant and left screened patio added a few feet in the rear since the 1962 canopy permit.

After doing a quick digital mashup of the 1989 demolition map, and a contemporary permit map of that plot of land, I was able to accurately determine where exactly the Freeway Cafe once stood—very close to where I’d suspected when I’d compared the vintage aerial photo with the present day map a few months prior.

New map in hand, I took the Metro Red Line to its penultimate stop: Universal City. From there, I walked under the freeway and down Cahuenga Blvd to the Mobil parking lot.

Although the cafe is no longer there, it was easy to line things up thanks to the concrete covering the tanks being a different color than the rest of the dark asphalt lot. According to the overlaid maps, the left-most edge of the cafe would have nearly abutted the separation between the light and dark pavement.

Plus, the terrain across the freeway, lamppost location (that would have been behind the right canopy), power wires, and stylized concrete freeway fence are are still recognizable from The Brady Bunch.

Try as we might, Lindsay and I have found that online references to the Freeway Cafe are rare. According to city records, the original 18×20 building housed a shoe repair shop in the 1940s, and in 1958 was converted into a restaurant. The 1963-5 Los Angeles city directories list the name of the cafe as Bib N Cuff, but by 1966, a new name—Freeway Cafe—is listed. A 1973 edition of The Van Nuys News reports the Freeway Cafe as being owned by Herbert and Louise David of Canoga Park, and a 1976 edition names Jamal Ghassem of Inglewood as the proprietor. Lastly, in a 1988 edition of Orange Coast Magazine, written just a year before the cafe was demolished, they note that although it’s “an old wooden stand overlooking the Hollywood Freeway…don’t let the exterior fool you. This is not a pit stop, but a palace for the connoisseur of ground beef.”

More recently, this selection of the Hollywood Freeway has been in the news, as Universal Studios expansion plans may result in the removal of the southbound Barham Blvd exit, which now routes traffic next to the Mobil station.

Many thanks to Chas at It’s Filmed There for posting about the Freeway Cafe and getting me quite a bit closer to 4th and Oak. And of course, a HUGE thank you to Lindsay for all her help researching this location and for the opportunity to write about it here. [Editor’s note – a HUGE thank you to you, Michael, for sharing the story behind the hunt with us AND for correcting all the erroneous Golden Spoon information.]

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Mobil Gas Station parking lot, aka the former Freeway Cafe, aka The Golden Spoon from The Brady Bunch, was located at 3222 Cahuenga Boulevard West in Los Angeles.

November 2, 2015
The Weller Residence from “Castle”

What is it about Victorian-style dwellings that lends itself so well to scary movies and television shows with a spooky theme? I so often find myself blogging about Victorians this time of year. (There’s the Mills View House from House, the Blankenhorn Lamphear House from Teaching Mrs. Tingle, and the Miller and Harriott House from the Halloween themed episode of Modern Family titled “Open House of Horrors,” just to name a few.) Today’s post is in that same vein. Last May, I happened upon an absolutely uh-ma-zing Queen Anne residence while stalking the Girls United group home from The Fosters. Figuring it had to have acted as a filming location at some point, I snapped some photos of it and was floored to later discover that not only had it appeared onscreen, but as a spooky old hotel no less!

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In real life, the house is known as the Weller Residence and it was built in 1894 for a businessman named Zachariah Weller. In the book Beautiful America’s California Victorians, author Kenneth Naversen suggests that the property may have been fashioned upon a design found in a pattern book created by mail-order architect G.F. Barber.

Oddly, when the Weller Residence was originally built it stood in a different location, at what was then 401 North Figueroa Street in Echo Park. That address is now 401 North Boylston Street. In 1900, the area became populated with large oil derricks, several of them popping up around Zachariah’s home. It was not a pretty sight. You can see a photograph of what it looked like at that time here. So Weller did the only rational thing – he broke the house into two pieces and moved it about 3,000 feet north to a vacant plot of land at 824 East Kensington Road. He also had the property wired for electricity at that time. The Weller Residence has the distinction of being the first home in the area to feature electrical power.

Zachariah Weller passed away in 1903. The home remained in his family through 1953, when it was purchased by Albert and Helen McNellis. Their son still owns it to this day.

The Weller Residence was declared a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument in 1979.

The two-story house boasts ten rooms, pocket-wood doors, vintage crystal chandeliers, hardwood flooring, a large front porch, a second story balcony, and a peaked tower.

The property is absolutely spectacular in person! It is easily one of the most beautiful Victorians I have ever seen. Not to mention one of the largest. You can read a more in-depth account of its history on the Big Orange Landmarks blog.

The Weller Residence was featured in the Season 5 episode of Castle titled “Scared to Death.” In the episode, which was an homage to horror movies (Wes Craven even had a cameo!), Richard Castle (Nathan Fillion) and Kate Beckett (Stana Katic) investigated the death of a young girl, Val Butler (Alison Trumbull), who died three days after receiving a DVD that predicted her exact time of death, a la The Ring. Images of the dwelling appeared in the DVD that Val was sent, which Castle watched at the beginning of the episode.

Beckett’s team later discovers that the Victorian pictured in the DVD is Port Campbell’s Brunswick Inn. To convince Beckett that the property deserves investigating, Castle tells her, “The inn must be the place where some unspeakable horror befell the spirits. Think about it! The Ring, Psycho, The Shining – it’s when we get to the creepy old motel that everything starts really going south.” Love it!

The interior of the Weller Residence also appeared in the episode. While Beckett is exploring the hotel with Javier Esposito (Jon Huertas), she says, “It doesn’t look like there’s anyone here.” To which Javier says, “Doesn’t look like anyone’s been here this century!”

On a side-note – I’m pretty sure that Matthew Del Negro (whom I met recently – you can see my photo with him here) had a featured extra role as a policeman in “Scared to Death.”

The Weller Residence also appeared as the old Winterborn house in the 1980 CBS Children’s Mystery Theatre episode titled “The Treasure of Alpheus T. Winterborn,” which I was floored to discover starred none other than Keith Coogan, who is married to my friend Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog.

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 Weller Residence, aka Brunswick Inn from Castle, is located at 824 East Kensington Road in Echo Park. The Girls United group home from The Fosters is located just up the street at 766 East Kensington.

October 21, 2015
L’Opera Restaurant from “Charmed”

I rarely find myself in the LBC (that’s Long Beach, California, for those not in the know), so when I was out there a couple of months ago snapping photos for The Ultimate Guide to Clueless Movie Locations in Los Angeles Part I and Part II (which, if you haven’t checked out yet, you really should!), I made a quick detour to L’Opera Restaurant on Pine Avenue. The upscale Italian eatery was featured in the pilot episode of Charmed and had remained unchecked on my To-Stalk List for literally years, so I was thrilled to finally see the place in person.

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L’Opera Restaurant was originally established by restaurateurs Terry Antonelli and Enzo DeMuro. For their culinary endeavor, the duo chose a large corner unit of a 1906 building that formerly housed the First National Bank of Long Beach. When they initially leased the space in 1988, it was an empty shell and Terry and Enzo spent two years and $2.4 million renovating it. The eatery finally opened its doors on April 19th, 1990.

L’Opera was an immediate hit and has gone on to win countless awards throughout its 25-year history, including “Best Award of Excellence” from Wine Spectator magazine, which should come as no surprise being that the place offers 600 different wine selections and stocks more than 18,000 bottles in its cellar. The eatery has also won the Southern California Restaurant Writers’ two highest awards, the “5-Star Award” and “Golden Bacchus,” for the past 23 years running.

Celebrities have long flocked to L’Opera. Just a few of the stars who have dined there include Paul Newman, Jimmy Vasser, Roger Penske, Mario Andretti, Tom Cruise, Dustin Hoffman, George Clooney, John Travolta, and Pete Sampras.

Sadly, L’Opera was closed when we showed up to stalk it, so we were not able to venture inside and grab a bite to eat, but I did manage to snap a photograph of the interior through the front window. You can check out some more interior photos of the place here.

L’Opera Restaurant was only featured once on Charmed, in the pilot episode which was titled “Something Wicca This Way Comes.” In it, Piper Halliwell (Holly Marie Combs) gets a job as a chef at the supposed San Francisco-area eatery. Both the exterior . . .

. . . and kitchen area appeared in the episode.

By the second episode, “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” filming had moved to a different location – the Pasadena Livery Building, where producers set up a fake restaurant entrance. The name of Piper’s workplace was also changed to “Quake” at that time. In reality, there is no eatery located in that spot. As you can see below, what appeared as Quake is actually just an exterior walkway that leads to the Livery Building’s front doors.

Producers must have really liked the Quake exterior, because they sure got a lot of mileage out of it. During Season 6 it showed up as two different restaurants – first as Café Le Blue in the episode titled “Spin City” . . .

. . . and then as Anthony’s Restaurant in “Love’s a Witch.”

Quake’s interior, which I believe was just a set, very closely resembles L’Opera’s interior.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: L’Opera Restaurant, from Charmed, is located at 101 Pine Avenue in Long Beach. You can visit the eatery’s official website here. The exterior of the fictional Quake restaurant is really the entrance to the Pasadena Livery Building located at 101 East Green Street in Pasadena.

September 28, 2015
Lake View Medical Center from “Beverly Hills, 90210”

In researching today’s post, I put in several hours scanning through countless Season 1 and Season 2 episodes of Beverly Hills, 90210. Time well spent as far as I’m concerned! This was all due to a comment left on my blog last October by a reader named Vanessa Laine who said that the now defunct Lake View Medical Center in Lakeview Terrace was the hospital that appeared in Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead. I immediately got to perusing the internet for more information on the site and came across this 1991 Los Angeles Times article which mentioned that 90210 was doing some filming on the premises at the time. A location that had been used in both fave show 90210 AND fave movie Don’t Tell Mom? It was like a dream come true! So I ran right out to stalk the place. It wasn’t until yesterday, though, that I was able to figure out (with some help from my buddy Mike, from MovieShotsLA) which 90210 episode the former hospital had appeared in.

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Lake View Medical Center was originally built in 1960 and served as a working hospital until it went bankrupt in 1986. Shortly thereafter, the Phoenix House organization made plans to purchase the 14.5-acre property and turn it into a drug rehabilitation facility for teens, but opposition from local residents thwarted those plans. The location remained vacant for the next several years while lengthy negotiations took place between Phoenix House and the city. During that time, it was used regularly for filming. Negotiations over the site finally ended in December 1992 and the Phoenix House Academy in Los Angeles opened its doors in 1994.

Virtually none of the property can currently be seen from the street, which is not surprising considering its function as a drug rehabilitation center.

According to the Los Angeles Times article, Beverly Hills, 90210 had filmed on the premises in late November 1991. Because he is such an expert on the show, I sent Mike a text asking if he could recall any episodes from around that time period that involved a hospital. He responded seconds later saying, “Yeah, there are two hospital scenes in ‘A Walsh Family Christmas.’” As it turns out, he was right on the money! What can I say? When it comes to 90210, he is the man! In the episode, Lake View Medical Center first stood in for the Albuquerque, New Mexico hospital where Steve Sanders (Ian Ziering) went to retrieve his birth certificate.

Only the interior of Lake View appeared in the scene. The establishing shot of the hospital is of a different location (one that looks so familiar to me, but that I just cannot place). UPDATE – The Grim Cheaper just read this post and said, “Isn’t that building at Warner Bros. Studio?” He was right! He has only been on the tour twice, while I have been a good 25 times, yet he was the one to recognize it! As it turns out, the exterior of the Steve’s hospital is Warner Bros. Building 136.

The same building was also used as John Connor’s (Thomas Dekker) high school in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

Later in “A Walsh Family Christmas,” Lake View masked as the mental hospital where Emily Valentine (Christine Elise) had been placed a few episodes prior after trying to light the gang’s homecoming parade float on fire. In the spirit of Christmas (and completing ignoring the fact that she spiked his drink with U4EA), Brandon Walsh (Jason Priestley) visits Emily in the episode and gifts her with his Minnesota Twins jersey.

As you can see below, the tall wooden doors that appeared in each scene are a match to each other.

West Hills Hospital and Medical Center, located at 7300 Medical Center Drive in West Hills, was used for the exterior of Emily’s hospital in the episode.

Once I had pinpointed Lake View’s appearance in “A Walsh Family Christmas,” I searched through numerous other early episodes that involved hospitals thinking it might have been featured in those, as well, but no such luck. As far as I can tell, Lake View only appeared on 90210 once.

In Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead, Lake View stood in for River Ridge Hospital, where Kenny Crandell (Keith Coogan) took his little brother, Walter (Robert Hy Gorman), after he fell off the roof. I had quite a bit of trouble pinpointing the area of Lake View that was used as the exterior of the hospital in the scene – so much so that I started to doubt Vanessa’s tip. As it turns out, the building featured in the movie is not part of the Phoenix House complex, but is the neighboring Community Charter Middle School. From what I have been able to gather, the structure did originally belong to Lake View Medical Center, but was sold off at some point after the site was shuttered.

Though the front overhang has since been removed, the building is still very recognizable from its Don’t Tell Mom appearance.

The interior of Lake View was also featured in the movie.

As you can see below, once again the tall wooden doors seen in Don’t Tell Mom are a match to what was shown on 90210.

Lake View also popped up in Beverly Hills Cop III as the spot where Det. Axel Foley (Eddie Murphy) took Uncle Dave Thornton (Alan Young) after he had been shot.

As you can see below, Don’t Tell Mom and Beverly Hills Cop III utilized the exact same area of the hospital.

Lake View Medical Center was featured extensively in the 1993 drama Mr. Jones as the place where Mr. Jones (Richard Gere) was institutionalized after having several manic episodes.

There are those tall wooden doors again!

Lake View was also where Abby Quinn’s (Demi Moore) doctor worked in the 1988 thriller The Seventh Sign.

You can see the Don’t Tell Mom building through the window in the screen capture below.

The complex was perhaps most famously used in 1991’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day, in which it masked as the Pescadero State Hospital of California where Sarah Conner (Linda Hamilton) was institutionalized.

At the time, it looked a bit different than it does today due to the fact that the parking lot was then located in the area just south of the hospital.

Today, the parking lot is situated just west of the hospital building and there is currently grass covering the former parking area.

On a Beverly Hills, 90210 side-note – I just came across this amazing blog that recaps the show and its fashion, and it had me in absolute hysterics! You’ve gotta check it out. Best part? The author is 100% Team Brenda. A woman after my own heart!

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Vanessa for finding this location and to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for helping me to identify its appearance in Beverly Hills, 90210.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Phoenix House Academy in Los Angeles, aka the former Lake View Medical Center from Beverly Hills, 90210, is located at 11600 Eldridge Avenue in Lakeview Terrace. Please keep in mind that the complex is a working drug rehabilitation facility. The building used as the exterior of River Ridge Hospital in Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead is the Community Charter Middle School located next door at 11500 Eldridge Avenue.

September 25, 2015
Olivia Pope’s Apartment from “Scandal”

While Scandal has fallen a bit out of favor with me (for reasons mentioned here), there are two parts of the series that I will never get over – Olivia Pope’s (Kerry Washington) wardrobe (Gah! Her clothing is amazing!) and her apartment. I recently did a bit of research on said apartment and was floored to discover that a real unit in a real building was used for a time as Olivia’s pad. So yes, that means that Olivia’s apartment actually exists!

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Thanks to a 2013 Hooked on Houses blog post, I learned that the set of Olivia’s apartment had been based off of real units at the El Royale in Hancock Park. Upon doing further research, I came across this CurbedLA article from 2011 which mentioned that the series had also done some filming inside of the building during its inaugural season, angering residents in the process.

The El Royale was originally designed in 1929 by architect William Douglas Lee, who also built the famed Chateau Marmont hotel.

The 12-story Spanish Renaissance Revival-style property, which houses 56 units, has been a celebrity magnet from the very beginning. Just a few of the luminaries who have called the place home over the years include Harry Cohn, Clark Gable, George Raft, Loretta Young, Harry Langdon, William Faulkner, Huell Howser, Cameron Diaz, Ben Stiller, Uma Thurman, Jack Black, Ellen Page and Katie Holmes.

Olivia Pope’s apartment first showed up in the Season 1 episode of Scandal titled “Hell Hath No Fury.” The apartment featured in that episode – as well as all of the subsequent episodes of Season 1 – is an actual unit inside of the El Royale.

Scandal was initially picked up as a mid-season replacement in 2012 and, due to that fact, its inaugural season was a short one that consisted of only seven episodes. I am guessing that is why a set of Olivia’s apartment was not built until Season 2.

You can check out some photographs of what a few different El Royale units look like here.

By the beginning of Season 2, a set modeled after the El Royale apartment had been built. Of the set, production designer Corey Kaplan said in a 2013 People magazine article, “We took the basic elements of the El Royale apartments to stage. We loved the moldings and the embellishments, but we made it a little bit larger scale with larger arches.”

The exterior of the El Royale also appeared in a couple of Season 1 episodes of Scandal. The Rosewood Avenue side of the building was where Olivia ambushed David Rosen (Joshua Malina) to ask for dirt on one of his colleagues in “Hell Hath No Fury.”

And the building’s large courtyard was where the supposed “New Hampshire” Veteran Pancake Breakfast was held in “The Trail.”

According to my buddy E.J. of The Movieland Directory website, the El Royale also served as Steven Carrington’s (Jack Coleman) apartment building on Dynasty.

And according to fave book Los Angeles Attractions, the building was also featured in Switch and Other People’s Money.

For whatever reason (most likely those angry residents mentioned in the Curbed LA article), from Season 2 onward The Gaylord Apartments building in Koreatown was used for all on location filming supposedly taking place at Olivia’s apartment.

The Gaylord Apartments was originally designed by the Walker & Eisen architecture firm in 1924. At the time, the 13-story Italian Renaissance-style property, which was named in honor of land developer Henry Gaylord Wilshire, was the city’s tallest building.

Celebrities also flocked to The Gaylord over the years. A few of the stars who have lived onsite at one time or another include John Barrymore, Constance Talmadge, Kevin Dillon, and Lance Robertson, aka “DJ Lance Rock” from Yo Gabba Gabba. Richard Nixon is also rumored to have spent some time there.

I have blogged about The Gaylord once before, back in March 2011, after a visit to its historic ground level restaurant, HMS Bounty.

To me the building has a very East Coast feel to it and it is not hard to see why producers chose it to stand in for Olivia’s Washington, D.C.-area apartment.

The exterior of The Gaylord has appeared in several episodes of Scandal, including Season 4’s “Run.” During filming, the building’s signage is changed to read “Barrington Court.”

The interior of the building also occasionally makes an appearance onscreen. The Gaylord’s lobby was featured in the Season 2 episode “White Hat’s Back On.”

And an almost-naked Jake Ballard (Scott Foley) ran down The Gaylord’s main stairwell in “Run.” You can check out a photograph of that stairwell here.

The Gaylord has appeared onscreen several times over the years. In the 2015 thriller Insidious: Chapter 3, the building was where Quinn Brenner (Stefanie Scott) lived with her father, Sean Brenner (Dermot Mulroney).

The Gaylord was also featured in Sparkle and The Master.

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 El Royale Apartments, aka Olivia Pope’s apartment from the first season of Scandal, is located at 450 North Rossmore Avenue in Hancock Park. You can visit the building’s official website here. The Gaylord Apartments, aka the exterior of Olivia Pope’s apartment building from Season 2 on, is located at 3355 Wilshire Boulevard in Koreatown. You can visit the building’s official website here.

August 3, 2015
Wonderland from “Scandal”

I realize this is a complete about-face, but I am so over Scandal! I know, I know – my love for the series was incredibly short-lived. The Grim Cheaper and I just finished watching Season 4, though, and both felt that it went downhill fast. The last few episodes proved so ridiculous that I don’t think we’ll be watching Season 5 when it starts airing in September. Case in point – and warning, there be spoilers ahead! – one of the series’ main storylines centers around a super secret agency known as B613 that works outside of the government. The agency is responsible for killing and torturing numerous people in the name of protecting the republic. During Season 4, Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) and her fellow gladiators vow to take down B613 and in one of the last episodes a grand jury is convened to review evidence about the agency’s past evils. After testimony is heard, all of the jurors are gunned down and killed, as is the court stenographer, and NO ONE notices or cares – not the media, not the government, not the courthouse workers. Nothing is done about the killings, they aren’t investigated, the show just moves on from there. I mean, wouldn’t it be a fairly easy crime to solve? Entire jury gets massacred after hearing testimony – gee, I wonder if murderer happens to be a member of B613? Oh, and did I mention that the jurors were killed in a court van while inside the courthouse parking garage? I mean, come on! I’m all about suspending disbelief, but that scenario is just so ridiculously implausible that I was angered upon watching it. There were several other asinine storylines that played out this past season (I won’t even get into the fact that Olivia is completely safe after returning home from being kidnapped despite the fact that it was made apparent she could easily fetch over a billion dollars if she was sold on the black market) that just added to my annoyance. So I just can’t even with Scandal anymore. BUT I did happen to stalk the headquarters of B613 a couple of weeks ago while I was in L.A. and figured what better time than today to blog about it. OK, end rant!

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On Scandal, the B613 headquarters has a litany of names. It is known as Wonderland (because it is said to be located on Wonderland Avenue in Washington, D.C.), ACME Limited, and ACME Paper Company. And, as we found out in the Season 3 episode titled “No Sun on the Horizon,” the agency does actually sell paper. As wannabe B613 agent Quinn Perkins (Katie Lowes) says upon being relegated to answer the ACME Limited sales line as a way to pay her dues, “I don’t know if we sell copy paper. Because I just don’t, OK! Ugh, yeah, well your phone manner sucks, too!” Ah, such a great scene from back when Scandal was good!

The exterior of Wonderland was featured in the Season 3 episode titled “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.”

The location manager did a fabulous job with this location. The building chosen for filming is equal parts non-descript and foreboding.

In real life, the building serves as the headquarters of the J.M. Carden Sprinkler Co. The Art Dec-style structure was originally built in 1931 as the Valley Dairy Company offices. According to this The Eastsider LA article, the interior of the property is quite fabulous. I am kicking myself now for not having ventured inside.

I am unsure if the interior of Wonderland, which was shown in the “No Sun on the Horizon” episode, was a set or if filming took place on location somewhere. I am 99.9% certain, though, that the interior of the J.M. Carden Sprinkler Co. building was not used onscreen.

Thanks to fellow stalker Richard (you may remember him from this post and this post), I learned that the building masked as a downtown Los Angeles 9-1-1 dispatch center in the Season 3 episode of 9-1-1 titled “The Taking of Dispatch 9-1-1.”

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Wonderland, aka B613 Headquarters from Scandal, is located at 2909 Fletcher Drive in Glassell Park.

July 28, 2015