Category: TV Locations

The Alhambra from “NCIS”

Sometimes you go years wondering about a location only to find out that it is right in your own backyard. For what seemed like ages, I had wanted to track down the United States Criminal Investigative Service office from NCIS. I had a feeling that the series used two different structures – one for establishing shots and one for on location exterior filming – and it turns out I was right. While watching a scene that took place outside of NCIS headquarters in the Season 11 episode titled “Crescent City (Part I),” I immediately recognized one of the visible buildings as being part of The Alhambra, a large commercial office and retail complex in Alhambra that I had visited often when I lived in L.A. That led to me eventually finding the structure used in establishing shots, as well. But more on that later.

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The Alhambra complex was built for C F Braun & Co., a petrochemical engineering company originally founded by Carl Franklin Braun in San Francisco in 1909. After World War I, Braun, seeking to expand the business, decided to relocate the main offices to Southern California where real estate was more affordable. He purchased a 45-acre plot of land at the corner of West Mission Road and South Fremont Avenue in Alhambra and proceeded to build a large office complex there. The beautiful site, which looks more like a college campus than a company headquarters, was completed in 1922.

Braun passed away in 1954, but the company continued to function throughout 1980, at which time it was acquired by Santa Fe International. The business then went through a succession of different owners and its Alhambra headquarters was eventually sold to The Ratkovich Company in 1999. The development firm set about revitalizing the site by adding retail shops, a massive gym and a housing development. The new complex was dubbed “The Alhambra.”

My mom used to teach in the Alhambra area and attended several conferences at The Alhambra. For reasons I no longer remember, I dropped her off at many of those conferences. On my first visit, upon driving into the complex, I became mesmerized by its beauty and wound up wandering around a bit.

Though I fell in love with many aspects of the complex, my favorite feature is easily the walking bridge that links it to a shopping center located across the street. In that shopping center? A Starbucks! So yes, I’ve utilized that walking bridge many a time .

I figured filming had to have taken place at The Alhambra at some point, but, at the time, could not seem to find any information about its cinematic history online. Then one day, while watching an early episode of House, I spotted it standing in for the fictional Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital (PPTH) and made a mental note to re-visit the complex so that I could stalk it properly. I never got around to it, though. Then when I saw it pop up on NCIS last year, The Alhambra moved right to the top of my To-Stalk List.

In the beginning of the “Crescent City (Part I)” episode of NCIS, Eleanor Bishop (Emily Wickersham) is shown trying to make a repair to her car outside of what is supposed to be the United States Criminal Investigative Service office in Washington, D.C.

While watching, I immediately recognized the brick exterior and unique roofline of The Alhambra’s A9 East building.

The area where the scene was shot is denoted with a pink “X” in the aerial view below.

A far-off view of that same area is pictured in the photograph below.

Later in the episode, Leroy Jethro Gibbs (Mark Harmon), Dwayne Pride (Scott Bakula) and T.C. Fornell (Joe Spano) are shown walking through what is supposedly the Washington Navy Yard. In reality, the men were strolling along the eastern side of The Alhambra’s Building A10. (My photograph was taken a bit too far north and does not perfectly match the scene, but the building pictured in my photo is visible in the far background of the screen capture below.)

The area and direction in which the men walked is denoted with a pink arrow below.

The trio eventually winds up in the courtyard of The Alhambra’s Building A9 East.

That courtyard is denoted with a pink “X” in the aerial view below.

The Alhambra has appeared in several other episodes of NCIS, including Season 9’s “Till Death Do Us Part.”

Once I discovered NCIS’ use of The Alhambra for on location exterior filming of scenes taking place at the U.S. Naval Criminal Investigative Service office, I decided to attempt to track down the building used for establishing shots. It turned out to be a rather easy hunt. The real life headquarters of NCIS in Washington, D.C., aka the the CNIC (Commander, Navy Installations Command) office, is used for those shots. That building is located at 716 Sicard Street SE at the Washington Navy Yard. You can see a photo of it here.

As I mentioned above, The Alhambra also regularly masked as the exterior of the Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital on the television series House. The stills below are from the Season 2 episode titled “Daddy’s Boy.”

The Alhambra also appeared in the Season 3 episode titled “Son of a Coma Guy.”

As well as in Season 3’s “Needle in a Haystack.” For that episode, the grounds of The Alhambra were covered in snow.

Well, a portion of the grounds, at least. As you can see in the screen capture below, the production team failed to put snow on the far end of the street leading into The Alhambra, making the flurry appear to be a bit fake. Whoops!

The television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer also made extensive use of The Alhambra. Though UCLA was initially utilized to masquerade as the University of California, Sunnydale on the show, when filming on a operating campus proved to be too difficult, production moved to The Alhambra to shoot exterior college scenes.

The Alhambra also masked as a mental institution in the Season 5 episode of Sliders titled “Map of the Mind.” And yes, that’s a CGI-generated vortex pictured in the second screen capture below.

The Alhambra was where Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) met up with CGB Spender (William B. Davis) in the Season 7 episode of The X-Files titled “En Ami.”

The Alhambra was also featured in episodes of The Profiler, Scandal, and Arli$$, though I am unsure of which episodes specifically.

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 Alhambra, aka the exterior of the United States Criminal Investigative Service office from NCIS, is located at 1000 South Fremont Avenue in Alhambra. You can visit the property’s official website here.

May 26, 2015
The Frederick Mitchell Mooers House from “Mod Squad”

As I’ve said before, stalking begets stalking. Back in January, I wrote a post about a spectacular abandoned residence that had been featured in recent episodes of both Major Crimes and Parks and Recreation. A longtime reader (a veeeery longtime reader, pretty sure he’s been with me since the beginning!) named John was intrigued by the property and started exploring the surrounding neighborhood via Google Street View. In doing so, he stumbled upon the Frederick Mitchell Mooers House, an absolutely stunning Victorian located just a couple of blocks away, and posted a comment about it on my site. I was stoked over his find and even more thrilled to discover, after doing a bit of online research, that the pad had been featured in two episodes of the 1960s television series Mod Squad. So I ran right out to stalk it shortly thereafter. Thanks, John!

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The Frederick Mitchell Mooers House was designed by the Bradbeer & Ferris architecture firm in 1894. The 4,617-square-foot, 5-bedroom, 2-bath dwelling was built for a contractor named Frank Wright and his wife, May Gertrude Wright. Just four years after its construction, the Wrights sold the residence to gold miner Frederick Mitchell Mooers (hence the reason the home is sometimes referred to as the Wright-Mooers House). Upon Frederick’s death, the property was deeded to his mother, Eliza A.R. Mooers, though, according to Wikipedia, there was quite a bit of contention and drama over his will.

The sensational property, which mixes the Queen Anne style with Richardsonian Romanesque and Moorish design elements, features ornamental woodwork, asymmetrical detailing and a three-story tower with a unique roofline that is referred to as an “onion dome” in architectural circles. You can check out a historic image of the house from around the time that it was originally built here.

The Frederick Mitchell Mooers House was named a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument in 1967 and was cited for being “a prototype of distinctive architecture of the boom of the 80’s,” though it was not actually built until the 1890s.

The pad was featured twice on the television series Mod Squad. It first appeared in Season 1’s “Child of Sorrow, Child of Light” as the home/illegal adoption agency belonging to Iris Potter (Ida Lupino). At the time of the filming, the house did not have a fence surrounding it – a look I much prefer.

I believe that the real life interior of the Frederick Mitchell Mooers House was also utilized in the episode, but, surprisingly, I could not find any photographs of the inside of the home with which to compare to screen captures. While I was stalking the property, I happened to meet one of its residents, a very nice man who invited me inside to snap some pictures. Sadly though, I was alone at the time, so I did not accept his offer. If only the Grim Cheaper had been with me! What I wouldn’t give to see the interior of that place!

During Season 2 of Mod Squad, the house masked as the office of shady doctor Asa Lorimer (Paul Richards) in the episode titled “The Healer.”

A different, but extremely similar interior was shown in “The Healer.”

As you can see below, the front doors and wooden paneling of the anteroom shown in the two episodes are a perfect match.

The staircase, though in differing locations, is also a match in appearance and structure.

The stained glass windows and doors leading to an interior office are also a match. All of this leads me to believe that the real life interior of the home was utilized in “Child of Sorrow, Child of Light,” and then a set modeled after it was created for use in “The Healer.”

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

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker John for telling me about this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Frederick Mitchell Mooers House, from Mod Squad, is located at 818 South Bonnie Brae Street in Westlake.

May 22, 2015
ARIA Resort & Casino “The Bachelor”

Each season, The Bachelor reality series whisks its stars and contestants to various exotic, high-end locales. During Brad Womack’s second stint as The Bachelor, he and the ladies (including my girl Emily Maynard) headed to the ARIA Resort & Casino in Las Vegas. Prior to last month, I had not been to Sin City in over a decade (that’s like a lifetime in Vegas years!), long before the ARIA had been built, and I was absolutely itching to stalk the place. So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on over there to grab cocktails our second night in town.

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ARIA Resort & Casino, which is comprised of two curvilinear glass towers, is situated in the middle of CityCenter, a 67-acre, 6-building complex consisting of 3 condominium towers, 3 hotels with a total of 4,800 rooms, and an upscale mall named The Shops at Crystals.

ARIA was designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects and opened to the public in December 2009. According to a USA Today article from that year, the site’s unusual name was derived from the fact that the hotel is the focal point of the CityCenter complex and arias are the focal points of operas.

The AAA Five Diamond-rated hotel stands at 600 feet tall, measures 4,000,000 square feet, and is nothing short of stunning! The property features 4,004 rooms and suites, 16 restaurants, 15 bars and nightclubs, 5 pools, 3 hot tubs, an 80,000-square-foot spa, a convention center, a theater, and, of course, a casino.

ARIA’s three-story lobby boasts incredible textures. I realize that is kind of an odd way to describe the design of a hotel, but every corner of the place seems to sport a uniquely tactile feature. From a hanging glass ball curtain . . .

. . . to a wall of thick, reclaimed wood planks . . .

. . . to a massive chandelier made of what appeared to be paper-thin shells – every décor piece had its own unique look and feel and, when put together, the result was fabulous.

I was especially enamored of the 84-foot silver sculpture situated behind the registration desk. Named Silver River, the piece, which was designed by Maya Lin, who also designed the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., was inspired by the layout of the Colorado River.

And don’t even get me started on The Shops at Crystals! It is easily the most architecturally unique mall I have ever set foot in.

I mean, check out that ceiling!

The Crystals’ Starbucks was pretty darn amazing, as well.

During a Season 15 episode of The Bachelor, Brad Womack and the ladies ventured to Las Vegas for a series of dates. The ARIA was used extensively throughout the episode.

While there, the women stayed in one of the hotel’s massive Sky Suites.

Many of the dates took place at ARIA, as well.

The most memorable date, for me at least, was Shawntel Newton’s shopping spree date at The Shops at Crystals, during which she got to purchase anything and everything she wanted. Um, DREAM DATE!

As if that wasn’t enough, Shawntel’s date ended with a dinner and fireworks show on the roof of Crystals.

ARIA was also featured in a Season 6 episode of The Bachelorette in which Ali Fedotowsky took Jesse Beck to Las Vegas for a one-on-one date.

During the date, the couple spent time at ARIA’s Liquid Pool & Lounge . . .

. . . and ate dinner in a Sky Villa.

They also attended a private concert with singer Jamie Cullum at ARIA’s Haze Nightclub, which has since closed.

Much of Last Vegas, one of my favorite movies of 2013, took place at ARIA.

In the comedy, childhood buddies Billy (Michael Douglas), Paddy (Robert De Niro), Archie (Morgan Freeman) and Sam (Kevin Kline) gather at ARIA for Billy’s bachelor party.

Though much of the hotel was featured throughout the movie, the guys’ four-bedroom Penthouse Villa was just a set.

In the 2013 thriller Now You See Me, the Four Horsemen – J. Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson), Henley Reeves (Isla Fisher) and Jack Wilder (Dave Franco) – were arrested at the ARIA.

One of the hotel’s Sky Villas was used in the filming.

And this past weekend, Sarah Jessica Parker was on hand at The Shops at Crystals for the launch of the pop-up boutique for her The SJP shoe collection (images below via The Shops at Crystals Instagram and the SJP Collection Instagram).

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: ARIA Resort & Casino, from The Bachelor, is located at 3730 South Las Vegas Boulevard in Las Vegas. You can visit the hotel’s official website here.

April 20, 2015
18th Street Coffee House from “Modern Family”

As I have said countless times before on this blog, there’s pretty much nothing I love more than a filming location that serves coffee. So I thought stalking the 18th Street Coffee House in Santa Monica, which was featured in the Season 6 episode of Modern Family titled “Rash Decisions,” would be a pleasant experience. I was wrong. But more on that in a bit.

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In “Rash Decisions,” Alex Dunphy (Ariel Winter) attends a college interview for Princeton at a local café. While there, she realizes that the interviewer, Vanessa (Aya Cash), is bored, so she recounts a story recently told by her sister, Haley Dunphy (Sarah Hyland), involving sneaking into Dodger Stadium. In doing so, she inadvertently calls Vanessa “slut.” Interview over!

Thankfully, 18th Street Coffee House’s real life exterior signage was clearly shown in the scene which made the place easy to track down.

When I showed up to stalk the café, I took several photographs outside before walking in, large camera in hand. I ordered my drink, camera still in hand (did I mention it was large?), and asked the barista all sorts of questions about the filming of “Rash Decisions,” questions she seemed just barely to tolerate. The attitude there is just a wee bit pretentious (as evidenced by countless reviews on Yelp). I fangirled out nonetheless, explaining that I had come in solely to see the place because of its appearance on Modern Family. After I got my latte, I snapped the picture below and all of a sudden the barista got upset with me, not-at-all politely informing me that photographs were most certainly not allowed on the premises. You’d think she would have mentioned this beforehand, while I was asking about Modern Family, when she undoubtedly had to have seen the big ol’ camera in my hand. Either way, I would have expected her to be polite about the whole thing, which she was not. I’ll never understand places that don’t allow photographs, but do allow filming. Not to mention that there are a myriad of customer pictures of the place featured on the 18th Street Coffee Shop Facebook page. Go figure.

The 18th Street Coffee House actually has quite a few rules. Cell phone use is prohibited there, which is something I can typically get behind. Who wants to listen to someone talking loudly on a phone inside of an eatery? That is one of my biggest pet peeves. But, according to several Yelpers, at 18th Street you aren’t allowed to look at your phone. So if you want to grab a coffee, sit down and answer a few emails, be forewarned that you will not be allowed to (though the guy in the above photo appears to be doing so). The rule is apparently in place to encourage interaction and conversation. While I agree that it is a nice sentiment to want customers to interact with the people they are dining with rather than having their heads buried in cell phones during a visit, when someone is alone I don’t see why he or she should not be able to check their email or surf the web via their cell phone. I’m all about having rules and like the thought of a restaurant wanting to establish a peaceful, quiet environment, but there is also such a thing as overkill. (This scene from Bridesmaids comes to mind.)

It has long been rumored that the 18th Street Coffee House is owned by Bob Dylan and this 2002 Los Angeles magazine article stated that the place’s business permit, as well as that of the boxing club located downstairs from it, are in the name of Dylan’s manager, Jeff Rosen. When asked about the ownership, Jeff said, “I know nothing about that . .. Can’t you find something more interesting to write about?” Yep, that pretty much sums up the attitude of the whole place.

My coffee was excellent, though. The place was not so pretentious as to not offer whole milk (another of my pet peeves when it comes to coffee shops), so my latte was perfectly creamy and delicious. And I will say that the café is definitely picturesque, both inside and out, though I will, sadly, most likely not be going back.

The 18th Street Coffee Shop has appeared onscreen several times. In the Season 1 episode of Californication titled “The Devil’s Threesome,” which aired in 2007, Mia Lewis (Madeline Zima) and Dani (Rachel Miner) discussed what Dani thought was Mia’s new book [though the tome was actually written by Hank Moody (David Duchovny)] over coffee at 18th Street.

In 2009, the coffee shop popped up in the Season 7 episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm titled “Denise Handicapped,” as the spot where Larry David (playing himself) met a handicapped woman named Denise (Anita Barone).

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: 18th Street Coffee House, from the “Rash Decisions” episode of Modern Family, is located at 1725 Broadway in Santa Monica.

April 10, 2015
The Federal Bar from “Parks and Recreation”

It’s shaping up to be Parks and Recreation week at IAMNOTASTALKER.com, as here I am with yet another location from the series. I actually came by today’s locale accidentally. While scanning through P&R’s “Operation Ann” episode for yesterday’s post about the Hamburger Hamlet in Sherman Oaks, I spotted The Federal Bar, a North Hollywood watering hole that I stalked back in May of last year because of its appearance on fave show Perception. For whatever reason, I had yet to blog about it, though, and, thanks to the P&R kick I’ve been on lately, figured today was the perfect time to do so.

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The ornate brick building that currently houses The Federal Bar was originally constructed as a branch of Security Trust and Savings Bank in 1926. It was designed by John and Donald Parkinson, the father-and-son architectural team who also created Union Station (which I briefly blogged about here), Bullocks Wilshire (which I blogged about here) and Los Angeles City Hall (am oft-used filming locale that I have, shockingly, never stalked). Parkinson and Parkinson built several similar-looking bank buildings for the Security Trust chain across Los Angeles throughout the years. The one located at 5601 North Figueroa Street in Highland Park is a virtual twin to The Federal Bar. That structure, which I have yet to stalk, has appeared countless times onscreen. It is currently featured each week as the police station on the new CBS series Battle Creek.

For many years, The Federal Bar space operated as Paperback Shack Books, an independent bookstore owned by Earl Spar. In the mid-2000s, the proprietors of Fred 62 (a popular restaurant/filming locale in Los Feliz that I blogged about here) acquired the location and began an extensive, three-year renovation process to turn it into a restaurant/nightclub. They named the new venture “Bank Heist,” which I think was a rather unfortunate dubbing considering one of the bloodiest bank heists in L.A.’s history took place just a little over two miles away.

Bank Heist opened in late September 2007, but never really had a chance to establish itself. Less than four months later, on January 7th, 2008, it was gutted by a fire.

In 2010, Knitting Factory Entertainment CEO Morgan Margolis spotted the architecturally stunning building while taking his children to a martial arts class (I am guessing that class was held at the dojo from The Karate Kid, which is located less than a block south) and thought it would make the perfect place for a new Knitting Factory music club (his insanely popular Hollywood Knitting Club outpost had closed in 2009). The historic look of the building caused him to eventually rethink his plans, though, and, after leasing the place, he decided it was better suited to house a gastropub.

Of the neighborhood, Margolis stated in a Los Angeles Daily News article, “I was really trying to get to the next area I felt was going to move forward, and North Hollywood seems to be transitioning consistently. A lot of other areas were also moving up – i.e. Silverlake, Los Feliz, downtown – but I felt like they were already getting saturated. There are also a lot of great architectural spaces that I like that are hard to find in certain areas. I like a lot of brick, I like old buildings, auto garages and warehouses. I like high-beamed ceilings. This area seems to have an abundance that is popping up. And I found an area where I felt like you could still touch the square footage at the right price.”

After a bit of renovation, The Federal Bar was opened in early 2011. According to a 2012 Los Angeles Times article, it turned a profit the following month and has continued to do so every month since.

The 5,000-plus-square-foot space, which was fashioned by interior designer Rod Sellard, boasts four (yes, four!) bars, a second floor special events area with a stage, and an outdoor patio.

The Federal Bar is nothing short of spectacular, both inside and out, and it is not very hard to see why the place has become popular with location scouts.

In the Season 4 episode of Parks and Recreation titled “Operation Ann,” Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) and Ben Wyatt (Adam Scott) headed to The Federal Bar to spy on Ann Perkins (Rashida Jones), who they thought was out on a secret date with her boss Chris Traeger (Rob Lowe). As Leslie and Ben soon discovered, though, Ann was actually on a date with Tom Haverford (Aziz Ansari).

While scanning through the episode to make screen captures for yesterday’s post, I immediately recognized The Federal’s intricate exterior.

In the scene, Tom and Ann were sitting in the southwest area of The Federal’s bottom floor and Leslie and Ben spied on them through the windows located on Weddington Street.

The Federal portrays the Philadelphia bar where the Dunder Mifflin gang crashes a trivia contest Oscar Martinez (Oscar Nunez) is participating in in the Season 8 episode of The Office titled “Trivia.”

The Federal popped up as two different places in the Season 2 episode of Perception titled “Wounded.” One of the bars on the main floor was used as the watering hole where Kate Moretti (Rachael Leigh Cook) told Blake Rickford’s (Logan Bartholomew) date that he was a suspected rapist.

And one of the upstairs bars was where Kate spied on Blake later in the episode.

The exterior of The Federal was also used in that scene.

The Federal also popped up in flashback scenes in Perception’s next episode, titled “Warrior.”

In 2013, The Federal masked as Sudz in the Season 9 episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia titled “The Gang Tries Desperately to Win an Award.”

Only the interior of The Federal was used in the episode, though. The establishing shot that was shown was of Alla Spina restaurant, located at 1410 Mount Vernon Street in Philadelphia, which I found thanks to this amazing map of the series’ City of Brotherly Love locales.

Jake Peralta (Andy Samberg) and Amy Santiago (Melissa Fumero) attend a “jazz brunch” with Amy’s ex, Teddy Wells (Kyle Bornheimer), at The Federal in the Season 4 episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine titled “The Audit,” which aired in 2017.

The women of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills debrief on the latest Lisa Vanderpump drama while at The Federal in the Season 9 episode titled “A Wolf in Camille’s Clothing.”

In 2013, Morgan Margolis opened a second Federal Bar inside of another former Security Trust and Savings Bank building. It, too, has appeared onscreen. Located at 102 Pine Avenue in Long Beach, the space formerly housed Madison steakhouse, which was where Brad’s (Vince Vaughn) company Christmas party was held in the 2008 comedy Four Christmases.

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

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for taking many of the photos that appear in this post.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Federal Bar, from the “Operation Ann” episode of Parks and Recreation, is located at 5303 Lankershim Boulevard in North Hollywood. You can visit the bar’s official website here.

April 8, 2015
Hamburger Hamlet from “Parks and Recreation”

Halfway through writing this post, I realized I probably should have saved it until February. At that point, though, it was too late to start over, so I figured c’est la vie. Here goes. A few years ago, when I first saw the “Galentine’s Day” episode of Parks and Recreation, I recognized the restaurant featured in it as the Hamburger Hamlet in Pasadena. I used to dine at the eatery fairly regularly when I lived in the area and immediately recalled its signature red leather seating, brick walling and dark wood accents while watching P&R. It was not until a couple of a months ago that I decided to do any research on the locale, though, and when I got to comparing images of it to screen captures from the episode, I realized that, while similar, quite a bit did not match up. I quickly surmised that “Galentine’s Day” had most likely been lensed at another of the Hamburger Hamlet chain’s many outposts and, sure enough, eventually discovered that filming had taken place at the Sherman Oaks location.

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The Hamburger Hamlet chain was established by actor Harry Lewis and his wife, Marilyn, in 1950. The first outpost stood on the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Hilldale Avenue in West Hollywood and served comfort food and gourmet hamburgers. It was insanely popular from the get-go.

It was not long before HH outposts were cropping up all over Los Angeles, as well as in other states. In its heyday, 23 sister restaurants dotted the country. The L.A. locations were known as being celebrity hot spots, attracting such legendaries as Lucille Ball, Frank Sinatra, Diahann Carroll, Bette Davis, Danny Thomas, Mel Brooks, Warren Beatty, Ronald Reagan, Elizabeth Taylor, Sammy Davis Jr., Tony Curtis, Florence Henderson, Elton John, Betty White, Nancy Sinatra, and Dean Martin.

Harry and Marilyn sold the chain, as well as their Beverly Hills eatery Kate Mantilini, for a whopping $30 million in 1987. They later ended up buying Kate Mantilini back and subsequently opened up a sister location in Woodland Hills. Both were also insanely popular with celebrities (I once dined next to Reese Witherspoon at the Beverly Hills outpost) and non-celebrities alike, but have since, sadly, closed.

Recent years have not been kind to the Hamlet. Though the eateries were still bustling with business most days, news of closures popped up regularly. When the Pasadena outpost was shuttered in January 2014, the only HH left in the L.A. area was in Sherman Oaks. It, too, wound up closing in June of last year, but was, thankfully, acquired by Kevin Michaels and Brett Doherty, the restaurateurs behind Killer Shrimp in Marina del Rey – another popular filming location that I I blogged about here. The duo reopened the site, keeping many of the Hamlet’s menu staples intact, in September.

I have been a huge fan of the Hamlet ever since I first moved to Southern California and am happy to report that the re-opened Sherman Oaks location did not disappoint. As always, the food was great and the service friendly. Supposedly, the space will be undergoing a remodel at some point this year, though, so if you want to see it in its current state, I wouldn’t wait.

In the Season 2 episode of Parks and Recreation titled “Galentine’s Day,” which aired in 2010, Hamburger Hamlet was where Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) took her girlfriends out for their annual Galentine’s Day breakfast. For those who did not watch P&R and are confused as to what exactly Galentine’s Day is, I’ll let Leslie explain – “Every February 13th, my lady friends and I leave our husbands and our boyfriends at home and we just come and kick it breakfast-style. Ladies celebrating ladies. It’s like Lilith Fair, minus the angst . . . plus frittatas.”

Leslie and the girls returned to the Hamlet in 2012 to film another Galentine’s Day breakfast scene for Season 4’s “Operation Ann.”

Oddly though, a different place – Villa restaurant from Must Love Dogs, which I blogged about here – was used for the establishing shot of the restaurant in the episode.

Fellow stalker Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, also informed me that the Sherman Oaks Hamburger Hamlet was used in the Season 8 episode of The Office titled “The List” as the spot where Robert California (James Spader) took a select few Dunder Mifflin employees for lunch.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Hamburger Hamlet, aka the Galentine’s Day restaurant from Parks and Recreation, is located at 4419 Van Nuys Boulevard in Sherman Oaks. You can visit the eatery’s official website here.

April 7, 2015
Dennis Feinstein Headquarters from “Parks and Recreation”

Though I chronicled the main locations used on Parks and Recreation pretty extensively for Los Angeles magazine in March, I still have a few of the series’ less prominent locales stockpiled in my backlog and figured it was about time that I covered them. While watching the Season 7 episode titled “Save JJ’s,” I became just a wee bit obsessed with the building that portrayed the offices of Dennis Feinstein (Jason Mantzoukas), due to the fact that it bore such a strong resemblance to the Dr. Dianne G. Van Hook University Center at the College of the Canyons, aka the Austin FBI Headquarters from The Mentalist. I figured the two structures were probably designed by the same architect and that the Feinstein building was most likely part of a college campus. Though I did find the place fairly quickly, both of my hunches turned out to be wrong.

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Dennis Feinstein Headquarters is actually the Wallis Annenberg Research Center at the House Research Institute, which is located at 2100 West 3rd Street in Westlake, just north of MacArthur Park. The architecturally stunning site was designed by Nick Seierup of the Perkins+Will architecture firm in 2007. Construction of the building was made possible thanks to a $10 million donation from the Annenberg Foundation.

According to its Facebook page, the House Research Institute, which was established in 1946 by ear specialist Howard P. House, was “a non-profit organization dedicated to improving the quality of life for people with hearing loss and related disorders through research, patient care and the sharing of knowledge.” Sadly, the facility started to lose funding during the economic downturn in 2008 and eventually closed its doors in 2014. The House Ear Clinic portion of the organization, which treats about 30,000 patients each year, remains open, though.

According to the Perkins+Will eBook, Nick Seierup incorporated the function of the building into its design by modeling its frame after “the curvilinear shape of the cochlea of the inner ear.”

In 2008, the structure won the “New Buildings: Commercial” award from the the Los Angeles Business Council.

Though the exterior gates were open when I showed up to stalk the place, being that it is an active medical center, I felt uncomfortable venturing onto the property to take any photographs. Quite a lot of it is visible from the street, though, and you can check out some interior photos of the building here.

In Parks and Recreations’ “Save J.J.’s” episode, Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler), Ron Swanson (Nick Offerman) and the rest of the Pawnee Parks gang hold a rally at Feinstein’s head offices after learning that the cologne magnate is planning to demolish the beloved J.J.’s Diner (you can check out that location here) in order to make room for an elbow art salon (and no, that is not a typo).

I am fairly certain that the real life interior of the House Research Institute was also used in the filming.

A few other productions have also made use of the unique structure over the years. The 2009 television series Three Rivers was set in Pittsburgh, but was actually lensed in L.A. Production took place mainly at The Studios at Paramount and the House Research Institute, which stood in for the William H. Foster Transplant Institute and the Three Rivers Regional Medical Center on the series.

Ironically, while the exterior and lobby area of Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank (another Parks and Rec locale that I blogged about here) were used as the hospital where Sarah Highman (Michelle Monaghan) gave birth at the end of the 2010 comedy Due Date . . .

. . . other interiors were shot at the House Research Institute.

In 2013, the exterior of the House Research Institute made a brief appearance as a hospital entrance in the Season 5 episode of Castle titled “The Fast and the Furriest.”

In the 2015 Entourage movie, Eric (Kevin Connolly) and Sloane (Emmanuelle Chriqui) have their baby at the House Research Institute.

And it is the hospital where Howie ‘Chimney’ Han (Kenneth Choi) is taken after his car accident in the Season 1 episode of 9-1-1 titled “Next of Kin,” which aired in 2018.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Dennis Feinstein Headquarters from Parks and Recreation, aka the House Research Institute, is located at 2100 West 3rd Street in Westlake.

April 6, 2015
The Pink Motel from “Vanderpump Rules”

The latest season of Vanderpump Rules might have been the most epic yet. With Stassi Schroeder making only occasional appearances, I had a fear that the show was going to lose all of its allure and most of its steam, but that was not the case. Kristen Doute brought the crazy like never before and the fact that Ariana Madix had a larger role made Scheana Marie’s onscreen time almost bearable. I loved pretty much every second of Season 3, especially the ‘50s-style photo shoot that took place in the final episode, which was titled “Dethroned.” The photo shoot was held at the Pink Motel, a historic locale that I had the pleasure of stalking back in June 2012.

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The Pink Motel was constructed by a Pennsylvania native named Joseph Thomulka on San Fernando Road in Sun Valley in 1946.

According to a 1990 Los Angeles Times article, Joseph painted the 20-room property bright pink so that it would “get noticed.” In the piece, his son Monty Thomulka says, “He was driving out here from Philadelphia, coming cross the middle states, looking at motels. He wanted something that people would remember.”

Joseph built a small diner, also painted a rose hue, on the site in 1949 and dubbed it the “Pink Café.”

At the time that the Pink Motel and Pink Café were built, San Fernando Road was a bustling thoroughfare that lead from Los Angeles to Santa Clarita. The construction of Interstate 5 changed all of that, though, and while the hotel and restaurant continued to operate for several decades, it was at a much slower pace.

Monty took over the property from his parents in 1969 and still runs it to this day. Operating both a hotel and a restaurant proved to be too much work, though, and he found that he could make more money renting the diner out solely for filming. So he closed the Pink Café to patrons in 1989. Today, the eatery, renamed Cadillac Jack’s, sits frozen in time – ketchup, mustard bottles and table settings in place at each seat – waiting for its next close-up. The Pink Motel continued to operate as a hotel for many years, but it, too, is now available solely for filming. An average of sixty shoots take place on the premises each year!

When we visited the property in 2012, the caretaker happened to spot us taking pictures through the windows of Cadillac Jack’s and, amused at my excitement over seeing the place in person, asked if we wanted to come inside. My answer was a resounding yes! (The photographs below were taken by Mike, from MovieShotsLA. He, too, was invited inside the diner to snap some pictures when he visited the place and was kind enough to share them with me.)

I cannot even describe how cool it was to be able to tour Cadillac Jack’s interior and stand in the footsteps of so many past filmings!

The Pink Motel and Cadillac Jack’s were featured extensively in the Vanderpump Rules “Dethroned” episode.

The shoot made use of pretty much every square inch of the property, including the hotel’s swimming pool which was added to the site in 1959.

The motel’s usual pool, which is fish-shaped, was featured in the 1987 skateboarding movie The Search for Animal Chin and subsequently became a popular destination for skateboarders. Since the motel ceased operations, the pool has been left drained and is now rented regularly for skating events. It is also often utilized for film and photo shoots in its dry state, as was the case with Vanderpump Rules.

You can check out the images from the Vanderpump Rules photo shoot here.

Cataloging all of the Pink Motel and Cadillac Jack’s onscreen appearances would be virtually impossible, but I will list of few of the highlights. In 1974, the site popped up in the Season 1 episode of The Rockford Files titled, “Caledonia – It’s Worth a Fortune!” as the spot where Leonard Blair (Richard Schaal) got beat up.

In 1982’s Grease 2, Michael Carrington (Maxwell Caulfield) tutored Stephanie Zinone (Michelle Pfeiffer) over a hamburger (with extra ketchup!) at Cadillac Jack’s.

The Pink Hotel was used in the Season 7 episode of MacGyver titled “The ‘Hood,” which aired in 1991, as the spot where Kelly Dobbs (Nancy Sloan) was held captive.

Mary Anne Spier (Rachael Leigh Cook), Dawn Schafer (Larisa Oleynik) and the gang hung out at Cadillac Jack’s in the 1995 movie The Baby-Sitters Club.

The eatery was used extensively in Mandy Moore’s 1999 “Candy” music video. Both the exterior . . .

. . . and the interior of the property appeared in the video.

And I, of course, just had to pose for a picture in the booth where Mandy sat in “Candy.”

The pool was also used in the shoot.

In the 2004 comedy The Whole Ten Yards, Jimmy the Tulip (Bruce Willis), Oz (Matthew Perry) and Jill (Amanda Peet) grab a bite to eat at Cadillac Jack’s, which is said to be located in Oceanside. While there, Jimmy knocks out a rude patron and teaches the patron’s son a little lesson about manners.

In a later scene, the trio check into the Pink Hotel along with a gangster they have kidnapped.

In the Season 2 episode of fave show The O.C. titled “The Rainy Day Women,” which aired in 2005, Sandy Cohen (Peter Gallagher) and his ex-girlfriend Rebecca Bloom (Kim Delaney) got stranded for a night at the Pink Motel.

In 2006, the motel was where Off. Debra Morgan (Jennifer Carpenter) and Sgt. Angel Batista (David Zayas) tracked down Ice Truck Killer imitator Neil Perry (Sam Witwer) in the Season 1 episode of Dexter titled “Circle of Friends.”

The Dexter crew returned to the Pink Motel in 2013 to shoot Season 8’s “A Beautiful Day,” in which Debra hides out at the property with Andrew Briggs (Rhys Coiro).

At the end of the 2008 comedy The House Bunny, Shelley Darlingson (Anna Faris) did a photo shoot for Playboy at the Pink Motel.

Cadillac Jack’s was used throughout the music video for CeeLo Green’s hit 2010 song “F**k You”/”Forget You.”

You can watch the “Forget You” version of the video by clicking below.

The first season of the 2010 television series The Booth at the End was shot extensively at Cadillac Jack’s.

In the 2011 flick Drive, Driver (Ryan Gosling) and Blanche (Christina Hendricks) hide out at the Pink Motel. Only the interior of one of the rooms appeared onscreen, though. Director Nicolas Winding Refn says in a Movieline article, “The motel was hard, because so much action goes on. It was called the Pink Motel, which has been used in a lot of movies. But I really liked the motel rooms, so I decided not to do any exterior shots so nobody could know where we were actually shooting. It’s a very classic old hotel, it looks like something from the ’50s or ’60s. The day we shot there, which was the first time we shot anything, was the hottest day in L.A., so it was pretty unbearable. I was told afterwards [that the Valley is hot], nobody told me about it!”

Cutie Matt Bomer did a photo shoot for a 2012 issue of GQ Italia at the diner.

In 2014, the pool was used for Major Crimes’ Season 3 promo shots. For whatever reason, though, a different motel was superimposed into the background of the finalized images.

I actually never would have figured this one out had it not been for Phillip P. Keene, who plays camera tech Buzz Watson on the series. I randomly spotted Phillip shopping at the J.Crew in Pasadena last August. I did not approach him, though, as I already had a photograph with him and do not like approaching actors inside of stores. Well, about an hour later, I literally almost kicked myself over the whole thing. I had been trying to track down the motel from the Major Crimes promo shots ever since they had been released and realized I could have asked Phillip if he remembered the location! So I immediately tweeted him and, miraculously, not only did he respond, but he started following me!

The Season 5 episode of Dance Moms titled “Wild Wild West Coast, Part 2,” in which the Abby Lee Dance Company girls shot a music video for the MattyB song “Turn Up the Track,” took place at Cadillac Jack’s and the Pink Motel.

The interior of Cadillac Jack’s was also featured in the video.

You can watch the “Turn Up the Track” video by clicking below.

The property was also featured in The House of Sand and Fog, High Road, and Pirates of Silicon Valley, as well as in episodes of Columbo, Las Vegas, Highway to Heaven, Murder, She Wrote, Law & Order, and Simon & Simon.

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

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for sharing some of his photos with me for this post!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Pink Motel and Cadillac Jack’s from Vanderpump Rules is located at 9457 San Fernando Road in Sun Valley. You can visit the property’s official website here.

March 24, 2015
Ronnie and Amber’s House from “Modern Family”

This season of Modern Family brought to life a storyline that is basically my worst fear – nightmare neighbors. Poor Phil (Ty Burrell) and Claire Dunphy (Julie Bowen) had their tranquility disturbed in the episode titled “Won’t You Be Our Neighbor” when loudmouth medicinal marijuana dealer Ronnie LaFontaine (Steve Zahn), his wife, Amber (Andrea Anders), and their two children moved in next door. It’s been a horrific (and rather comical) ordeal ever since, with antics including a dry-docked boat parked in the driveway, an invitation to swing and a rather ugly fight over Halloween decorations. So while in the Cheviot Hills area with my friends Lavonna, Kim, Melissa and Maria last November, I just had to stop by to do some stalking of the place.

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As depicted on Modern Family, the LaFontaine residence is located right next door to the Dunphys, at 10342 Dunleer Drive.

In real life, the Mediterranean-style dwelling is quite spectacular. The pad, which was originally built in 1933, boasts 5 bedrooms, 4 baths, 3,100 square feet and a 0.14-acre plot of land.

The house was recently listed as a rental with The Agency (The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills’ Mauricio Umanksy’s real estate company) for $9,500 a month (gardener and housekeeper included!). You can check out some interior pictures of the residence here. It is truly gorgeous inside, though I could do without that black-tiled bathroom.

The LaFontaine house has appeared in a few episodes of Modern Family, beginning with “Won’t You Be Our Neighbor.” In the episode, Phil takes on the listing for the house next door. Though he thinks he has found the perfect couple to purchase the place (not only does the husband collect fine wine, but he also works in PR for high-end shoe companies!), he and Claire scare them off, leaving room for the LaFontaines’ offer to be accepted.

The pad then popped up in “Halloween 3: AwesomeLand,” in which Claire and Ronnie went head-to-head in a battle to have the scariest decorated house in the neighborhood.

Most recently, it was featured in “The Big Guns,” in which Ronnie decided to park his large boat “Jackpot” in the homes’ shared driveway.

While we were stalking the residence, we happened to meet a woman who was working on the premises and she informed us that a house just up the street had also been used in “Halloween 3: AwesomeLand,” in the scene in which Jay Pritchett (Ed O’Neill) and Gloria Delgado-Pritchett (Sofia Vergara) took their kids trick-or-treating. So we ran right over to stalk it. Sadly though, very little of it can be seen in the episode.

As you can see below, in real life the house is much larger than it appeared to be onscreen.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Ronnie and Amber’s house from Modern Family is located at 10342 Dunleer Drive in Cheviot Hills. The residence where Jay and Gloria’s children trick-or-treated in “Halloween 3: AwesomeLand” is located a block west at 10424 Dunleer Drive.

February 27, 2015
The “Pretty Little Liars” Guide to Warner Bros. Studio

My name is Lindsay Blake and I am a Pretty Little Liars addict. I started watching the ABC Family series on Netflix while the Grim Cheaper was away on a weeklong business trip last year and it was not long before I was utterly and totally hooked. I’m no longer ashamed to admit it, either. PLL is a great show. There is good news and bad news about its filming locations, though. The bad news first. Production hardly ever – and I mean like ever – leaves the studio. In the five years the show has been on the air, the cast and crew has left the lot about eight times. Not joking. The good news is that the series is lensed at Warner Bros. Studio and many of its locales can be viewed via the Warner Bros. VIP Studio Tour, which I have taken so many times now I’ve lost count. So for the other fans out there, I thought I would put together a Pretty Little Liars guide to the lot.

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Pretty Little Liars is set in the fictional town of Rosewood, Pennsylvania. The pilot episode was shot in Vancouver, but once the series got picked up, production moved to L.A. Though the show has made use of pretty much every square inch of the Warner Bros. backlot, I will only be covering the main locations that have appeared onscreen during the first two and a half seasons, as that is the point I am up to in the series. An aerial view of Warner Bros. Studio with coordinating numbers denoting each PLL locale is pictured below.

And below is a studio map featuring those same coordinating numbers.

1. The Marin House – Used repeatedly throughout the series, the house where Hannah Marin (Ashley Benson) lives is a large Colonial-style estate located at the southern end of Warner Village. It is denoted as building 187 on the Warner Bros. Studio map. Only the exterior is used on the series. As is the case with all of the Liar’s residences, the interior of Hannah’s house is a set located inside of a soundstage. In real life, the inside of the structure serves as a production office.

2. The Fields House – The residence where Emily Fields (Shay Mitchell) lives also pops up regularly on Pretty Little Liars. It is the northernmost house located on Midwest Street. The same home was also used as Ross (David Schwimmer) and Monica Geller’s (Courteney Cox) parents’ house on Friends. It is a practical set, meaning both the interior and exterior can be utilized for filming. While the inside was used on Friends (Season 2’s “The One with the Prom Video”), it does not appear on PLL.

3. The DiLaurentis House – This abode has had quite a few different residents throughout the series. Formerly occupied by Alison DiLaurentis (Sasha Pieterse) and then Maya St. Germain (Bianca Lawson), it is currently where Jason DiLaurentis (major cutie Drew Van Acker) lives. The structure is actually just a façade located on the shores of the Jungle and, as you can see in the photograph below, not even a full one at that. Yes, it is missing a roof, which is actually apparent sometimes onscreen.

4. The Hastings House – The façade that serves as the stately home where Spencer Hastings (Troian Bellisario, daughter of NCIS creator Donald P. Bellisario) lives is actually the rear side of the residence located next door to Emily’s house on Midwest Street. The same façade was used as Lorelai (Lauren Graham) and Rory Gilmore’s (Alexis Bledel) house on Gilmore Girls.

5. Spencer’s Barn – The barn that Spencer painstakingly redecorated and that her sister, Melissa (Torrey DeVitto), then promptly moved into is located directly across from the Hastings residence, in what is actually the front yard of the property.

6. The Hastings Gate – The large gated entrance to Spencer’s estate is not a permanent façade – it is a piece that is set up in the Jungle, across from the DiLaurentis house, when needed. Because it is only put into place during an actual shoot, you will not catch a glimpse of it while on the Warner Bros. VIP Studio Tour. A photograph of the Jungle in its normal state, without Spencer’s gate, is pictured below.

7. Toby and Jenna’s House – The house where step-siblings Toby Cavanaugh (Keegan Allen) and Jenna Marshall (Tammin Sursok) live is located on Midwest Street, two doors down from Emily’s house.

8. Rosewood High School – The Liar’s high school is located on Midwest Street, near where it intersects with French Street. The structure appears regularly on the series, but, again, only the exterior is utilized. The hallways and classrooms are sets located inside of a soundstage.

9. Rosewood City Hall – City Hall is located adjacent to Rosewood High School.

10. Apple Rose Grille – The restaurant where the girls regularly hang out is located on the corner of Midwest Street and French Street. The same spot masked as Luke’s Diner on Gilmore Girls.

The structure is a practical set and its interior is also used in the series.

11. Rosewood’s Local Church – The Midwest Street church, located across the road from Emily’s house, has appeared countless times on the series. It was where Ian Thomas (Ryan Merriman) tried to kill Spencer in Season 1’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” where Ian’s funeral was held in Season 2’s “The Devil You Know,” and where Hannah tried to sabotage her dad’s wedding in Season 2’s “Over My Dead Body,” just to name a few of its appearances.

12. Anne Sullivan’s Office – Throughout Season 2, the Liars regularly visited therapist Anne Sullivan (Annabeth Gish) at her office, which was situated on Midwest Street across from the northern side of the church.

The same façade also masked as the Hastings & Reibman Law Firm, Veronica Hastings’ (Lesley Fera) law office, in the Season 3 episode titled “The Kahn Game.”

13. Ezra Fitz’s Apartment Building – The exterior of the apartment building where Ezra Fitz (Ian Harding) lives is located in between French Street and Embassy Courtyard, across from New York Park. The edifice was featured in Season 1’s “If at First You Don’t Succeed, Lie, Lie Again . . .” and is denoted as Building 60 on the studio map.

14. Philadelphia City Museum – The Warner Bros. Courthouse masked as the Philadelphia City Museum, the site of Aria Montgomery (Lucy Hale) and Ezra’s first real date, in “If at First You Don’t Succeed, Lie, Lie Again . . .” The Courthouse, which was featured regularly on the 1966 Batman television series, is located at the western end of Embassy Courtyard and is denoted as Building 61 on the studio map.

As you can see below, Ezra’s apartment and the Courthouse are actually located next door to each other.

15. Noel Kahn’s Cabin/Lost Woods Resort – In the Season 1 episode of Pretty Little Liars titled “To Kill a Mocking Girl,” the Liars attend a party thrown at a cabin belonging to Noel Kahn’s (Brant Daugherty) parents. The building used in the episode is located in the Jungle and is known as the Practical House.

The very same structure was also featured several times as the Lost Woods Resort on Pretty Little Liars. (It popped up regularly as Merlotte’s Bar & Grill on HBO’s True Blood, as well.)

For whatever reason, a different structure was used as the Kahn family cabin during Season 3 of Pretty Little Liars. I am unsure of what building was utilized as the cabin during that time, but my best guess is that it was the rear side of the Jungle’s Practical House, in the area denoted with a pink arrow below.

16. Emily and Maya’s Lakeside Hangout/The Greenhouse – In Season 3’s “Stolen Kisses,” Emily takes Nate St. Germain (Sterling Sulieman) to visit a lakeside cabin where she and Maya formerly hung out. The Jungle’s Shore-Side Cabin, located opposite the DiLaurentis house, was used as their hangout in the episode. The same structure also served as Ira’s Roadside Diner in Million Dollar Baby and Lyle Sussman’s (Scott Michael Morgan) hunting cabin on Dexter.

The rear of the Shore-Side Cabin is actually a greenhouse and it was there that the Liars often set up clandestine meetings during the beginning of Season 2. My buddy Mike the Fanboy recently had the opportunity to tour the interior of the Cabin and was nice enough to share a photograph he took of it with me.

17. Radley Sanitarium – The large building located on Embassy Courtyard served as the mental institution where Mona Vanderwaal (Janel Parrish) was held for the majority of Season 3.

18. The Haunted House – In Season 2’s amazing Halloween-themed episode,which was titled “The First Secret,” Alison was attacked in Rosewood’s local abandoned house. That residence is located on Midwest Street, directly across from Emily’s home, and was also used as the dwelling where the Seavers lived on the 1985 series Growing Pains.

19. Vail’s Doll Hospital – The creepy Brookhaven doll store that the Liars visited in both Season 2’s “Father Knows Best” and “If These Dolls Could Talk” (scariest episode ever!) is located in the middle of French Street.

20. The Brew – During Season 3, the girls start hanging out at a coffee house known as The Brew. Emily also later gets a waitressing job there. The façade that serves as the exterior of The Brew is located off of Midwest Street, just down the road from Rosewood City Hall.

21. The Local Rosewood Motel – A building that houses production offices located in the northeast portion of Warner Bros. Studio was used as a local motel in many Season 1 episodes, including “Can you Hear Me Now,” “The New Normal” and “A Person of Interest.” It is denoted as Building 139 on the studio map.

22. Melissa’s Philadelphia Apartment – The apartment that the Liars raided in Season 3’s “Birds of a Feather” can be found on Brownstone Street, which is located just a little off of the map I created.

The façade’s location is denoted in the aerial view pictured below.

At this point you are most likely wondering why I have yet to mention Aria’s house. The exterior of the Montgomery residence was actually only shown once, in the Pretty Little Liars pilot, and is therefore located somewhere in Vancouver, not at Warner Bros. Studio. I am unsure of why a replica exterior was not used for subsequent episodes, but, for whatever reason, one never has been – at least during Seasons 1 through 3.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Warner Bros. Studio is located at 3400 West Riverside Drive in Burbank. You can find out more information about the VIP Studio Tour here.

February 25, 2015