Category: TV Locations

Cordelia’s Apartment Building from “Angel”

In mid-January, fellow stalker Ashley, of The Drewseum, asked for some help in tracking down the Moorish-style apartment building where Cordelia Chase (Charisma Carpenter) lived on the Buffy the Vampire Slayer spinoff series Angel. She sent me a link to this image of the building and, even though I had never seen an episode of Angel, due to the place’s spectacularly unique architecture, I was immediately intrigued.

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I should mention here that while I never actually watched Angel, I was an extra on the series once back in 2000. And I just about died yesterday while scrolling through some random episodes to make screen captures for this post when I came across the very episode I was on – Season 1’s “To Shanshu in L.A.” That’s me below, with my natural hair color and style. The scene I was in was shot on the Paseo in front of the Redstone building at the Paramount Pictures lot, which had been set up to look like the Third Street Promenade. I hadn’t been in L.A. more than a couple of weeks at the time that the episode was shot and when the assistant director mentioned the Promenade, I remember thinking, “What in the heck is that?” LOL In the scene, we were supposed to be reacting to Cordelia suddenly screaming, dropping to the ground and writhing around, which is why I have such a strange look on my face in the second screen capture below.

Anyway, because Cordelia’s building was so architecturally unique, I figured it would be an easy find. I sent a picture of it to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and he had the same thought. We were wrong. The next few days were spent rather frustratingly searching through Google images and architectural guidebooks, to no avail. Mike eventually wound up coming across an old vacation rental listing for the building after doing a Google image search for “Spanish Fourplex Vacation Rental Hollywood.” My response after he texted me the news? “How in the heck did you come up with those search terms???” LOL What can I say, the guy has the magic touch. Unfortunately, the listing was no longer active, so we could not click on it to glean any further information, which was absolutely maddening! I finally somehow managed to open a cached version of the listing just long enough to launch the provided map link (I honestly have no idea how I did it being that it was about the hundredth time I had attempted the exact same procedure) and it, mercifully, led me right to the place.

As it turns out, Cordelia’s building is known as the Adams Apartments in real life – at least according to this Flickr account, which also states that the property was built in 1931 by architect Gil Chadwick. The 2000 Los Feliz Improvement Association Historical Survey provides some differing (and extremely vague) information, though. Because I could find no other data about the building anywhere, I am unsure of which report is correct.

Per Zillow, the four-unit building boasts a total of 8 bedrooms, 8 baths and 6,137 square feet.

In person, the structure does not disappoint! It is absolutely spectacular and I am extremely surprised that it has not been featured onscreen more often.

On Angel, the Adams Apartments were known as the Pearson Arms. Cordelia moved into the building, which turned out to be haunted, in the Season 1 episode titled “Rm w/a Vu.”

I am fairly certain that the interior of Cordelia’s apartment was just a set and not one of the Adams’ actual units, especially being that an entire wall was knocked down in the “Rm w/a Vu” episode as part of the storyline.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Big THANK YOU to Ashley, of The Drewseum website, for challenging me to find this location and to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for helping me to do so.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Pearson Arms apartment building from Angel, aka the Adams Apartments, is located at 3488-3490 Rowena Avenue/4207-4209 Avocado Street in Los Feliz.

February 19, 2014
The Colorado Street Bridge from “The Bachelor”

When Juan Pablo Galavis and Chelsie Webster went bungee jumping off of Pasadena’s Colorado Street Bridge in the recently-aired Season 18 episode of The Bachelor titled “Soccer Date,” I found myself wondering, “How did I miss the filming?” Although it has been over a year now, I still have to remind myself that the Crown City is no longer home. (The Grim Cheaper is convinced that all the blonde hair dye I use has finally started to affect my brain. ) I happened to drive under the famed bridge while visiting Pasadena last week and got to thinking that it would make for a good Valentine’s-themed post (even though, per Reality Steve, Juan Pablo and Chelsie do not wind up together), so I pulled over to snap some pics. (The GC also “loaned” me a bunch of photos he took of the structure years ago.)

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The Colorado Street Bridge was designed by the Kansas City, Missouri-based engineering firm Waddell & Harrington. Construction on the 1,467.5-foot-long, two-lane structure was completed in 1913. The bridge, which towers 148.5-feet above the Arroyo Seco, is an architectural marvel boasting 11 Beaux Arts arches, ornamental clustered light posts and an iron balustrade. Shockingly, the magnificent, curving span was almost demolished in 1953 following the completion of the adjacent Pioneer Bridge, which connects the 134 and 210 freeways. The site was saved thanks to a letter-writing campaign and is now on the National Register of Historic Places.

Due to structural deterioration, the Colorado Street Bridge was closed to traffic in 1989 and a $27-million restoration project subsequently begun. The site was re-opened on December 13th, 1993 – the 90-year anniversary of its original completion.

The span is often referred to as the “Suicide Bridge” because more than 100 people have jumped to their deaths from it over the years, most during the 1930s in the midst of the Great Depression. While a wrought-iron suicide-prevention fence was installed at the time of the 1989 renovation, it has not halted the most determined troubled souls – thirteen people have jumped from the bridge since 2006 alone.

In the “Soccer Date” episode of The Bachelor, Juan Pablo first takes Chelsie to sample Venezuelan delicacies at Amara Chocolate & Coffee (located at 55 South Raymond Avenue in Old Town).

The two then head over to the Colorado Street Bridge where, after a considerable amount of hemming and hawing on Chelsie’s part, they embark on a tandem bungee jump.

The Bachelor is hardly the first production to make use of the picturesque site. The bridge has appeared in countless productions over the years – far too many for me to ever chronicle here. But I’ve compiled a few of the highlights. Way back in 1921, Charlie Chaplin featured the structure in his movie The Kid (which starred Jackie Coogan, grandfather of Keith Coogan, my girl Pinky Lovejoy’s husband.)

The Colorado Street Bridge showed up very briefly at the beginning of the 2005 romantic comedy Rumor Has It, in the scene in which Sarah Huttinger (Jennifer Aniston) and Jeff Daly (Mark Ruffalo) first arrived in Pasadena.

The bridge was where Carl (Jim Carrey) bungee jumped – and took a phone call – in 2008’s Yes Man.

Jim Carrey actually performed the stunt himself for the scene. You can watch a behind-the-scenes video of it being shot by clicking below.

In the Season 4 episode of The Closer titled “Fate Line,” which aired in 2009 (and which I got to watch being filmed – you can read my set report here), horror film producer Sean Thompson died in a car accident underneath the Colorado Street Bridge.

In the Season 2 episode of The Mentalist titled “The Scarlet Letter,” which also aired in 2009 (and which I also watched being filmed – you can read that set report here), the Colorado Street Bridge masqueraded as the Sacramento-area bridge where the body of Kristin Marley (Kristine Blackport) was found.

The structure was where two sisters killed themselves in another 2009 production – the Season 1 episode of Lie to Me (a series I absolutely loved) titled “Depraved Heart.”

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Colorado Street Bridge, where Juan Pablo and Chelsie bungee jumped on The Bachelor, is located on West Colorado Boulevard, in between South Orange Grove Boulevard and North San Rafael Avenue, adjacent to the 134 Freeway, in Pasadena.

February 12, 2014
The Infamous Ray Pruit Stairs

Since moving to the desert last January (I cannot believe it has been a year!), I have wanted to revisit Rancho Las Palmas, the sprawling Rancho Mirage resort where Ray Pruit (Jamie Walters) pushed girlfriend Donna Martin (Tori Spelling) down a flight of stairs in the Season 5 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 titled “P.S. I Love You: Part II.” I originally stalked and blogged about the location back in September 2008, but, because the hotel has 120 sets of identical stairs, at the time I was unsure of which set had appeared in the episode. Thankfully, the resort’s sales manager saw my post and left a comment, informing me of exactly where the scene had been shot. And while it took me over five years to get back out there to re-stalk the place, once I did, I could NOT have been more excited!

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Rancho Las Palmas is massive. The 240-acre resort boasts a 27-hole championship golf course, four eateries, a spa, 50,000-square-feet of event/meeting space, and three pools – one of which is Splashtopia, a two-acre water feature made complete with a 425-foot lazy river, two 100-foot water slides, a man-made sand beach, a Jacuzzi, and a café. Guests also have access to 25 tennis courts at the Palm Springs tennis center located in the Rancho Las Palmas Country Club, which is adjacent to the hotel.

Rancho Las Palmas has quite an interesting history. The property was originally the site of the Desert Air Hotel & Resort, a 320-acre compound that was founded by architect H.L. Gogerty in 1946. The resort consisted of an airstrip for private planes, World War II army barracks that pilots and travelers could rent for the night, and a bar and a pool that were added in 1951. You can see a picture of what the property looked like at that time here. Luminaries like Edgar Bergen, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Robert Taylor flocked to the place and The Bob Cummings Show was even filmed onsite for a time. The resort was sadly shuttered in 1976 and then demolished a year later to make way for a new Marriott hotel. According to the Abandoned & Little-Known Airfields website, one former Desert Air patron had this to say of the new lodging, “I visited the site several years ago – nothing left, except that the main fairway of the golf course seems to be aligned with the old northwest/southeast runway, and there’s a Desert Air Drive in the condos by the hotel. Very ritzy, very posh, but it will never have the understated chill-out class of the old place, with guest cottages made from recycled WW2 barracks huts. I think the difference speaks volumes about the way this country has changed.” I have to admit, it would have been pretty darn cool to vacation in authentic World War II barracks.

At the time that 90210 was filmed, the hotel was known as Marriott’s Rancho Las Palmas. After being taken over by KLM in 2006, the site underwent a massive renovation and the “Marriott” dropped from its name. Today, the property is operated by Omni Hotels & Resorts.

In “P.S. I Love You: Part I” and “P.S. I Love You: Part II,” Rancho Las Palmas was where Steve Sanders (Ian Ziering), Brandon Walsh (Jason Priestley) and the rest of the C.U. gang attended a national KEG/ALPHA convention. Several areas of the resort were shown in the episodes, including the front entrance;

the Azure Adult Pool (where Ray had a fit over Donna’s choice of swimwear);

and, of course, the infamous stairs that Ray pushed Donna down.

The stair scene was shot on the northwest side of Building #5.

In real life, the stairwell leads up to Room 520.

You can watch the stair scene by clicking below. I love when Valerie says, “Ray, go get the hotel doctor! Go!” LOL Hotel doctor??? How about, “Let’s get her to a hospital,” Val!

And you know I just had to do it!

While re-watching the “P.S. I Love You” episodes (big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for loaning me his Season 5 DVDs), I was shocked to see that the interior scenes had not been filmed inside Rancho Las Palmas (the Rancho lobby is pictured below), but at another location that I was familiar with – Hyatt Westlake Plaza in Westlake Village, which also appeared as a Coachella Valley-resort in the Season 1 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 titled “Palm Springs Weekend.” I stalked Hyatt Westlake Plaza in February 2010 (you can read that post here) and recognized it immediately when it popped up in “P.S. I Love You.” I guess the Hyatt was 90210’s go-to Palm Springs hotel stand-in.

The first thing that clued me in to the fact that Hyatt Westlake Plaza had been used in “P.S. I Love You: Part I” and “Part II” was the large fountain that was seen in the center of the lobby in the episodes. That same fountain is pictured below in a 2010 photograph that I took of the Hyatt lobby. While no longer tiled, the shape of the Hyatt fountain is an exact match to the shape of the 90210 fountain.

The general layout of the Hyatt lobby also matches the lobby that appeared on 90210. Sadly, the Hyatt was remodeled sometime after the episodes were filmed, so the décor and flooring look quite a bit different today.

In “P.S. I Love You: Part II,” Brandon is shown walking through the Hyatt lobby, past a side table. That same side table (as well as the lamps on it and the painting behind it) is a direct match to a side table that Brenda Walsh (my girl Shannen Doherty) walked by in “Palm Springs Weekend.” Love it!

The recessed hotel room doors and positioning of the room signage that appeared in the “P.S. I Love You” episodes also match those of Hyatt Westlake Plaza.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The “P.S. I Love You” episodes of Beverly Hills, 90210 were filmed at Rancho Las Palmas, which is located at 41000 Bob Hope Drive in Rancho Mirage. You can visit the resort’s official website here. Ray Pruit’s infamous stairs can be found on the south side of the property, just off Avenue Las Palmas, in Building #5, which is denoted with a pink arrow below. The stairs are on the north side of the building and lead up to Room 520. The pool that appeared in the episode is the Azure Adult Pool, which is located just outside of the hotel’s main lobby and is denoted with a blue arrow below. The interior scenes from the “P.S. I Love You” episodes were shot at the Hyatt Westlake Plaza, which is located at 880 South Westlake Boulevard in Thousand Oaks. You can visit the hotel’s official website here.

January 28, 2014
The Former Site of the “Charles in Charge” House

In November, a fellow stalker named Fatri posted a comment on my site asking if I had any information on the Pembroke/Powell house from the 1980’s television series Charles in Charge. I had actually always wondered about the location, but had yet to do any research on it, so I sat right down to start. I quickly came across an IMDB thread in which it was said that the Pembroke/Powell residence was formerly located on an unnamed side street across from Universal Studios, but was demolished years ago to make way for the parking lot of the Universal City Red Line Station. The thread also mentioned that the house had been used in the Season 4 episode of Knight Rider titled “KITTnap.” It was thanks to that episode that I found the home’s exact former address. Come to find out, though, the location was not actually a home at all, but a condominium complex. But more on that later.

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On Charles in Charge, the “home” where college student Charles (Scott Baio) worked as a live-in babysitter for first the Pembroke family and then the Powell family was said to be located at 10 Barrington Court in New Brunswick, New Jersey. The establishing shots pictured below were used in the beginning of the opening credits throughout the series’ five-year run. And now that I really look at them, I am surprised it never occurred to me that the place was not a house. As you can see, the structure is very obviously an apartment/condominium building. In my defense, though, the images of the building were shown very, very briefly each week and because Charles in Charge aired in the pre-DVR days, it was tough to do much pausing. I find it very odd that producers chose to use the location to represent what was supposed to be the Pembroke and Powell’s large, upscale residence. Regardless, I cannot tell you how heartbroken I was to learn that the complex had been demolished, especially after wondering about its location for so long.

In “KITTnap”, the Charles in Charge “house” was the apartment building where Karen Forester (Janine Turner), Michael Knight’s (David Hasselhoff) latest flame, lived.

In the episode, a street sign reading “10700 Bluffside Drive” was visible.

As was a very blurry image of the building’s name, Universal Park. From there, it was not hard to discern that the Charles in Charge “house” was formerly located at 10711 Bluffside Drive in Studio City.

A view of the NBCUniversal building, the Sheraton Universal and the Hilton Los Angeles/Universal City were also visible in the background of “KITTnap.”

A matching view taken from the Universal City Red Line Station parking lot is pictured below.

Thanks to Knight Rider Online, I learned that the Season 2 episode titled “Diamonds Aren’t a Girl’s Best Friend” was also filmed at the Universal Park building. In the episode, the site was again home to another of Michael’s flames. The guy seems to have had a new girlfriend in every single show!

A much clearer view of the Universal Park signage was visible in “Diamonds Aren’t a Girl’s Best Friend.”

As was an address number of “10711.”

According to a 1996 Daily News article, when the final location was chosen for the new Universal City Red Line Station, Universal Park homeowners “sought condemnation” for the building in order to “avoid living” directly across from an MTA parking lot. By February of 1996, all of the units in the building had been vacated and Universal Park was demolished shortly thereafter. A 1980 view of the site from Historic Aerials is pictured below. Universal Park is denoted with a pink arrow.

Pictured below is that same 1980 aerial view with an overlay of the current street layout on top of it. As you can see, during the course of the MTA construction, Bluffside Drive was moved quite a bit to make room for the Red Station parking lot.

A current view of that same spot is pictured below with Universal Park’s former location denoted with a pink “X.”

When looking at my photographs of the site, I can’t help but be reminded of the “Big Yellow Taxi” lyrics – “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.”

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Universal Park condominium building, aka the Charles in Charge “house,” was formerly located at 10711 Bluffside Drive in Studio City. The site is now part of the Universal City Red Line Station parking lot.

January 17, 2014
Colony 29 from “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills”

After watching the Season 4 episodes of fave show The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills titled “Palm Spring Breakers” and “Escape to Bitch Mountain,” I became just a wee-bit obsessed with tracking down Colony 29, the sprawling enclave where the Housewives stayed during their brief desert visit. Fortunately, it wasn’t a tough find thanks to the Greater Palm Springs website which listed the address. So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on over there on our way home from L.A. two weekends ago. (On a Bravo TV side note – the GC and I are now completely hooked on Vanderpump Rules. It is hands down THE BEST reality show since The Hills. I love, love, LOVE Stassi and have informed the GC that all I want for my birthday in June is dinner at Sur and a picture with Ms. Schroeder. He better be making reservations far in advance. )

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Colony 29 was designed by Pasadena resident John Burnham, who built the property’s 4,500-square-foot main dwelling as his winter retreat in 1929 (hence the name). He later added a two-bedroom guest home and three smaller bungalows to the site between 1929 and 1937 to be used as retreats for his many visiting artist friends such as Maynard Dixon, Carl Eytel, John W. Hilton, Victor Clyde Forsyth, Jimmy Swinterton, Nicolai Fechin and Alson S. Clark. The place soon became a haven for artists and, according to Forbes magazine, was Palm Springs first gated community.

Sometime during the 1950s, Burnham sold the main house and two of the bungalows to Francis Crocker, the electrical engineer who conceived the oft-filmed-at Palm Springs Aerial Tramway. The Crocker family held onto the three dwellings until 1997 at which point they were purchased by a builder named Dave Johnston and his wife, Trudy. Dave and Trudy later purchased the guest home, third bungalow and remainder of the land that originally belonged to the property and, in 2002, moved into the main house with their three children. By that point, most of the site had fallen into a state of disrepair and the family spent the next ten years and millions of dollars restoring it. The landscaping alone cost $1 million to execute! The project was completed in 2012 and, while the original intention was to turn the place into a bed and breakfast, today, Colony 29 serves as a vacation rental and special events venue.

Today, Colony 29 boasts over 10,000 square feet of space, 6.5 acres of lands, thirteen bedrooms, two pools, three spas, six kitchens, an adult-sized tree house (love it!), a meditation garden, an outdoor massage area, an outdoor kitchen, covered patios, open-air showers, a fire pit terrace, a natural stream, a pond, a built-in stage, parking for 85 cars, two large outdoor event spaces, six outdoor “fire elements” and a grotto.

In the “Palm Spring Breakers” and “Escape to Bitch Mountain” episodes of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, new Housewife Jacqueline, ahem, Joyce Giraud de Ohoven (whom I canNOT stand, by the way) invites fellow cast members Lisa Vanderpump, Kyle Richards, Kim Richards, Yolanda Foster, Carlton Gebbia (whom I also canNOT stand) and my girl Brandi Glanville to the desert for a “relaxing” two-night getaway.

The trip does not turn out to be very relaxing for anyone, though (obvs), despite the idyllic setting. For some inexplicable reason, the episode was shot in June, when temperatures in Palm Springs average about 105 degrees, which I’m sure only added to the tension.

The real life interior of the estate was also shown in the episodes.

Besides the Housewives, interior designer Nate Berkus and actress Diane Keaton have also visited the property, and the Canadian reality show Operation Double did some filming there in 2012.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Colony 29, from the “Palm Spring Breakers” and “Escape to Bitch Mountain” episodes of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, is located at 147 South Tahquitz Drive in Palm Springs’ Historic Tennis Club neighborhood. You can visit the property’s official website here.

January 8, 2014
Regency Inn & Suites from “Mad Men”

On my many trips back and forth from Palm Springs to L.A., I often pass by a red-roofed, A-frame Regency Inn & Suites situated alongside the Interstate 10 freeway. I knew from doing research for my post about Rod’s Grill in Arcadia that the Regency Inn & Suites in Baldwin Park was used as the exterior of the supposed Plattsburg, New York Howard Johnson Motor Lodge in the Season 5 episode of Mad Men titled “Far Away Places.” And while the motel near the 10 was pretty much an identical match to the motel I had seen in the episode, because I am so horrifically bad with direction, I was unsure if the two were one and the same. In fact, at the time I had no idea where in the heck Baldwin Park actually was. Then, two weekends ago, while the Grim Cheaper and I were making the trek from L.A. back to the desert, I once again spotted the lodging and immediately pulled out my trusty iPhone to see if it was the one that had appeared in Mad Men. Sure enough, it was, so I had the GC head right on over there so that I could finally do some stalking of the place. (As it turns out, Baldwin Park is located in between El Monte and West Covina.)

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According to the Highway Host website, the 69-room Regency Inn & Suites was originally constructed in the fall of 1967 as a Howard Johnson Motor Lodge. It continued to operate as an HoJo until 1995. Thankfully, aside from the name, little else has been changed since the place’s early days, as you can see in this 1960 image as compared to the photographs below.

Even the vintage Howard Johnson “Motor Lodge” signage is still located onsite. LOVE IT!

I originally found this location thanks to a Zap2it post that chronicled the October 2011 Mad Men shoot.

In the “Far Away Places” episode, Don Draper (Jon Hamm) and his new wife, Megan Draper (Jessica Pare), head to upstate New York for the weekend in order to meet with clients from the Howard Johnson Motor Lodge company about a new advertising campaign. While eating at the Howard Johnson restaurant (the interior of which was actually Rod’s Grill in Arcadia, which I blogged about here), the couple gets into a huge fight and Don storms outside to the parking lot. He winds up abandoning Megan by driving off, but has a change of heart a few minutes later. When he returns for her, though, Megan is nowhere to be found and Don spends the rest of the day and night searching for her.

The area used in the episode was the motel’s east entrance, which I could not get a good photograph of due to the positioning of the sun.

At one point in “Far Away Places,” Don is informed by the management that the Howard Johnson pool is off limits due to the fact that a non-potty-trained child had an “accident” in it. Taking advantage of the plug, shortly after the episode aired the Howard Johnson chain offered a free one-night stay at one of eight locations to anyone legally bearing the name Don Draper. The promotion featured a letter written by Brand Sr. Vice President Rui Barros and stated, “Dear Mr. Draper, It has recently come to my attention through the general manager at our Plattsburg Howard Johnson that there may have been an issue with the pool during your recent stay. At Howard Johnson hotels, our owners strive to give each and every guest a great stay, one that creates the same happy-filled memories that the brand’s legacy is built upon. Unfortunately, sometimes things happen that are beyond our control. That’s why, on behalf of the brand, I would like to offer you an apology and welcome you back for another stay, this time on us.” How incredibly cool is that?

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Regency Inn & Suites, from the “Far Away Places” episode of Mad Men, is located at 14624 Dalewood Street in Baldwin Park.

January 7, 2014
Alvarado Street School from “Beverly Hills, 90210”

For my final holiday post of 2013, I thought I would blog about a locale from my favorite television series of all time, Beverly Hills, 90210. Last September, I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to Culver City to stalk Playa del Rey Elementary School, which masqueraded as Alvarado Street School, where Brenda Walsh (my girl Shannen Doherty), Kelly Taylor (Jennie Garth), Dylan McKay (Luke Perry), and the rest of the West Beverly gang handed out gifts to needy children in the Season 3 Yuletide-themed episode “It’s a Totally Happening Life.” Because I do not own the series’ third season on DVD, though, and because the episodes are maddeningly not available to stream on iTunes, Netflix or Amazon, I was not able to blog about the site last Christmas. So this year, I enlisted my good friend Mike, from MovieShotsLA, to provide me with a recap and screen captures so that I could finally do so. Thank you, Mike!

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In real life, Playa del Rey Elementary School, which is known as the “Jewel of the Westside,” is an SAS (School for Advanced Studies) establishment for gifted and high-achieving students in kindergarten through fifth grade. Besides traditional courses, such subjects as theatre arts, dance and choral music are also offered.

Playa del Rey Elementary School was featured prominently in “It’s a Totally Happening Life,” in which, in an homage to the 1946 classic It’s a Wonderful Life, two guardian angels, Clarence and Miriam, watch over the 90210 gang. And, in what turns out to be a Christmas miracle, the angels even manage to save the group from a fatal bus accident at the end of the show.

In the episode, Brenda and Kelly give Dylan an ultimatum, telling him that he must choose between the two of them by New Year’s Day. (He makes the wrong choice, incidentally, and the show never recovered, at least in my never-to-be humble opinion. I’ve shared my thoughts about the Dylan-Kelly-Brenda love triangle ad nauseam over the years, though, so I will spare y’all from digressing further. )

While the school still does look very similar to how it appeared when filming took place back in 1992 (has it seriously been 21 years?!?), sadly the area that was featured in the episode is now covered over with blue-paneled fencing and is no longer visible from the street. Ironically enough, that is the only portion of the school’s fencing that is covered in such a manner. The paneling must have been installed to ward off the many stalkers who drop by.

You can see areas of the school that were not featured on Beverly Hills, 90210, but are visible from the street in the photographs below.

Sadly, the gate that the gang walked through in “It’s a Totally Happening Life” has also since been removed. It was formerly located at the front of Playa del Rey Elementary, just east of the main entrance, in the area where Santa is standing in the photograph below. Oh, how I wanted to pose for a photograph next to that gate!

I will be taking the rest of the week (and possibly next Monday) off from blogging in order to celebrate Christmas with my family and for a quick trip to L.A. I hope all of my fellow stalkers have a fabulous holiday!

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for making the screen captures that appear in this post.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Playa del Rey Elementary School, aka Alvarado Street School from the “It’s a Totally Happening Life” episode of Beverly Hills, 90210, is located at 12221 Juniette Street in Culver City. The southeast corner of the school, near the intersection of Juniette and Randall Streets, was the area that appeared in the episode.

December 24, 2013
The Mulholland Drive Boat House

I am extremely excited to announce (to those who haven’t already heard via Facebook or Twitter) that I was recently invited to contribute a weekly blog post to the CityThink section of Los Angeles magazine online. (I’m feeling so very Carrie Bradshaw! ) My post, Scene It Before (thank you, fellow stalker Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, for the title!), will chronicle filming locations (duh!) then-and-now and will run each Thursday. I could NOT be more floored about this new endeavor and hope all of my fellow stalkers will check it out each week. My first column, which was published this past Thursday, can be read here. (I actually wanted to make this announcement last Friday, but felt weird mixing in such happy news with a blog about the assassination of JFK.) And now, on with the post!

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Back in September, my mom texted me to ask if I had ever stalked a huge, white boat-shaped house on Mulholland Drive. Such a property was being featured on an episode of Million Dollar Listing that she was watching at the time and real estate agent Josh Altman had mentioned that the site was often rented out for movie and TV shoots – so much so that the owner was said to make about $700,000 a year on filming alone! (In fact, during the episode Altman loses the listing because a movie production company swept in and rented the place for four months – for $320,000! When Altman learned the unfortunate news, he asked if the flick being filmed was Titanic 2. LOL) I had never even heard of such a structure before, but was, of course, immediately intrigued. Thankfully, I found the pad rather quickly that very same night via a Google search (there aren’t that many houses shaped like ships on Mulholland Drive, I guess). One look at the images Google kicked back had me absolutely drooling. The place was easily one of the most architecturally unique residences I’d ever laid eyes on. So I ran right out to stalk it while the Grim Cheaper and I were in L.A. two weeks ago.

Before arriving at the property, I had an inkling that it would not be very visible from the street, so I was floored to discover the opposite to be true.

Kinda makes you want to scream out, “I’m the king of the world!”, huh?

The 5-bedroom, 8-bath, 4-level, 11,000-square-foot residence, which was originally built in 1992, offers glass walls, 300-degree views, 2,500-square-feet of outdoor living space, an office, a pool, 2 spas, a fire pit, a gym, a nightclub/theatre, a wine cellar, 2 kitchens, and parking for 8 cars. It was last offered for sale for a cool $6,749,000. You can check out the real estate listing, complete with interior photographs, here.

For such a unique dwelling, the entrance to the property is actually quite non-descript, as you can see in the below Google Street View image. (Unfortunately, Mulholland Drive is a very busy thoroughfare and there was absolutely nowhere for me to pull over to snap photographs in the vicinity of the, ahem, stern area.)

I was floored to discover while doing research for this post that the abode has quite a few celebrity connections. According to MailOnline.com, pop group One Direction stayed there for seven nights this past August during the last week of the North American portion of their Take Me Home tour. Harry and the gang shelled out $27,000 for the privilege. Yep, $27,000 for seven nights! (While the article also states that the boat house is located in a gated community, that information is actually incorrect. As you can see above, the home is situated right on Mulholland Drive and is quite accessible.) According to Virtual Globetrotting, model Katie Price and then-husband, singer Peter Andre, leased the residence back in 2008 and Curbed LA states that Prince rented the pad for a time, but, for whatever reason, never actually lived on the premises.

The episode of Million Dollar Listing my mom had watched back in September was Season 6’s “All Aboard,” in which Altman and his assistant, Mikey, hosted a broker’s open house at the boat-shaped residence.

Of the property, Altman said, “Some houses, they sell themselves. This one, not so much. Not only is it shaped as a ship, but it probably needs about a million dollars worth of upgrades. It looks like the freaking Love Boat in here! This thing is straight out of the ‘80s.” LOL The place is definitely unique – you gotta give it that. It is not very hard to see why the pad has been utilized so often as a filming location.

Thanks to Curbed LA, I learned that in 2002 the top ten finalists from the first season of American Idol were put up in the mansion. (Once I heard the news, I ran right home and watched our American Idol: The Search for a Superstar DVD, which chronicles the series’ first year. Man, that season was great! In my mind, no other season has even come close to comparing.) Quite a few areas of the house were shown in those episodes, including the front exterior;

the kitchen;

several bedrooms;

the pool;

the living areas;

and the carport.

That same year, the boat house was featured in Eve’s “Gangsta Lovin’” music video.

You can watch that video by clicking below.

In the Season 3 episode of Californication titled “Slow Happy Boys,” which aired in 2009, the abode was where Sue Collini (Kathleen Turner) lived and threw a rowdy party.

The interior of the property also appeared in the episode.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Los Angeles magazine online . And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Big THANK YOU to my mom for telling me about this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Mulholland Drive Boat House is located at 15105 Mulholland Drive in Bel-Air. You can check out a good view of the residence from Woodcliff and Cody Roads, which run just north and east of it.

November 25, 2013
Lauren and Jason’s Malibu Rental from “The Hills”

Way back in June 2010, a fellow stalker named Nick emailed me to let me know he had tracked down the Malibu beach house that Lauren Conrad and her then boyfriend Jason Wahler leased for the summer in the Season 1 episode of The Hills titled “Timing Is Everything.” And while the location was one that I had been dying to find for ages, because I was knee deep in wedding planning at the time, I was unable to stalk it. Then, on a rather overcast morning this past March, I remembered the locale while out and about in The ‘Bu and dropped by. For whatever reason, though, the pad slipped my mind yet again shortly thereafter and I failed to blog about it. It was not until two Thursdays ago, when I received the November 18th, 2013 issue of US Weekly with its “Life After The Hills” cover feature, that I was reminded of the residence and that it was long overdue for a write-up. So here goes.

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The modern-style seaside pad, which was originally built in 2005 and sits just east of Las Tunas Beach, boasts three bedrooms, two and a half baths, 3,000 square feet of living space, a chef’s kitchen, a game room, Brazilian cherry wood flooring, onyx marble detailing throughout, and a master suite with an office, fireplace, dual walk-in closets (yes, please!), and a spa tub. According to Zillow, back in 2010 the property was available for sale for $4,195,000 or for lease at $13,000 a month. It later sold in November of that same year for $3,688,000.

The interior of the house is pretty darn spectacular, as you can see below. You can check out some more photographs of the interior on Redfin here.

In the “Timing Is Everything” episode of The Hills, which was the Season 1 finale, Lauren turned down a Teen Vogue summer internship in Paris in order to spend the season living with Jason in a rented Malibu beach house. The rental was shown twice in the episode, but very briefly each time.

The real life interior of the home was also featured in “Timing Is Everything.”

As was the rear of the property, which sits on stilts over the ocean and is, unfortunately, completely unstalkable, as you can see below.

The beach house also popped up briefly at the beginning of The Hills Season 2 premiere, which was titled “Out with the Old . . .” By the start of that episode, Lauren and Jason were, not surprisingly, broken up and Lauren had become known around the Teen Vogue offices as “The Girl Who Didn’t Go to Paris.” (While making screen captures for this post, I got COMPLETELY sucked in to watching both “Timing Is Everything” and “Out with the Old . . .” Man, The Hills was a great show! Why, oh why did it have to go off the air? For those who were as into the series as I was, this article is a fascinating read!)

On a side-note – While watching “Timing Is Everything” and “Out with the Old . . ,” I happened to spot my favorite blogger, Cupcakes and Cashmere’s Emily Schuman, who worked at Teen Vogue at the same time as Lauren, twice. Looks like Emily was even sporting her famous messy bun back then. Love it!

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Nick for finding this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Lauren and Jason’s summer rental from the “Timing Is Everything” episode of The Hills is located at 19220 Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu.

November 18, 2013
Angeles Abbey Memorial Park from “Alias”

Today’s locale is one of my favorite Haunted Hollywood locations ever! Way back in January 2012, fellow stalker Gilles from France sent me an email asking for some help in tracking down a mosque-like structure that stood in for a Moroccan airport in the Season 1 episode of Alias titled “A Broken Heart.” Gilles included some screen captures in his email and, upon first glance, I guessed that the place was most likely a cemetery. So I did a quick Google search for a mosque-like graveyard in Los Angeles and the first result to be kicked back was Angeles Abbey Memorial Park in Compton. Sure enough, it was the right place. And while I was pretty much drooling upon looking at pictures of the site, because of its location, I avoided stalking it. Then, feeling brave this summer after finally visiting the spot where the Black Dahlia’s body was found, I bit the bullet and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out there. And I am very happy to report that it is not located in a dangerous area at all.

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Angeles Abbey Memorial Park was originally established in 1923 by a shipbuilder named George Clegg. The Long Beach native reportedly sent two architects to India for inspiration and, upon their return, had them build a 1,000-crypt mausoleum resembling the Taj Mahal. The Moorish-style structure featured imported Italian marble, intricate tile work, and stained-glass windows and ceilings. Sadly though, as you can see below, the building’s façade is currently blocked by large trees and most of its beauty hidden.

The rear of the structure is visible to passersby, though, and pretty darn amazing in and of itself. And don’t even get me started on the interior! We, unfortunately, did not venture inside any of the mausoleums while stalking Angeles Abbey, but I came upon these stunning photographs while doing research for this post and am now absolutely kicking myself! The interiors are nothing short of stunning! Uh-ma-zing!

Other equally-impressive mausoleums were built in the late 1920s and today, Angeles Abbey Memorial Park is the final resting place for over 35,000 souls.

Sadly though, as Compton began to change in the 1960s, the cemetery fell into disrepair. In 2001, the site was grappling with graffiti, vandalism and gang activity. It appears to be in a bit better shape today, though, thankfully, aside from the acres of dead grass.

Stepping onto the grounds of Angeles Abbey is like stepping into another world. Standing there, I had to remind myself that I was still in L.A. and not in some exotic, far-off locale. It is no wonder the place has so often graced movie and television screens.

Ironically enough, though, Angeles Abbey has rarely appeared onscreen as a cemetery. For having such decidedly unique and ornate architecture, the place is truly a blank canvass – one that production designers have turned into everything from a jail to a palace to a courthouse to an airport. As I mentioned above, the exterior of Abbey Memorial stood in for an airport in Morocco in the Season 1 episode of Alias titled “A Broken Heart.”

In that same episode, the interior of the main mausoleum masqueraded as a a bustling Moroccan marketplace.

It is absolutely amazing to me that production designers were able to so completely transform a freaking mausoleum into a Middle Eastern bazaar! That speaks to both their talent and the beauty of the site.

The cemetery popped up again in the Season 4 episode of Alias titled “Ice.” In the episode, the exteriors . . .

. . . and interiors of Angeles Abbey stood in for the Arabian souk where Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner) tried to purchase a deadly bio-weapon.

Angeles Abbey was used extensively in the Season 1 episode of JAG titled “Scimitar,” which originally aired in 1995. In the episode, one of the mausoleums masqueraded as Al Mataha Prison in Basra, Iraq where Corporal David Anderson (Ron Livingston – aka Sex and the City’s Berger!) was held.

The interior of one of the mausoleums was also used as the interior of the prison courthouse in “Scimitar.”

In that same episode, Angeles Abbey’s main mausoleum stood in for Al Ba’Ran, one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces.

The interior of the main mausoleum was also utilized as the interior of the palace in the episode.

Thanks to the Phantasm Archives website, I learned that Abbey Memorial Park appeared in Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead. Unfortunately, I could not find a copy of the 1994 horror flick anywhere, but I did manage to make the screen captures pictured below from the trailer, which I found on YouTube.

Thanks again to the Phantasm Archives website, I also learned that the cemetery was used briefly for the mausoleum scenes in Phantasm IV: Oblivion.

In the 2005 movie Constantine, the interior of Abbey Memorial Park’s main mausoleum masqueraded as the underground storage room belonging to Midnite (Djimon Hounsou), where John Constantine (Keanu Reeves) revisited Hell by electrocuting himself in an electric chair from Sing Sing.

And while a 2001 Los Angeles Times article states that the cemetery appeared in 1987’s The Untouchables, I scanned through the movie and did not see it pop up anywhere.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Gilles for challenging me to find this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Angeles Abbey Memorial Park, from the “A Broken Heart” episode of Alias, is located at 1515 East Compton Boulevard in Compton.

October 21, 2013