Category: TV Locations

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Audrina’s New Pad!

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I have to admit that I shed a little tear during Monday night’s episode of The Hills as Audrina’s moving truck pulled away from the home she formerly shared with Lauren and Lo. With both Whitney and Audrina seemingly moving on from The Hills, I really hope this doesn’t signal the end of the my favorite reality series. I’d be absolutely devastated!!! I mean I get sad enough on Monday nights at 10:30 when The Hills’ ending credits start rolling, as I know I have to wait a full week before I can watch another episode. It’s sick, really. 🙂 Anyway, after watching Monday’s show, I decided I just had to stalk Audrina’s new pad. Thankfully, finding the location wasn’t too hard. I just called on the usual suspects – fave websites the Real Estalker and Big Time Listings – which both stated that the house was located on Bryn Mawr Drive in the Dell neighborhood of Hollywood. From that point it was just a matter of looking at recently sold homes on that street (there were only two) until I found Audrina’s. 🙂

But when I went to stalk Audrina’s pad in person yesterday there were cops swarming the place! I’m really not sure what the story was, and I didn’t stick around long enough to find out, but my best guess is that some Hills filming was taking place and a neighbor had called the police to complain – about what I am not sure. According to reports it seems that Audrina’s neighbors aren’t too happy that she moved into their normally quiet town. LOL The neighbors are upset about the noise and crowding of their small streets, but honestly had the cops not been there, I never would have had any idea that any filming was taking place. The street was quite and there wasn’t a film truck in site, or any other cars for that matter. Personally I’d love it if The Hills filmed in my neighborhood! I’d be out there watching everyday! 🙂

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Audrina’s new house is a very cute, Spanish style home located on a very windy street high up in the Hollywood Hills. The house was just recently built and sits on a minuscule lot – according to Big Time Listings the lot only measures 0.09 of an acre – that’s 3,999 square feet!!! I mean most celebrity homes are bigger than Audrina’s whole property! LOL Ms. Patridge purchased the three bedroom, two and a half bath, 2,100 square foot home for $1,150,000 – which seems to be pretty low budget for a celeb, even for a reality star. 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Audrina’s new house is located at 6393 Bryn Mawr Drive in Los Angeles. How I Met Your Mother’s Josh Radnor is next door at 6387 Bryn Mawr.

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Just Another Day In L.A.!

On Monday, I decided to do a little stalking of the horror movie Scream 2, a movie which I am sad to say was nowhere near as good as its predecessor. But since I had found the address of the fraternity house used in the movie and since the location fit in with my Halloween theme, I had to run right out to stalk it. The fraternity house was featured in the beginning of Scream 2 as the location of the party Sidney and her friends attend. It is while everyone is at this party that Sarah Michelle Geller gets thrown from the balcony of a supposedly nearby sorority house. Unfortunately I have yet to locate that sorority house and from what I can tell, in real life it is nowhere near the party house. LOL Anyway, the Scream 2 party house looks pretty much exactly the same as it does in the movie, minus all of the fraternity signs, of course. In real life, it is just a normal privately owned residence and it is not located anywhere near a college campus. But it was actually after leaving the Scream house, that my day got a whole lot more exciting.

My mom is always telling me to trust in the universe and it is times like this past Monday morning that convince me that I need to listen to her. While leaving the Scream house, I got a bit lost, as I have been known to do (I have absolutely no sense of direction whatsoever!). So I put my address into my trusty GPS unit hoping that it would lead me home, but, instead, it led me right to the filming of one of my favorite TV shows ever – TNT’s The Closer. As I came around a bend after leaving the Scream house, I noticed some trucks and filming lights set up on the side of the road. Then all of a sudden, the next thing I knew, there were Kyra Sedgwick and G.W. Bailey (my fave actor on the show!) standing just a few feet from my car as I drove by! So, of course, I just had to pull over! 🙂

The policeman on duty at the set could not have been nicer to me and asked one of the A.D.’s if I could sit on the sidelines and watch the filming. The A.D. said no problem, so I got to sit down for about an hour and a half and observe the making of one of my favorite shows. And I have to say I could not have been more impressed with what I witnessed. Every single person on the crew was extremely friendly and it seems like a truly fun set to work on – and believe me, I’ve been on my fair share of sets and that is not always the case. The cast members were extremely friendly with each other – there was a lot of laughing and joking around in between takes. And I was super excited when the cast took a break and came to sit down right next to where I was sitting. Kyra’s director’s chair was set up very close to me, actually, and I could not have been more excited. I love me some Kyra! But instead of being starstruck by her, I was actually more struck by her level of professionalism. Out of all the actors and actresses that I have been fortunate enough to observe in person, she was by far the most focused on her work. During every single break, Kyra went straight to her director’s chair, took out her script, studied her lines and made notes in a notebook – much like I do in my acting classes. 🙂 As an actress, this was fascinating for me to watch and I could not have been more impressed. At her level, she could just as easily have goofed off during her breaks, or gone to grab an iced latte or something, but instead she was 100% focused on her work. I have always felt that I have learned far more from observing professional actors at work than I have from any of my acting classes and this was of course true yesterday as I watched Kyra. (I only took a couple of pictures of the filming as I did not want to disturb anyone – or get kicked off the set.) 🙂

After the producers wrapped up the filming and the actors were shuttled back to base camp, the policeman on duty told me they were moving to a new location and invited me to come along. So I immediately called my dad and asked him to join me, as he is a big fan of the show, too, and he has a better camera than I do. 🙂 The next location where The Closer filmed, also located in Pasadena, is a mansion that has actually been home to many a film shoot. Apparently the mansion has a resume as long as my arm, but unfortunately I don’t know the specifics of the filming that has taken place there. I do know, though, that it was used in the pilot episode of CSI: Miami, as the Las Vegas home of a swinging couple whose daughter is kidnapped during a party.

My dad took quite a few photos of the filming, but because we didn’t want to disturb anyone, unfortunately I didn’t get a pic with Kyra or any of the other cast members. 🙁 We had such a blast being on the set, though, and watching the filming! I can’t even believe I got to spend my day there! And to think, if I hadn’t gotten lost, I might never have experienced any of it!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The party house from Scream 2 is located at 350 S. Grand Avenue in Pasadena. The Closer was filmed at 141 N. Grand Avenue, also in Pasadena, and on Arroyo Drive underneath the Colorado Street Bridge. Look for that Closer episode to air next January or February on TNT.

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Ray’s Pumpkins

Last week, thanks to Mike over at MovieShotsLA, I was able to stalk the pumpkin patch that was owned by Ray Pruit’s family on the original Beverly Hills, 90210. I was shocked when Mike told me that the property where filming took place is the location of an actual pumpkin patch in real life. I had been convinced that producers just dressed an empty lot for the filming of 90210, but in reality they rented out a real pumpkin patch that has occupied the same corner in Sherman Oaks for over fifteen years.

When I drove up to the patch I just about keeled over with excitement as there was a large sign out front which read “Ray’s Pumpkins”. I naively thought the owner named the patch after Ray Pruit because of the filming that took place there, but it turns out that the actual owner’s name is Ray! How cool is that!

Ray really could not have been nicer and spoke to me about the filming of 90210 for a good 15 minutes. He said that everyone on the cast and crew was very nice and very professional. Even though the pumpkin patch scene lasted only about four minutes and was shown in only one episode (the Season 5 episode entitled “Homecoming”), the filming took a full two days to complete. Ray told me that during the filming, some construction was being done on an apartment building located across the street from the patch. At one point the construction noise got too loud, so the producers of 90210 actually paid to have all construction shut down for the remainder of the shoot! LOL The cast and crew of 90210 returned to Ray’s later that same year and the real Ray’s Christmas tree lot stood in for the one owned by the Pruit Family in a Christmas episode of the show. Ray said there is always some sort of filming taking place at the patch. He couldn’t remember all of the productions that had filmed there, but he did say that Dancing With The Stars featured the patch in a brief segment last year.

Ray’s Pumpkin’s is a very cool pumpkin patch and I highly recommend stalking it. There are hundreds upon hundreds of pumpkins to choose from and tons of cute Halloween merchandise and decorations for sale. Ray told me that he also gets quite a few Valley celebs visiting his patch each year, so you just might get to rub elbows with the stars while pumpkin shopping. 🙂 Unfortunately I visited Ray’s after it was already dark outside, so my pics didn’t turn out very well and don’t really do the patch justice. But a BIG THANK YOU to Mike for providing the top pic. 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Ray’s Pumpkins is located at the corner of Hazeltine Avenue and Moorpark Street in Sherman Oaks. Ray also owns the Peterson Ranch Fruit Stand located at 3402 Los Angeles Avenue in Somis, CA. The fruit stand is also a frequent filming location. It is most often used in commercials and was featured recently in a car ad.

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Lady Heather’s House

On the second season of CSI: Las Vegas we were introduced to a character whom Grissom later became very fond of named Lady Heather. On the show Lady Heather, who was played by The O.C.’s Melinda Clarke, owns an S&M fetish club in Sin City which she runs out of her extraordinary home. Lady Heather first appeared as a guest star in an episode entitled “Slaves of Las Vegas” and has since reappeared on four separate occasions, becoming something of a cult favorite for CSI fans. Her unique home also appeared in all five of the “Lady Heather” episodes and, being that it is a pretty spooky house and fits in with my Haunted Hollywood theme for this month, I dragged my dad right out to stalk it.

Lady Heather’s house is an absolutely ginormous mansion (13,393 square feet according to Zillow!!) located on a large corner lot in South Pasadena. I found the home thanks to Scott’s LA Audio Driving Tour of Pasadena, which lists many great Pasadena filming locations. It is easy to see why producers chose to use this house for the filming of CSI, as it has a very looming and dark presence, most likely due to its sheer size. For the filming of CSI, producers brought in many Gothic decorations, like large candelabras, to create a more dark and spooky atmosphere. But when you see the home in person, it becomes obvious that not much had to be done in preparation for filming due to its naturally ominous look. In person, the home looks like it could be a real life haunted house. And it actually looks like it belongs on a bayou in New Orleans rather than in the middle of Suburban Pasadena. Unfortunately I don’t own CSI on DVD, so I couldn’t get very good screen captures of the home.

In the various Lady Heather episodes, the exterior of the home is shown numerous times, especially the front door and front porch area (which unfortunately I do not have any screen captures of).

A back porch area is also shown in a special 90 minute episode from Season 3 entitled “Lady Heather’s Box”. It is the location where Grissom and the dominatrix sit down for a cup of tea.

Lady Heather’s house is a very cool place to see in person. I highly recommend stalking it if you are at all a fan of CSI or if you want to conduct your own Haunted Halloween tour. 🙂

UPDATE – This very same house was also used as the haunted mansion in the recently aired Season 3 episode of The Mentalist entitled “Red Scare”.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Lady’s Heather’s house is located at 929 Buena Vista St., at the corner of Buena Vista and Meridian Avenue, in South Pasadena.

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We’ll Always Have Paris

Once again I am indebted to Mike over at MovieShotsLA for finding yet another location that had eluded me – a location I had been searching for for close to 16 years! During Season 3 of the original 90210, Brenda and Donna spend their summer in Paris. In the episode entitled “Shooting Star/An American In Paris” Brenda meets a tall, dark and handsome college student named Rick in a beautiful French garden. Later on in the episode the two walk underneath a curved rose-covered trellis and it is that trellis that I have been searching for ever since that episode aired way back in August of 1992. A few years after that episode aired, my parents took me on a trip to Europe as a present for my high school graduation. Our first stop was France and I remember walking around the streets of Paris carrying a small picture of Brenda and Rick under that trellis, stopping every native French person I could find to ask if they knew where it was located. Yes, I really am that blonde! 🙂 My naive 18 year old self truly believed that Shannen Doherty and Tori Spelling had actually flown to France to film their Paris scenes. That reality was shattered this past summer when I took the Universal Studios tour and discovered that most of “Paris” was actually filmed at the Universal backlot. Not filmed at Universal, though, were the garden scenes. So I still had no idea where Brenda and Rick’s trellis was located. Knowing how obsessed I was with finding Brenda’s garden, Mike stayed up very late one night this week and located it for me and I was able to actually stalk it yesterday!! Let me tell you, I could not have been more excited!!

Mike and I were fairly certain that Brenda’s garden was located in one of the three main botanical gardens in LA, and since I had stalked the Arcadia Arboretum on Sunday without finding it, Mike set his sights on the Huntington Library and Botanical Gardens in San Marino. He stayed up late one night searching Google images until he finally located Brenda’s trellis in the Rose Garden area of the Huntington, a good 5,000 miles from Paris, France. THANKS MIKE!!!! So yesterday, I dragged my dad out to the Huntington, in 103 degree heat no less, to do some 90210 stalking.

The Huntington shows up three times in the “Shooting Star/An American in Paris” episode. We first see it in the scene when Brenda and Rick first meet. In that scene, Brenda is sitting on a circular bench underneath a large oak tree. Sadly, that circular bench was removed long ago and the tree Brenda sat under is now surrounded by foliage, so the area looks very different. But there was a similar bench located just a few yards away, so I had to take a picture sitting on that. 🙂

The area where Brenda actually sat sixteen years ago is located on the very Southeast corner of the North Vista lawn, pictured above. The path Rick walks through when he first comes upon Brenda is now gone and filled in with foliage. Such a bummer!!!!

This same tree and bench area also show up in the episode following “Shooting Star/An American in Paris”, which is entitled “Castles In The Sand”. It is shown in the scene when Brenda dreams about Rick on her plane flight home to LA.

The next location I dragged my dad to stalk was the white flowered trellis Brenda and Rick walk under on their last night in Paris together. This is the location where “Reek” tells Brenda that if she were truly in love with Dylan she wouldn’t be standing there with him and then the two share their final Paris kiss. This particular trellis is located in the Rose Garden area of the Huntington, just off of the Tea Room.

This same location also shows up in the Hil D. movie A Cinderella Story. In the movie Hilary attends a masquerade ball at the Huntington. The exteriors of the ball location were filmed outside of the Huntington Gallery building (the interiors were actually filmed at a theatre in Downtown LA). During the ball, Chad Michael Murray takes Hil on a walk under the same trellises Rick and Brenda walked under 12 years before. After walking under the trellises, Chad leads Hilary to a gazebo where the two share a moonlit dance. That gazebo was brought in by producers and put in the Brown Garden especially for the filming and was removed when the three day shoot was complete.

Next up was the site I was most excited about seeing in person, the location I had wandered the streets of Paris trying to find – the curved rose-covered trellis Brenda and Rick walk beneath during their tour of Paris. Even sixteen years later, I could not have been more excited to see this location in person. 🙂 I truly felt like a high school girl all over again! The trellis appeared in the scene where Brenda takes Rick on a walking tour of Paris and I am happy to report that it looks EXACTLY the same as it did when it appeared on 90210, except that due to the time of year, the flowers usually covering it were not in full bloom yesterday. This trellis is also located in the Huntington’s Rose Garden; it covers the path which leads to the Japanese Garden area.

Interestingly enough, this very same location showed up on 90210 some years later as the location where Steve and Janet tie the knot. Producers added some black street lights to the site which are not normally there. Otherwise it looks much the same as it did when it first appeared on 90210.

The Huntington Library and Botanical Gardens was originally the private home of Central Pacific Railroad owner Henry E. Huntington and his wife Arabella. Originally called the San Marino Ranch, Henry and his wife purchased the property in 1902 and began creating a truly incredible botanical garden in their backyard. Throughout his lifetime, Henry also collected fine art and books and today it is his art, library and gardens that make up the Huntington. The 207 acre property is an absolutely beautiful place to spend an afternoon. I am usually not big on museums, but the Huntington is simply breathtaking. The gardens alone cover over 120 acres and consist of painstakingly maintained landscapes from different areas of the world. It really takes more than one visit to discover all of this amazing place. The grounds are serene and peaceful and when visiting, you will feel a million miles away from Los Angeles. The Rose Garden is exquisite, the Bonzai Court and Zen Garden are truly unique, the Japanese Garden is incredible with its winding koi ponds and bamboo forests, and the newly built Chinese Garden with its enormous lake is absolutely gorgeous. This is one location that is a must-see, not just for stalkers, but for anyone visiting the Los Angeles area.

Besides 90210 and A Cinderella Story, The Huntington Library and Botanical Gardens has appeared in countless movie and television productions, including First Daughter, Be Cool, Legally Blonde 2, The Bachelor reality show, The Wedding Planner, Beverly Hills Ninja, The West Wing, American Wedding, Monster in Law, Charlie’s Angels, as well as hundreds of others. It was also the location of Robert and Anna’s wedding on the soap opera General Hospital. Anytime you see a garden popping up on one of your favorite television shows or movies, chances are it was filmed at the Huntington.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Huntington Library and Botanical Gardens is located at 1151 Oxford Road in San Marino. You can visit their website here. You can also visit their filming website here.

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“De Plane, De Plane!”

This weekend my boyfriend and I hung out with Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and his fiance Jen, and we all sat down to watch some Season 3 episodes of the original 90210. I became a bit obsessed with finding the location that stood in for the Paris garden where Brenda takes “Reek” in the episode entitled “Shooting Star/An American In Paris”. I knew, from the Universal Studios tour, that most of the Paris scenes on 90210 were filmed in the Little Europe section of the Universal backlot, but the garden area used in the episode we watched on Saturday was definitely not a backlot. Mike and I figured out that the scenes had to have been shot in one of three places – the Los Angeles County Arboretum in Arcadia, the Huntington Library and Botanical Gardens in Pasadena, or Descanso Gardens in La Canada. I decided if I really wanted to find Brenda’s garden, I was just going to have to hit up all three (I told you I was a bit obsessed!), so yesterday I dragged my boyfriend out to the Arboretum for a little 90210 stalking. Unfortunately, after walking pretty much every square foot of the 127 acre property, I realized that 90210 was not in fact filmed at the Arboretum. But since countless other productions have been filmed there, I still felt it was blog-worthy. 🙂

The Arboretum was originally the private ranch of real estate tycoon Elias Jackson Baldwin, who first purchased the land in 1875. He lived on the property, which at the time was called Rancho Santa Anita, and eventually built a guest home, called the Queen Anne Cottage, to house his many guests. In 1936, the land was purchased by a group of investors led by Harry Chandler, publisher of the LA Times newspaper. That same year Hollywood came a knockin’ on the Arboretum’s door when producers of the film Tarzan Escapes chose to film much of their movie on the vast property. In 1947, the property was purchased by both the State of California and the City of Los Angeles, who turned it into a public arboretum and botanical garden.

Since Tarzan Escapes, literally hundreds upon hundreds of film, television and commercial productions have shot at the Arboretum. The most notable credit on the Arboretum’s resume is the television series Fantasy Island, which showcased Elias Baldwin’s former guest house, the Queen Anne Cottage, each week in its opening credits. The Cottage was none other than the location where Tatoo proclaimed “De plane, de plane!” at the beginning of each episode. The first few episodes of Fantasy Island were actually filmed on location at the Arboretum, but after that a replica of the cottage was built on a soundstage to be used for filming. You can watch the intro to Fantasy Island below

The Queen Anne Cottage was also featured in Meet the Fockers as Ben Stiller’s parents’ home. In Meet the Fockers the Cottage was painted brown and looks very different than it does in real life.

Besides Fantasy Island, the Arboretum shows up in The African Queen, The Road to Singapore, Roots, Wonder Woman, The American President, Anaconda, Bedazzled, Battle of Shaker Heights, Terminator 2, as well as a recent episode of Heroes, where it stood in for the Peruvian jungle. The waterfall and bamboo park area of the Arboretum were also featured in the Destiny’s Child Survivor video (pictured above).

The Arboretum is an absolutely beautiful place to visit, with a very reasonable $7 entrance fee. Even though I was seriously dissapointed that it was not the location used in 90210, I still had a great time spending my day there. The Arboretum features over 127 acres of gardens, ponds, lakes, waterfalls, meandering pathways and forests to explore. I highly recommend stalking it!

Perhaps the best feature of the Arboretum, though, are the hundreds of peacocks that make their home there and walk the property freely. The peacocks are extremely tame (I even saw them eating grapes right out of a little girl’s hand) and walk right next to you, as if exploring the Arboretum themselves. They were so much fun to see!!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!! 🙂

Stalk It: The Los Angeles State and County Arboretum and Botanical Garden is located at 301 N. Baldwin Avenue in Arcadia. The Arboretum is open from 9am to 5pm. Tickets will cost you $7 per person, but you can get in free each third Tuesday of the month.

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Brenda and Dylan’s First Kiss

I think the new 90210 has been making me nostalgic for the original series, because lately I have found myself re-watching old episodes of the 90s show. The other night, while watching one of my fave episodes from the first season, the episode where Brenda and Dylan first get together, I noticed a filming location that I had yet to stalk. In the episode, entitled “Isn’t It Romantic”, Dylan has moved out of his suite at the BelAge Hotel and into what looks like a ritzy apartment building. After a date at the former Fox Studio City Theatre, Dylan brings Brenda back to that apartment building only to find his father waiting for him inside – and, of course, drama ensues.

While watching the episode, I happened to notice the word “L’Ermitage” spelled out on the side of the apartment building’s entrance (pictured in the above screen capture).

So I got to Googling and quickly discovered that there used to be a “members only” hotel called the L’Ermitage located in Bevelry Hills once upon a time. Sadly, the L’Ermitage was purchased by the Raffles hotel chain in October of 2000 and was completely renovated, remodeled, and renamed. The new hotel, called the Raffles L’Ermitage, does not look very much like Dylan’s former apartment building. Even the front entrance of the hotel, which was the site of Brenda and Dylan’s dramatic first kiss, was gutted and changed. But while the L’Ermitage does look very different than it did during the 90210 days, something about it is still vaguely reminiscent. Especially familiar is the sidewalk in front of the hotel where Brenda runs after Dylan’s meltdown where he throws a potted plant on the ground. Gotta love it!! 🙂 Standing there brought back such fond memories for me and I highly recommend stalking the L’Ermitage if you were at all a fan of Brenda and Dylan. 🙂

The L’Ermitage is an absolutely beautiful place and I cannot wait to drag my boyfriend back there on a Friday or Saturday night to grab a drink in one of the hotel’s many bars. The hotel’s rooftop terrace has been ranked one of the top three rooftop bars in the country. The hotel’s Writer’s Bar, where the walls are decorated with screenplays and scripts, is also supposed to be a fabulous place to grab a drink. The exclusive hotel is also a big time celeb hotspot – so if you visit be sure to keep your eyes peeled! Julia Roberts, Georgio Armani, Michael Jackson, Elizabeth Taylor, Keira Knightley, Penelope Cruz, and Angelina Jolie have all stayed at the L’Ermitage in the past. While stalking the L’Ermitage yesterday, I saw James Woods, who was hanging out in front of the hotel. I absolutely LOVE me some James Woods and the TV show Shark, so I was floored to see him in person. I would have asked him to take a pic with me, but he was busy talking on his cell phone and then his friend drove up, so I didn’t want to bother him. I did snap a pic of him from far away, though. He is in the above photo leaning against the Porsche. SO COOL! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Raffles L’Ermitage is located at 9291 Burton Way in Beverly Hills, not far from Rodeo Drive.

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The Standard Hotel

My friend Stephanie, who is even more obsessed with Sex and the City than I am, has a birthday coming up this Friday, so I decided to do a little post today in her honor. In Stephanie’s favorite SATC episodes, entitled “Escape from New York” and “Sex in Another City”, Carrie and the Girls take a little vacay to the West Coast. While there, they stay at the uber-trendy Standard Hotel on the Sunset Strip, and it is that location that I set out to stalk yesterday. So Steffi – this one’s for you! 🙂

The Standard Hotel was featured prominently in both of the L.A. episodes of SATC. The Standard’s rooftop pool shows up in several scenes – most memorably it is the location where Carrie discusses a rather painful bikini wax.

The lobby area – complete with its live performance art – is also shown several times.

But most memorable for me is the scene that takes place at the hotel’s front entrance – when Carrie is reprimanded for smoking.

The Standard Hotel is an ultra-trendy, ultra-modern hot spot, with a huge celebrity following. Originally opened in 1999, with celeb investors such as Cameron Diaz and Leonardo DiCaprio (sigh!), the hotel was considered a less expensive alternative to the many other pricey West Hollywood hotels. The Standard is a truly unique hotel – it’s sort of like a W Hotel, only amplified to the power of a hundred. The Standard features ghost chairs and floor-to-wall-to-ceiling shag carpeting in the lobby, blue astro-turfed patios, live nude performance art showcased in a glass case behind the front desk, a roof-top pool/dessert bar, DJ’s spinning tunes nightly in the lobby, and, most famous of all, upside-down signage. The whole thing is not really my cup of tea, but if you are into modern decor and the avant-garde, I highly recommend stalking the place. Today there are four hotels in the Standard chain, with branches in Downtown L.A., Miami Beach and New York. The Downtown L.A. Standard was featured repeatedly in the 2005 movie Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.

BIG THANK YOU to Mike, over at MovieShotsLA, for sending me the above screen captures!!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Standard Hotel is located at 8300 Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood. You can visit the hotel’s website here. A room there will run you $240 and up per night.

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West Beverly?

A few weeks ago, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, sent me some screen captures from a Season One episode of the original Beverly Hills, 90210 series entitled “Fame Is Where You Find It.” In the episode Brandon “goes Hollywood” after landing a role on Brenda’s favorite television series Keep It Together. In one scene in the episode, Keep It Together’s star, Lydia Leeds, picks Brandon up from West Beverly High in her limousine during lunch. While watching the episode, Mike noticed that the high school shown in that scene did not look like Torrance High School, the real life locale which was used to portray West Beverly High during the first three seasons of 90210. Mike made it his mission to find out exactly what school was used in that scene.

I tried to help him out in this stalking mission, but as usual he was one step ahead of me. 🙂 It didn’t take long at all before Mike found some online photos of Notre Dame High School in Sherman Oaks and recognized it as the place that stood in for West Beverly in the “Fame Is Where You Find It” episode. I have visited and blogged about this location once before, but I just had to run right out to re-stalk it so that I could see the exact spot that was used in 90210. 🙂 And standing there at Notre Dame High, it was easy to see that, without a doubt, it was definitely the location used in the “Fame Is Where You Find It” episode. It is so strange to me that producers filmed Brandon’s limousine pickup at a different location than Torrance High School, especially since there were a few other scenes from that same episode that were filmed at Torrance High. What was it that caused producers to shoot this scene elsewhere when in ever other instance I know of, all exteriors of West Beverly were shot at Torrance? Were they looking for a specific look for that particular scene that Torrance just didn’t have? Did they run out of time and decide to shoot the brief limo scene at Notre Dame because it is about 20 miles closer to the 90210 studios than Torrance High School? Perhaps we will never know, but it is these little idiosyncrasies that absolutely fascinate me when it comes to filming locations – and that will keep me stalking day after day for years to come. 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Notre Dame High School is located at 13645 Riverside Drive in Sherman Oaks. The exterior of the school’s chapel area was used for the filming of Brandon’s limousine pickup.

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Ray Pruit’s House

Thanks to Geoff over at 90210Locations, I was able to stalk Ray Pruit’s house this past weekend while out in Van Nuys. The home was featured in numerous Season 5 episodes of the series as the abode of Donna’s abusive, pumpkin-patch-owning boyfriend, Ray. At that time, the house was painted a light beige color, but has since been repainted a darker blue. Other than the exterior color, though, the house looks exactly as it did back in the 90210 days. Big THANK YOU to Mike from MovieShotsLA for the above screen capture. 🙂

Ironically enough, while taking pictures in front of Ray’s house, a neighbor walked outside and I asked him if he lived in the neighborhood at the time 90210 filmed. He said that not only was he around during that time, but he was, in fact, the location manager of the show for Seasons 4 through 10!!! I absolutely could not believe my luck and ended up talking his ear off for about fifteen minutes. He really could not have been nicer and he even gave me his email address in case I ran up against any elusive 90210 filming spots that I might need help in locating. 🙂 YAY!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Ray Pruit’s house is located at 6628 Canteloupe Drive in Van Nuys. Not far away are both the former 90210 production studios, located at 15001 Calvert Street, and the liquor store from the “U4EA” episode, located at 6020 Kester Boulevard.