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The “George Lopez” House

The Grim Cheaper and I watch a LOT of television – something I’ve mentioned many times on this blog. Somehow we still miss quite a few shows, though, like George Lopez which ran on ABC from 2002 to 2007. Nonetheless, when a fellow stalker named Jonathan emailed me back in 2016 to let me know that he had managed to track down the main house from the series on a quiet road in San Fernando, I was thrilled as I figured many of my fellow stalkers would be interested in the find. One look at Street Views images of the pad had me immediately interested, as well. The picturesque Victorian was easily one of the most charming abodes I had ever laid eyes on. So onto my To-Stalk List it went!

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The George Lopez house was originally built in 1885, making it the second-oldest home in San Fernando. (Ironically, the property that outranks it is known as Lopez Adobe. Located at 1100 Pico Street, the dwelling was constructed in 1882 for Valentin Lopez – no relation to George, at least not that I could find – whose family founded the area’s first post office and English-speaking school.)

Per a 2002 Chicago Tribune article, the idyllic Victorian was commissioned by Senator Charles Maclay, a founder of San Fernando, and his wife, Catherine Paxton Maclay.

The once grand home started to fall into disrepair in the 1960s, sadly, and by the time it hit the market in the late ‘90s, had become severely dilapidated. Gretchen and Abraham Guerrero saw through the rotted wood, shattered windows and cracked paint, though, and purchased the pad in 1997, immediately setting about on a massive restoration project that lasted more than five years. During the renovation, paint layers were stripped away, many original elements restored or re-created, two bathrooms were added (the pad initially only had one), and the attic space turned into a master suite. The result of their efforts is stunning.

Today, the 1,761-square-foot abode boasts 4 bedrooms, 3 baths (one with a footed tub), a 0.39-acre lot, a wraparound front porch, a fireplace, red oak flooring, 12-foot ceilings, and a modern kitchen with marble counters.

Considering George Lopez grew up in San Fernando, it is no surprise that the pad came to be used on the series, which was largely based on his life.

The property looks much the same in person as it did onscreen, though it has since been painted green, which Gretchen and Abraham believe is its original coloring. During their lengthy renovation, the couple happened to come across a stack of laurel-hued wood stashed away in an exterior closet which led to their hunch. They had the color matched and subsequently repainted the house, bringing it back to its initial glory.

The home only appeared in establishing shots on George Lopez.

Interiors . . .

. . . and the backyard were all part of a set located on a soundstage at Warner Bros. Studio where the series was lensed.

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

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 Lopez family home from George Lopez is located at 671 Fourth Street in San Fernando. Olympic Coffee Shop, from Sharp Objects, is just over a mile away at 12192 San Fernando Road in Sylmar.

March 18, 2019
Olympic Coffee Shop from “Sharp Objects”

I’m not sure what it is about old school diners, but I sure have an affinity for them. My inclination maybe stems from memories of childhood road trips or weekend mornings spent at greasy spoons with my parents during my early years or my nostalgic nature in general. Whatever the cause, if I see a retro café onscreen, chances are I’m going to want to locate it. Such was the case with Gritty’s Coffee Shop, the supposed Wind Gap, Missouri eatery Detective Richard Willis (Chris Messina) frequented in Sharp Objects, the 2018 HBO miniseries based on the Gillian Flynn novel of the same name. Thankfully, the restaurant was a snap to find.

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While set in the Show-Me State, as I mentioned in this post Sharp Objects was largely filmed in Southern California. A Google search for “Gritty’s Coffee Shop” and “Los Angeles” led nowhere, though. Thankfully, I happened to spot an address number of “12912” posted outside of the restaurant while watching the sixth episode, titled “Cherry,” which made my search much more fruitful. As soon as I inputted “Coffee Shop,” “Los Angeles,” and “12912,” a slew of entries for an eatery named Olympic Coffee Shop located at 12912 San Fernando Road in Sylmar was kicked back.

One look at images of the place online told me it was the right spot and I promptly added it to my To-Stalk List.

Then, when I saw the eatery pop up in an episode of Bosch (Season 2’s “Gone”), which the Grim Cheaper and I were binging at the time, that very same week, I knew I had to get out there stat!

Olympic Coffee Shop was originally established way back in 1951 as James’ Drive-In.

It subsequently became Jim Bill’s Restaurant in 1957, then Demetri’s Coffee Shop in 1971, and finally Olympic Coffee Shop in 1984.

Other than its past names, I could not find much information about the place’s history online, which is surprising considering its longevity.

Unfortunately, the GC and I were short on time when we showed up to stalk Olympic Coffee Shop, so we could not dine on the premises. As fate would have it, though, the super-friendly owner happened to see us taking photos outside and welcomed us in for a quick chat and to snap all the pictures I wanted.

He also filled us in on the site’s extensive film resume.

According to him, the place is used in productions almost weekly, which, due to its perfectly preserved 1950s aesthetic, is not at all surprising.

What is surprising is that I had never heard of the place until Sharp Objects!

Olympic Coffee Shop appeared in three episodes of the miniseries. Along with the aforementioned “Cherry,” it also popped up in the episodes “Fix” and “Falling.”

The restaurant’s film history dates back much, much farther, though.

In 1978, it masked as Sybil’s in the comedy Every Which Way But Loose, but both the exterior . . .

. . . and interior looked quite a bit different at the time.

Lincoln Hawk (Sylvester Stallone) challenged his son, Michael Cutler (David Mendenhall), to arm wrestle some local thugs at the restaurant, when it was still operating as Demetri’s, in 1987’s Over the Top.

In the 2000 film Memento, Teddy (Joe Pantoliano) and Leonard (Guy Pearce) discuss the faultiness of memories at Olympic Coffee Shop.

Luke Campbell (Dan Byrd) and Sylar (Zachary Quinto) narrowly escape from government agents at the eatery in the Season 3 episode of Heroes titled “Building 26,” which aired in 2009.

Train’s Patrick Monahan falls in love with a waitress named Kate (played by Anna Camp) at Olympic Coffee Shop in the group’s 2010 “Marry Me” music video, which you can watch here.

That same year, the restaurant was the site of a massive shootout in the Season 2 episode of NCIS: Los Angeles titled “Bounty.”

Donna (Catherine Keener) and Patrick (James Le Gros) run into Kathleen (Mikey Madison) at Olympic Coffee Shop at the end of the 2018 drama Nostalgia.

That same year, Johnny ‘Coco’ Cruz (Richard Cabral) has a rather terse reunion with his mom and sister at the café in the Season 1 episode of Mayans M.C. titled “Murciélago/Zotz.”

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Olympic Coffee Shop, from Sharp Objects, is located at 12192 San Fernando Road in Sylmar. The café is open daily from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m.

March 15, 2019
Noodles’ House from “A Star Is Born”

News outlets are reporting that Lady Gaga can’t seem to let go of her A Star Is Born character. Well, I am apparently having a hard time letting go of the movie’s locations because here I am yet again with yet another site from the film (you can read my other ASIB posts here, here, and here) – a film that I did not even enjoy, oddly enough. Yes, I did finally sit down to watch it recently, but found myself bored and wound up turning it off about ninety minutes in. I don’t know if my apathy was completely legitimate or had to do with the fact that I was dreading the sad ending, but either way, the portions I did see were just “meh.” The only time I did perk up was when the supposed Memphis home belonging to George ‘Noodles’ Stone (Dave Chappelle) came onscreen as I was fairly certain it was a spot I had stalked long ago. A quick visit to my website verified my hunch – Noodles’ pad is none other than the Teen Wolf party house! Researching further, I was shocked to discover that the property boasts yet a third notable claim to fame! So, even though I already blogged about it back in 2011, I figured it was definitely time for another go-around.

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Per a couple of commenters on my 2011 post, in real life Noodles’ house was built in 1915 for a man named Dr. Hubert Shearin, who was the head of the Occidental College English Department at the time. A distinguished member of the community, Dr. Shearin also served as director of the Eagle Rock School Board and director of Eagle Rock Bank, as well as belonging to countless local clubs. Considering his prominence, it should come as no surprise that when Eagle Rock became part of the City of Los Angeles in 1923 and many roads were required to be renamed, the street his former residence is on was dubbed “Shearin Avenue” in his honor.

Hubert passed away suddenly on August 12th, 1919 at the age of 41, leaving behind his wife, Ruth, and their two children. Ruth continued to live in the 4-bedroom, 1-bath, 2,346-square-foot property (which you can see interior photographs of here) until 1952, at which time she moved to Glendale. In the ensuing years, the house went on to become quite famous cinematically.

It is there that Scott Howard (Michael J. Fox) and his friends attend a raucous high school party in the 1985 classic Teen Wolf.

A woman named Valerie who grew up in the house and lived there during the Teen Wolf shoot wrote a comment on my 2011 post informing me that the closet where Scott kissed his BFF Boof (Susan Ursitti) was not real, but a set piece built specifically for the filming on the home’s rear deck, which is what I had suspected upon first viewing images of the interior. In actuality, the closet doors seen in the movie are French doors that lead from the dining room to the backyard. You can check out an image of the spot where the prop closet was built here.

It was thanks to my obsessive study of the closet and dining room area while writing my original post that I recognized the pad in A Star Is Born. Actually, what I recognized were the unique arched built-ins situated on either side of the home’s French doors. I had spent quite a bit of time scrutinizing them, so when they popped up in A Star Is Born, I immediately took note. You can check out some actual images of the residence’s dining room, which was massively repainted for the ASIB shoot, here and here.

Along with the dining room . . .

. . . the kitchen (which you can see a photo of here) also briefly appeared in A Star Is Born . . .

. . . as did an upstairs bedroom (matching photo here) . . .

. . . the side yard (matching photo here) . . .

. . . and the street out front (matching Google Street View image below).

As I mentioned earlier, along with Teen Wolf and A Star Is Born, the dwelling boasts yet another Hollywood connection. On the television series This Is Us, it serves at the supposed Pittsburgh residence of the Pearson family. It is this home that burns down in the much-maligned episode titled “Super Bowl Sunday.” For whatever reason, the property was only utilized on the show starting in Season 2.

During the series’ inaugural season, a different home at 1960 Fletcher Avenue in South Pasadena appeared as the Pearsons’.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Noodles’ house from A Star Is Born, aka the Teen Wolf party house, aka the Pearson residence from This Is Us, is located at 5223 Shearin Avenue in Eagle Rock. Rachel’s (Chloë Grace Moretz) home from (500) Days of Summer can be found right next door at 5231 Shearin Avenue.

March 13, 2019
Hummingbird Nest Ranch from “Book Club”

One of my favorite stalking stories involves the Grim Cheaper and Sex and the City: The Movie, which I saw right when it came out in late May 2008. I was gifted Amy Sohn’s book about the film for my birthday just a few days later and while it did a fabulous job of breaking down the locales, one that I desperately wanted to find was only mentioned in passing. Of the Mexican restaurant where Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) dined with the girls during her non-honeymoon, all that was said was that filming took place in Simi Valley. As soon as I read those words, though, I knew what I had to do – call up every Mexican eatery in the area and ask if the flick was shot there, obvs! Now I should mention here that I hate telephone calls. The GC likes to say that I am scared of the phone and he’s not far off. So I enlisted his help with this endeavor. It was a rather humorous undertaking being that none of the people who answered his calls had any earthly idea what he was talking about. Needless to say, after spending hours on the task, we came up empty – but the whole thing sure was good for a few laughs. It was not until Mike, from MovieShotsLA, saw the film that the mystery was finally solved. He recognized the Mexican restaurant, which – spoiler! – isn’t really a restaurant at all, as none other than Hummingbird Nest Ranch, an oft-filmed compound nestled north of the 118 freeway in Santa Susana. The property is, unfortunately, closed to the public, but is available to lease for special events. So, since I was newly engaged at the time, it went to the top of my list of spots to tour as a possible wedding venue. I headed out there soon thereafter, but was struck with bad luck thanks to the reality series Tool Academy which had taken over the property for a weeks-long shoot, thereby severely limiting what I could photograph. Regardless, when I saw the site pop up as the idyllic “Sedona” ranch belonging to Mitchell (Andy Garcia) in Book Club (one of my favorite movies of 2018 – available on DVD here and via streaming here), I knew I had to finally blog about it.

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Hummingbird Nest Ranch was the brainchild of Metro Networks founder David Saperstein who, in 2000, purchased a 123-acre plot of picturesque land in the hills of Simi Valley for his second wife, Suzanne. Though a gorgeous 1920s home known as Sitting Bull sat on the property, David envisioned something grander for Suzanne and commissioned architect Richard Robertson to build a massive 17,000-square-foot Spanish-style estate on the grounds for the couple to live in.

Several other structures were also added including 3 riding arenas, 16 guest and staff houses, and a 20,000-square-foot barn. That’s the barn below. Yeah, I know – it’s grander than most homes!

There is also parking for 400 vehicles, numerous swimming pools, a spa, a large pond, a helipad, and a solar-panel farm on the premises.

Saperstein filed for divorce from Suzanne in 2005 and subsequently put the ranch on the market in 2007 for $75 million. When there were no takers, he switched gears and decided to turn the property into a massive 5-star resort complete with 105 rooms, 98 casitas, numerous restaurants and swimming pools, conference facilities, and a convention center.

The city of Simi Valley greenlighted the plan, but once the permits were in place in 2014, Saperstein changed gears yet again and re-listed the site, this time for $49.5 million. It finally sold in December 2015 for $33 million.

Though the purchaser was said to be transforming the place into a wellness hotel, so far those plans have not yet come to fruition.

Because the place sat largely vacant for close to a decade, it became the perfect venue for filming (not to mention a few celebrity weddings including that of Kaley Cuoco and Ryan Sweeting, Nazanin Mandi and Miguel Pimentel, and Morgan Stewart and Brendan Fitzpatrick).

For Book Club, producers chose to use Sitting Bull, Hummingbird Nest Ranch’s original 1920s house, instead of the massive main residence as Mitchell’s charming Arizona pad. Per a 2018 Architectural Digest feature, the property was love at first sight for production designer Rachel O’Toole. Of the home, she says, “It was just so perfect with the archways and the way that the light dapples through the yard and the pool. Standing at the front door you can see all the way through the kitchen into a bathroom, through an arched brick passageway and then outside through leaded glass to a fountain. I said to Bill [director Bill Holderman], ‘We shouldn’t waste our time looking elsewhere because this is it.’”

Diane Keaton, who plays Mitchell’s love interest in the film, also became smitten with the dwelling. When AD asked about her favorite Book Club locale, she responded, “I liked Andy Garcia’s house best. Andy’s house is an old Spanish. I wanted to buy it. That place is gorgeous.”

Of dressing the location for the shoot, O’Toole told AD, “For the color palette, we had burgundies and browns and tans with lots of textures like Persian rugs. We wanted Andy’s character to be grounded and approachable with things he collected from all his travels.”

Not much of the home was altered for the flick. Along with digitally adding the Arizona desert into the background of a scene . . .

. . . production also updated the pad’s 1970s kitchen, though it was only seen in a brief shot from outside the front door towards the end of the movie.

Sitting Bull also portrayed Gregory Sumner’s (William Devane) ranch on the popular nighttime soap Knots Landing, which aired from 1979 to 1993.

Though most of the Mexican resort scenes in Sex and the City: The Movie were shot at this house in Malibu, Hummingbird Nest Ranch masked as the hotel restaurant where a waiter guts Carrie by referring to her as “Mrs. Preston.”

Shortly after Sex and the City: The Movie debuted, the ranch popped up as Destinies, the rehabilitation center where Joan McCallister (Judy Davis) worked during the second season of The Starter Wife.

That same year, the ranch portrayed yet another rehab, this time on the Season 1 episode of 90210 titled “There’s No Place Like Homecoming” as the spot Adrianna Tate-Duncan (Jessica Lowndes) was sent after almost overdosing.

As I mentioned earlier, Hummingbird Nest Ranch was used extensively as the home of the competing couples on Tool Academy, which began airing in 2009.

Also in 2009, Hummingbird Nest Ranch masqueraded as Calistoga Canyon Resort and Spa where the CBI team investigated a murder in the Season 1 episode of The Mentalist titled “Crimson Casanova.”

In the Season 7 episode of NCIS titled “Rule Fifty-One,” which aired in 2010, the Nest portrays the Mexican estate of Paloma Reynosa (Jacqueline Obradors).

The massive main house plays Steve Jobs’ (Ashton Kutcher) tony Silicon Valley mansion in the 2013 biopic Jobs.

On July 27th, 2014, Scheana Marie (one of the most miserable brides ever!) married Michael Shay at Hummingbird Nest Ranch. The event was chronicled in the Season 3 episodes of Vanderpump Rules titled “For Better or Worse” and “Ring on a String” which aired the following year.

In the 2015 Entourage movie, the ranch masks as the Texas home of Larsen McCredle (Billy Bob Thornton) and his son, Travis (Haley Joel Osment).

That same year, Hummingbird Nest showed up in the Season 1 episode of Stitchers titled “The Root of All Evil” as the mansion belonging to Joe Parks (Cameron Daddo) and his wife, Suzanne (Courtney Henggeler).

Also in 2015, the ranch popped up as the home of Dr. Irving Pitlor (Rick Springfield) in the Season 2 episode of True Detective titled “Night Finds You.”

Hummingbird Nest masked as the Palm Springs Hotel where Ace Amberg (Rob Reiner) trysted with Jeanne Crandall (Mira Sorvino) in the Season 1 episode of Hollywood titled “(Screen) Tests,” which hit Netflix in 2020.

The couple stayed in Sitting Bull in the episode.

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 finding this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Hummingbird Nest Ranch, aka Mitchell’s house from Book Club, is located at 2940 Kuehner Drive in Santa Susana. You can visit the venue’s official website here. Please be advised that the ranch is private property and not open to the public.

March 11, 2019
Rest Easy, Luke

Coy Luther Perry III – I scrawled that name in my high school notebooks more times than I care to admit, along with his better known moniker, Luke Perry. My bedroom was also wallpapered with images of the dreamy teen idol. I even slept on Beverly Hills, 90210 sheets! And, at the age of 14, deep in the throws of my LP obsession, I changed my phone number to 34-LUKE-3. I’m not kidding. I kept that number up until the day I left Northern California to move to L.A. in 2000, a full decade after the series that made him famous started airing. Most who knew me during my youth can’t think of Luke and the show without thinking of me – even all these years later. That became painfully evident when news of his death broke yesterday morning and my phone became inundated with emails, texts, messages and calls offering condolences. The calls were especially hard to bear being that my ring tone is – and always has been – the 90210 theme song. Every single note felt like a pang through my heart and brought me to tears once more. Luke, along with the rest of the cast and 90210 as a whole were a tremendous part of my teen years. And they still are today. Luke’s death has left me gutted. It just doesn’t seem real. My heart mourns for lost pieces of my childhood, for his family, for his friends, and for the legions of fans who mourn alongside me. A world without Luke is not a place I want to know. As Gwynedd Stuart said in a Los Angeles magazine article yesterday, “It’s always sad and weird when a celebrity of our youth dies too young, but this one really stings.” Luke, you will be missed tremendously. Rest easy, sweet soul.

(The brilliant image above is from Thinking Mom.)

March 5, 2019
Tacos Jalisco from “A Star Is Born”

Stumbling upon filmings used to be a regular occurrence when I lived in L.A. Sadly, that is not the case in Palm Springs. So I was thrilled – and shocked – to happen upon A Star Is Born being shot at desert eatery Tacos Jalisco while on a Windmill Tour with the Grim Cheaper and our friends Nat and Tony back in April 2017. Though I had no intention of ever seeing the flick due to its sad storyline, I made a mental note to do a proper stalk of the restaurant once it came out. After a few failed attempts in which I showed up only to find the place closed, I was finally able to do so this past week.

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Sitting adjacent to Jalisco Tires auto repair shop, Tacos Jalisco is located quite a ways off the beaten path on a sleepy road in North Palm Springs.

If not for the Windmill Tour, I never would have known the place existed.

And that is a shame because it serves up uh-ma-zing food. The GC and I, of course, partook while there and he quickly proclaimed the tacos some of the best he’s ever had.

The small, casual eatery consists of two rooms – a main dining area and a bar.

Surprisingly, I could not find much information about the place’s history online aside from the fact that it formerly housed a market.

In A Star Is Born (which is out on DVD now!), Tacos Jalisco masks as the roadside eatery where Jackson Maine (Bradley Cooper) and Ally (Lady Gaga) stop to grab a bite to eat upon arriving in Jackson’s hometown of Arizona.

While there, Ally jots down lyrics for a song she is writing titled “Look What I’ve Found” and Jack discusses the fact that he doesn’t return home very often.

The restaurant’s interior was changed a bit for the shoot, with the booths that usually sit along the side wall moved to the middle of the dining area.

Otherwise, the place looks much as it did onscreen.

The exterior of Tacos Jalisco also appears in A Star Is Born – and is the site of a rather large gaffe. Notice below that as Ally walks up to Jack outside of the restaurant, she does not have a jacket on . . .

. . . but seconds later, as she embraces him, she magically does!

It was that portion of the scene that we saw being shot during our Windmill Tour. I was even able to snap a few pics of the production as we drove by. (I believe that is Bradley Cooper standing in the forefront of the top image below as the outfit seems to match what he was wearing onscreen – but don’t quote me on that as it could just as easily be his stand-in.)

Interestingly, prop gas pumps were brought in for the shoot to make Tacos Jalisco and the adjoining Jalisco Tires appear to be a service station. Because I had never seen the locale prior to the filming, I assumed the tanks were real and was shocked when I showed up to stalk the place and discovered there were no pumps to be found anywhere on the premises!

The scene that follows that of the roadside diner, in which Jack discovers that his childhood ranch has been sold and turned into a wind farm, was shot just around the corner on Dillon Road, about half a mile west of where it intersects with North Indian Canyon Drive. (I did not realize that when I stalked the restaurant and, as such, failed to take any photographs, so the Street View image below will have to do for now.)

In the interest of being thorough, I’ve denoted exactly where Ally and Jack were standing in the segment in the aerial view below. Ally’s position, in the bare patch of dirt, is marked with a pink “X,” while Jack’s, which is slightly west in the nearby foliage, is denoted with a blue “X.”

While stalking Tacos Jalisco, I happened to chat with its super-nice owner who informed me that the restaurant also appeared in the 2005 thriller Constantine as the spot where Manuel (Jesse Ramirez) stole a car in what was supposed to be the Mexican desert.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Tacos Jalisco, from A Star Is Born, is located at 17725 North Indian Canyon Drive in North Palm Springs. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here. Jack’s childhood-ranch-turned-windmill-farm from the movie can be found just around the corner on Dillon Road, about half a mile west of where it intersects with North Indian Canyon Drive.

March 1, 2019
Pappy & Harriet’s Pioneertown Palace from “Ingrid Goes West”

Ingrid Goes West is perhaps the most topically poignant movie I’ve ever seen! Centering around Ingrid Thorburn (Aubrey Plaza), a fragile young woman who picks up and moves from Pennsylvania to L.A. in the hopes of ingratiating herself into the life of influencer Taylor Sloane (Elizabeth Olsen), the 2017 black comedy highlights the pitfalls of social media and the dangers of buying into the illusory nature of Instagram. I first learned about the film (which is available to rent or purchase on Amazon and free for subscribers on Hulu) thanks to our friends Kim and Katie who visited us in Palm Springs last May. (That’s me and Katie pictured above.) On their flight to the desert, they watched Ingrid Goes West and were shocked when just a few days later, the Grim Cheaper and I brought them to Pappy & Harriet’s Pioneertown Palace, one of our favorite local spots, to grab a bite to eat. As it turns out, the Joshua Tree watering hole made a prominent appearance in the flick. Upon learning the news, the saloon went right onto my To-Blog List. But when I finally sat down to write about it this week, I could not find any of the photos I had taken on my many visits. So Kim and Katie were kind enough to loan me theirs for this post.

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The GC and I first discovered Pioneertown shortly after moving to Palm Springs in early 2013. Consisting of a small array of ramshackle wooden structures dotted along a patch of dusty road, the unique desert enclave was the brainchild of a team of Hollywood heavyweights including Bud Abbott, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, and Dale Evans who came up with the innovative idea to build a “living, breathing movie set” in a semi-desolate area easily accessible from L.A. In 1946, the group purchased 32,000 acres of land a few miles northwest of downtown Yucca Valley and, thus, Pioneertown was born.

The buildings erected included a jail, stables, a bank, a grocer, a restaurant, a barn, an ice cream parlor, a bowling alley, a shooting gallery, and a saloon known as the “Cantina.” It was that spot that would later become Pappy & Harriet’s. But more on that in a bit.

Each of the structures was not only practical, meaning both the interior and exterior could be utilized for filming, but functional as well. The bowling alley façade actually housed a working bowling alley, the ice cream parlor contained an operational ice cream parlor, and actors filming on the premises could hang out in the spaces between takes.

There was even a motel on the premises where cast and crew could stay during a shoot.

As Atlas Obscura explains the extraordinary site, “Its remote location made it more efficient to build era-appropriate lodgings for the talent right there on set, creating a tiny but functional town that served as both a shooting location and an unincorporated community village.”

Pioneertown took off and countless productions like The Cisco Kid, The Range Rider, The Gene Autry Show, Annie Oakley, and Judge Roy Bean made use of the locale throughout its first two decades. When Westerns fell out of favor with audiences in the late ‘60s, though, filmings on the premises began to dry up until eventually the place sat vacant and forgotten.

Then in 1972, a woman named Francis Aleba came along, purchased the Cantina space and transformed it into a burrito/biker bar. The rousing joint, which you can see images of here and here, was popular with desert denizens and people passing through from the get-go. When Francis wanted to retire ten years later, her daughter, Harriet, took over the place and with husband, Claude “Pappy” Allen, re-opened it as Pappy & Harriet’s Pioneertown Palace, a restaurant/bar/live music venue.

Countless bands showed up to play and Pappy and Harriet, musicians themselves, even graced the stage most nights.

After Pappy passed away in 1994, Harriet sold the bar to a friend, who wound up selling it herself a few years later. The menu changed, as did the décor and the clientele, and the musical acts eventually dried up. When Robyn Celia and Linda Kranz, longtime fans of the eatery who lived in New York, learned the place was for sale yet again in 2003, they decided the only thing to do was relocate to the high desert, snatch it up, and restore it back to its honky-tonk heyday. The watering hole quickly took off once more.

Former patrons returned in droves and new people discovered the place.

Today, Pappy & Harriet’s Pioneertown Palace is as popular as ever, thanks to its fabulous fare, unique décor, and excellent musical lineup. Just a few of the acts who have graced the venue’s stage include Rufus Wainwright, Robert Plant, the Artic Monkeys, Sean Lennon, Lorde, Kesha, Cracker, and, most famously, Paul McCartney who played an impromptu gig there in October 2016 while in the area for Desert Trip.

Pappy & Harriet’s has even attracted its fair share of celeb fans, like Helen Mirren, Emma Stone, Anne Hathaway, Brody Jenner, and Eric Szmanda, who have all been spotted dining on the premises.

Thanks to is whimsical aesthetic, it is no surprise that the place has showed up onscreen. (Though Pioneertown is, obviously, a Hollywood stalwart, as well, I thought it best to focus solely on Pappy & Harriet’s many cameos for this post. I promise to do a write-up on Pioneertown itself soon.)

In Ingrid Goes West, Taylor takes Ingrid to Pappy & Harriet’s for a wild night out while in Joshua Tree (ahem, #JTree) for a brief visit. As the incredibly vapid Taylor describes the place twice in film (first to Ingrid and later to a fellow influencer), “Pappy’s is the best. I mean, like, the crowd, it is a bit sketch, but they always have great live music and the best desert vibes.”

In a later scene, Taylor publishes a fake Instagram post alluding to being at the restaurant and Ingrid shows up in an attempt to talk to her and patch things up.

Pappy & Harriet’s is also where Ted Smith (Clive Turner) gets a job upon arriving in Pioneertown in 1995’s massively panned direct-to-video horror flick The Howling: New Moon Rising.

The eatery portrays a café known as “Last Chance” in the 1999 movie of the same name.

Anthony Bourdain and his friend Josh Homme pop by Pappy & Harriet’s, which he describes as being “out in the a**-end of nowhere,” in the Season 7 episode of Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations titled “U.S. Desert,” which aired in 2011.

Pappy & Harriet’s was also supposedly featured in Jeopardy, but I scanned through the 1953 thriller and didn’t see it anywhere. Being that the locale has likely been altered significantly since that time, though, it is possible I just didn’t recognize it.

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

Big THANK YOU to my friends Kim and Katie for providing all of the photos that appear in this post.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Pappy & Harriet’s Pioneertown Palace, from Ingrid Goes West, is located at 53688 Pioneertown Road in Pioneertown. You can visit the watering hole’s official website here.

February 22, 2019
Carlotta’s House from “Hail, Caesar!”

Today’s locale involves something I’ve never come across in all my years of stalking! Last June, a reader named Molly posted a comment on my Challenge Lindsay page asking for some help in tracking down the house where Carlotta Valdez (Veronica Osorio) lived in the 2016 Coen Brothers comedy Hail, Caesar! She mentioned that two places had actually been used to portray the exterior of the residence and that while she had found one, she was still looking for the other. Somehow I had never heard of the film (and I love a good Hollywood farce!), but was fascinated by the query. A Google search led me to an L.A. Weekly article chronicling a few of the movie’s sites which backed up Molly’s claim – the segment taking place outside of Carlotta’s pad was indeed lensed in two different spots. Though location trickery is old hat in Hollywood, this was the first I’d heard of a scene shot in two entirely different places, then stitched together to appear as one. Appropriately intrigued, I set out to help Molly on her quest.

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Carlotta’s house pops up in one brief scene in Hail, Caesar! in which the starlet, who was inspired by real life “Brazilian Bombshell” Carmen Miranda, is picked up by cowboy actor Hobie Doyle (Alden Ehrenreich) to go to a movie premiere. In the bit, the two characters are shown standing outside of Carlotta’s pad on a picturesque street greeting each other and making small talk. In reality, the two sides of the segment were lensed miles apart. Watching the illusory scene, which you can can do here, is quite jarring. Despite knowing the logistics, the whole thing was done so seamlessly that I could hardly believe it was not all shot in the same spot.

Though Molly had already tracked down the Hollywood Hills street where Hobie’s portion of the segment was lensed, she was looking for the gorgeous Spanish Colonial Revival that served as the backdrop for Carlotta’s.

As denoted in the L.A. Weekly article (and as Molly informed me), Hobie’s side of the scene was filmed at the intersection of Grace and Whitley Avenues in the Hollywood Hills. Location manager John Panzarella, who also worked on L.A. Confidential, explains, “Joel and Ethan [Coen] are not shy about cheating reverses; they really embrace it. They want the visual they have conceived.” That visual consisted of Hobie performing a dazzling array of lasso tricks while waiting for Carlotta on a sleepy street corner. Panzarella says, “Whitley Terrace was perfect for that, with the view of Hollywood in the background.” The only trouble was, there was no dwelling in the vicinity that matched the Cohens’ vision of Carlotta’s pad.

The directors instead found a place that fit the bill about three miles away in Los Feliz. While the L.A. Weekly article did not denote the home’s exact location, it did mention that the pad was designed by famed architect Paul Revere Williams in 1927. So I headed over to Google, where a quick search for “Paul Williams,” “Los Feliz,” and “1927” led me to this page on the Paul Revere Williams Project website about a dwelling at 4791 Cromwell Avenue. One look at the images posted told me it was the right spot!

The stunning 5,211-square-foot, 4-bedroom, 4-bath property looks much the same in person as it did onscreen, though the film definitely showcased it through a 1950s-style Hollywood filter which muted its color palette a bit.

In real life, the home is known as the Blackburn Residence in honor of its initial owners Bruce and Lula Blackburn, who hailed from Missouri, but moved to Los Angeles in the early 1900s. Initially settling in West Adams, once Bruce found financial success thanks to his invention of a roll-up window screen, he commissioned Williams to design the large Los Feliz estate.

Williams (who also gave us Johnny Weissmuller’s Bel Air home, the famed Perino’s restaurant, and Sloane’s house from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off) incorporated Bruce’s innovative screens into his design. They made such an impression on the prolific architect that he used them in many of his later works, as well.

The sprawling Blackburn Residence also boasts 12 rooms, 2.5 stories, an elevator, a triple fireplace, ornate tile work, wrought iron detailing throughout, vaulted ceilings, a grand 2-level arched entry, and a lush 0.35-acre plot of land.

The home continued to be owned by the Blackburn family until 1978, when it was offloaded by Bruce and Lula’s daughter, Elizabeth. The property, which is Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument #913, last sold in November 2003 for $2,199,000 and, per Zillow, is worth a whopping $4.5 million today!

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

Big THANK YOU to Molly for challenging me to find this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Blackburn Residence, aka Carlotta’s house from Hail, Caesar!, is located at 4791 Cromwell Avenue in Los Feliz. The portions of the scene featuring Hobie were filmed at a different spot – on Grace Avenue in the Hollywood Hills. More specifically, Hobie’s car was parked in front of the entrance to the condominium complex at 1979 Grace Avenue and he practiced his rope tricks at the intersection of Grace Avenue and Whitley Avenue.

February 20, 2019
Happy President’s Day!

I would like to wish a very happy President’s Day to all of my fellow stalkers! I am taking today off, but will be back Wednesday with a new post.

February 18, 2019
My Latest “L.A.” Magazine Article

L.A. is for lovers! Don’t believe me? Check out my latest article for Los Angeles magazine which chronicles seven spots where your favorite romantic (and bromantic) movie and television moments can be re-created. The blurb can be found on page 74 of the February issue, which is on stands now, and online here. Bonus – my latest Scene it Before column is on page 38. Enjoy!

February 15, 2019