My best friends are currently visiting from Switzerland, so I will be taking the next week off from blogging. I will hopefully be back to regular scheduled programming by the 24th – or the 26th at the latest. See you then!
The “How to Marry a Millionaire” Apartment Building
One of the things I love most about L.A. is the direct access the city has to a myriad of unique, once-in-a-lifetime experiences. Case in point – Essentially Marilyn, The Paley Center for Media’s latest exhibit featuring costumes, personal artifacts, clothing, and memorabilia from none other than Miss Marilyn Monroe herself, including the starlet’s personally annotated script from The Seven Year Itch AND a replica of the infamous dress she wore in the 1955 movie’s iconic subway grate scene. (If you feel like going down a rabbit hole of information regarding the legendary frock, check out these fabulous articles on The Marilyn Monroe Collection website here and here.) Fingers crossed I make it out to see the exhibit before it closes on September 30th. In the meantime, I thought I’d blog about an MM locale I stalked back in April 2016 while in New York – 36 Sutton Place South, aka the building where Pola Debevoise (Monroe) lived with her BFFs Loco Dempsey (Betty Grable) and Schatze Page (Lauren Bacall) in How to Marry a Millionaire.
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Though Marilyn’s performance in the 1953 comedy definitely plays to type, it is one of my favorites of hers. Legend has it that when she asked director Jean Negulesco about her bespectacled character’s motivation, he replied “You’re blind as a bat without glasses. That is your motivation.” The advice led to some of the best comedic moments of her career, in my opinion. For those who have never seen the film (and you really should), it centers around three bachelorettes who, hoping to land millionaire husbands, sublease a penthouse apartment in a tony Manhattan building. To portray the girls’ fancy digs, producers looked no further than 36 Sutton Place South.
Originally built in 1949, the 17-story complex boasts 101 units.
Consisting of a brick and limestone façade with glass balconies, the place has something of a postmodern feel.
The white-glove building, which became a co-op in 1962, features a canopied entrance, a doorman and a concierge, an on-site gym and laundry room, and a rooftop deck with a garden and river views. You can see some interior photos of the property here.
36 Sutton Place South only actually appears twice in How to Marry a Millionaire, first popping up in the movie’s opening scene in which Schatze arrives at the building to sublease the unit.
It is then featured in a later scene in which the unit’s owner, Freddie Denmark (David Wayne), returns home and attempts to retrieve a document he has stashed away inside. Only the exterior of the property was utilized in the filming.
All interiors were part of an elaborate set built at 20th Century Fox Studios in Culver City, including the building’s lobby;
the inside of the women’s apartment;
and their balcony, which does look very much like 36 Sutton’s actual rooftop deck. You can see photos of it here and here.
I am fairly certain that close-up shots of the building’s front doors were also shot on a set.
Though the entrance shown in How to Marry a Millionaire does look a lot like 36 Sutton’s actual entrance, the complex’s real life doorway is much larger than its onscreen counterpart. The window that should appear in the right-hand portion of the frame below is also missing and, while the bottom part of the planter to the left of the main doors is slanted in real life, it is flat in the movie. Though these elements could have been changed in the 65 years since filming took place, I do not believe that to be the case.
How to Marry a Millionaire is not 36 Sutton’s only claim to fame. During the 1950s, Joan Crawford and her husband, Pepsi-Cola Company chairman Alfred N. Steele, made the place their New York home.
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 How to Marry a Millionaire apartment building is located at 36 Sutton Place South in New York’s Sutton Place neighborhood.
Le Chene French Cuisine from “Sharp Objects”
I am a very black and white person. Opinions typically come to me immediately and tend to swing towards either loving or hating something. I don’t deal much in grey. For some reason, though, I cannot decide if I like Sharp Objects. I thoroughly enjoyed the Gillian Flynn novel on which the new HBO series is based (it is my favorite out of all of her books) and could not have been more excited to watch, especially when I heard it being referred to as “the next Big Little Lies.” But five episodes in and I’m still on the fence. The show’s acting is indisputably top-notch and its storyline gripping, but I also find it slow-moving, bleak, and all-around odd. I was thrilled to learn, though, that while set in the fictional town of Wind Gap, Missouri, filming largely took place in Southern California. I was also thrilled to recognize one spot that I stalked a few years ago, but never blogged about – Le Chene French Cuisine. The Grim Cheaper and I happened by the Santa Clarita eatery way back in March 2013 while doing some stalking nearby and I recalled its unique exterior from its many appearances in film location books and websites chronicling its cameo in 1971’s Duel. So we promptly pulled over to snap some pics. Though the place went right out of my mind and into my stalking backlog, as soon as it showed up on Sharp Objects, I knew I had to dedicate a post to it.
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Le Chene French Cuisine was originally established as the Oaks Garage gas station by mechanic William A. Dodrill and his wife, Rachel Swanson, in 1917. The initial structure that stood on the premises was not much more than a small wooden shack with an adjacent concession stand that offered cold sodas to passersby. You can check out a photo of what it looked like at the time here.
In 1923, the couple decided to broaden their budding enterprise by adding an eatery to the site. Boulders were brought in from Big Rock Creek in Palmdale to cover the new restaurant’s exterior. The unique façade earned the place the nickname “rock house,” as well as “Castle Oaks Garage and Café” thanks to its castle-like appearance.
During the 1940s, the business was acquired by Chester and Marie Lamar and became a hotbed of celebrity activity. Just a few of the well-knowns who popped in while filming in the area or passing by on their way to local attractions include Gregory Peck, Lee Marvin, Roy Rogers, Dale Evans, Wallace Beery, William Boyd, Jane Wyman, Keenan Wynn, Mickey Cohan, and Clark Gable (who was not the best customer, reportedly).
Since the Lamars’ tenure ended in 1957, the property has been bought and sold several times. It was finally leased by Juan Alonso in 1980. The Spanish-born chef transformed the site into upscale French eatery Le Chene, which translates to “the oak.”
Despite the fact that it is located pretty much in the middle of nowhere, the restaurant quickly became a popular dining spot and Alonso purchased it in 1981. Years later, when the need to expand arose, he gutted the former garage and turned it into a banquet room. He has since enlarged the kitchen and main dining room, remodeled the bar, and added a large garden and a 6-acre vineyard. Today, the eatery boasts a whopping 8,900 square feet.
Le Chene popped up in the fourth episode of Sharp Objects, titled “Ripe,” as the supposed Wind Gap restaurant La Mere, where Camille Preaker (Amy Adams) meets with some of her mother’s friends including Jackie O’Neill (Elizabeth Perkins) and Annie B (Beth Broderick). Both the exterior . . .
. . . and interior of the site appear in the episode. Sadly, Le Chene was closed when we dropped by, so I did not get to see the inside, but you can check out some photos of it here.
In the television movie Duel, which has the distinction of being Steven Spielberg’s first foray into full-length film directing, Le Chene portrays Chuck’s Café, where David Mann (Dennis Weaver) crashes his car after being chased by a menacing truck driver (played by Carey Loftin).
After the collision, David ventures into the restaurant (which looked much different at the time the flick was lensed in 1971) to clean himself up and soon discovers that the truck driver has followed him inside to terrorize him further.
Though an old LoopNet listing for the property suggests that additional filming has taken place the premises, I have been unable to dig up any other productions the place has appeared in.
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: Le Chene French Cuisine, aka La Mere from Sharp Objects, is located at 12625 Sierra Highway in Santa Clarita. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here. The eatery is only open for dinner most days (on Sunday, brunch is served), so plan accordingly.
McGee’s Pub – The Inspiration for MacLaren’s on “How I Met Your Mother”
I have never been a film location purist. I am just as happy visiting spots that have appeared onscreen as I am touring those that have provided inspiration for sets – as evidenced here, here and here. So while in New York in April 2016 I just had to pop by McGee’s Pub, aka the watering hole that MacLaren’s Pub from How I Met Your Mother was based upon. I first learned about the place and its small screen cachet while penning this article for Los Angeles magazine in 2014 and promptly added it to my NYC To-Stalk List. Though I later discovered that Ted Mosby (Josh Radnor), Marshall Eriksen (Jason Segel), Robin Scherbatsky (Cobie Smulders), Lily Aldrin (Alyson Hannigan) and Barney Stinson’s (Neil Patrick Harris) favorite hangout was actually modeled after four different Manhattan bars, since McGee’s is the only one still in operation today (well, in its original state, at least) and the one most often associated with the show, I figured it was worthy of its own post.
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How I Met Your Mother was the brainchild of producing partners Craig Thomas and Carter Bays, who, like main characters Ted and Marshall, met while attending Wesleyan University. After graduation, the duo moved to New York together and landed a gig writing for the Late Show with David Letterman in 1997. During their five-year stint there, they would often grab drinks at McGee’s, located right around the corner from the Ed Sullivan Theater where Letterman was lensed. In 2002, the two headed to Los Angeles with the hopes of helming a television series. They pitched How I Met Your Mother to CBS in 2005 and the rest is history.
In a 2016 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Bays explained that he and Thomas followed a common adage when penning the series – “Write what you know, not what you think you want to see.” As such, they based the two main characters on themselves – Ted is modeled after Carter and Marshall after Craig – and styled their regular hangout like several places the duo patronized while living in NYC. As chronicled in an April 2008 CBS Watch article, McHale’s (a Times Square favorite at 750 8th Avenue that closed in 2006 – you can see photos of it here and here) “lent its dark atmosphere,” Chumley’s (a beloved onetime speakeasy at 86 Bedford Street in the West Village that suffered severe structural damage in 2007, was gutted, redesigned, and finally reopened 9 years later looking much different than its original self) “inspired some of MacLaren’s more rustic touches,” Fez (an Upper West Side Moroccan eatery at 2330 Broadway that shuttered in 2006) “gave the writers the idea to put a few round booths at the back of their TV bar,” and McGee’s “features the model for MacLaren’s WPA-era mural on its back wall.” (McGee’s mural and the one it inspired are both pictured below. Surprisingly, they don’t really resemble each other at all.) Bay and Thomas named their fictional watering hole after Bay’s production assistant, Carl MacLaren.
McGee’s Pub and Restaurant, christened in honor of Ed Sullivan Show cameraman Willie McGee, was originally founded in a small space on the bottom floor of the Ed Sullivan Theater at 1697 Broadway in 1983. You can see what it looked like at the time here. (That site is now home to Angelo’s Pizza.) When Letterman moved into the venue, the theater was extensively renovated and, in conjunction, McGee’s was forced to vacate in July 1995 in order to make way for a more high end restaurant. Owner Pete Fitzpatrick subsequently found a new, larger space right around the corner at 240 West 55th Street.
Though the more ritzy eatery brought in to replace McGee’s folded in a scant 22 months, McGee’s is still going strong today. The 3-story restaurant boasts 22 TVs, 2 bars, an internet jukebox, and a private events suite known as the Symphony Room.
While the bar’s exterior looks nothing like the exterior of MacLaren’s Pub (which was just a façade on the 20th Century Fox Studios backlot in Century City) . . .
. . . the interior of McGee’s is very reminiscent of its onscreen counterpart.
While not exactly carbon copies, MacLaren’s and McGee’s have a decidedly similar atmosphere.
Thanks to its red booths, low lighting, and heavily adorned walls, I truly felt like I was hanging out at Ted and Marshall’s favorite place while at McGee’s. Though I have to say that the original Chumley’s was a place I visited regularly when it was in operation and it, too, had an extremely similar ambiance to MacLaren’s. So Carter and Thomas did a superb job of incorporating the aura of both sites into their set design.
For those location purists unlike me who think a visit to McGee’s is a waste of time being that How I Met Your Mother never actually filmed on the premises, there are countless photos displayed of the cast hanging out at the bar (like the one below which comes from the restaurant’s Facebook page), autographs and clippings galore, as well as a myriad of HIMYM-inspired menu items, such as The Accidental Curly Fry Basket, The Bro Code Combo, and the Suit Up Sandwich, to satisfy any true fan.
On a How I Met Your Mother side-note – Thanks to my friend Marie, I got to visit 20th Century Fox Studios back in November 2014. The lot isn’t typically open to the public and being there was definitely one of the highlights of my stalking career thus far. During the tour, we were even taken by the MacLaren’s exterior. Though the series had ceased filming almost a year prior, I was thrilled to see that the façade still looked much the same as it did onscreen.
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: McGee’s Pub, which served as the inspiration for MacLaren’s Pub on How I Met Your Mother, is located at 240 West 55th Street in New York’s Midtown West neighborhood. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.
Jack Ryan’s House from “Clear and Present Danger”
The Grim Cheaper was anxiously awaiting last Friday’s premiere of the new Amazon series Jack Ryan. There was practically a countdown going on in our house. When we finally viewed the first episode, though, my only thought was ‘I want that hour and four minutes of my life back.’ Needless to say, we were not impressed. The show is a bit of a snoozefest. And being that it was lensed outside of L.A. (mainly in Canada and Morocco), I did not even have its locations to distract me. Watching the pilot did remind me of a related site that I stalked back in November 2012 – the Hancock Park pad used for interior shots of the residence belonging to Jack Ryan (Harrison Ford) and his family in the Tom Clancy franchise’s third installment, 1994’s Clear and Present Danger. I first learned about the home thanks to a Los Angeles Times article published in February 2012, shortly after the property was put up for sale for the first time in almost thirty years. Though I promptly added the address to my To-Stalk List and hit the place up later that same year, I somehow forgot to blog about it. With all the interest in the new series, I figured it was the perfect moment to amend that.
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In real life, the massive 3-story Southern Colonial-style home, which was built in 1925, boasts 7,480 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 6.5 baths, a master suite with a fireplace, his-and-her baths and his-and-her walk-in closets, a library/den, a gourmet kitchen, a wine cellar with space for 900 bottles, hardwood flooring and crown moldings throughout, a detached 1-bedroom guest apartment, a pool house with its own kitchen, a large veranda, a rose garden, a fountain, a pool, a spa, a tennis court, a 4-car garage, a motor court, and a 0.86-acre lot. Holy amenities, Batman!
Sadly, thanks to the fact that its entire perimeter is lined with large trees, virtually none of it is visible from the street.
It doesn’t help matters that the residence sits perpendicular to the road, as you can see in the Bing Maps aerial view below. It is a very unique orientation (I have never seen a house situated sideways like that before) which, unfortunately, blocks most of the place from sight.
The views below are the best that can be gleaned of the home’s spectacular Antebellum façade.
Per the Los Angeles Times, Harrison Ford took such a liking to the property during the ten days spent filming on the premises that he offered to buy it. The owners, who purchased the pad in 1983 for $800,000, were not interested in selling, though. Their minds didn’t change until January 2012, when they placed the home on the market for $5.295 million. The real estate agent used the residence’s cinematic clout as a selling point, which is how it wound up being featured in the Times. It sold that same July for $4.32 million. You can check out the MLS photos here.
The dwelling appears numerous times throughout Clear and Present Danger. The kitchen first pops up in a beginning scene in which Jack learns that Admiral Greer (James Earl Jones) is in the hospital. Though the MLS photo below was taken from a slightly different angle than the one from which the segment was shot, you can see that very little of the kitchen had been altered from its onscreen state at the time of the sale in 2012.
Even the home’s highly unique copper and stainless steel range hood appears to have remained untouched. You can just barely see it to the right of Jack’s head in the screen capture below.
The master bedroom is then featured in a later scene in which Jack watches President Bennett (Donald Moffat) being interviewed on TV while getting ready for work. The MLS image below is, again, taken from a different vantage point, but it is still apparent how little of the room has been changed since the shoot.
In the segment, you can even see one of the room’s walk-in closets through the door in the background.
Near the end of the movie, the living room makes an appearance in the scene in which Ryan learns of Admiral Greer’s death. That space, too, looks much the same as it did when Clear and Present Danger was shot in 1994.
The Los Angeles Times article also states, “In another scene, Ford is preparing to go to South America and was filmed packing the homeowners’ actual clothes. The suitcase ended up in a prop truck, and the owners later had to retrieve their belongings from the prop department.” I scanned through the flick twice, though, in preparation for this post and did not come across a scene like that anywhere. There is one segment in which Ford is shown carrying a suitcase down the residence’s sweeping staircase just prior to his trip to Bogota, but no packing scene. I guess that bit wound up on the cutting room floor.
Only the interior of the property appears in Clear and Present Danger. The exterior of the Ryan home is a different location entirely – one I have not been able to track down as of yet.
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 house used for interior shots of Jack Ryan’s residence in Clear and Present Danger can be found at 615 South Rossmore Avenue in Hancock Park.
Happy Labor Day!
I would like to wish all of my fellow stalkers a happy and safe Labor Day! I am taking today off, but will be back on Wednesday with a new location. Until that time, happy stalking! 
The “Secrets and Lies” Brothel
I found the second season of Secrets and Lies abysmal – which is surprising being that, on paper, it contained several elements that should have made it a sure-fire hit in my book. Murder mystery premise? Check! Shot in L.A.? Check! And it starred both AnnaLynne McCord (from my beloved 90210) and David James Elliott (one of my all-time favorite cuties). Considering I couldn’t have loved the first season more, especially its locations, Season 2 turned out to be a major disappointment. There was one locale I became fairly obsessed with, though – the Cape Cod-style dwelling from which Melanie Warner (McCord) ran a high-class brothel. The house not only figured prominently in the season’s storyline, but was extremely idyllic and picturesque. So I, of course, immediately set about tracking it down, which wound up being a more fruitful venture than watching Secrets and Lies through to the end. (What the heck was that finale, amirite? I was not at all shocked to hear the series was given the ax a few months after its airing. But I digress.)
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On Secrets and Lies, Melanie’s brothel is said to be at 8686 Mint Hill Drive in Charlotte, North Carolina. A fake “8686” address placard was even placed on the exterior of the residence for the shoot.
While watching the episode titled “The Statement,” though, I noticed that “4735” was painted on the curb of a neighboring house barely visible in the background. I had an inkling the brothel was most likely located in Encino, thanks to its seemingly new construction (the city has been a hotbed of new home activity as of late, especially Cape Cod-style properties which pop up on the regular), so I did a search for residences numbered 4735 in the area and was led to a pad at 4735 Yarmouth Avenue. When I dropped Street View’s little yellow man in front of that address and turned him around, there was the Secrets and Lies brothel staring me in the face. In reality, it can be found at 4720 Yarmouth.
My hunch about the pad being newly constructed turned out to be correct. The massive estate was custom-built in 2013 for its then owner. The residence previously situated on the premises (pictured in the Google Street View image from 2012 below) was much more modest in both size and style.
The new house consists of 5 bedrooms, a whopping 7 baths (one is resort-style with a standalone tub), 6,347 square feet of living space, a chef’s kitchen, a walk-in pantry and a butler’s pantry, a double Calacatta marble island (because one is never enough), both cathedral and coffered ceilings, a formal dining room, a breakfast room, multiple fireplaces (including one outside), a master suite with a sitting room and his-and-her walk-in closets (why, oh why, do the Grim Cheaper and I not have those?), a gym, guest/maids’ quarters, and a 0.45-acre lot with a covered patio, a fire pit, a pool (with a slide!), a spa, a BBQ, a sport court, a putting green, and a covered pool pavilion with three – count ‘em! – three TVs. Talk about amenities goals!
The sprawling estate last sold in July 2016 for $3,950,000.
You can check out some interior photos of the place here. And yes, they’re straight up real estate porn!
The brothel popped up numerous times during the second season of Secrets and Lies, beginning with the episode titled “The Detective” in which Melanie’s husband, Patrick Warner (Charlie Barnett), first finds out about his wife’s illicit business venture.
We don’t get a great view of the pad until “The Statement,” though, in the scene in which Patrick’s brother, Eric Warner (Michael Ealy), stops by the property to investigate what has been going on there. As you can see, the residence is currently much more covered over with foliage than it was when filming took place in late 2015.
While the real interior also appeared in “The Statement,” as well as in the episode that followed titled “The Racket,” the shots were far too tight and contained too much movement for me to be able to get any useable screen shots.
Thanks to IMDB, I learned that the same house was utilized as the residence of Roger Murtaugh (Damon Wayans) and his family during Season 2 of the Lethal Weapon television series. (In Season 1, a different home at 3816 Longridge Avenue in Sherman Oaks portrayed the Murtaugh pad.)
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: Melanie’s brothel from Secrets and Lies is located at 4720 Yarmouth Avenue in Encino. Ali’s (Elisabeth Shue) house from The Karate Kid can be found right around the corner at 4072 Alonzo Avenue.
The Ella Strong Denison Library from “Beaches”
Libraries are very much on my brain as of late. It’s all thanks to Matilda and the post I wrote about the Wormwood home last week. While scanning through the 1996 film making screen captures, I became awestruck by the incredible book repository where young Matilda (Sara Magdalin) regularly hung out. Though countless websites claim that Pasadena’s Central Library at 285 East Walnut Street was utilized in the movie, I spent enough time there in my 10+ years of living in Crown City to immediately know that wasn’t true. Further digging led me to discover that the cavernous space where Matilda devoured books was actually the Doheny Memorial Library on the USC campus. (A post on that site will be coming soon.) Looking into the location reminded me of a similarly beautiful athenaeum I stalked back in February 2012 with Mike the Fanboy, but had failed to blog about – The Ella Strong Denison Library, which appeared briefly in Beaches. So I decided it was finally time to amend the situation.
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The Ella Strong Denison Library, named for Ella Strong Denison, the wife of a wealthy Denver physician who donated funds to numerous universities for the purpose of building libraries, opened its doors on the Scripps College campus in 1931.
Designed by architect Gordon Kaufmann (who also created the Royal Laundry Complex, La Quinta Resort & Club, Santa Anita Park, and Greystone Mansion), the building, which houses special collections, features intricately chiseled front doors, hand-carved wood detailing, and a massive stained glass window depicting Gutenberg encircled by literary motifs.
Oh, and card catalogs the stuff dreams are made of.
The grounds surrounding the place are also quite spectacular.
Along with serving as a quiet place to study, the library plays an integral role in the beginning and end of each Scripps undergrad’s college career. As the school’s website notes,“The key moment in the Matriculation Ceremony occurs in the first few days of Orientation, when incoming students process through the intricately carved Ella Strong Denison Library East Door. This door remains locked on all other days of the year save Commencement, when graduating seniors exit through this same door, signifying the beginning of Commencement Exercises, and the end of their educational journey at Scripps.”
In Beaches, the Denison Library is where Hillary Whitney Essex (Barbara Hershey) researches her illness shortly after being diagnosed.
The handsome space looks much the same today as it did onscreen thirty years ago.
As you can see below, the venue translates beautifully to the screen.
As such, I was certain it had appeared in numerous productions. I was unable to dig up any other movies or television shows featuring it, though.
I’m only now coming to realize that the vast majority of Beaches was shot in the Los Angeles area, despite largely being set in New York and San Francisco. I’ve written about a few of the movie’s SoCal locales previously including Hillary’s beach house at the Crystal Cove Historic District, Hillary’s supposed Atherton-area mansion (you can read a second post on that spot here), and Jewel’s Catch One, which portrayed both an SF nightclub and an NYC lounge. While scanning through Beaches in preparation for last April’s post about the latter (which is best known for its appearance as The Blue Banana in Pretty Woman), I discovered that the flick also did some filming at the now defunct Ambassador Hotel. The famed lodging portrayed Marlboro Blenheim, the ritzy Atlantic City resort where young Hillary (Marcie Leeds) took CC Bloom (Mayim Bialik) for a chocolate soda at the beginning of the movie. I recognized the wood-framed doorways, red floral carpeting and lobby fountain immediately upon viewing the scene. (The Ambassador was also utilized significantly in Pretty Woman as the interior of The Regent Beverly Wilshire, as I wrote about in this post.)
The Los Angeles Equestrian Center made an appearance in Beaches, as well, as young Hillary’s Bay Area riding club. (For those keeping track, that’s three locales the film shares with Pretty Woman, which I guess shouldn’t come as a surprise being that both were directed by Garry Marshall.)
I am also fairly certain that Southwestern Bag Company at 635 Mateo Street in downtown Los Angeles, aka the police station from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, portrayed the New York ACLU office where Hillary worked in the movie, but not enough of the space was shown for me to be absolutely certain.
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 Ella Strong Denison Library, from Beaches, is located in Scripps College’s Kauffman Wing at 1090 North Columbia Avenue in Claremont. Harwood Court residence hall, aka Eastland School from The Facts of Life, can be found just a few blocks away on the Pomona College campus at 170 East Bonita Avenue.
“The Princess Diaries” Firehouse
My friend Nat is a definite hostess with the mostest. When I last visited her in San Francisco in October 2016, she not only had champagne chilling in the fridge, but an itinerary of area stalking locales she thought might interest me compiled and mapped out on her phone. The spot on the list I was most excited about seeing was former Engine Company No. 43, where Mia Thermopolis (Anne Hathaway) lived with her mom, Helen (Caroline Goodall), and cat, Fat Louis, in 2001’s The Princess Diaries. This stalker loves herself any adaptive reuse and in person, the firehouse-turned-home did not disappoint. Somehow I forgot to blog about the place after returning home from my trip, though, and was not reminded of it until last Thursday when Mandy Moore, who played meanie cheerleader Lana Thomas in the film, posted a #tbt image of The Princess Diaries July 2001 premiere on Instagram. Seeing the photo brought me right back to the day I stalked the firehouse and I figured there was no time like the present to finally blog about it.
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The Mission Revival-style Engine Company No. 43 was originally built in 1911, back when firemen were still fighting blazes via horse-drawn carriages.
Following its decommission, the 4,800-square-foot wood frame structure was sold to a private buyer at a surplus auction in 1976 and subsequently transformed into a residence.
Today, the unique homestead boasts 8 rooms, 2 stories, a 340-square-foot outbuilding that initially housed Company No. 43’s kitchen, a double 0.11-acre lot, parking for 4+ cars, and original detailing throughout including a fireman’s pole.
The residence last hit the market in late 2014 with an asking price of $2.6 million (at the time it was being utilized as a 2-unit rental property) and was sold the following March for $1.85 million. That’s quite a bargain to call The Princess Diaries firehouse home, if you ask me!
Engine Company No. 43 pops up numerous times throughout the film.
In person, the place still looks much the same as it did onscreen 17 years ago.
Only the front exterior of the structure is featured in the movie.
The home’s massive side staircase also makes a couple of appearances.
Because those scenes were shot from the backyard, I was, obviously, unable to snap any photos matching the angle shown in the flick. But I was thrilled to see that the staircase is visible from the street.
The interior of Mia and Helen’s pad was nothing more than an elaborate set built inside of a soundstage a good 350 miles away at Walt Disney Studios in Burbank. You can check out some fabulous photos of it on art director Caty Maxey’s website.
Engine Company No. 43’s actual interior (which you can see here) is a far cry from its onscreen counterpart. While Mia and Helen’s home is colorful and lovingly cluttered, the firehouse’s real life inside is sophisticated and minimalist. I honestly can’t decide which I like better.
Interestingly, while The Princess Diaries was set in San Francisco, not much of the movie was shot there. Along with Engine Company No. 43, the Anthony R. Grove High School exterior (which Nat took me to stalk many moons ago) can also be found in the City by the Bay at 2601 Lyon Street in Cow Hollow. The school’s courtyard scenes were lensed a bit closer to home, though, at Alverno Heights Academy in Sierra Madre, which I blogged about here.
Big THANK YOU to my friend Nat for telling me about and taking me to 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: Engine Company No. 43, aka The Princess Diaries firehouse, is located at 724 Brazil Avenue in San Francisco’s Excelsior District.
Cameron’s Seafood from “Say Anything . . . “
The restaurant business is an insanely fickle one. So when I set out to find the eatery where Diane Court (Ione Skye) lunched with her mom, Mrs. Court (Lois Chiles), and her mom’s boyfriend, Ray (Stephen Shortridge), in the 1989 flick Say Anything . . . a few years back, I never dreamed it would be a place still in operation that I could actually stalk. It wasn’t until partnering with Greg Mariotti, from The Uncool website, to write our joint article about the movie’s Los Angeles locations in 2017 that I learned the scene had been filmed at Cameron’s Seafood (no relation to director Cameron Crowe 
) at 1978 East Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena. When I inputted the restaurant’s name into Google, I was shocked to not only discover that the joint was still open, but that it was a place I was very familiar with. Though I had never dined there, I drove by it regularly during the 10+ years I lived in Crown City and was always struck by its resemblance to The Fish Market outposts, a favorite restaurant chain of my parents. (You can check out what a couple of those places look like here and here.) So to the top of my To-Stalk List Cameron’s went and the Grim Cheaper and I headed right on over there for lunch a few days later.
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Cameron’s Seafood opened its doors in 1984.
Originally founded by John Cameron (hence the name), it was taken over just two year later by Peter Gallanis, who still owns it to this day.
Cameron’s quickly became a neighborhood staple – the go-to spot in Pasadena for fresh seafood. Per a 2003 The Conduit article, the popular eatery averages a whopping 400 patrons on weekdays and 900 on weekends.
The sprawling 9,800-square-foot space features an exhibition-style kitchen . . .
. . . a large main dining room . . .
. . . a front bar . . .
. . . a rear bar . . .
. . . an on-site fish market . . .
. . . and nautical décor throughout.
The GC and I both loved our lunch at Cameron’s and are now kicking ourselves for not frequenting the place regularly when we lived in the area. The crab cakes I ordered were divine, the ambiance warm and inviting, and the bartender who served us could not have been more friendly. The cherry on top of our meal, though, was when I asked said bartender if she was aware of any filming done at the restaurant, and she replied, “A movie was shot here once, but that was a really long time ago – in the ‘80s.” Shocked, I inquired if she was talking about Say Anything . . . and was floored when she responded in the affirmative. In my experience, it is a rare occasion for employees to know any filming information, even if the filming is iconic (case in point – the concierge at the Plaza Hotel New York who had no idea Home Alone 2 had been lensed on the premises), so for her to be aware of a relatively short scene shot at Cameron’s almost thirty years prior was downright phenomenal!
In Say Anything . . . , Cameron’s Seafood is the site of a rather terse luncheon during which Diane pleads with her mother to tell the IRS nice things about her father, who is being investigated on embezzlement charges.
In the scene, Diane, her mother, and Ray sit at the rear of Cameron’s main dining room, just beyond the counter that overlooks the exhibition kitchen. Though I didn’t get a close-up photo of that area of the restaurant, it is visible in the far back of my picture below.
With its nautical-themed décor, it is not very hard to see how Cameron’s came to be used Say Anything . . . , which was set in Seattle. Amazingly, the place still looks much the same today as it did onscreen 29 years ago.
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Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: Cameron’s Seafood, from Say Anything . . . , is located at 1978 East Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.