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Madeline Garden Bistro & Venue from “Mad Men”

I have had many different stalking notebooks over the years. My latest is a gorgeous white Moleskin that I picked up during my Switzerland vacation back in June 2013. One locale that has been listed in it since I started using it almost four years ago (it’s one of the very first entries), but had never been checked off until recently is Madeline Garden Bistro & Venue, which was featured in a Season 4 episode of Mad Men. I had seen photos of the darling Pasadena restaurant/tea room on several websites, walked by it dozens of times over the years, and knew of its onscreen appearance thanks to my buddy E.J.’s The Movieland Directory website. Due to the place’s formerly spotty hours, though, I had never been able to stalk it. The opportunity finally arose two weeks ago when the Grim Cheaper and I found ourselves wandering Green Street just as Madeline was opening, so we headed on in.

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While the exterior of Madeline Garden Bistro is incredibly idyllic . . .

– I mean, even the signage looks like something from a movie set –

. . . what awaited us as we stepped through the front doors was nothing short of breathtaking.

Madeline Garden Bistro is easily one of the prettiest places I have ever laid eyes on . . .

. . . which I guess should come as no surprise being that it is located inside of the Cheesewright Studios Building, or the Cheesewright Building, one of Pasadena’s most historic and prominent sites.

Per The Architecture of Entertainment by Robert Winter, the French Quarter-style property was designed in 1927 by Louis du Puget Millar as a studio/office/workshop for renown interior decorator Edgar J. Cheesewright.

At the time of its inception, the 2-story, 42-room, 35,000-square-foot complex boasted 3 street-level boutiques, 8 sales rooms, several workshops and offices, a reception hall with a curved staircase, an entrance courtyard with a fountain, a rear garden, leaded glass windows, wrought iron balconies, and a 2-story atrium . You can see photos of the building during its early days here and here.

Cheesewright’s business suffered financially during the Great Depression and he eventually sold the property. During World War II, the complex was acquired by the U.S. Naval Research Bureau and was utilized to conduct secret military testing. A basement lab was constructed for Albert Einstein during that time, complete with a tunnel that linked it to the California Institute of Technology located about a half a mile away, so that the scientist could venture there and back unseen. In 1983, the Navy relinquished the building and it was transformed into retail/office space once again. Today, the second floor houses apartments known as the Pasadena Green Plaza Apartments. Miraculously, despite its different incarnations over the years, much of the site’s original detailing and beauty has been retained.

I was able to chronicle the history of the ground level space that now houses Madeline Garden Bistro back to 2001, at which time it was opened as an upscale eatery named Restaurant Halie.

Halie was shuttered in 2006 and shortly thereafter Madeleine’s Restaurant & Wine Bistro moved in.

Though I lived in Pasadena at the time and heard great things about the place (especially its décor), on every single occasion that the GC and I attempted to eat there or grab a cocktail, we would invariably walk up only to find it closed.

I guess other people had a hard time getting in, as well, because Madeleine’s Restaurant & Wine Bistro closed in 2010. The space remained vacant for a few years before re-opening as the similarly named Madeline Garden Bistro & Venue in 2013.

Though closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, the eatery has a much better operating schedule than its predecessor.

Madeline Garden Bistro has been called “a maze of a restaurant” by several websites and that is the perfect description of the place.

The massive site is comprised of a seemingly endless array of rooms, hallways and tucked-away spaces, each one more beautiful than the next.

The bistro features a lovely main dining room replete with jewel tones;

a towering fireplace;

poufy couches;

arched windows and crystal chandeliers. (And yes, I’m fully aware that I got a little picture happy while stalking Madeline!)

The back bar is just as gorgeous.

Decorated in deep greens and dark purples . . .

. . . the space has the feel of a Parisian watering hole of yesteryear.

There’s a gorgeous brick and flagstone courtyard . . .

. . . perfect for whiling away a sunny afternoon.

Just off the courtyard is the High Tea Room, a grand space marked by French doors, teal walls and an elaborate fireplace.

It was in the High Tea Room that Mad Men was filmed.

In the Season 4 episode titled “Public Relations,” which aired in 2010, Don Draper (Jon Hamm) took an opera supernumerary named Bethany Van Nuys (Anna Camp) on a first date there.

Though the site was operating as Madeleine’s Restaurant & Wine Bistro at the time of the filming, as you can see that room still looks very much the same today.

The Cheesewright Studios Buildings was also featured in a 2015 “The Season of Audi Sales Event” commercial, which you can watch here.

On a side-note – my Google Photo app “stylized” one of the pictures I took of Madeline Garden Bistro and I absolutely love how it turned out. I’m honestly thinking of framing it and had to include it here.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Madeline Garden Bistro & Venue, from the “Public Relations” episode of Mad Men, is located at 1030 East Green Street in Pasadena. The eatery is only open Wednesday through Sunday, so plan accordingly. You can visit the tea room’s official website here.

April 3, 2017
The “Empty Nest” House

Today’s post is a looooooong-time coming, friends! Easily the location I get asked to track down most often is the supposed Miami, Florida-area house where Dr. Harry Weston (Richard Mulligan) lived on the television series Empty Nest. I have searched for the contemporary two-story residence off-and-on over the years, but never had any luck. I even got fellow stalkers Mike, from MovieShotsLA, Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, and Michael, our resident Brady Bunch aficionado/guest poster extraordinaire, in on the hunt, but we were all at a loss. Until recently that is, when Michael did the impossible and found the house! He was even nice enough to offer to write up the story behind the search for IAMNOTASTALKER – along with a few notes from me (they’re denoted in red). So take it away Michael!

I distinctly remember my inaugural viewing of The Golden Girls and Empty Nest. I was in the first grade and my bedtime had just been extended by an extra hour on the weekends. Looking back, they seem like both an unusual viewing choice for a six-year-old and maybe a little inappropriate, but hey, I needed something to balance out all those Brady Bunch reruns. Although the fourth season of The Golden Girls took up the first half of this uncharted hour of television for me, the second half was filled by a new sitcom, Empty Nest. Both fast favorites of mine, they’ll always be intertwined in my memory and evoke a time when there wasn’t anything quite as exciting as an extra hour added to your bedtime.

With that said, it seems only appropriate that I begin this post not with the topic at hand, but a cursory look at the Golden Girls house(s). The Golden Girls, which premiered in 1985, originally used footage of a ranch-style house in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles to stand in for the girls’ Miami-situated home. Capitalizing on the show’s success, Disney replicated the Brentwood house on a new backlot in Orlando, Florida. Their theme park and production studio, part of Walt Disney World and originally known as Disney-MGM Studios, opened to the public in spring of 1989, but its backlot and Residential Street were already being used to film Splash, Too and Ernest Saves Christmas as early as 1988.

Also in 1988, the creators of The Golden Girls premiered their new show, Empty Nest. The sitcom, set in the same universe as The Golden Girls, would intermingle characters (simple, as they were all neighbors) and occasional storylines. Because Empty Nest premiered the same year that Disney-MGM Studios was constructed, along with its Golden Girls facade, I always assumed that the home shown in EN’s opening titles and establishing shots was only ever a studio-backlot creation. That turned out not to be the case. And It wasn’t until last year when Lindsay offhandedly asked if I’d ever researched the original Empty Nest house location, that I knew what I’d been missing—the exterior of a real house had been shown in the early seasons of the show and was eventually replicated on the Disney-MGM Studios backlot.

Making up for lost time, I dove into research mode to fill in the specifics. Although the Golden Girls house facade was on the backlot on opening day in Orlando, the Empty Nest facade was added years later. An ad in the Orlando Sentinel confirmed that it wasn’t until January 24, 1992, during the show’s fourth season, that Richard Mulligan and Bear (the dog who played Dreyfuss) were on hand at Disney-MGM Studios for a ribbon cutting ceremony at the newly completed facade, followed by a parade, and a hand/paw-print ceremony in Disney’s version of the Grauman’s Chinese Theatre forecourt. Then in 2003, Disney-MGM Studios, now known as Disney’s Hollywood Studios, demolished, among other parts of the backlot, the entirety of Residential Street, including the Empty Nest and Golden Girls facades.

Since Empty Nest isn’t available on DVD or streaming, I was limited to reviewing episodes on YouTube. But, as far as I could tell, the backlot facade was first seen in the late-season episode of the fourth season, “Charley for President.” Then, starting with the fifth season, the opening titles were updated with a shot of the Orlando replica.

Disney did a commendable job recreating the exterior, but upon closer inspection I noticed a few differences. For example, the original house maintained some mundane elements that a backlot shell would have no use for, including a rain diverter and vent pipes on the roof. The backlot version also appeared to exclude a right-side balcony that that was just barely visible in some early-season establishing shots. Moreover, I’ve found the easiest way to tell the houses apart is by looking at the roofline on the garage; only the backlot replica had squared off the eave with a soffit.

Establishing shots of the original house provided subtle clues to its location: a neighboring house to its left and a garage that opens to the right, suggesting the house was on a corner lot. Yet, most interesting to me was a shot framed to include a saucer-style street light in front of the house. It’s not a particularly common style and I hoped that would help me zero in on the neighborhood.

Although Lindsay had seen a tip suggesting the home was in Bel Air or Beverly Hills, those neighborhoods’ scarcity of wide sidewalks didn’t leave me with many areas to investigate. Not only did the Empty Nest house have a sidewalk running in front of it, it had a strip of grass between the sidewalk and the road. I moved on and investigated as many neighborhoods with sidewalks as I could find, but always came up empty. Undeterred, I continued to search on-and-off for months. Then, last week Lindsay emailed me to say she’d met David Leisure, who played the Weston’s zany neighbor Charley Dietz on the series, at an event. And with that, I’ll pass the baton to Lindsay to fill in the, ahem, “dietz.”

Lindsay here. A couple of weeks ago, I attended a charity event in the desert and was beyond elated to run into David Leisure. Literally. While walking around a corner, I almost bumped into the actor and his wife and just about had a heart attack. While I asked for a photo and he happily obliged, I was so flustered over our rather abrupt meeting that I failed to inquire if he knew the whereabouts of the Empty Nest house. The Grim Cheaper was in the bathroom at the time and when he came out, I told him about my chance encounter and how upset I was that I failed to ask about the home. He immediately grabbed my hand, marched over to where David was standing and said, “My wife wants to ask you a question.” Leisure couldn’t have been more kind, once again, and when I brought up the Weston house, he immediately started laughing and said, “So you do know who I am! As soon as we walked away from you earlier, I said to my wife, ‘I wonder who she thinks I am.’” LOL Regarding the Weston pad, he said that he had never been asked about its location before, but found the query fascinating and thought it might be in the Hancock Park/Larchmont area. I immediately passed the intel onto Michael. I’ll let him tell you the rest.

Emboldened by the fresh tip, I surveyed Larchmont. Having no real luck again, I decided to do a little more research. This time, I came across a 1993 article in the Orlando Sentinel. In the article, a reader wrote in to ask about the exteriors shown on Empty Nest and Golden Palace (The Golden Girls’ short-lived replacement). The paper’s reply noted that the Empty Nest house used that season was located at Disney in Orlando, but the original was in Brentwood.

Cautiously optimistic—I feared the author mixed up the original location of the Empty Nest house with the original Golden Girls house—I once again pulled up an aerial map of Brentwood. I’d already investigated the immediate area around the Golden Girls house, so I thought I’d try a different area and look near the border of Pacific Palisades and Brentwood. As I scrolled across the map, Paul Revere Middle School jumped out at me. I’d remembered the name of the school from the O.J. Simpson trial and never really knew where it was located. Looking at it, I noticed a clump of houses nearby that seemed a little less grandiose than many of the mansions winding through Brentwood, and most importantly, I could see sidewalks.

To get a feel for the neighborhood, I plopped myself down in Google Street View and immediately noticed a saucer-style street lamp. Back on the birds-eye view, I started to look at homes on corner lots. Unbelievably, the first corner I zoomed in on, I found exactly the layout I’d imagined staring back at me.

Dumbfounded that I’d finally rooted it out, I immediately sent Lindsay the details, and as luck would have it, she said she’d be in LA the following week and would be able to check it out in person. And without further ado, a final pass of the baton to Lindsay to wrap things up.

Me, again. I could not have been more excited as the GC and I pulled up to the home. I knew from looking at Street View imagery that virtually none of it had been altered in the years since filming took place, but being there was like a shock to my system. I felt like I had stepped right into my 1988-era television set. The residence is completely frozen in time and brought to mind another classic TV home – that of The Golden Girls. Ironically enough, that residence, too, remains absolutely pristine in its onscreen state. Two Brentwood properties, featured in classic shows created by same production team, preserved like museum pieces all these years later.

Big THANK YOU to Michael for not only finding this location, but for writing up the story of the hunt! You can check out his other guest posts here.

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

Stalk It: The house from Empty Nest is located at 1457 Jonesboro Drive in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles.

March 31, 2017
Jane’s House from “Big Little Lies”

I am extremely biased when it comes to my former stomping ground of Pasadena, where I lived for close to 15 years. Though I’ve heard on more than one occasion from L.A. denizens that the city is too suburban and too far removed from the hustle and bustle of urban life, I think it is one of the best places in the world and miss it so much at times it almost breaks my heart. So whenever I hear of a movie or TV show that has done some filming in Crown City, I get a wee bit obsessed with tracking down the exact location or locations used – well, more obsessed than I usually do when it comes to locales. Such was the case with the bungalow where Jane Chapman (Shailene Woodley) and her son, Ziggy (Iain Armitage), live on the HBO miniseries Big Little Lies, which ends its run next week (oh, say it ain’t so!). I learned the home could be found in Pasadena via this recent Travel + Leisure article and immediately started trying to track it down.

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Though the exterior of Jane’s rental wasn’t featured very much in the first two episodes of Big Little Lies, thankfully, in the third, titled “Living the Dream,” a good view of the property and the street it is located on was shown. While watching, I noticed that Jane’s street not only abutted a one-way road, but also that it formed a “T” with another street two blocks away. Because of my familiarity with the city, I knew straight away that the residence had to be situated somewhere just north of Union Street in East Pasadena. Armed with that knowledge, I began searching aerial views of the area and found Jane’s house within minutes at 161 North Chester Avenue.

In person, Jane’s red and brown bungalow looks exactly as it does onscreen in Big Little Lies.

The only notable difference is the lack of a front yard light post in real life.

Outside of that, nothing was changed for the production. The place so resembles its onscreen self that, while there, I half expected Jane to coming walking outside in full running gear!

I mean, even the skewed address placard remains unaltered!

According to a recent Vulture article, only the exterior of the pad was utilized in Big Little Lies. For interior scenes, a set partially modeled upon the home was built because, as location manager Gregory Alpert stated, the property’s real interior “looked better on film than it actually was.”

The Vulture article also mentions that the residence landed its onscreen role thanks partially to “the canopy of trees on the street.” As you can see in the images below, as well as the other images in this post, the trees situated outside of the house and nearby are absolutely magical.

Per Zillow, the 1917 bungalow boasts 1,075 square feet of living space (though Redfin measures it at 928 square feet), 3 bedrooms, 1 bath, a fireplace, a garden, a 0.17-acre lot, a detached 1-car garage, and a large front porch.

The front porch has been utilized several times on Big Little Lies.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Jane’s house from Big Little Lies is located at 161 North Chester Avenue in Pasadena.

March 29, 2017
Madeline’s House from “Big Little Lies”

Every once in a while a show comes along that absolutely grips me. Granted, I watch – and get hooked on – a lot of series, but among them are certain standouts. The Hills, Vanderpump Rules, and Beverly Hills, 90210 come to mind, though my obsession with the latter was admittedly next-level. My latest fixation is Big Little Lies, the murder-mystery miniseries based on the book of the same name currently airing on HBO. Besides a scintillating premise, well-drawn characters, and a dynamic timeline (the story is told mainly through flashbacks), the show is real estate porn at its finest! I am thoroughly consumed with each of the main character’s homes and was thrilled to learn via this fabulous People magazine article that all but one is located in the Los Angeles area and not in Monterey where BLL is set.

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Out of the four principal residences used on the series, the beachfront Cape Cod belonging to Madeline Martha Mackenzie (Reese Witherspoon) is my favorite. So I recently set about tracking it down. As it turns out, the place is an onscreen regular that I had actually already stalked!

My initial thought upon first seeing Madeline’s house in the pilot episode of Big Little Lies was that it looked like a modernized version of the gray shingled pad where Sarah Owens (Cassidy Rae) and her fellow models lived in the 1994 Melrose Place spin-off, Models Inc. (Man, that was a great show! I am still flabbergasted over the fact that it only lasted one season.) I stalked that property, which can be found at 30760 Broad Beach Road in Malibu, back in March 2013. In no way did I think the two places were one and the same, though, so I did not give the subject further attention. Thanks to the People article, I knew that Madeline’s home was also located in Malibu and started perusing beachfront dwellings in the area via aerial views, but, frustratingly, came up empty-handed. Circling back to my Models Inc. inclination, I decided to pull up some screen captures from the show and just about fell over! The reason I thought Madeline’s residence looked like a modernized version of the Models Inc. house is because it is a modernized version of the Models Inc. house! Apparently, the property was given a bit of a facelift in recent years. As you can see in comparing the images above and below, the renovation included a change in paint color, the removal of several awnings, and opening up the second floor deck.

I actually stalked the property post-remodel, but only visited its street side. While I had every intention of heading around to the rear of the home, while walking there, I somehow stepped into some tar (like a bunch of it – my feet were covered for days!) and had to turn back.

Ironically, that wasn’t my only visit to the house. Later that year (October 27th, to be exact), Miss Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog, married Keith Coogan, of Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead fame, at the Malibu West Beach Club, which is located next door to Madeline’s pad. Because I am seriously directionally-challenged and because I had parked near public beach access – which is a ways away from the residence – during my initial stalk, I did not realize the venue’s proximity to the home until looking at it recently via aerial views. D’oh! As soon I put two and two together, I remembered that the bridesmaids (including myself) and Keith had climbed onto a bluff adjacent to the club to pose for a wedding photo. I had an inkling that Madeline’s residence was likely visible in the shot and, sure enough, I was right! In the image below, which Pinky was nice enough to let me post here, you can see it on the left-hand side!

In real life, the 1979 property features a 6,000-square-foot main house with 6 bedrooms (2 of which are master suites), 7 bathrooms, 3 fireplaces, a Jacuzzi, a deck, a rock sauna, a family room with a bar, a wine cellar, and a large chef’s kitchen with 3 ovens, 2 dishwashers, and Viking appliances. The detached 2-story, 950-square-foot guest pad boasts 1 bedroom, 1.5 baths, and a full kitchen.

The pad, which sits on a 0.6-acre lot featuring 80 feet of beachfront land, is currently available as a vacation rental with rates running from $3,000 to $5,000 a night.

Interestingly, only the rear side of the property is shown on Big Little Lies. A different home is used as the front of Madeline’s residence and, unfortunately, I have not yet tracked that location down.

The dwelling’s actual interior also appears on the show – and it is nothing short of idyllic.

The kitchen area is uh-ma-zing! I find it quite ironic that, according to the People article, Madeline’s house is intended to be the least fabulous of the bunch – excluding Jane Chapman’s (Shailene Woodley) – and “represents her lower economic standing.” Like, huh? Madeline’s residence is pretty much my dream pad! I would give my eye teeth to live there!

Besides being featured in Models Inc., Madeline’s residence also portrayed the home of Dr. Mark Sloan (Dick Van Dyke) and his son, Steve (Barry Van Dyke), during Seasons 3 through 8 of the television series Diagnosis Murder.

The pad was also where the Stewart family lived from Seasons 1 through 3 on the Disney series Hannah Montana.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Madeline’s house from Big Little Lies is located at 30760 Broad Beach Road in Malibu. You can visit the residence’s vacation rental website here.

March 27, 2017
The Villa Del Sol from “Rosewood”

The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon is a term used to describe the experience of coming across an obscure word, thing, or piece of information for the first time and then subsequently happening upon references to that same word, thing, or piece of information on a regular basis. I had never heard of it until fellow stalker/guest poster extraordinaire Michael (you can read the many articles he has written for IAMNOTASTALKER here) mentioned it to me while discussing Haskell’s Ice Cream Hut from The Brady Bunch, a locale he tracked down back in 2014 that he has since seen pop up in several other productions. We have encountered so many instances of Baader-Meinhof lately that Michael recently suggested we rename the phenomenon after the two of us in regard to filming locations. Case in point – while watching the Season 2 episode of Rosewood titled “Half-Life and Havana Nights” in early December, I became a bit fixated with the supposed “Cuba” courtyard where Dr. Beaumont Rosewood, Jr. (Morris Chestnut) and Detective Annalise Villa (Jaina Lee Ortiz) interrogated a suspect. After a bit of research, I discovered that the courtyard was part of a historic building known as The Villa Del Sol in Fullerton. I had never heard of the place, but quickly added it to my To-Stalk List. Well, not 48 hours later, I was poring over the December issue of Westways magazine and was shocked to see The Villa Del Sol featured in a Local Outings blurb. The article made me even more obsessed with seeing the site in person, so when I found out that my dad had a doctor’s appointment in Orange County last week, I informed the Grim Cheaper that we would be tagging along in order to do some Rosewood stalking.

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The Villa Del Sol was originally built as a luxury lodging known as the California Hotel. Construction on the three-story property took place from January 1922 to January 1923.

The Spanish Colonial-style hotel was designed by architects Frank Benchley and Morien Eugene Durfee.

At its inception, California Hotel consisted of ground-level shops, 22 suites, 55 single rooms, and a courtyard that opened to what was then Spadra Road (today it’s Harbor Boulevard). You can see some photographs of what the picturesque site looked like during its early days here and here.

In 1964, the hotel underwent a renovation, was expanded, transformed into a commercial building, and re-named The Villa Del Sol. During the remodel much of the structure’s Spanish Revival detailing was removed. The building’s courtyard was also closed off from the street, creating a peaceful little oasis shaded by tall palm trees.

In 1992, the property was remodeled once again after being purchased by Dunlap Real Estate Investments. The group revitalized the site, bringing back much of its original design.

Today, the marketplace houses restaurants, boutiques, and office space. One of the eateries, The Cellar, is not only reportedly haunted, but was designed by the same people who were responsible for The Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland! Sadly, it was closed when we were there, but it’s on my list for a re-stalk.

The Villa Del Sol is absolutely idyllic. It comes as no surprise that the quaint site is one of the O.C.’s most popular wedding venues. What is rather surprising is that, outside of Rosewood, I could find no other instance of filming on the premises.

In “Half-Life and Havana Nights,” Rosewood and Villa head to Cuba to get information from a fake I.D. maker named Lorenzo ‘Lo Down’ Veras (Roberto Sanchez).

They wind up encountering him in The Villa Del Sol’s courtyard, which masked as a busy Cuban marketplace.

In the scene, Lo Down was holding court in the southern section of the courtyard, near the entrance to Green Bliss cafe.

The Villa Del Sol’s second floor also appeared in the episode, portraying the Cuban apartment building where Michelle Kelly (Joy Brunson) lived.

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 Villa Del Sol, from the “Half-Life and Havana Nights” episode of Rosewood, is located at 305 North Harbor Boulevard in Fullerton.

March 24, 2017
The House from Michael Bublé’s “I Believe in You” Music Video

As my longtime readers know, this stalker loves herself some Michael Bublé. A lesser known fact, being that I don’t talk about it as much, is that I also love me some Derek Hough. So when I found out that the Dancing with the Stars pro was directing, choreographing, and starring in the cutie crooner’s “I Believe in You” music video, I could hardly contain my excitement! A collaboration by two of my favorite stars? Count me in! I anxiously poured through the many Snapchat videos Hough posted of the shoot, which took place in January, and instantly became obsessed with tracking down the house used in the production, because, well, duh!

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My initial thought upon seeing the Cape Cod-style residence in Derek’s snaps was that it was located in Malibu. Something about the size, landscaping and design of the pad just screamed “the ‘Bu” to me. So I spent a while poking around the beachside city, as well as searching location databases for Cape Cod dwellings in the area, but came up with diddly. On a whim, and because I do not like to leave any stone unturned, I next set my sights on the Pasadena Film Calendar, even though I was fairly certain the house wouldn’t be found there. Imagine my surprise when I saw “I Believe in You” noted in the listings! According to the calendar, the video was being shot somewhere on Marengo Avenue. From there, I searched along Marengo via aerial views and found the house rather quickly.

The 6-bedroom, 4-bath, 5,324-square-foot home, which per Zillow was built in 1894, is pretty darn spectacular.

Though situated facing away from the road and behind a huge wall of hedges . . .

. . . it turned out to be much more visible than I was led to believe from my Google Street View viewings.

You can check out some more close-up photos of the exterior of the residence, as well as some interior shots, here.

The “I Believe in You” video, which centers around the lifelong relationship between a couple, was shot in its entirety at the property. Derek used his grandparents, who were married for over 60 years and danced together every morning and every night, as his inspiration for the storyline and concept. He explained to People magazine, “When I heard the song, I just kept picturing my grandparents and this love that lasted for such a long time. I wanted to show a love story that stood the test of time.” You can watch the finished product by clicking below. Warning – have Kleenex handy!

“I Believe in You” made extensive use of both the exterior . . .

. . . and interior of the picturesque home.

A patch of sidewalk out in front of the house also appeared in a couple of scenes.

The area used can be found just south of the residence’s driveway.

The same property also portrayed the home of NSA Director Lieutenant-General Diane Peters (McNally Sagal) in the Season 5 episode of Scandal titled “It’s Hard Out Here for a General.”

On a Michael Bublé side-note – I don’t know how I missed his “Nobody But Me” video, which was released in October of last year, but it’s hilarious! You can watch it by clicking below.

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 from Michael Bublé’s “I Believe in You” music video is located at 1504 South Marengo Avenue in Pasadena.

March 22, 2017
Palindrome Healing Center from “Flaked”

Some images just stay with you. When I came across these MLS photos of a Venice Beach home on Curbed Los Angeles back in 2008, I practically started drooling and the words “real estate porn” immediately came to mind. The pictures of the dramatically unique Moroccan-inspired dwelling, especially the ones of the meandering pool, seared themselves into my brain. So I was thrilled to spot the pad when scanning through episodes of Flaked early last year while writing this Los Angeles magazine post about the Netflix series’ locations. Though I added the abode to my To-Stalk List right then and there, it was not until just recently that I was finally able to get out to Venice to see it in person.

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The residence’s flat, boxy, concrete exterior belies nothing of its interior beauty. From the outside, the place almost looks like a warehouse.

But hidden behind the dwelling’s drab exterior walls is a magical Moorish- and Moroccan-style oasis, marked by lush greenery, rooms that traverse both indoor and outdoor space, a meandering pool that moves throughout the property, and sleek, sharp lines. (Pictured below are two of the MLS images from Curbed that so enthralled me. You can see some more fabulous photos of the home’s interior here and here.)

Thanks to Curbed commenter spinsLPs, I learned that the extraordinary residence belongs to Phillip Dixon. The prolific photographer purchased the site in 1978, when it consisted solely of a wooden cottage and a vacant former market that Phillip turned into his studio. He eventually tore down the house, leaving the studio intact, and, per spinsLPs, commissioned architect Brian Murphy of BAM Construction/Design, Inc. to build a modern residence in its in place. You can see what that structure looked like here. In 1993, the pad was re-designed once more, this time by Dixon himself, as well as (and this is once again per spinsLPs) architect Charles Ward. Of the design, Dixon said in a C Home article, “In architecture, everything designs itself based on what you want. You have to look at where the light comes from; you have to look where the wind comes from. And then you have to know how you want to live. And the way I wanted to live was with the pool and the garden and the house all incorporated into one.”

I’d say Dixon achieved his goal. The residence seamlessly meshes indoor and outdoor space to the point that, when looking at pictures, you almost don’t know which is which.

Philip also designed all of the home’s furniture and furnishings, which are built-in. Of the artful concept, Philip said, “For me, normal furniture and paintings and all of that stuff is just jewelry. When a place is done, you shouldn’t have to put anything in it or on the walls. It’s already decorated; it’s already furnished. And also, it flows. So you have the seats, the tables, everything works together. And you just put the cushion on it and it’s easy maintenance.” The result of his efforts is an aesthetic that is both minimalist and baroque at the same time. Or as a different Curbed commenter described it, “Tatooine chic.” (If you don’t get the reference, Google it. )

I mean, even the garage is spectacular!

The 4,380-square-foot, 3-bedroom, 3-bath property was put up for sale in January 2008 for a cool $13 million, but there were apparently no bites as the price was dropped to $10 million in May of that year and then slashed again to $8.295 million in July before being taken off the market altogether. The home has since been the site of numerous special events, as well as filmings.

In the Season 1 episode of Flaked titled “Palms,” the residence masked as Palindrome Healing Center, the Palm Springs-area holistic spa that Chip (Will Arnett), London (Ruth Kearney), Dennis (David Sullivan), and Jackie (Kirstie Alley) visited.

Several areas of the home were featured in the episode . . .

. . . but it is the pool that was showcased most beautifully. I mean, can you even imagine this being your actual residence?

The property also portrayed the Los Angeles home where Jackie Q (Rose Byrne) lived in the 2010 comedy Get Him to the Greek.

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 fictional Palindrome Healing Center from Flaked is actually a private home located at 418 Westminster Avenue in Venice.

March 20, 2017
The “Last Man Standing” House

The Grim Cheaper and I watch a lot of TV. Like a lot. So I am always surprised when I receive an email from a reader asking about a location from a show I am not familiar with. Such was the case in January, when fellow stalker Marjorie reached out to ask for my assistance in tracking down the house where the Baxter family lives on Last Man Standing. Though I had never seen even one episode of the CBS series, I am always up for a good hunt, so I asked Marjorie to send me some screen captures of the residence. When she did, I was shocked to see that it was a virtual carbon copy of a home that has been featured on The Goldbergs numerous times – one that I will be blogging about soon. I had tracked down that pad – it’s at 2822 Forrester Drive in Cheviot Hills – just a few weeks prior and, due to the similarities, figured the Last Man Standing dwelling had to be located nearby. So I began poking around the area. After a few hours of futile searching, I decided to set my sights on Hancock Park and its environs instead, and hit pay dirt rather quickly.

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Said to be located at 9504 Dublin Street in downtown Denver on the series, the Baxter family home can actually be found at 611 Lorraine Boulevard in Windsor Square.

In real life, the 1923 Tudor boasts 5 bedrooms, 4 baths, 4,680 square feet, a library, several fireplaces, a butler’s pantry, a formal dining room, a breakfast room, a detached garage, a covered patio, maid’s quarters, and a 0.33-acre lot.

Per real estate website Zillow, the two-story residence, which was designed by architect Preston Wright, last sold in October 2013 for $2.7 million.

As you can see, the property looks much the same in person as it does on Last Man Standing.

At some point, a flagpole with a brick base was added to the home’s front yard on the show.

The flagpole is not there in real life, though, and I am guessing it is not a set piece, but something that is superimposed digitally into each image of the house featured on the series.

The handsome brick pad appears regularly each week in establishing shots on Last Man Standing, though no actual filming takes place there.

The series is instead lensed on a set constructed on Stage 9 at CBS Studio Center in Studio City.

The set of the Baxter family’s home does not resemble the interior of the actual residence, which is much larger and much more grand. You can check out what the real inside of the property looks like here.

During my search for the Last Man Standing house, I came across a 2011 Inland Valley Daily Bulletin article that mentioned the series’ regular use of the Bass Pro Shops in Rancho Cucamonga. I was thrilled upon learning the news being that the massive sporting goods emporium is one of my dad’s favorite places in the entire world. I’m not kidding – when we lived in Pasadena and friends would visit from out of town, he would invariably drive them the 35 miles to Rancho Cucamonga to see Bass Pro. Not that I blame him. The 180,000-square-foot site, which boasts waterfalls, an 8,000-gallon fish tank, a shooting gallery, a 2-story lobby with a fireplace and a 60-foot clerestory, murals, museum-like dioramas, and a restaurant (yes, a restaurant!), is not your average sporting goods store. It’s pretty darn unique. You can check out some photos of it here. On Last Man Standing, Bass Pro, which is located at 7777 Victoria Gardens Lane, masks as Outdoor Man, where Baxter patriarch Mike (Tim Allen) works as a marketing director. Only the exterior of the shop is utilized on the series. The inside of Outdoor Man is a set that exists at CBS Studio Center and, unlike the Baxter house, it was closely modeled after Bass Pro’s real life interior. In an interesting twist, as the Daily Bulletin points out, a green truck is visible parked outside of the store in the establishing shots featured on the show. That truck is an actual décor fixture of Bass Pro. Producers must have liked the look of it because it somehow made its way on to Last Man Standing as Mike’s car. If you scroll up, you can see an identical green pick-up parked in the driveway in several establishing shots of the Baxter home.

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

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Marjorie for asking me to find this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Baxter residence from Last Man Standing is located at 611 Lorraine Boulevard in Windsor Square. Bass Pro Shops, aka Outdoor Man from the series, is located at 7777 Victoria Gardens Lane in Rancho Cucamonga.

March 17, 2017
The Tate Mansion from “Soap”

I have a pretty amazing memory, especially when it comes to things most people find useless, such as filming locations and movie quotes. I’m like a vault. Or an elephant. Once something enters my brain, it locks in and I don’t forget it. So I was shocked when I received an email a couple of weeks back from a fellow stalker named Andrew who wanted some assistance in tracking down the mansion belonging to the Tate family on Soap. My parents and I watched the 1977 ABC series religiously during my childhood years and The Major (Arthur Peterson) is still one of my favorite television characters of all time. I mean, a guy who regularly walks around with a stuffed dog that he thinks is still alive tends to stay with you. Somewhere along the way, though, I inexplicably forgot about the show and upon moving to L.A., never thought to look for any of its locations. So I was thrilled to receive Andrew’s email and immediately told him I was up to the task!

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At the time I began the hunt, I had no recollection whatsoever of what the Tate residence looked like, so I did a Google search for “the Soap mansion” and was led to this image of a Tudor-style dwelling that someone had snapped on the Dearly Departed tour. Now Dearly Departed is run by my friend Scott Michaels and while I could have easily emailed him for the address, I figured finding the pad on my own would be a snap due to the fact that, because of its stately appearance, I was 99.9% certain it was located in Hancock Park. After quite a bit of time poking around the area, though, I came up completely empty-handed and started to doubt my instincts. So I sent a message to Scott and he wrote back immediately with an answer. As it turns out, the Soap mansion is located in Hancock Park – at 511 South Muirfield Road to be exact. While I was glad to know my hunch was correct, I was at a loss as to how I missed the place during my searching. So thank you, Scott, for leading me to the right spot!

The Grim Cheaper and I headed over to stalk the manse while visiting L.A. two weeks ago and I could not have been more excited to see it in person.

I was floored to discover that very little of the 8-bedroom, 6-bath, 7,426-square-foot property, which sits on 0.41 acres, has been altered in the 36 years since Soap has been off the air. (Please pardon the low-res screen captures featured in this post. I purchased the series on DVD, but unfortunately the discs will not play on my computer. They will play on my regular DVD player, though, so I was forced to snap photographs of my television screen in lieu of making screen grabs. Guerilla blogging at its finest!)

As you can see, the 1929 estate, which was said to be located in Dunn’s River, Connecticut on the series, aka a “neighborhood known as ‘Rich’,” looks exactly the same today as it did onscreen when the show first premiered in 1977.

Soap is not the only production to have been lensed at the handsome brick property. The site portrayed the home of Olivia McKenna (Melissa Newman) in the 1982 horror film One Dark Night. (Huge thank you to Scott Michaels for providing the screen captures below.)

Ian Gallagher (Cameron Monaghan) and Mickey Milkovich (Noel Fisher) robbed the residence in the Season 3 episode of Shameless titled “The Sins of my Caretaker,” which aired in 2012. The Tate mansion was only used for exterior shots in the episode, though. A house around the corner at 434 South Rossmore was utilized for interiors. You can check out what the inside of the Tate dwelling actually looks like here.

The property masked as a church in the Season 1 episode of Grace and Frankie titled “The Funeral,” which aired in 2015.

The residence’s interior was also featured quite extensively in the episode.

The interior of the mansion appeared very briefly as the home of Rose Brady (Rosemarie DeWitt) in the pilot of the new Amazon series The Last Tycoon, which is the only episode of the show that has yet to air.

According to OnLocationVacations, The Last Tycoon has filmed at the residence several times over the past few months, so you can expect to see it pop up regularly as future episodes are released.

In the Season 2 episode of the Netflix series Love titled “Back in Town,” which aired in 2017, one of the mansion’s rooms masqueraded as a therapist’s office.

The estate portrayed Denny’s (Donal Logue) house in the Season 1 episode of The Unicorn titled “The Client,” which aired in 2020.

And it is currently being featured as the home of Elena Richardson (Reese Witherspoon) and her family on Little Fires Everywhere. Of choosing the property for the Hulu series, production designer Jessica Kender told Architectural Digest, “We saw this big beautiful Tudor-esque house built in the 1920s. It was in this little pocket on top of a hill with a fountain in the middle. Everything about it read very old money, it has this beautifully moneyed perfection type of vibe.” And don’t worry – the mansion wasn’t really burned down for the shoot. Instead, producers had the facade re-created inside of a soundstage for the fire scenes.

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

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Andrew for asking me to track down this location and to Scott Michaels, of the Find a Death website and the Dearly Departed tour company, for finding it!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Tate mansion from Soap is located at 511 South Muirfield Road in Hancock Park.

March 15, 2017
Pasadena’s “Big Bang Theory” Way Sign

God is in the details, as they say. And it truly is the details, aka the little things, that I miss about living in L.A. For example, while perusing Instagram recently, I came across an image posted by amylove33 of a street sign in Old Town Pasadena reading “Big Bang Theory Way.” I was, of course, intrigued. Not only am I a huge fan of the long-running CBS series, but I loved the fact that Crown City paid homage to it in such an unexpected and unique way. I couldn’t help thinking that the sign is something I likely would have come across – and most definitely noticed – during my daily walks if I still lived in the area. As I said, it’s the little things I miss the most. Even though I now reside in Palm Springs, there was no way I was not seeing that sign in person! I commented on amylove’s post, asking if she could detail its exact location, and she was kind enough to respond immediately. Thank you, amylove! So I added the site to my To-Stalk List and headed right on over there while visiting Los Angeles two weeks ago.

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As amylove33 explained, Big Bang Theory Way is not actually a street, but an alley situated just east of Crossroads Trading Co. on Colorado Boulevard.

The city installed the sign at some point in 2016 as a way of celebrating the Pasadena-set series, which centers around the lives and loves of four local scientists, Leonard Hofstadter (Johnny Galecki), Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons), Howard Wolowitz (Simon Helberg) and Raj Koothrappali (Kunal Nayyar). As Councilmember Andy Wilson stated, “The City of Pasadena is proud of its comedic and scientific association with The Big Bang Theory. Pasadena was already known throughout the world for having the foremost astronomers, chemists and scientific thinkers who do very serious work here, but thanks to The Big Bang Theory, being smart in Pasadena is now fun too.” The city also decreed February 25th, 2016, the date of the airing of the series’ 200th episode, as “Big Bang Theory Day.”

There is a bit of confusion regarding the sign that I have not, as of yet, been able to iron out. The announcement of the street name commemoration took place on Conan on February 24th, 2016. During the episode, in which the entire TBBT cast guested, host Conan O’Brien surprised the group by revealing the street designation tribute and presented them with a sign sent over by the city. As you can see below, that sign read “Big Bang Theory Alley.”

During the segment, which you can watch here, quite a bit of fun was made over the fact that the series was being rewarded with the renaming of a mere alley and not an actual street.

Somewhere along the way, though, things got changed up and a sign reading “Big Bang Theory Way” was installed instead. I am unsure if the alteration had something to do with Conan’s teasing or if it came about due to other factors.

Regardless of the reasoning behind the change, I cannot think of a cooler way for a show to be honored.

Not to mention, the sign makes for great picture-taking opportunities. Kudos, Pasadena! Job well done!

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

Big THANK YOU to amylove33 for telling me about this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Big Bang Theory Way sign is located on the 100 block of East Colorado Boulevard, at the entrance to the alley just east of Crossroads Trading Co., in Pasadena.

March 13, 2017