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Jeff’s House from “Spellbinder”

My Haunted Hollywood backlog is getting ridiculous! Currently, I have more than 50 already-stalked spooky locations compiled – and only about 20 or so days each year to blog about them. Regardless, I keep compiling more – and I love every minute of it! Why can’t all year be Halloween? Last October, fellow stalker Chas, of the It’s Filmed There website, contributed to my ever-growing list by texting to let me know about a horror movie house he thought I might be interested in – the residence where Jeff Mills (Tim Daly) lived in 1988’s Spellbinder. I had never seen the film before, or even heard of it actually, but was fascinated by the fact that the home was located on Westwanda Drive in Beverly Hills, the very same street where Yvette Vickers lived and was found dead in 2011, after months of lying dead on her floor. (I blogged about that property in October 2014.) I ran right out to stalk the Spellbinder pad and, though I was not able to include it in last year’s Haunted Hollywood postings, wanted to make sure to fit it in this year.

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Sadly, as I discovered upon arriving, the house is obscured by a large fence and very little of it can be seen from the road.

Not much of the residence is visible from the other side of the property, either.

That was not the case back in ‘88 when Spellbinder was filmed, though. As you can below, at the time, the dwelling was only surrounded by a small white picket fence.

What can be seen today, though, matches what appeared onscreen.

In real life, the Cape Cod-style residence, which was built in 1954, boasts 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, and 1,940 square feet of living space.

I am fairly certain that the interior of Jeff’s home was a set – especially being that much of it was destroyed at the hands of the otherworldly friends of Jeff’s new girlfriend, Miranda Reed (Kelly Preston), in the film.

I was able to dig up one interior photograph of the residence from an old MLS listing and in it you can see that the set fireplace from Spellbinder very closely resembles that of the actual house, though it is situated differently. I am guessing that most of the set was modeled after the home’s real life interior.

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

Big THANK YOU to Chas, from the It’s Filmed There website, for telling me about this location. You can check out his page on Spellbinder’s other filming locations here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Jeff’s house from Spellbinder is located at 9912 Westwanda Drive in Beverly Crest. Yvette Vickers’ former home was located just up the street at 10021 Westwanda Drive, though it has been demolished.

October 6, 2016
“The Exorcist” House and Stairs

I’ve ventured down a deep, dark rabbit hole today, friends. I should back up and explain from the beginning. Last night, the Grim Cheaper and I watched The Exorcist for the first time. I had come across images of the stately brick house and adjacent towering staircase featured in the iconic 1973 horror flick while researching filming locations in the D.C.-area prior to our September trip and found them to be particularly haunting. Despite the fact that I had never seen The Exorcist and knew little about it other than it was considered one of the scariest movies of its day (with theatregoers purportedly fainting during viewings), I jotted down the addresses and moved them to the very top of my D.C. To-Stalk List. Both sites proved fabulously creepy in person. I felt I couldn’t very well write about them without a screening of the flick, though, so last night the GC and I sat down to watch. I was shocked at how much the movie withstood the test of time. I was scared throughout (though I did find the demonic ramblings hysterical and I’m pretty sure they were meant to be obscene and shocking in their day). When I sat down to write this post, I discovered that the film was actually based upon a real life case and starting doing research. And wow, did I get sucked in! I highly suggest you do not open that Pandora’s box unless you have a lot of time on your hands because it. is. fascinating.

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I’ll give you the Reader’s Digest version here. The Exorcist was originally a book – a best-seller, actually, written by William Peter Blatty. William was initially inspired to pen the novel while attending Georgetown University in 1949, when a professor mentioned the supposed real life exorcism of a 14-year-old Maryland boy that had recently taken place. The case of the possessed youngster, which was chronicled in countless newspapers, was shrouded in mystery and the story largely twisted by various reporters. The tale, which detailed violently shaking beds, rashes that spelled out demonic messages, and outbursts of profanity laced with Latin, stuck with Blatty for two decades and he finally began to put pen to paper in 1969. The book became an immediate sensation when it hit shelves in 1971 and drew renewed attention to the real life exorcism. The movie that followed two years later, which Blatty wrote the screenplay to, only exacerbated the public’s fascination with the case and rumor and gossip about it spread. The actual story, which was thoroughly investigated by historian Mark Opsasnick and finally revealed in a five-part article in 1999, is much less paranormal. You can read it here. Though Opsasnick does not mention the boy’s real name in his piece, instead using the alias Roland Doe, today that name is widely published all over the internet. The “real” Exorcist child is Ronald Edwin Hunkeler, who lived at 3807 40th Avenue in Cottage City (that’s his childhood home pictured below). You can see a photograph of a teen Hunkeler here. And you can read another in-depth recap of the case, which further debunks many of the rumors, here.

While writing his novel, Blatty made contact with Father Bowdern, the priest who performed Hunkeler’s exorcism. Bowdern told him of a diary that was written by Father Bishop, an attending priest, which chronicled the entire process. The novelist, of course, asked to see the diary, but Bowdern refused to hand it over. To assure the confidentiality of those involved, Blatty decided to change his story’s lead character from a teen boy to a teen girl. He did eventually get his hands on the diary and much of what he read figured into the book. The movie closely follows the story of the book and centers around famous actress Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn) and her 12-year-old daughter, Regan (Linda Blair), who are temporarily living in a handsome brick-clad pad in Georgetown while Chris shoots a movie nearby. Though their surroundings are gorgeous, it is not long before things take a sinister turn and Regan begins to show signs of demonic possession.

The MacNeil’s Georgetown dwelling is featured extensively throughout The Exorcist.

Looking below, you may notice that the actual residence differs quite a bit from what appeared onscreen. For the shoot, an entire fake wing was built on the eastern side of the house. This was done so that Regan’s bedroom window would be close to the stairs situated next to the property, which accommodated for several scenes that were pertinent to the film (I don’t want to give away any spoilers, so I won’t say more). A fake mansard roof was also added to the structure to give the appearance that the home had an attic – something else that was necessary to the plotline.

A fence has also since been added to the perimeter of the property, obscuring most of the ground floor from view. This was apparently done to ward off stalkers, who still rampantly visit the residence, more than four decades after the film was made!

Said fence was closed when I stalked The Exorcist home, but I did find some Google Street View imagery in which it was open. As you can see below, despite the missing wing and mansard roof, the house is still very recognizable from its time onscreen.

Only the exterior of the property appeared in The Exorcist. Interiors were part of a vast set constructed at New York’s now defunct Camera Mart studios.

In real life, the dwelling, which was built in 1950, consists of 3 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms, and 2,808 square feet living space. The pad sits on a 0.11-acre plot of land that overlooks the Potomac River and the Francis Scott Key Bridge.

I find it fascinating that virtually all of the photos I took of the place have some sort of an orb reflection in them!

I mean, come on! Can things get any more creepy?

The infamous stairs, which figured so prominently in the story, are located just east of and adjacent to the house.

And let me tell you, they are harrowingly steep!

According to a 2013 USA Today article, the stairs are technically known as the “Hitchcock Steps,” named in honor of the prolific suspense director, but ever since the movie’s 1973 premiere have largely been called the “Exorcist Steps.”

Though the southern portion of the stairs was also featured in The Exorcist, we did not venture down to see it. It was over 90 degrees and insanely humid the day we stalked Georgetown and ambling all the way down those steps – and then back up – in that heat did not seem appealing in the slightest.

In 2013, Blatty and Exorcist director William Friedkin revisited several of the movie’s locations, including the stairs. You can watch a video clip of their stalk here.

On an Exorcist side-note – I was shocked to see how much Linda Blair resembles Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) from Stranger Things (which the GC and I are obsessed with, BTW – if you have not yet watched, I cannot more highly recommend doing so!).

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 MacNeil house from The Exorcist is located at 3600 Prospect Street NW in Georgetown. The stairs that appeared in the movie are located just east of the house and run between Prospect Street NW and M Street NW.

October 5, 2016
The Old Man’s House from “Night of the Demons”

Ah, how I love creepy old houses. Horror flicks? Not so much. Which is strange, I know, being that I am such a fan of Halloween, all things scary, and movies in general. I do absolutely love horror films that are done well, though (hello, Scream!), but find that the vast majority are pretty pointless (Phantasm, anyone?). That being said, I will never stop stalking locations from them. A couple of months ago, I came across this screen capture of a fabulously spooky old house from the 1988 slasher flick Night of the Demons on The Location Scout website and practically started drooling. Though the capture was slightly blurry due to movement in the scene, the view of the home showed that it was nothing short of tall, dark, and looming. I knew I had to see it in person and jotted down the address immediately. I finally got out to stalk it a couple of weeks back while I was visiting L.A. and, though it has recently been fixed up and is no longer as spectacularly creepy as it appeared onscreen, the place did not disappoint.

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Originally built in 1898 as a single-family home, the 5-bedroom, 2-bath, 2,706-square-foot property was transformed into a duplex in 1942.

As you can see below, the pad boasts two address numbers – 2833 and 2833 ½.

The residence is located in the Menlo Avenue – West Twenty-ninth Street Historic District, an area of University Park that is comprised of a wide selection of architecturally significant homes that date back to the late 1800s. The neighborhood, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, is comprised of more than fifty Victorian, Classic Revival, and Craftsman-style dwellings, each of them boasting unique detailing. The Night of the Demons house was built in the Dutch Colonial Revival-style and features a pedimented front porch with columns and an elaborate tympanum (yeah, I had to look that one up, too), a gambrel roof, a Palladian window, and carved diamond insets.

According to the neighborhood’s National Register of Historic Places Inventory – Nomination Form from 1987, the home was built for Jennie V. Mitchell, one of the only African American women to own property in Los Angeles at the time. Jennie, who never lived in the residence, is featured in the book The Negro Trail Blazers of California. From 1902 to 1904, the pad was occupied by Bernard Potter, a lawyer who wrote 1950’s Los Angeles Yesterday and Today.

In 2014, the property was sold, underwent a renovation, and today serves as student housing for the University of Southern California. You can check out some interior photos of what it looked at the time it was on the market here and some images of what it currently looks like here.

The residence appears twice in Night of the Demons. It first pops up in the movie’s opening scene in which some teenagers harass the Old Man (Harold Ayer) – and I’m not being disrespectful here, the character’s name is actually listed as “Old Man” – while he is standing in front of his house on Halloween night. The Old Man then proceeds to harass Judy (Cathy Podewell), a teen girl who happens by, before promising his revenge on all “damn rotten kids” while menacingly holding up razor blades and apples.

The dwelling then pops up again in the movie’s closing scene, in which the Old Man walks outside to retrieve his newspaper the following morning.

After grabbing the paper, the Old Man heads back inside, whereupon his wife serves him an apple pie she baked that morning using all of the leftover Halloween apples. You can imagine what happens next. Spoiler alert – it ain’t pretty!

I was floored to discover that the actual interior of the residence was used in the filming of that scene. As you can see below, the stairwell visible in the segment is a direct match to the staircase pictured in an MLS photograph of the home from 2014.

Though the MLS photos did not feature a full image of the dining room area, the walls were visible in one of the pictures and, amazingly, they look to have been the same color pink in 2014 that they were when Night of the Demons was filmed in 1988! As you can see in current images of the home, though, the walls have since been painted taupe, so that is no longer the case.

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

A big THANK YOU to The Location Scout for finding this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Old Man’s house from Night of the Demons is located at 2833 Menlo Avenue in University Park.

October 4, 2016
Dolly Oesterreich’s House

It is finally that time again, my fellow stalkers – time for my annual Haunted Hollywood postings! I, for one, could not be more excited! Though I should mention here that postings this year will be rather light as I have two trips planned this month (as I mentioned last week, I’ve traveled more as of late than I ever have before) and my best friend Robin and his girlfriend Steffi are also coming for a visit in mid-October. I do have some great locations lined up, though, starting with today’s. I thought I’d kick things off with a locale from one of L.A.’s oddest murder cases, the killing of Fred Oesterreich at the hands of the “Bat Man of Los Angeles,” which was brought to my attention a couple of months back by my good friend Lavonna.

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The lurid tale begins in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and centers around a rather seductive housewife named Dolly Oesterreich (that’s her below). Born Walburga Korschel in 1880, Dolly, as she was nicknamed, was married to Fred Oesterreich, a well-off apron manufacturer. Though the two lived an affluent life, Dolly had an insatiable sexual appetite and Fred just wasn’t cutting it for her in the bedroom. She quickly set her sights on one of Fred’s factory workers, 17-year-old Otto Sanhuber. One day in 1913, Dolly, feigning a problem with her sewing machine, asked Fred to send Otto over to the Oesterreich’s stately home to make a repair. According to a 1995 Los Angeles Times article, when the young man arrived, Dolly answered the door wearing only a silk robe and stockings (as you do). The two quickly began a lurid affair and it wasn’t long before neighbors started taking notice of Otto’s many comings and goings. So Dolly came up with the only viable resolution – to move her lover into her home’s attic. Poor Otto remained hidden away there for five years, never venturing outside during that time and only leaving his rooftop confines in the daylight hours for the purposes of satisfying Dolly – and to help her clean the house. Dolly brought Sanhuber books from the library to help him bide his time, which, oddly, led to a writing career. Otto began penning articles and stories, several of which Dolly had published for him (under a pen name) in pulp magazines.

When Fred decided to make a cross-country move to Los Angeles in 1918, Dolly insisted that their new digs have an attic (obvs!) and moved her lover right along with them, unbeknownst to her husband. The threesome settled into a traditional two-story home in Silver Lake at what was then 858 North Andrews Boulevard. The dwelling still stands today.

Things remained status quo for the next several years – well, as status quo as life can be when one has a secret lover stashed away in an attic. Then, on August 22nd, 1922, the proverbial sh*t hit the fan. That evening, Dolly and Fred got into a heated argument. Otto heard the ruckus and broke from his hideout, armed with two rifles, to put a stop to it. A struggle ensued and Otto wound up shooting Fred in the chest, killing him. Dolly and Otto then staged the scene to look like a robbery gone wrong, with Otto locking Dolly into a closet before, once again, hiding himself away in the attic. Police arrived onsite shortly thereafter thanks to a call from neighbors who heard the gunshots. Figuring there was no way Dolly could have locked herself into the closet, the detectives bought her story hook, line and sinker.

Dolly inherited Fred’s substantial assets and subsequently moved to a new house (unfortunately, I am unsure of that home’s location). Yes, this one had an attic, too. And yes, Otto, once again, came along. Despite the fact that Fred was now out of the picture and Otto no longer needed to hide, he inexplicably continued to live in Dolly’s attic and the two continued on as before. The loss of Fred apparently left a hole in Dolly’s life, though, and she started seeing two men, her estate attorney, Herman Shapiro, and a businessman named Roy H. Klumb. It was at this time that things began to awry.

For reasons unknown, Dolly gifted Herman with Fred’s diamond watch, which was supposedly stolen during the “robbery.” Herman recognized it immediately, but Dolly explained the situation away, stating she found the watch underneath a seat cushion after the crime had taken place. Around that same time, she asked Roy to discard of one of her rifles, saying it looked like the weapon that killed Fred and she didn’t want police to come across it and suspect her of the murder. Roy, who was obviously a few eggs short of a dozen, obliged her request and tossed the gun into the La Brea Tar Pits. Dolly then asked a neighbor, who was also obviously missing a few eggs, to get rid of the second rifle, and he obliged, as well, burying it in his backyard.

Roy didn’t take it lightly when Dolly later broke up with him (I swear, she must have been quite a woman!) and went straight to the police to tell them about the gun he had disposed of. Detectives wound up uncovering it on July 12th, 1923, almost a year after the murder, and Dolly was subsequently arrested. When her neighbor read about the arrest and the other rifle’s recovery in the newspaper, he dug up the gun he had buried and marched it straight down to the station. Though neither weapon produced much evidence-wise due to deterioration, things only got worse for Dolly. While she was in jail, she asked Herman, whom she was still seeing, to bring food to Otto, who remained squirreled away in the attic. Herman was not thrilled upon meeting Otto and learning of his exploits with Dolly and demanded that he leave. The attic-dweller headed to Canada and, amazingly, the charges against Dolly were soon dropped. The story does not end there, though.

When Dolly and Herman broke up in 1930, he headed straight to the police to spill the beans, just as Roy had done seven years prior. Dolly was arrested yet again, this time for conspiracy. Otto, who had returned to L.A. by then, was also arrested, for Fred’s murder. The arrests and subsequent trial became a media circus, with the press dubbing Otto the “Bat Man” and the “Bat Man of Los Angeles” due to his many years of attic dwelling. Though the jury did wind up finding Otto guilty of manslaughter, because the seven-year statute of limitation had run out by the time of the verdict, he faced no jail time and walked away a free man. After spending the better part of a decade living in an attic, though, something tells me he wouldn’t have minded jail much. Dolly’s jury was miraculously hung and she, too, walked away with her freedom intact. So what became of the two? Otto changed his name to Walter Klein and married a woman named Matilda. Dolly found love with a man named Ray B. Hedrick, whom she dated for over thirty years before finally marrying him in 1961, less than two weeks before her death. The bizarre case inspired both the 1995 made-for-TV movie The Man in the Attic starring Anne Archer and Neil Patrick Harris (you can check out the trailer here), and, oddly enough, the 1968 British comedy The Bliss of Mrs. Blossom.

When Lavonna first told me about the case, she asked me to track down the house where the murder took place. Thankfully, a poster named GaylordWilshire on SkyscraperPage’s Noorish Los Angeles thread had done all of the legwork for me, finding the Oesterreich residence thanks to this image from the trial which showed a blueprint of the dwelling and noted its address as 858 N. Andrews. As GaylordWilshire explained, Andrews Boulevard was changed to La Fayette Park Place at some point and today the former Oesterreich pad can be found at 858 North La Fayette Park Place in Silver Lake. You can check out an image of what the house looked like in 1937 here. Though it has since been transformed into a multi-family dwelling comprised of apartments, miraculously little of the exterior has been altered. You can see some interior photos of a few of the apartment units here and here. Sadly, I did not come across any online images of the attic.

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

Big THANK YOU to my good friend Lavonna for telling me about the Oesterreich case and to poster GaylordWilshire on SkyscraperPage’s Noorish Los Angeles thread for finding this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Dolly Oesterreich’s former house is located at 858 North La Fayette Park Place in Silver Lake.

October 3, 2016
The House from “The Brady Brides”

I’m sad to say that we’ve arrived at the final day of my friend Michael’s guest post week. I have thoroughly enjoyed all of his fabulous articles (you check them out here, here, here and here – as well as his prior The Brady Bunch-related guest articles here, here, here and here.). Today we are coming full circle with a return to The Brady Bunch franchise. So without further ado, here’s the story of a lovely location . . .

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Now that I’ve done a few non-Brady Bunch guest-posts, it doesn’t mean that I’ve abandoned the grooviest of sitcom families. In 1981, a Brady Bunch spin-off, The Brady Brides, was launched with a multi-part television movie, The Brady Girls Get Married. The telefilm, in which Marcia and Jan are married to Wally Logan and Phillip Covington, is also notable in that it’s the last Brady enterprise to feature the entire original cast.

In the first episode of the The Brady Brides, Carol, now a realtor, shows Marcia and Wally a home that she’s trying to sell. Jan loves it, too…and well, the opening theme song (sung to the tune of the The Brady Bunch theme) explains it best.

A house was too expensive for each couple,
The only way to buy would they decide,
Is to share the cost by moving in together,
That’s the way that they became the Brady brides,
The Brady brides,
The Brady brides,
That’s the way they became the Brady brides.

By the end of the first episode, the four had purchased the house and moved in together. Add one nosey neighbor, an occasional cameo by Carol or Alice, and the comedic hijinks write themselves. Or maybe not; the sitcom was canceled after only ten episodes.

Establishing shots of a home were sprinkled through the series and the program’s opening titles show Marcia, Wally, Jan, and Phillip standing, on location, in its yard.

I stayed at The Garland last winter and took a number of walks around Studio City, North Hollywood, and Valley Village. From those walks I had a hunch that the Brady Brides house might be located in Valley Village where I’d seen many similarly styled homes. As luck would have it, I happened upon the house pretty quickly while looking through aerial maps of the area. And when I was last in Los Angeles, I Ubered out to Valley Village to have a look for myself.

I was excited to see that the house looks nearly identical to when it was filmed 35 years ago. Even the decorative iron columns are still standing in the same spot. And although the tree near the driveway has grown, you can still recognize it.

My apologies for the poor quality screen grabs. The Brady Brides hasn’t cornered the syndication market like its progenitor and is one of the few Brady-related properties not currently available on DVD.

Editor’s Note – Poor-quality screen grabs or not, this post was exceptional, per usual! I honestly cannot thank you enough, Michael, for sharing these locations – and your locations expertise – over the past week with us. I’m already eagerly awaiting your return!

Stalk It: The Brady Brides house is located at 11813 Hartsook Street in Valley Village.

September 30, 2016
“Too Close for Comfort” Final Season Filming Locations

It’s Day 4 of my friend Michael’s fabulous guest post week here at IAMNOTASTALKER! (You check out his other columns from this week here, here and here, and his previous guest articles here, here, here and here.). Today’s locale is a longtime unknown site from a show I loved as a kid! Enjoy!

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Although I’m a Ted Knight fan, I never watched much of his final television show, Too Close for Comfort. I remember reruns of the show airing in the 90s, but I could never get into it for one very superficial reason—I hated the set design. Specifically, I didn’t like the daughters’ apartment with its rusty maroon walls and and zigzag rainbow zipping around the room. It felt like every color clashed with the next and the color timing that resulted from the show being shot on tape rather than film didn’t help make the decor any more palatable for me.

The first five seasons of the show were set in San Francisco, where a house at 171-173 Buena Vista Avenue East was shown in establishing shots. But in 1986, for the sixth and final season, the program was renamed The Ted Knight Show, and the plot moved the characters across the bay to Mill Valley where Henry (Ted Knight) had purchased a minority share in a local newspaper, the Marin Bugler. In real life, Ted Knight passed away at the end of the season, concluding the series. Subsequently, the sixth season was renamed “Too Close for Comfort,” and is included along with the rest of the series in syndication packages.

With the fictional move to Mill Valley came new establishing shots and an updated opening title. The real-life location of the primary characters’ main residence—a grand Victorian, complete with a turret and perched on a hill—seemed to go unidentified for years. While planning a trip to California this summer, I made a point to see if I could finally track it down.

A Mill Valley newspaper wrote a piece three years ago contemplating the home’s true location. According to the article, Mill Valley Library’s history exports didn’t recognize the house and suspected it was located elsewhere in the county. With this in mind, I started looking at nearby towns where the production crew could have filmed the establishing shots. I first ruled out Sausalito, thinking that since it’s such a popular destination, if the house were there, it surely would have been discovered and linked to the show by now. Instead, I concentrated on the towns of Almonte, Tiburon, Larkspur and Greenbrae. After a lot of dead ends, I decided to circle back and see if it had been hiding in plain site all this time. I started searching for houses with turrets in Sausalito aerial maps and remarkably, it was the second house I zeroed-in on.

Last month while I was in San Francisco, I hoped on the Sausalito ferry and went to see the house for myself.

Thanks to poor cell phone data reception, it took me awhile to find the house on foot without my trusty Google Maps. But, once you know where it is, it’s actually very easy to get to (How’s that for a truism?). If you’re in downtown Sausalito, you’ll notice a staircase at the corner of Bridgeway and El Monte Lane (next to Casa Madrona Hotel & Spa). Take that staircase up 100-or-so steps, and while possibly out of breath (I was), you’ll be right in front of the Victorian on Bulkley Avenue.

Although plant growth conceals more of the structure than in the 1980s, I’m happy to report that the house looks like it’s been taken very good care of.

I had slightly bad timing with my visit. The sun had started to set behind the house (never a good situation for photography) and a neighbor’s gardener had just cut down a tree and was blowing the detritus off the street. He didn’t seem too concerned with my presence as he, with great velocity, blanketed me with sawdust.

In addition to the house, producers filmed an assortment of establishing shots in downtown Sausalito.

Footage filmed on Bridgeway near Bay and Anchor Streets and next to Vina Del Mar Park were often used to establish scenes set at the newspaper.

An elevated view of Sausalito closed out the opening titles. You can see a similar vista today on Ebbtide Avenue and Stanford Way.

Although the Victorian was located in Sausalito, Mill Valley wasn’t completely left out of Too Close for Comfort. The town, six miles north of Sausalito, with a population hovering around 14,0000, was seen via establishing shot in nearly each episode of the sixth season. A shot of The Depot (currently a bookstore and cafe, and previously a train station) was frequently shown before scenes set at home.

And in the opening titles, the camera pans across the intersection of Throckmorton Avenue and Bernard Street (panning north starting at The Depot). The town looks just as quaint today.

I’m also happy to report that Mill Valley is a charming town. I’d never been before and had a wonderful time visiting for the afternoon. Delicious lunch, nice shops, friendly people, plus I’ve never seen so many well-groomed dogs in one place.

Editor’s Note – Thank you, once again, Michael for another entertaining and illuminating post! Being that I grew up just outside of San Francisco and watched Too Close for Comfort regularly, this one was particularly close to my heart.

Stalk Them: The Too Close for Comfort “Mill Valley” house is located at 141 Bulkley Avenue in Sausalito. The Too Close for Comfort Sausalito aerial view was shot near Ebbtide Avenue & Stanford Way in Sausalito. The Too Close for Comfort Sausalito Establishing Shot Number 1 was taken at Bridgeway between Bay and Anchor Streets in Sausalito. The Too Close for Comfort Sausalito Establishing Shot Number 2 was taken at Bridgeway near Vina Del Mar Park in Sausalito. The Too Close for Comfort Mill Valley Establishing Shots were taken at 87 Throckmorton Avenue in Mill Valley.

September 29, 2016
Royal Dale Townhouses from “The Ropers”

Michael, our resident The Brady Bunch filming locations expert, is back once again with a non-Brady locale. (You can check out his TBB columns here, here, here and here, and his non-TBB columns here and here). Today’s location is one from way back when, so enjoy!

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One summer when I was in middle school, I vividly recall watching a daily programing block of Three’s Company reruns. Those familiar with the show know that in the final episode of the third season, Jack, Janet, and Chrissy’s landlords, the Ropers, sell their rental building. But, in real life, ABC executives were hoping to capitalize on the popularity of Stanley and Helen Roper and create a new sitcom centered around those characters.

During the fourth season of Three’s Company, The Ropers premiered and lasted a 6-episode first season and a 22-episode second season before cancelation. The series’ first episode, “Moving On,” begins with the Ropers in their old apartment while Helen dreams of a move to Cheviot Hills. After Stanley capitulates, we’re treated to a location shot of the Ropers pulling up to their prospective townhouse in the fictional condominium complex, Royal Dale Townhouses, “for the discriminating homeowner.”

Stanley quickly makes a bad impression by driving up in his jalopy while potential new neighbor and real estate agent Jeffrey P. Brookes III (Jeffrey Tambor) watches on. Brookes tries to keep the Ropers from buying the unit, but by the end of the episode, they’ve purchased the townhouse.

Location-filming with the actors was limited to the pilot, but additional footage of the townhouse can be seen throughout the series in establishing shots and the closing credits.

Many of the Three’s Company opening title filming locations have been known for years. Even the rare exterior apartment footage location was more recently uncovered by Lindsay’s friend Owen, however the townhouse from The Ropers has remained a mystery.

In researching the location, I came across a comment online from someone purporting to have frequently driven by the complex in Cheviot Hills, but no specifics were given. And others centered their searches around Cheviot Hills, but had come up dry. Adding to the confusion, even the Cheviot Hills Homeowners Association lists The Ropers as one of the many television productions filmed in the area. I wasn’t so trusting—just because the fictional townhouse was located in Cheviot Hills, I wasn’t ready to believe that the footage was also filmed in that neighborhood.

I decided to try a different method and looked up where The Ropers was produced. Once I found out that the sitcom was taped at CBS Television City, in the Fairfax District of Los Angeles, I started looking at townhouse complexes relatively near the studio. My thinking was that since it was rather uncommon for a 1970s sitcom to do any location filming, perhaps the scene was filmed close to the studio. Using this search criteria, I quickly zeroed in on the right spot, Wilshire Country Manor, located only 2.5 miles from the studio. And when I was in Los Angeles last month, I ventured out to see it for myself.

Remarkably, not much has changed since the series was taped nearly 40 years ago, even the distinctively gnarled tree near the curb is still recognizable. The planter near the entrance however, now contains a large tree that obscures a pair of windows and some of the mansard roof, while larger shrubs have absorbed most of the iron fence. The fire hydrant and red curb seen in the screen grab below were only props used in a first-episode gag.

Wilshire Country Manor was constructed in 1973 and as its name hints, it’s located in Hancock Park—a neighborhood which surrounds the Wilshire Country Club. Early ads mention you could buy an “elegant townhouse condominium” starting at $62,500. “A home, in the place, amidst a cultural happening.” I think Mrs. Roper would approve.

Editor’s Note – Big THANK YOU, once again, to Michael for this fabulous – and fabulously retro! – post!

Stalk it: Wilshire Country Manor, aka Royal Dale Townhouses from The Ropers, is located at 646 Wilcox Avenue in Los Angeles’ Hancock Park neighborhood.

September 28, 2016
Houses from “Life in Pieces”

Today’s post is once again brought to you by my friend, fellow stalker Michael (you can read his other fabulous guest columns here, here, here and here). As was the case yesterday, this article is, surprisingly, not about a The Brady Bunch location. Take it away, Michael!

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Each fall I’m always excited as the newest television season starts to air, but I’m often dissuaded from watching the networks’ latest offerings because it seems as soon as I get into a new show, it’s canceled. However, last year I thought I’d give CBS’s new sitcom, Life in Pieces, a shot. I’m a long-time Dianne Wiest fan, and I thought the concept of the show sounded interesting. Every episode of the 30-minute program consists of four individual stories—each separated by a commercial break. Fittingly, episodes are named with four words—one to describe each story.

Not uncommon for pilots, the first episode of Life in Pieces used a different residence to represent Joan (Dianne Wiest) and John’s (James Brolin) house (the Wilson home from 90210, as Lindsay pointed out to me), while the second episode provides us with the main residences used for the rest of the season.

Joan and John live in a large white traditional-style home, along with their son Matt (Thomas Sadoski) who has moved into the garage. Joan and John’s daughter Heather (Betsy Brandt), son-in-law Tim (Dan Bakkedahl), and grandchildren Tyler (Niall Cunningham), Samantha (Holly J. Barrett) and Sophia (Giselle Eisenberg) move into a Cape Cod just down the street in the second episode (“Interruptus Date Breast Movin’”). And Joan and John’s youngest son Greg (Colin Hanks) lives with his wife Jen (Zoe Lister-Jones) and their daughter in a mid-century modern home.

When I couldn’t find any mention of the show’s filming locations online I started looking into them myself. Thankfully the producers and owners of the homes didn’t try to disguise the locations, leaving the house numbers affixed and painted curb addresses unobscured.

Then it was just a matter of finding the right neighborhoods. I had an inkling that the two traditional-style homes might be located in Cheviot Hills. I’d spent some time in the area last year looking at filming locations from The Goldbergs and Modern Family, and it was easy to picture the residences from Life in Pieces in that neighborhood. Using the addresses that I could glean from the show, I started checking like-numbered blocks until I hit pay dirt.

Like the show would have you believe, Joan and John’s house is located just a couple homes away from Heather and Tim’s. When in Los Angeles last month, I headed right out to Cheviot Hills to have a look.

Since I’m used to tracking down locations that were filmed 30-40 years ago, it’s always a delight and a little jarring to find a contemporary location and have it look exactly the same as it does on television.

Even the neighbors’ homes along Patricia Avenue can be seen in many episodes.

Having found two of the homes for the price of one, I just needed to track down Greg and Jen’s mid-century modern. Since that style would be out of place in Cheviot Hills, I started looking into other neighborhoods. After investigating a few suspected possibilities with no luck, I tuned into the then-latest episode (“Tattoo Valentine Guitar Pregnant”) and the dialog referred to Greg and Jen’s Mar Vista home. Since it’s not unusual for the fictional location of a television show to not mesh with the actual location used for filming, I didn’t get my hopes up, but still figured it was worth checking out.

And once again the show itself helped me zero-in on the proper location. Greg and Jen’s house is indeed located in Mar Vista, a neighborhood on the Westside of Los Angeles, nestled between Venice, Santa Monica, and Culver City.

The house used on Life in Pieces isn’t the only mid-century modern home in the area. In fact it’s one of 52 residences built on the Mar Vista tract on Meier and Moore Streets, originally marketed as “Modernique Homes” and designed by architect Gregory Ain, a student of renown California Modern architect Richard Neutra. Thankfully these homes are now part of a Los Angeles Historical Preservation Overlay Zone which limits alternations to architecturally important structures.

Until recently, I’d never visited Mar Vista, but in addition to checking out the Life in Pieces house, I’d certainly recommend a stroll around the block to check out the unique architecture. [Editor’s Note – the fabulous mid-century modern home where Roy Waller (Nicolas Cage) lived in Matchstick Men is located on the same block!)

Editor’s Note – A big THANK YOU to Michael once again for yet another fabulous post! I have yet to watch Life in Pieces, but I think it’s time I start. And I need to get myself out to Mar Vista pronto to peruse the Modernique Homes – they sound right up my alley!

Stalk Them: Joan and John’s house (and Matt’s garage) from Life in Pieces is located at 3321 Patricia Avenue in Cheviot Hills. Heather and Tim’s house is located at 3308 Patricia Avenue in Cheviot Hills. Jen and Greg’s house can be found at 3531 Meier Street in Mar Vista. (Editor’s Note – Roy’s house from Matchstick Men is located just down the block at 3508 Meier Street.)

September 27, 2016
Harmon Pet Care from “Fuller House”

Well, my fellow stalkers, I am finally home from my trip back east. Over the course of twelve days, the Grim Cheaper and I hit up Washington D.C., Baltimore and Philadelphia and stalked a myriad of locations in the process (I took close to 3,000 pictures! I’m shocked my computer didn’t crash when I uploaded them all!). Those posts will be coming soon. In the meantime, though, we had to scoot off on another quick trip (I swear I think I have traveled more this year than any year prior), so my friend, fellow stalker Michael, of countless The Brady Bunch posts fame (you can read them here, here, here and here) has graciously stepped in yet again with a slew of fabulous guest columns that I will be publishing over the course of this week. Thank you, Michael! So without further ado . . .

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I’m back for my fifth guest post. And brace yourself, it’s not about The Brady Bunch—what ever happened to predictability? I’ve flipped the calendar from the 70s to 2016 to cover a contemporary comedy, Fuller House, created and produced by the same folks that brought us Full House and starring most of the cast from the 90s classic.

I had anxiously awaited the release of the new series since it was first announced, even visiting Warner Bros. last winter (and again this summer, but that’s a story for another day) to get a better look at a backlot facade they’d built to stand in for the San Francisco-located home used on the original sitcom. I was looking forward to seeing how they’d incorporate the new facade into the program and how they’d redo the iconic opening titles.

Although I was pleased enough with the new show, I’ll admit I was a little disappointed that Fuller House didn’t go all out and create a multi-location opening title a la Full House, and instead went with a more modern opening without any on-site filming. The tenth episode, “A Giant Leap,” was filmed partly on location at AT&T Park in San Francisco, but even those scenes were limited to the ball park. The new series didn’t offer many new establishing shots to track down, and even the facade that had been built on the Warner Bros. backlot went mysteriously unused, while vintage footage of the San Francisco home was dusted off to establish scenes set in the iconic house.

Something new did catch my eye, though—an establishing shot used throughout the first season. D.J. Tanner—not to be confused with her sister Stephanie who’s now a D.J. spinning under the name D.J. Tanner—is a veterinarian working at Harmon Pet Care. And while all of the interior scenes were shot at Warner Bros. in Burbank, the establishing shot of the clinic was filmed in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Admittedly, it wasn’t much work to pin down this location. Paper lanterns, ornamental street lights, and a sign that reads “Welcome to Chinatown” left little doubt.

On my last visit to San Francisco, I headed to the Dragon’s Gate—the formal entrance to Chinatown, and the beginning of a major shopping artery. The Dragon’s Gate actually appeared in the unaired original pilot episode of Full House. Rather than send the cast to Northern California, production had body doubles for the actors filmed at quintessential San Francisco landmarks. These clips were then used extensively in the closing titles of the pilot, and some also reappeared in the first season opening and closing titles.

Continuing my walk, I quickly came upon the intersection shown in Fuller House—Grant Avenue and Sacramento Street, looking south.

As I started to line up the shot, I noticed something that I hadn’t at home. The Harmon Pet Care sign is mounted to an entirely different building than the building with the Harmon Pet Care awning. Because of the angle of the shot used on Fuller House, you can’t see much of the facade behind the sign. I imagined that the pet clinic signs were digitally added to to a piece of stock footage in post-production. My suspicions about the digital manipulation were confirmed when I noticed that among other changes, an awning at the end of the street in the clip is brown in the Fuller House clip, but is currently red, and has been for at least a couple of years before the production of the new show.

The Harmon Pet Care sign is superimposed over Old Shanghai, a home decor and fashion retailer.

And the awning is that of the Far East Café.

I didn’t dine at the Far East Café, so I can’t attest to their menu offerings, however I’ve read that it’s a particularly vintage restaurant and has some unique architecture. The building dates back to the early 1900s, while the restaurant opened in the 20s and some of the original decoration is even older having been imported from China.

The rest of the block and signage looks very similar to the Fuller House establishing shot.

The eighth episode, “Secrets, Lies and Firetrucks,” contains the only evening establishing shot of the pet clinic. For this footage, the camera was moved to the opposite end of the block.

It wasn’t until I was writing this post that I noticed an entirely different building was shown in an establishing shot for the season’s last episode, “Love Is in the Air.” Nearly all of the business names were digitally removed, but thankfully they left a visible address that allowed me to home in on the alternate location. For this clip, B & C Laundromat on Waverly Place stands in for Harmon Pet Care. The awning from the Far East Café footage was digitally reversed and placed above its entrance.

Editor’s Note – A big THANK YOU to Michael for sharing this fabulous post with us (especially the uh-ma-zing graphic below, which I’m enthralled with)! I’m already looking forward to the rest of this week’s offerings!

Stalk Them: Far East Café and Old Shanghai, aka Harmon Pet Care from Fuller House, are located at 631 and 645 Grant Avenue in San Francisco, respectively. B&C Laundromat, aka Harmon Pet Care from the “Love Is in the Air” episode, is located at 115 Waverly Place in San Francisco.

September 26, 2016
Heading Back East

The Grim Cheaper and I are currently back east for the next week and a half, which, unfortunately, means I will not have any new posts until (most likely) September 23rd. Our trip is not under the best of circumstances (we are attending a funeral), but we have planned a couple of side trips and stalking stops while on the East Coast, so there will hopefully be some light times, as well. (One of the places we’re planning to see is pictured above. Can anyone guess what location it is?) I hope all of my fellow stalkers have a great couple of weeks and I’ll see you back here soon.

September 12, 2016