Don’t forget to read today’s Scene it Before post for Los Angeles magazine. It’s about the castle that has been featured this season on How to Get Away with Murder. My articles typically get published in the early afternoon hours.
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The Golden Spoon Cafe from “The Brady Bunch”
My best friend, Robin, is currently in town with his girlfriend for a week visiting from Switzerland, so I will not be blogging about this year’s Halloween activities until next Tuesday. I will also be taking most of this week off, though I will, as always, have an article on Los Angeles magazine on Thursday. Today, we have a very special guest post written by my friend, fellow stalker Michael, who lives in Minnesota. Michael and I first connected a couple of years ago when he wrote to ask for help researching a location. Michael and I started corresponding regularly and he has helped me track down several locales, namely Haskell’s Ice Cream Hut from The Brady Bunch and the Griffith Park spots featured in both the opening credits of Full House and the Girls Just Want to Have Fun dance montage. (He also recently helped me find another GJWTHF location, but that’s a different story for a different post.) Through our correspondence, I came to admire Michael’s tenacity in getting things right when it comes to filming locations. He is as tenacious and fastidious as I am about reporting the truth and his researching skills are like nothing I have ever seen. So when he informed me of his quest to right an incorrect locale from The Brady Bunch that had been reported on a few websites, I told him I would be happy to help in any way I could. Turns out he didn’t need much assistance from me. Michael was able to figure things out on his own and the story behind his quest is pretty incredible. I am so glad he was willing to share it here. So Michael, take it away!
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When I was in elementary school, I would watch reruns of The Brady Bunch every day when I got home, and thanks to its healthy dose of establishing shots, it’s one of the first shows that got me curious about filming locations. Consequently, I’ve always gotten a certain nostalgic satisfaction tracking down and seeing locations that I’ve been familiar with since I was little. For those—unlike me—who escaped childhood without the compete works of Sherwood Schwartz engrained in their brains, in the fourth season episode of The Brady Bunch, titled “Goodbye, Alice, Hello,” Alice quits when the Brady Kids start giving her the cold shoulder after they believe she tattled on them to Mike and Carol about a series of wholesome misdeeds. Alice’s friend Kay replaces her, and as the Brady Kids learn the error of their ways, Kay fills the kids in on where Alice now works: The Golden Spoon, at 4th and Oak.
While the interior was created on a soundstage at Paramount, the exterior is shown in a quick establishing shot. Other than looking like the type of location I’d like to visit—the quintessential roadside diner—the location has always piqued my interest since, unlike most establishing shots, extra effort was taken in the script to give it both a name and location.
Over the years, a number of websites have posted a selection of specious locations for The Golden Spoon, but until recently, all were all easy to rule out. That changed when Chas from It’s Filmed There posted a new Golden Spoon address: 3200 Cahuenga Blvd W, surmising it to be the former home of the Freeway Cafe. He suspected the defunct restaurant, listed at 3222 Cahuenga Blvd W in a Brady-era city directory, had changed its address to 3200 at some point. I thought that the building at that site looked properly aged, but the architecture didn’t seem to match up, nor did the power lines, lampposts, or background terrain.
However, there were a number of things that looked promising; the concrete fencing from the Hollywood Freeway was identical to that seen behind the Golden Spoon, cars zooming through the Cahuenga Pass on the freeway would help explain the traffic reflected in the canopy ceiling in the establishing shot, and the 3222 address would jibe if the last digit were removed, for whatever reason, before filming.
Pulling up historic aerial photos, I could see that there was once a structure to the northwest (left) of the 3200 building. [Editor’s note – the structure is denoted in pink and placed on a present-day map below.] And although the aerial photo was blurry, the layout seemed to match that of The Golden Spoon: a square building with a gable roof, a small addition extending left, and a larger addition extending right. Furthermore, in the historic aerial, the 3200 building seemed to match the present-day aerial, meaning it probably hadn’t been renovated much in the last 40 years, and its address most likely hadn’t changed. It was then that I started working under the hypothesis that it was indeed the Freeway Cafe that was shown on The Brady Bunch, but that the Freeway Cafe was not located at the present-day 3200 Cahuenga—it was next door, in what is now a parking lot. But, without stronger proof, I didn’t feel comfortable declaring this the definitive location.
This summer, while vacationing in Los Angeles at the Millennium Biltmore, I thought I’d walk over to Figueroa Plaza to visit the Los Angeles Building Records Department and see if I could find something that would confirm my suspicions. After a brisk walk on a particularly sunshiny day—as the Brady Kids would sing—I arrived at the records office, took a number, and filled out an information request form. Once my number was called, a very helpful clerk pulled the records for the location. While she read through the various permits for that address, I heard her mumble the word “canopy.” Jumping on that, I asked to see a copy of that file. Lucky for me, it was a 1962 Freeway Cafe permit for the addition of an aluminum canopy and screened patio. Better yet, it included a drawn diagram that matched The Golden Spoon perfectly, right down to the cinderblock fence in front of the right patio and notch taken out of the left patio.
All that was left was to confirm the location of the Freeway Cafe. Unfortunately, that confirmation also proved that the building has since been razed. In September of 1989, Mobil, the owner of the cafe property and gas station next door (to the left), obtained three demolition permits for the gas station, its canopy, and the cafe. Mobil then built a new gas station and canopy, but the restaurant wasn’t rebuilt. There’s not a lot of space on that plot of land, and I can see why the the gas station may have wanted to sacrifice a small aging restaurant for some overflow and driveway space for those waiting for a turn at the pumps. Looking at the demolition map, it seems the original restaurant and left screened patio added a few feet in the rear since the 1962 canopy permit.
After doing a quick digital mashup of the 1989 demolition map, and a contemporary permit map of that plot of land, I was able to accurately determine where exactly the Freeway Cafe once stood—very close to where I’d suspected when I’d compared the vintage aerial photo with the present day map a few months prior.
New map in hand, I took the Metro Red Line to its penultimate stop: Universal City. From there, I walked under the freeway and down Cahuenga Blvd to the Mobil parking lot.
Although the cafe is no longer there, it was easy to line things up thanks to the concrete covering the tanks being a different color than the rest of the dark asphalt lot. According to the overlaid maps, the left-most edge of the cafe would have nearly abutted the separation between the light and dark pavement.
Plus, the terrain across the freeway, lamppost location (that would have been behind the right canopy), power wires, and stylized concrete freeway fence are are still recognizable from The Brady Bunch.
Try as we might, Lindsay and I have found that online references to the Freeway Cafe are rare. According to city records, the original 18×20 building housed a shoe repair shop in the 1940s, and in 1958 was converted into a restaurant. The 1963-5 Los Angeles city directories list the name of the cafe as Bib N Cuff, but by 1966, a new name—Freeway Cafe—is listed. A 1973 edition of The Van Nuys News reports the Freeway Cafe as being owned by Herbert and Louise David of Canoga Park, and a 1976 edition names Jamal Ghassem of Inglewood as the proprietor. Lastly, in a 1988 edition of Orange Coast Magazine, written just a year before the cafe was demolished, they note that although it’s “an old wooden stand overlooking the Hollywood Freeway…don’t let the exterior fool you. This is not a pit stop, but a palace for the connoisseur of ground beef.”
More recently, this selection of the Hollywood Freeway has been in the news, as Universal Studios expansion plans may result in the removal of the southbound Barham Blvd exit, which now routes traffic next to the Mobil station.
Many thanks to Chas at It’s Filmed There for posting about the Freeway Cafe and getting me quite a bit closer to 4th and Oak. And of course, a HUGE thank you to Lindsay for all her help researching this location and for the opportunity to write about it here. [Editor’s note – a HUGE thank you to you, Michael, for sharing the story behind the hunt with us AND for correcting all the erroneous Golden Spoon information.]
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: The Mobil Gas Station parking lot, aka the former Freeway Cafe, aka The Golden Spoon from The Brady Bunch, was located at 3222 Cahuenga Boulevard West in Los Angeles.
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The “Ghost Dad” House
Long before I ever moved to Southern California, I purchased the Ultimate Hollywood Tour Book and was absolutely mesmerized by what I found inside. One whole chapter of the tome is dedicated to filming locations in Pasadena and its environs and when my family and I did relocate to the Crown City in 2000, my mom and I spent many of our first days there driving around visiting locales mentioned in the book. We had such a blast doing so and found that stalking was a great way to explore our new hometown. One of those early stalks was of the home belonging to the Hopper family – dad Elliot (Bill Cosby) and his children, Diane (Kimberly Russell), Danny (Salim Grant), and Amanda (Brooke Fontaine) – in the 1990 comedy Ghost Dad. The photos I took of the place were of the old school, 35mm variety, though, so figuring that the residence would be perfect for my Haunted Hollywood postings, I recently added it to my re-stalk list. As fate would have it, I had to drive my mom out to a doctor appointment in Pasadena last week, so we swung by the Ghost Dad house afterwards and also did some other stalking in the area. It was just like old times.
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In Ghost Dad, which was directed by Sidney Poitier (!), the Hoppers supposedly live in Seattle, Washington. Aside from a few establishing shots of the city skyline, though, the movie was shot in its entirety in Los Angeles. It is not very hard to see how the home pictured below came to be used in the film, as it does have a very Pacific Northwest feel to it.
In real life, the house, which was built in 1908, boasts four bedrooms, two baths, 2,306 square feet of living space, and a 0.18-acre lot.
The picturesque residence looks very much the same today as it did when Ghost Dad was shot 25 years ago.
The home, which was pretty much the main location used in Ghost Dad, was featured countless times throughout the movie.
I originally thought that the actual interior of the dwelling was utilized in the movie, but now I am not so sure.
From the way the scene below was shot, it would seem that the real interior was used.
But the shaping and placement of the windows shown in some interior scenes does not seem to match the windows at the actual home. And unfortunately, I could not find any photos of the inside of the house, so I cannot say for certain either way.
As was depicted onscreen, the dwelling belonging to Joan (Denise Nicholas) in Ghost Dad can be found directly next door.
That property also has a very Pacific Northwest feel to it and reminds me quite a bit of the house where Jessica (Gaby Hoffman) lived in Sleepless in Seattle.
The Ghost Dad houses are located on Bushnell Avenue in South Pasadena, one of L.A.’s most oft-filmed streets.
Several other residences on Bushnell have been featured prominently onscreen in productions such as thirtysomething, Back to the Future, Old School and Teen Wolf. The addresses of those homes are listed in the “Stalk It” section below.
I would like to wish all of my fellow stalkers a very happy Halloween! I hope everyone has a fabulously spooky holiday!
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.
Big THANK YOU to my mom, my original stalking partner-in-crime, for stalking this one with me!
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: The Hopper family home from Ghost Dad is located at 1621 Bushnell Avenue in South Pasadena. Joan’s house from the movie is located next door at 1615 Bushnell. The Lambda Epsilon Omega fraternity house from Old School can be found just a few doors down at 1803 Bushnell. The property located at 1727 Bushnell was used as both Scott Howard’s (Michael J. Fox) house in Teen Wolf and Lorraine Baines’ (Lea Thompson) 1955 home in Back to the Future. George McFly’s (Crispin Glover) 1955 home from Back to the Future is located at 1711 Bushnell, while Biff Tannen’s (Thomas F. Wilson) from Back to the Future Part II is at 1809. And at 1710 Bushnell is the property that was featured as the Steadman house in the television series thirtysomething.
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New “L.A.” Mag Post – About Hotel Cortez from “American Horror Story: Hotel”
Don’t forget to check out my latest Los Angeles magazine article, about the various locations that mask as Hotel Cortez on American Horror Story: Hotel! My articles typically get published in the early afternoon hours.
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Chateau Bradbury Estate from “The Craft”
I am devastated that the month of October is almost over! It seemed to come and go so fast this year! But I do have to say that I am really excited for Halloween (T minus two days and counting!), even though the end of October is always bittersweet for me. Especially since I have so many Haunted Hollywood locales left over in my stalking backlog. I always tend to overdo things when it comes to those particular posts. I currently have a “stalkpile” of over fifty (!) spooky locations and only two days left to blog about them. Yet I know that won’t stop me from over-stalking Haunted Hollywood locales again next year. It’s a habit I can’t shake. One spot that I stalked last October, but never got around to blogging about is a massive residence known as the Chateau Bradbury Estate that has appeared in countless productions over the years, many of them of the horror variety. Last week, while watching The Craft prior to writing my post about the El Adobe Studio Building, I was shocked to see the Chateau make an appearance. So I knew I couldn’t postpone covering it any longer.
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The Chateau Bradbury Estate was originally designed in 1912 by architect Robert David Farquhar for Minerva Polk. Minerva was the daughter of Colonel Lewis Leonard Bradbury, who established what is now the city of Bradbury when he acquired 2,750 acres of the Rancho Azusa de Duarte land grant in 1881. I had actually never heard of Bradbury, which sits nestled between Monrovia and Duarte, prior to researching this post. That shouldn’t come as a surprise, though. While the municipality is continually ranked one of the wealthiest in the entire nation, it is also one of the tiniest. The city (and yes, it is a city – it was incorporated in 1957) boasts only 900 residents and measures a scant two square miles. And while it does have a city hall, it lacks a post office, library, school, gas station and coffee shop. (No Starbucks? Egads!) Ironically enough (and I am guessing due to some sort of subdivision or annexation of land that occurred at some point), the Chateau Bradbury Estate is not actually situated in Bradbury, but in its neighbor to the south, Duarte.
According to Zillow, the French Normandy-style manse boasts 4 bedrooms, 3 baths, 5,625 square feet of living space, and a 2.06-acre plot of land.
The Chateau Bradbury Estate has gone through several owners over the years and for a time grew dilapidated and run-down. According to this website, local kids used to refer to the place as a haunted house. Love it! The property was purchased by a new owner in the ‘90s, who rehabilitated it and leased it out regularly as a wedding venue/special events location. Today, the site is some sort of religious space known as the Hon Los Temple. Unfortunately, virtually none of it can be seen from the street.
Not even through the front gate.
In The Craft, which premiered in 1996, Chateau Bradbury was where Nancy Downs (Fairuza Balk) got revenge on Chris Hooker (Skeet Ulrich) by hurling him out of a window while at a party.
The home’s interior was also used in the filming. You can check out some photographs of that interior here. It is pretty spectacular.
I first found out about the Chateau Bradbury Estate thanks to The Location Scout website, on which the residence’s many horror movie appearances are chronicled. Much of the filming information below I learned from The Location Scout, so a big thank you goes out to them! In the Season 1 episode of Tales from the Crypt titled “Lover Come Hack to Me,” which aired in 1989, the manse stood in for the abandoned house where Peggy (Amanda Plummer) and Charles (Stephen Shellen) took shelter after being stranded in the rain on their honeymoon.
The interior of the manse also appeared in the episode, though all of the scenes were rather darkly lit.
In the 1994 made-for-television movie Confessions of Sorority Girls, Chateau Bradbury was the home of Mrs. Masterson (Natalija Nogulich).
The property masked as Hochstatter Mental Hospital that same year in the straight-to-video Ghoulies IV.
The residence’s interior was also utilized in the flick.
In 1997’s Grosse Pointe Blank, the Chateau Bradbury Estate served as the home of Debi Newberry (Minnie Driver). It is featured several times throughout the movie, most notably in the ending scene in which Martin Q. Blank (John Cusack) saves Debi’s father’s life.
The property’s interior was also utilized in the film.
In the 2000 thriller The Stray, the mansion belonged to Kate Grayson (Angie Everhart).
The interior was used in that movie, as well.
In the Season 3 episode of Bones titled “Death in the Saddle,” which aired in 2007, the mansion stood in for the Ambassadora, a country inn in Virginia that caters to people interested in “pony play fantasy.” Oddly enough, while the exterior was used in the filming . . .
. . . the establishing shot shown was of a different residence. That property, which was where Reed Standish (Christopher McDonald) lived in Dutch, can be found at 20181 Northridge Road in Chatsworth.
The interior of the Chateau Bradbury Estate also appeared in “Death in the Saddle.”
The residence masked as Cherrymount Academy for Girls in 2003’s Scream Bloody Murder.
In the 2005 television series South of Nowhere, Ashley Davies (Mandy Musgrave) lived at Chateau Bradbury.
The pad appeared as two different locations in the Season 7 episode of 24 titled “Day 7: 9:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.” The front exterior . . .
. . . and the interior first popped up as the home belonging to Senator Blaine Mayer (Kurtwood Smith).
And the back of the property later appeared as a café in the episode.
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.
Big THANK YOU to The Location Scout website for much of the filming information that appears in this post!
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: Chateau Bradbury Estate, aka the party house from The Craft, is located at 2232 California Avenue in Duarte.
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Hall of Justice
In the early hours of August 5th, 1962, screen star Marilyn Monroe was found dead in the bedroom of her Brentwood home. Later that same day, her body was brought to the Hall of Justice in downtown Los Angeles for an autopsy. I only learned that factoid a couple of years ago and immediately became fascinated with the building. Upon doing further research, I became even more enthralled with the structure thanks to its long-standing connection to L.A.’s criminal element and dark underbelly. Figuring the place would be perfect for a Haunted Hollywood post, I set out to stalk it last fall. I was obviously having a blond moment that day, though, and mistakenly stalked the Los Angeles County Hall of Records instead. But this year I got it right!
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The Hall of Justice was designed in 1925 by the Allied Architects Association and, according to the Los Angeles Conservancy website, is “the oldest surviving government building” in L.A.’s Civic Center.
The granite exterior of the Beaux Arts-style structure is comprised of four identical facades.
The 14-story building was originally constructed to house the Los Angeles county court and jail facilities. Upon its completion, it contained 750 jail cells, 17 courtrooms, a morgue, and office space for court employees and law enforcement officers.
The top four floors of the structure housed the jail facilities, which, at one point or another, were home to some of the city’s most notorious criminals including Charles Manson, Sirhan Sirhan, and Bugsy Siegel. A few celebrities also did time there, such as Evel Knievel, who was jailed on assault charges (and famously hired twenty limousines to transport each of the inmates who were released the same day he was) and Robert Mitchum, who, as detailed in this Los Angeles magazine post, served an almost sixty-day sentence for smoking marijuana.
Countless famous trials took place at the Hall of Justice, as well, including those of Manson, Sirhan Sirhan, and Charlie Chaplin. Oh, if those walls could talk!
The morgue facilities were housed in the Hall of Justice’s basement. It was there that Marilyn’s autopsy was conducted by deputy coroner Dr. Thomas Noguchi, who determined the star’s cause of death as probable suicide from acute barbiturate poisoning. That determination has been disputed by fans, armchair detectives and conspiracy theorists alike ever since. So much so that District Attorney John Van de Kamp ordered a review of Marilyn’s death in 1982. The resulting 29-page report on the matter, which took three and a half months to compile, stated that “no credible evidence” of foul play was found. Doubters and theories continue to abound, though.
Dr. Noguchi also performed the autopsy of Robert F. Kennedy at the Hall of Justice on June 6th, 1968.
The Hall of Justice was severely damaged during the Northridge earthquake in 1994 and was subsequently shuttered for the two decades following. Beginning in 2004, the building underwent a massive 10-year, $231-million restoration and finally re-opened in late 2014. While many historic décor elements were left intact, including the ornate columned loggia, several areas were gutted. The morgue where Marilyn’s autopsy was conducted was a casualty of the renovation. The majority of the courtrooms and jail cells were also removed. One block of cells, which is said to include the cell where both Manson and Sirhan Sirhan were incarcerated, was kept intact and moved to the basement (yes, the same basement where Marilyn was autopsied) and will eventually be part of a public exhibit. You can check out some great pre-renovation photos of the building here (man, I would have loved to have toured it during that time!) and some fabulous post-renovation photos here.
The Hall of Justice is also a filming location!
The building was featured numerous times in establishing shots on the television series Perry Mason.
And it appeared each week in the Season 3 and 4 opening credits of Get Smart.
The building was also featured in The Big Fix, The Distinguished Gentleman and Absolute Power, none of which I had copies of with which to make screen captures for this post.
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 Hall of Justice is located at 211 West Temple Street in downtown Los Angeles.
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The Occult Store from “The Craft”
I often receive emails from fellow stalkers who are planning trips to Los Angeles and want some help in tracking down a favorite film or television location. The emails always give me a pang of recognition. I was that stalker once upon a time. During one of my first trips to L.A., I was absolutely desperate to see the Walsh house from Beverly Hills, 90210. I had forgotten my trusty tour book at home, though. This was long before the days of filming location blogs and websites, so without the book I was pretty much out of luck. I knew the house was somewhere in Altadena, so my mom and I headed that way and I asked literally everyone I encountered if they could point me in the right direction. No one could, but I did finally make it to Casa Walsh that day and finally seeing it in person was worth all the work it took to get me there. Assisting fellow stalkers in similar quests is one of the reasons I started this site. So when I received an email back in May from a reader named Nathan who was desperate to track down the occult store from the 1996 horror/fantasy flick The Craft before an upcoming trip to L.A., I promised him I would help. I was having a little trouble finding the place, though, so I called upon expert stalker Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and he wound up tracking it down within minutes. Thank you, Mike! Nathan was floored over Mike’s find and ventured over there while in town this past July. I loved hearing about his visit and how meaningful it was for him to be there. Figuring the place would be perfect for my Haunted Hollywood posts, I, too, ran out to stalk it recently.
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The occult shop from The Craft is located in Hollywood’s El Adobe Studio Building. The small Spanish-style strip mall was originally built in 1928 and, according to the You Are Here website, was designed by architects Arthur Kelly and Joe Estep.
In the book The Story of Hollywood, author Gregory Paul Williams contends that the site was the “world’s first mini-mall,” constructed on farmland owned by D.P. Baldwin. Of the evolution of the property, Williams says, “The original farmer’s stalls later became a grocery store. Baldwin created the L-shaped building around it as rental spaces for artists who worked in the movies.” That grocery store, El Adobe Market, still operates on the premises today. You can check out a 1935 image of the El Adobe Studio Building here and one from 1970 here. As you can see, not much of the complex has changed over the years.
Along with the El Adobe Market, today the center houses a pharmacy, a furniture store, and several live-work studio office spaces. You can check out some interior photos of an El Adobe office that is currently for rent here. What an incredibly cool place to work!
The occult store makes a few appearances in The Craft. It first pops up in the beginning of the movie, in the scene in which Nancy Downs (Fairuza Balk), Bonnie (Neve Campbell), and Rochelle (Rachel True) take Sarah Bailey (Robin Tunney), the new girl in school, shopping. The women return to the store several times throughout the flick.
Though the whole El Adobe Studio Building is featured in the movie, the actual storefront that served as the occult shop is located in the northwest corner of the complex.
I originally thought that the storefront was a part of the Adobe Pharmacy, which stands at the southwest corner of the El Adobe Studio Building, but Nathan ventured inside the drugstore while he was there and that does not appear to be the case. The Craft occult store seems to be a separate space. (Big THANK YOU to Nathan for the photos below!)
I am unsure if the interior of that space was used in the filming of The Craft or if the inside of the occult shop was just a set.
From the way things were shot, though, I would guess interiors were lensed in the actual space.
Unfortunately, that particular unit sits behind a locked fence which bars the interior from view, so I was unable to catch a glimpse of it. I am also unsure of what the space currently houses, but I believe it is some sort of office.
I am fairly certain, though, that if the actual interior was used that it was dressed considerably for the filming and looks quite a bit different in person. I would also guess that the stained glass window shown at the top of the stairs in the movie was a fake.
I am also fairly certain that the occult store from The Craft was based upon Panpipes Magical Marketplace located at 1641 North Cahuenga Boulevard in Hollywood. The site, which was originally founded in 1961, has the distinction of being the oldest occult shop in the U.S. And it is also a filming location! Panpipes has appeared in such productions as Unsolved Mysteries, Witchboard 2, Dream On, The Rockford Files, Hardball and North Mission Road. The owners also regularly serve as consultants for television shows and movies that deal with metaphysical themes. Interestingly, Fairuza Balk spent quite a bit of time at Panpipes while researching her role for The Craft and wound up buying the place in 1995. The actress owned it through 2001, before selling it to its current owners.
The mural that Sarah and the girls walk by on their way to the occult shop in The Craft is real, though it has been changed since the movie was shot in 1996.
The mural actually appears to change regularly. As you can see below, it looked completely different when Nathan stalked the El Adobe Studio Building in July . . .
. . . than it did when I was there earlier this month.
The cast of The Craft also posed for a promotional still in front of the mural during the filming, which I was pretty floored to come across while researching this post.
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.
Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Nathan for challenging me to find this location and to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for tracking it down!
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: El Adobe Studio Building, aka the occult shop from The Craft, is located at 5201-5209 Hollywood Boulevard in Los Feliz.
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The Rindge House from “The Brasher Doubloon”
There are few things the Grim Cheaper loves more than historic sites. So when we came across a massive dwelling that appeared to have a past while on our way to stalk the Beckett Residence in September 2012, we stopped to take a closer look. Figuring the place had appeared onscreen at some point, I also snapped some photos of it. I didn’t end up doing much research on the home until recently, though. As it turns out, the property is known as the Rindge House and it was built at the turn of the 20th Century for one of L.A.’s most prominent citizens.
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The Rindge House was originally constructed in 1903 for wealthy businessman Frederick Hastings Rindge. Frederick not only co-established the Union Oil Company and the Los Angeles Edison Electric Company, but his family was largely responsible for developing Malibu. (I blogged about Frederick’s daughter’s home, the Adamson House, here.)
The property was designed by Frederick L. Roehrig, the same architect who also gave us the Stimson House from House II: The Second Story, the Andrew McNally House from Kingdom Come, the Lincoln Clark House from Little Black Book, and Castle Green in Pasadena (an oft-filmed locale that I have yet to blog about).
Sadly, Frederick Rindge passed away in 1905, just two years after the manse was completed. His wife, May, continued living on the premises until she, too, passed away in 1941. After May’s death, the property was utilized for a time as both a convent and a home for women. At some point, it was reverted back to a private residence and it remains so today. You can read a more detailed history of the Rindge House on the Big Orange Landmarks blog here.
According to Zillow, the Chateauesque-style pad, which was declared a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument in 1972, boasts 15 bedrooms, 9 baths, 11,704 square feet of living space, and 1.73 acres of land.
The GC and I had a blast walking around the perimeter of the property and looking at all of its unique detailing, like the mailbox and light post pictured below.
Because of its massive size and its age, the Rindge House definitely gives off an ominous aura. The huge spider we spotted hanging out on the fence outside didn’t help to combat that image.
A man named Mike had commented on the Big Orange Landmarks post that he used to live at the Rindge House and that many productions had been shot there. I got in touch with him in the hopes that he might remember some of the productions lensed on the premises and not only did he get back to me right away, but he proved to be a vast wealth of information! As it turns out, the property has a film resume that dates back to 1947! That year, it masked as the Murdock mansion, which is said to be located “all the way out” in Pasadena, in the noir The Brasher Doubloon.
The eastern portion of the residence, as well as the front porch and doorway were featured in the film.
I am fairly certain that the interior of the Murdock mansion was a set. You can check out what the real life interior of the Rindge House looks like here.
In the Season 3 episode of Wonder Woman titled “The Man Who Could Not Die,” which aired in 1979, the Rindge House served as the residence of evil scientist Joseph Reichman (Brian Davies).
Ironically enough, though the home was said to be in Topanga Canyon in the episode, a sign with its real life name and address was shown pretty prominently in a scene. (Love the special effects below!)
The interior of the Rindge House was featured quite prominently in “The Man Who Could Not Die.”
As you can see, it is absolutely stunning inside!
The property’s large guest house was also visible in the episode.
In the 1980 CBS Children’s Mystery Theatre episode titled “The Haunting of Harrington House,” the home masked as Harrington House, an old hotel that Polly Ames (Dominique Dunne) investigates for paranormal activity during a break from boarding school. For whatever reason, an establishing shot of the residence is never shown in the episode. Only close-ups of the porte-cochère . . .
. . . and the interior appeared onscreen.
That same year, the Rindge House was featured in another CBS Children’s Mystery Theatre episode titled “The Treasure Of Alpheus T. Winterborn.” In the episode, the property masqueraded as the Winterborn Public Library. Sadly, as Mike informed me, during the filming a 40-year-old stuntwoman named Odile Astie was killed while performing a stunt in which she was supposed to fall off the roof of the home onto airbags situated twenty-five feet below. Some plastic padding that Astie was wearing caught on the gutter during the sequence, though, causing her to land on the ground instead of the airbags. You can read more about the tragedy here.
The inside of the Rindge House masked as two different places in “The Treasure Of Alpheus T. Winterborn.” It first appeared as the interior of the Winterborn Public Library.
And it was also featured as the interior of Alpheus Winterborn’s former house.
I was shocked to discover while watching that the exterior of the Winterborn home was none other than the Weller Residence, which I blogged about on Wednesday.
And I was further shocked to discover that the episode starred Keith Coogan, who is married to my friend Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog!
In the 1982 comedy (and I use that term loosely) Slapstick (of Another Kind), the Rindge House was where twins Wilbur (Jerry Lewis) and Eliza Swain (Madeline Kahn) lived.
The interior of the home was also featured in the movie.
For Pat Benatar’s 1982 “Shadows of the Night” music video, both the exterior . . .
. . . and the interior of the Rindge House were turned into a Nazi compound.
You can watch that video by clicking below.
In 1983’s Private School, the interior of the Rindge House stood in for the interior of Cherryvale Academy for Girls.
Oddly enough, two different exteriors were shown as the outside of Cherryvale Academy in the movie, neither of which was the Rindge House. The first exterior shown was that of the “Batman mansion” in Pasadena, which I blogged about here.
The other exterior shown was that of a house located at 4839 Louise Avenue in Encino. That same residence was also where Roger Azarian (Matthew Perry) lived in the Season 1 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 titled “April Is the Cruelest Month.” You can read a post I wrote about it here.
The close-ups of the exterior of Cherryvale Academy were shot at the Rindge House, however.
Mike also informed me that the Rindge House appeared in another episode of CBS Children’s Mystery Theatre, but he could not remember which episode, and in the 1980 made-for-television movie Scout’s Honor, which I, unfortunately, could not find a copy of to make screen captures for this post.
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.
Big THANK YOU to Mike for all of the help he provided with this post!
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: The Rindge House, from The Brasher Doubloon, is located at 2263 South Harvard Boulevard in the Adams-Normandie area of Los Angeles.
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New “L.A.” Mag Post About “The Postman Always Rings Twice” Train Station
Be sure to check out my latest Los Angeles magazine article, about East Los Angeles Union Pacific Station, an abandoned train depot from The Postman Always Rings Twice!
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The Weller Residence from “Castle”
What is it about Victorian-style dwellings that lends itself so well to scary movies and television shows with a spooky theme? I so often find myself blogging about Victorians this time of year. (There’s the Mills View House from House, the Blankenhorn Lamphear House from Teaching Mrs. Tingle, and the Miller and Harriott House from the Halloween themed episode of Modern Family titled “Open House of Horrors,” just to name a few.) Today’s post is in that same vein. Last May, I happened upon an absolutely uh-ma-zing Queen Anne residence while stalking the Girls United group home from The Fosters. Figuring it had to have acted as a filming location at some point, I snapped some photos of it and was floored to later discover that not only had it appeared onscreen, but as a spooky old hotel no less!
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In real life, the house is known as the Weller Residence and it was built in 1894 for a businessman named Zachariah Weller. In the book Beautiful America’s California Victorians, author Kenneth Naversen suggests that the property may have been fashioned upon a design found in a pattern book created by mail-order architect G.F. Barber.
Oddly, when the Weller Residence was originally built it stood in a different location, at what was then 401 North Figueroa Street in Echo Park. That address is now 401 North Boylston Street. In 1900, the area became populated with large oil derricks, several of them popping up around Zachariah’s home. It was not a pretty sight. You can see a photograph of what it looked like at that time here. So Weller did the only rational thing – he broke the house into two pieces and moved it about 3,000 feet north to a vacant plot of land at 824 East Kensington Road. He also had the property wired for electricity at that time. The Weller Residence has the distinction of being the first home in the area to feature electrical power.
Zachariah Weller passed away in 1903. The home remained in his family through 1953, when it was purchased by Albert and Helen McNellis. Their son still owns it to this day.
The Weller Residence was declared a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument in 1979.
The two-story house boasts ten rooms, pocket-wood doors, vintage crystal chandeliers, hardwood flooring, a large front porch, a second story balcony, and a peaked tower.
The property is absolutely spectacular in person! It is easily one of the most beautiful Victorians I have ever seen. Not to mention one of the largest. You can read a more in-depth account of its history on the Big Orange Landmarks blog.
The Weller Residence was featured in the Season 5 episode of Castle titled “Scared to Death.” In the episode, which was an homage to horror movies (Wes Craven even had a cameo!), Richard Castle (Nathan Fillion) and Kate Beckett (Stana Katic) investigated the death of a young girl, Val Butler (Alison Trumbull), who died three days after receiving a DVD that predicted her exact time of death, a la The Ring. Images of the dwelling appeared in the DVD that Val was sent, which Castle watched at the beginning of the episode.
Beckett’s team later discovers that the Victorian pictured in the DVD is Port Campbell’s Brunswick Inn. To convince Beckett that the property deserves investigating, Castle tells her, “The inn must be the place where some unspeakable horror befell the spirits. Think about it! The Ring, Psycho, The Shining – it’s when we get to the creepy old motel that everything starts really going south.” Love it!
The interior of the Weller Residence also appeared in the episode. While Beckett is exploring the hotel with Javier Esposito (Jon Huertas), she says, “It doesn’t look like there’s anyone here.” To which Javier says, “Doesn’t look like anyone’s been here this century!”
On a side-note – I’m pretty sure that Matthew Del Negro (whom I met recently – you can see my photo with him here) had a featured extra role as a policeman in “Scared to Death.”
The Weller Residence also appeared as the old Winterborn house in the 1980 CBS Children’s Mystery Theatre episode titled “The Treasure of Alpheus T. Winterborn,” which I was floored to discover starred none other than Keith Coogan, who is married to my friend Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog.
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 Weller Residence, aka Brunswick Inn from Castle, is located at 824 East Kensington Road in Echo Park. The Girls United group home from The Fosters is located just up the street at 766 East Kensington.
