Be sure to check out my latest post for Discover Los Angeles, about L.A. movie locations that celebrate the great outdoors.
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Wonderland from “Scandal”
I realize this is a complete about-face, but I am so over Scandal! I know, I know – my love for the series was incredibly short-lived. The Grim Cheaper and I just finished watching Season 4, though, and both felt that it went downhill fast. The last few episodes proved so ridiculous that I don’t think we’ll be watching Season 5 when it starts airing in September. Case in point – and warning, there be spoilers ahead! – one of the series’ main storylines centers around a super secret agency known as B613 that works outside of the government. The agency is responsible for killing and torturing numerous people in the name of protecting the republic. During Season 4, Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) and her fellow gladiators vow to take down B613 and in one of the last episodes a grand jury is convened to review evidence about the agency’s past evils. After testimony is heard, all of the jurors are gunned down and killed, as is the court stenographer, and NO ONE notices or cares – not the media, not the government, not the courthouse workers. Nothing is done about the killings, they aren’t investigated, the show just moves on from there. I mean, wouldn’t it be a fairly easy crime to solve? Entire jury gets massacred after hearing testimony – gee, I wonder if murderer happens to be a member of B613? Oh, and did I mention that the jurors were killed in a court van while inside the courthouse parking garage? I mean, come on! I’m all about suspending disbelief, but that scenario is just so ridiculously implausible that I was angered upon watching it. There were several other asinine storylines that played out this past season (I won’t even get into the fact that Olivia is completely safe after returning home from being kidnapped despite the fact that it was made apparent she could easily fetch over a billion dollars if she was sold on the black market) that just added to my annoyance. So I just can’t even with Scandal anymore. BUT I did happen to stalk the headquarters of B613 a couple of weeks ago while I was in L.A. and figured what better time than today to blog about it. OK, end rant!
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On Scandal, the B613 headquarters has a litany of names. It is known as Wonderland (because it is said to be located on Wonderland Avenue in Washington, D.C.), ACME Limited, and ACME Paper Company. And, as we found out in the Season 3 episode titled “No Sun on the Horizon,” the agency does actually sell paper. As wannabe B613 agent Quinn Perkins (Katie Lowes) says upon being relegated to answer the ACME Limited sales line as a way to pay her dues, “I don’t know if we sell copy paper. Because I just don’t, OK! Ugh, yeah, well your phone manner sucks, too!” Ah, such a great scene from back when Scandal was good!
The exterior of Wonderland was featured in the Season 3 episode titled “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.”
The location manager did a fabulous job with this location. The building chosen for filming is equal parts non-descript and foreboding.
In real life, the building serves as the headquarters of the J.M. Carden Sprinkler Co. The Art Dec-style structure was originally built in 1931 as the Valley Dairy Company offices. According to this The Eastsider LA article, the interior of the property is quite fabulous. I am kicking myself now for not having ventured inside.
I am unsure if the interior of Wonderland, which was shown in the “No Sun on the Horizon” episode, was a set or if filming took place on location somewhere. I am 99.9% certain, though, that the interior of the J.M. Carden Sprinkler Co. building was not used onscreen.
Thanks to fellow stalker Richard (you may remember him from this post and this post), I learned that the building masked as a downtown Los Angeles 9-1-1 dispatch center in the Season 3 episode of 9-1-1 titled “The Taking of Dispatch 9-1-1.”
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: Wonderland, aka B613 Headquarters from Scandal, is located at 2909 Fletcher Drive in Glassell Park.
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The White House Gates from “Scandal”
My life as of late seems to be absorbed by Scandal. As I mentioned last week, the Grim Cheaper and I have recently become addicted to the ABC series. Besides watching it during pretty much every free waking moment, I have also been furiously researching the show’s filming locations. While set in Washington, D.C., Scandal is lensed in Los Angeles. The crew does some seriously amazing work to hide that fact, though. Gary, from the Seeing Stars website, uncovered a few key Season 1 locales a while back, including the White House gates, which I was beyond floored to learn were located at Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens (one of my very favorite spots in all of L.A.). The explanation as to the gate’s precise location was a bit hazy, though, so I set out to remedy that this past week while I was in Pasadena.
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The White House gates from Scandal are located just beyond Huntington Library’s main entrance, which is on Orlando Road.
Upon entering the property and driving past the guard shack, head south on Palm Drive towards Huntington’s massive parking lot.
About 700 feet south of the main entrance, there is a sign that directs visitors to turn left into the parking area. That sign is pictured below.
Just beyond the sign, Palm Drive intersects with a small tree-lined road named Mausoleum Drive. The eastern entrance to Mausoleum Drive is denoted with a pink arrow below.
The White House gates can be found just beyond that eastern entrance.
I was just a little excited upon finding them!
The gates’ exact location is denoted below. Because they are situated near the parking area, you can actually see them without having to purchase a ticket to enter the Huntington Library grounds. Though why anyone would not want to enter the grounds is beyond me. It’s honestly one of the most beautiful places on earth and a spot I’ve long considered a Must-Stalk location for visitors to L.A.
The gates have appeared twice on Scandal. They first popped up in the Season 1 episode titled “Dirty Little Secrets.”
On the series, the gates are manned by White House security guard Morris Elcott (Troy Winbush). Though minor, Morris is a fabulous character who, for some odd reason, stopped appearing after Season 3. I really wish they’d bring him back.
The gates were next featured in the Season 1 finale titled “Grant for the People.”
A green screen is used, rather convincingly I might add, to make it appear as if the White House is located just beyond the gates in the series.
What is actually located beyond the gates is a single lane tree-lined road that leads to Huntington Library’s Mausoleum. Ah, the magic of television!
The same gates were also used as the entrance to Helen’s (Rose Byrne) mansion in Bridesmaids.
For reasons that most likely had to do with convenience, a different set of gates was used as the White House gates in the Season 3 episode of Scandal titled “Mama Said Knock You Out.”
It took me for-ever to track those gates down, but I finally did so while writing this post. They are actually Hollywood Forever Cemetery’s Gower Street gates. Though dressed a bit for filming, they are definitely recognizable from their onscreen stint.
Several areas of Huntington were used in Scandal’s “Dirty Little Secrets” episode, including the Mausoleum, which masked as a Washington, D.C.-area park . . .
. . . and the American Art gallery, which masked as the exterior of the White House.
And in “Grant for the People,” the property’s Boone Gallery masqueraded as the exterior of the White House.
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 Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens are located at 1151 Oxford Road in San Marino. The White House gates from Scandal can be found just beyond the property’s main entrance, at the intersection of Palm and Mausoleum Drives. The gates used in the Season 3 episode titled “Mama Said Knock You Out” are Hollywood Forever Cemetery’s Gower Street gates and can be found at approximately 900 North Gower Street in Hollywood.
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Latest “L.A.” Mag Post – About the “Vacation” House
Don’t forget to read my latest post for L.A.mag.com, about the Griswold house from National Lampoon’s Vacation. My articles typically get published in the late morning/early afternoon hours.
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The Complete “Clueless” Guide to L.A.
I could NOT be more excited about my latest Discover Los Angeles article. In fact, it might be my favorite blog post that I have ever written! I present to you The Ultimate (and Complete!) Guide to Clueless Movie Locations in Los Angeles: Part I and Part II. This one was truly a labor of love and took me countless hours of research to put together, but I don’t think I’ve ever had more fun stalking! I cannot tell you the number of emails I sent out, people I talked to, doors I knocked on, or time I spent on Google Street View, but in the end it was worth it as my list includes every. single. locale. featured in the movie – right down to the pot Cher (Alicia Silverstone) hits on her way to school. I hope all of my fellow stalkers enjoy reading the post as much as I enjoyed putting it together.
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Charles Mulligan’s Steakhouse from “Parks and Recreation”
This past March I wrote The Complete Parks and Recreation Guide to Los Angeles for L.A. magazine. At the time of the posting, though, I had yet to visit every location featured on the list. The most glaring omission from my stalking profile was Whiskey Bend, the Burbank bar that masqueraded as Charles Mulligan’s Steakhouse, aka Ron Swanson’s (Nick Offerman) favorite restaurant, on the NBC series. I finally made it over there last month while my friends Kim and Katie were in town visiting from Kentucky. Katie (who is pictured above) is a huge P&R fan so I figured the outing would be perfect for us and it was!
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Because Katie is under 21, we did not venture inside Whiskey Bend.
Neither did Ron Swanson on Parks and Recreation. Though the eatery was mentioned countless times throughout P&R’s 7-season run, Whiskey Bend only appeared in one episode, Season 3’s “Indianapolis.” In the episode, Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) and Ron head to Circle City to receive a commendation. Ron is particularly excited to make the trip because Indianapolis is home to Charles Mulligan’s Steakhouse, “the best damn steakhouse in the damn state.”
Upon arriving, though, they find “her” (yes, Ron refers to the restaurant as a “her) “boarded up like she was some common warehouse” due to a health code violation. He does not take the news well.
Whiskey Bend also made an appearance as Scandals, Lima, Ohio’s local gay bar, in the Season 3 episode of Glee titled “The First Time.”
The interior of the bar was also featured in the episode.
I do hope to head back to Whiskey Bend in the near future as not only is the place said to have a great happy hour, but it also offers karaoke three nights a week. Um, count me in! There are few things I love more in this world than karaoke and, being that my favorite L.A. karaoke spot, Dimples, just recently closed, it’s high time I find a go-to spot!
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.
Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Brandon for finding this location!
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: Whiskey Bend, aka Charles Mulligan’s Steakhouse from Parks and Recreation, is located at 1221 North San Fernando Boulevard in Burbank.
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New “L.A.” Mag Post – About “Tangerine”
Be sure to read today’s post for L.A.mag.com, about the new movie Tangerine. My articles typically get published in the late morning/early afternoon hours.
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The “Black-ish” House
My good friend/fellow stalker Lavonna is obsessed with the show Black-ish. Von was supposed to fly out to L.A. for a visit along with our friends Kim and Katie this past June, but ended up not being able to. So in honor of her, during our trip we all went to stalk the home where the Johnson family – Dre (Anthony Anderson), Rainbow (Tracee Ellis Ross), Zoey (Yara Shahidi), Andre (Marcus Scribner), Jack (Miles Brown) and Diane (Marsai Martin) – lives on the ABC series.
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I found the Johnson residence thanks to Geoff from the 90210Locations website. He has a whole page dedicated to Black-ish locales on his site.
In real life, the two-story home, which was originally built in 1946, boasts 4 bedrooms, 4 baths, 4,820 square feet, and a 0.39-acre plot of land.
As you can see below, the dwelling looks much the same in person as it does on Black-ish.
The home is very picturesque and it is not at all hard to see how it came to be chosen for the series.
I have only seen a couple of episodes of Black-ish, but the few times I have watched I have been struck by its many similarities to Modern Family. More specifically, I have been struck by the Johnson family’s similarity to the Dunphy family. Both families have ditzy teenage daughters who pen popular fashion websites – on Black-ish, that daughter is Zoey; on MF it’s Haley (Sarah Hyland). (Well, truth be told, Haley pens a fashion blog, while Zoey runs her own YouTube channel about makeup, but similar enough.) Each family also has a no-so-bright son – on Black-ish it’s Andre; on Modern Family it’s Luke (Nolan Gould). The Dunphys and Johnsons also each have a smart daughter – Alex (Ariel Winter) on MF, Diane on Black-ish. Both series also have a parent obsessed with Halloween – on Black-ish, it’s Dre; on Modern Family, it’s Claire (Julie Bowen). Most striking of all, though, to me at least, are the aesthetic similarities of the two families’ homes. While the residences certainly have their differences, their overall look is very much the same.
Even the two families’ stairwells look extremely similar.
Interestingly, a different residence was used as the Johnson family’s home in Black-ish’s pilot episode – a residence that should look familiar to my fellow stalkers.
It is the same house that was used as the home of Nora Walker (Sally Field) on Brothers & Sisters.
One thing that I am not sure about is the inside of the Johnson home. While interiors are currently lensed on a set at ABC Studios in Burbank, I am unsure if that set was used for the pilot episode or if the pilot was filmed inside of the Brothers & Sisters house or another house altogether. Typically, when a pilot is shot, interiors are filmed at real life locations. Then if a series gets picked up, a set based on those real life interiors is built on a soundstage. In the case of Black-ish, though, very little of the inside of the Johnson home changed from the pilot episode (pictured below) to the second episode, which leads me to believe that a set was used from the very beginning.
On a side-note – The GC and I just became obsessed with Scandal. And I do mean obsessed. Our DVR is over 40% full right now due to the fact that our currently-airing nightly watches are being left untouched. Since viewing the Scandal pilot two weeks ago, we haven’t been able to watch anything else. We are mid-way through Season 3 right now and are still loving every minute of it. I’ve, of course, been researching the show’s filming locations like mad and, while doing so, came across this amazing blog about Scandal’s sets written by a member of the set department. If you are a fan of the series, it is definitely worth checking out.
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.
Big THANK YOU to Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, for finding this location.
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: The Johnson house from Black-ish is located at 4175 Stansbury Avenue in Sherman Oaks. The home used in the pilot episode can be found at 1640 Lombardy Road in Pasadena.
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That Pink Door
I have yet to really hop aboard the Pinterest bandwagon, but I know I’m in the minority on that one. Those who are Pinterest-philes are most definitely familiar with what has come to be known as “That Pink Door.” That Pink Door is actually the brightly-hued front door of a residence in the Indian Canyons neighborhood of Palm Springs. The home also pops up regularly on Instagram (do a search for #thatpinkdoor and you’ll be inundated with blush-colored images) as well as on countless fashion blogs, which is how I came to discover it. I have long been obsessed with fashion blogger Julia Engel, of Gal Meets Glam. Back in May, Julia, her BFF Jordan Jones and their friend Vero Suh visited Palm Springs for what they dubbed a “Best Bebs Weekend.” While in town, they snapped some photos at That Pink Door. When I saw the pics pop up on Julia, Jordan and Vero’s respective websites, as well as the Style Me Pretty website, a few weeks later, I became enamored of the place – and was shocked that I had never heard of it before. So I immediately added it to my To-Stalk list and finally made it over there last week.
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I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that I totally stalked Julia while she was in town. I follow her on Snapchat (@galmeetsglam) and could tell from one of her videos that she was eating at Norma’s at the Parker Palm Springs. So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on over there in the hopes of getting a pic with her. As it turns out, Julia could not have been nicer! Jordan and Vero were incredibly sweet, as well, and we all wound up chatting for a good ten minutes. I also ended up later purchasing the romper that Julia had on when we met, much to the GC’s chagrin. As I said, I am obsessed! I just think she’s adorable and has such a fabulous and unique fashion sense. If you haven’t checked out her website before, you definitely should! But I digress.
The That Pink Door residence is absolutely massive in person, much larger than I expected it to be.
The post and beam-style home was originally built in 1968 and boasts four bedrooms, five baths, 5,310 square feet and a 0.57-acre plot of land.
The pad’s pink door came courtesy of interior designer Moises Esquenazi, who purchased the residence with his partner, Bryan Graybill, in 2004. At the time, the property was unkempt, outdated and begging for a remodel. The two quickly began redesigning the space into a mid-century modern dream home with such features as glass walls, two fireplaces, a billiard room with a sunken bar, a 75-foot pool with an inlaid tanning shelf, a 12-person spa, two outdoor bars, three fire pits, and an outdoor movie theatre. You can check out what the interior of the home looks like here. While pretty, I had hoped there would be a lot more pink.
The home’s cherry on top, of course, is the pastel pink front door. While Moises and Bryan sold the pad for a whopping $1,820,000 in 2008, the new owners have, thankfully, not touched the color of the door.
The residence has won many accolades, including being featured as one of the “Best Homes in America” in the 25th Anniversary issue of Metropolitan Home magazine. Palm Springs Life also published a piece on it in November 2006. And while the property is said to have been featured on an HGTV program, for the life of me I cannot figure out which program. If anyone happens to know, please fill me in.
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: “That Pink Door” is located at 1100 East Sierra Way in the Indian Canyon area of Palm Springs.
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The Den from “Sex and the City”
It goes without saying that I have a tendency to obsess on things (that fact should be apparent to even my site’s most casual visitors). Recently, I found myself obsessing over two locations featured in the L.A.-based Season 3 episode of Sex and the City titled “Sex and Another City.” The first locale I was itching to find was the coffee shop where Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon) met up with her old friend “Letterman Lew” (Sam Seder). The second was the steakhouse where the two later had dinner. I wound up finding both thanks to Sam Seder. In late April, I tweeted the actor to see if he by chance remembered where the scenes had been filmed and he tweeted me back almost immediately with an answer. He informed me that the steakhouse was Musso and Frank Grill in Hollywood (which I blogged about here) and, while he didn’t remember the name of the coffee shop, he did recall that it was located on Sunset Boulevard near The Standard hotel. So I immediately got to cyber-stalking and fairly quickly found the place.
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I managed to track the location down thanks to a set of tall, thin paned windows that was visible behind Lew in the episode. The windows were unusual and, from the cars speeding by in the background, obviously faced Sunset Boulevard. So, using Google Street View (which is HORRIBLE in its latest incarnation – don’t get me started!), I began perusing the Strip for those windows, starting at The Standard and working my way east.
I wound up spotting them at 8226 Sunset Boulevard, just one and a half blocks away from the hotel.
The site currently houses a restaurant named The Den, but one quick Google search of “8226 Sunset Boulevard” and “coffee shop” led me to this June 1999 Los Angeles Times article about Coffee House, which occupied the space from 1999 to 2003. Eureka! I tweeted my findings to Sam and he confirmed that I had the right spot. So I ran right out to stalk it a couple of weeks ago while in L.A. with my friends Kim and Katie (that’s Katie in the first image pictured in this post).
I was floored to discover upon arriving that a sign reading “Coffee House” was still installed on the front of the eatery.
Coffee House originally opened in May 1999, but founder Brent Bolthouse (yes, the same Brent Bolthouse from The Hills) first began the endeavor of establishing a 24-hour coffee shop on the Sunset Strip in 1995. He secured the location – a two-story cottage-like structure originally built in 1923 that once housed the infamous Fifth Estate coffee shop – easily enough, but converting it into what he had envisioned proved troublesome. Bolthouse, who also started the popular clubs Opium Den and Babylon, even wound up being sued by his partners at one point during the transition.
When it did finally open, Coffee House quickly proved popular with the Hollywood set, which makes sense being that Christian Slater, Counting Crows’ Adam Duritz, producer Andy Gould and celebrity hairstylist Jonathan Antin all had a stake in the place. Just a few of the stars who hung out there included Robert Downey Jr., Balthazar Getty, Tobey Maguire, Britney Spears, Anthony Kiedis, Paris Hilton and members of the Backstreet Boys and ‘N Sync. Leonardo DiCaprio was said to have been so fond of the place that he visited daily!
The 1999 Los Angeles Times article described Coffee House as “a cross between a French country restaurant and an English cottage” with a large outdoor patio “fenced off by tree branches.” The place sounds as if it was idyllic, not to mention right up my alley! Lattes, a tree-lined outdoor patio AND Leonardo DiCaprio? If only I had known about it before it was shuttered in 2003!
After Coffee House closed its doors, the space operated first as Wacky Waffles and then as Hadaka Sushi. In 2009, restaurateur Michael Gans opened The Den at the site. While the restaurant looks adorable and charming, and the menu appears to be quite amazing – mac & cheese, fried chicken sandwiches, German pretzels, deviled eggs, wild mushroom and goat cheese flatbread – um, count me in – unfortunately, it was closed when we arrived so we could not venture inside. I was able to snap the photos below through the front windows, though.
In “Sex and Another City,” Coffee House masked as “The Flowing Tree,” a New Age café that according to Lew “is known for its green tea infusions.”
While some minor elements, like the windows, remain the same, sadly the space is virtually unrecognizable from its onscreen appearance.
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 Den, aka the former Coffee House from Sex and the City, is located at 8226 Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood. You can visit The Den’s official website here. The restaurant is open each Monday through Friday from 5 p.m. to 2 a.m., each Saturday from 3 p.m. to 2 a.m., and each Sunday from 12 p.m. to 2 a.m.
