Amy Poehler filming locations

January 7, 2013January 7, 2013

Ben and Leslie’s New House from “Parks and Recreation”

Back in October, while watching the fabulous Season 5 episode of Parks and Recreation titled “Halloween Surprise”, I became just a wee-bit obsessed with tracking down the Anywhere, U.S.A.-style home that Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) leased with her longtime boyfriend, Ben Wyatt (Adam Scott – whom I just saw the other day at my local Target, but I digress). I had a pretty strong inkling that the residence was most-likely located in the Sherman Oaks area, in the same vicinity as the dwelling used as Diane’s (Lucy Lawless’) house on the series, where most of the “Halloween Surprise” episode had taken place.

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Luckily, while watching “Halloween Surprise”, I had spotted what I thought was an address number of 4620 on the curb in front of Leslie and Ben’s rental, so I immediately started searching through all of the 4600 blocks in Sherman Oaks. Sure enough, I found the place just a mile or so south of Diane’s home. Woot woot! It was not until two weekends ago, though, that I finally managed to drag the Grim Cheaper out there to stalk it.

In “Halloween Surprise”, Leslie takes her BFF Ann Perkins (Rashida Jones) to look at a home she is thinking of renting because, as she explains it, “Ben is coming back from D.C. in ten days and we are moving into a house together. He would move in my place, but it’s a scary, nightmare, hoarder nest. His words. And Ann’s. And the official report filed by the Health Department.” LOL While there, Leslie decides to lease the place (despite the fact that it does not have her desired “trampoline room”), but those plans get thwarted when Ben is offered a new job in D.C. When Leslie later returns to the residence to tell the agent that they will no no longer be taking the place, Ben shows up and (SPOILER ALERT), in a tear-inducing moment, proposes to Leslie on bended-knee. And while the property has yet to appear in any other Parks and Recreations episodes and it was never actually made clear in “Halloween Surprise” if the newly-betrothed couple did actually lease the place or not, I am assuming that they did.

While the house, which was originally built in 1938, looks very much the same in person as it did onscreen, I was not expecting it to be so large. Because the angle featured in the episode was a tight one, showing only one side, I assumed that it was a fairly modest residence with only one or two bedrooms.

In actuality, though, the house boasts four bedrooms, four baths and a spacious 2,688 square feet of living space.

And while I would have bet money on the fact that the real life interior of the property had been used in the episode, that was actually not the case. As you can see in these photographs of the home, aside from the massive stone fireplace, nothing about the actual interior matches what appeared onscreen.

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Ben and Leslie’s new house from Parks and Recreation is located at 4620 Wortser Avenue in Sherman Oaks.

July 19, 2012July 18, 2012

Pickwick Bowl from “Parks and Recreation”

While watching the Season 4 episode of Parks and Recreation titled “Bowling for Votes” back in June, I wondered aloud about at which bowling alley filming had taken place. The Grim Cheaper, who happened to hear me, looked up from his ever-present laptop and said, “That’s Pickwick Bowl – part of Pickwick Gardens – in Burbank.” Well, I just about fell right off my chair over the fact that he had recognized a filming location (that literally never happens!) and immediately grabbed my iPhone to look up photographs of the place to see if he was right. Sure enough, he was! Thanks, honey! So the two of us ran right out to stalk the alley – and do some bowling – just a few days later. And I have to say that we had an absolute blast while there!

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Pickwick Gardens, which, in its earliest incarnation, housed a trailer park and swimming pool, first opened in the 1940s and was known as Pickwick Swim Park. There are rumors that the place was named after the “Mr. Pickwick” character from Charles Dickens’ first novel, The Pickwick Papers. As legend has it, the complex’s original logo featured a cartoon representation of Mr. Pickwick and some Disney imagineers, who worked just down the street, created a replica of it – in the form of a ghost hanging from a chandelier – for the ballroom scene of Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion ride. Whether that is true or not remains to be seen, but it certainly makes for a good story. Smile In the 1950s, the complex was sold to new owners who changed the name of the place to Pickwick Recreation Center and added an ice skating rink, a 781-space drive-in movie theatre (which has since closed), a restaurant named the Five Horseman Inn (which has also since closed), and a bowling alley. The Pickwick Pool was, sadly, filled in sometime during the 80s and the area transformed into a spacious, two-and-a-half-acre garden, which is used today as a wedding and event venue and after which the complex is now named.

On an interesting filming side-note – the Pickwick Drive-In Theatre was where a forlorn Danny Zuko (John Travolta) sang the song “Sandy” in the 1978 classic Grease. The drive-in was sadly shuttered and demolished in 1989 in order to make way for a strip mall, which reminds me of one of my favorite lines from the movie You’ve Got Mail. In an email to Joe Fox (Tom Hanks), Kathleen Kelly (Meg Ryan) writes, “People are always telling you that change is a good thing, but all they’re really saying is that something you didn’t want to happen at all has happened. My store is closing this week. I own a store – did I ever tell you that? It’s a lovely store and in a week it will be something really depressing, like a Baby Gap.” And while the Pickwick Drive-In strip mall does not currently house a Baby Gap, it does feature a Pavilion’s grocery store, an El Pollo Loco, a Staples, and a dry cleaner – all of which are just as equally depressing. The one plus? There is a Starbucks. Winking smile You can check out some photographs of what the Pickwick Drive-In Theatre used to look like here.

I honestly cannot more highly recommend stalking Pickwick Bowl! The GC and I spent the entire afternoon there and had such a fabulous time! Although I was a little bummed out that the bar did not have champagne. After I came back from inquiring about it, the GC said, “Did you actually think that a bowling alley would serve champagne?” Um, yes, yes I did!

Besides being a filming location, Pickwick Bowl is also something of a celebrity hot spot. Adam Sandler rents out the entire complex each year for his Happy Madison holiday party, at which he has hosted such guests as Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes (and Suri!), AJ Michalka, Aly Michalka, Kate Hudson, Brett Ratner, Penelope Cruz, Jackson Browne, Maria Bello, Kevin James, Bryan Greenberg, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Tom Green, Rob Schneider, Demi Moore, Nick Swardson, and David Arquette. Man, what I wouldn’t give to score an invite to that thing! Smile Nick Jonas and Miley Cyrus were also spotted bowling at Pickwick back in February of 2011.

In the “Bowling for Votes” episode of Parks and Recreation, Ben Wyatt (Adam Scott) holds a focus group to see how Pawnee citizens feel about city council candidate Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler). One particularly crusty man in the group named Derek (Kevin Dorff) announces that he would not vote for Leslie because “she doesn’t seem like the kind of person you could go bowling with.” Leslie, of course, becomes absolutely fixated by the man’s statement and convinces Ben to host a bowling night for her campaign at “Ricky’s Rock N’ Roll Bowl”, to which she invites Derek in an attempt to win him over. That, of course, does not happen and Ben ends up punching Derek in the face after Derek calls Leslie a b*tch. Gotta love P&R!

While at the alley, Ron Swanson (Nick Offerman) tells Leslie that Ricky’s Rock N’ Roll Bowl has his “favorite restaurant in Pawnee”. LOL

And I just have to say here that I love, love, love that Tom Haverford (Aziz Ansari) showed up carrying a Louis Vuitton Ellipse MM as his bowling bag! A man after my own heart, I swear!

And I am not at all ashamed to admit – despite the fact that several people were laughing at me! – that, while at Pickwick, I bowled granny-style, just like Tom did in the episode. And I scored more than a few strikes doing so. Smile

Be sure to “Like” IAMNOTASTALKER on Facebook here and “Friend” me on my personal page here. You can also check out the IAMNOTASTALKER About Me page here and you can follow me on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And don’t forget to take a look at my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Pickwick Bowl, from the “Bowling for Votes” episode of Parks and Recreation, is located at 1001 Riverside Drive in Burbank. You can visit the bowling alley’s official website here.

July 9, 2012July 8, 2012

The Smallest Park from “Parks and Recreation”

I just recently finished watching Season 4 of fave new show Parks and Recreation (and yes, I was devastated when I came to the end of the last episode being that I now have to wait until September to watch a new one!) and can honestly say that the episode titled “Smallest Park” had to be one of the best of the entire series. I found myself in tears when (spoiler alert!) Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) and Ben Wyatt (Adam Scott) finally got back together. So when fellow stalker Owen gave me the address of the eponymous Smallest Park, I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to Studio City to stalk the place. Well, truth be told, that’s not exactly how things happened.

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Earlier this year, before I had ever even seen an episode of the show, Owen had given me a list of several Parks and Recreation locales, one of which was the Smallest Park. I did not stalk any of them, though, until I finally started watching the series back in May. Flash forward to early June, when I was stalking April and Andy’s house (which I blogged about here), and realized that the abode was located just a short distance from the “Smallest Park”. So, even though I had yet to begin watching Season 4 at the time, since we were in the area, I decided to drop by and snap some pics. Because the Smallest Park is in actuality just a parking lot, Owen had only given me an approximate address for it. Well, as fate would have it, when we pulled up to that address, I noticed a vacant plot of land (pictured below) across the street and immediately assumed it was the right place. And while I did say to the GC, “It really doesn’t look all that small to me!” (LOL), I did not realize my mistake until a few weeks later when I watched the “Smallest Park” episode. I am SUCH a blonde sometimes! That’ll teach me to stalk a location prior to seeing the production in which it was featured!

It wasn’t until last weekend that I was finally able to get back out to Studio City to stalk the correct location – which, as you can see below, is the rear parking lot of a strip mall and does not look anything like a park, hence my original confusion.

In the “Smallest Park” episode of Parks and Recreation, Pawnee’s last remaining telephone booths are torn down, leaving a 0.000003-square-mile patch of concrete, on which Leslie and Ben (aka the “Dream Team”) decide to build the city’s “newest tourist attraction – the smallest park in Indiana”.

As you can see below, the Smallest Park was actually just a square plot of cement that producers placed at the western-most edge of the parking lot, covering up the first spot.

And while just a vacant parking lot, I could NOT have been more excited to stalk this location, most likely because the Smallest Park and the episode in which it was featured were both so incredibly memorable. It is at the park that, in what had to be one of the series’ cutest moments EVER, Leslie tells Ben how much she misses him and the two seal their reunion with a kiss. Sigh! I’m tearing up just looking at the screen capture below. Smile

And I, of course, just had to stand where Leslie stood while she was picketing the park in the episode (and announcing its nightly midnight fireworks show) – although I was having another blonde moment at the time and accidentally had the GC snap a pic from the opposite direction of what was shown onscreen.

Be sure to “Like” IAMNOTASTALKER on Facebook here and “Friend” me on my personal page here. You can also check out the IAMNOTASTALKER About Me page here and you can follow me on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And don’t forget to check out my new blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, for finding this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Smallest Park from Parks and Recreation was built in the northwesternmost parking space of the Valley Stores Shopping Center’s rear parking lot in Studio City. The lot can be found next to the property located at 4378 Kraft Avenue in Studio City.

July 5, 2012July 4, 2012

The Bulge from “Parks and Recreation”

Another day, another location from fave show Parks and Recreation! Seriously, I hope you guys aren’t getting sick of P&R locales yet. Winking smile Anyway, a couple of weeks ago, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I hit up the Oxford Inn in Van Nuys, aka the bar that stands in for the Bulge – Pawnee, Indiana’s local gay bar. I learned of this location, as always, from fellow stalker Owen of the When Write Is Wrong blog.

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While watching the Season 3 episode of Parks and Recreation titled “Go Big or Go Home”, Owen had noticed an address number of 13713 written above the Bulge’s front door. One quick Google search of “13713”, “bar” and “Van Nuys” (because the show typically films in that area), led him to the Oxford Inn at 13713 Oxnard Street, directly across from Barone’s Famous Italian Restaurant from The Office, which I blogged about here. And, voila, the Inn turned out to be the right place. Yay! Come to find out, though, our search would not end there. But more on that later.

While the interior of the Bulge has been featured in two episodes of Parks and Recreation (Season 2’s “Pawnee Zoo” and Season’s 3 “Go Big or Go Home”), the exterior has only popped up once – in “Go Big or Go Home”. In the episode, Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) and Ben Wyatt (Adam Scott) crash Ann Perkin’s (Rashida Jones’) first date with Chris Traeger (Rob Lowe) and then convince the two of them to go dancing at the Bulge. As you can see below, aside from the fake neon “the Bulge” sign, the Oxwood Inn looks much the same in person as it did onscreen. And, in a synchronistic twist of fate, the Oxwood Inn is actually a gay bar in real life, too!

The interior, however, is another story entirely. As you can see below, the interior of the Oxwood Inn has a very definite blue hue to it. And while I did not remember that blue hue from the series, I figured that producers had changed the lighting for the filming. Oh, how wrong I was.

When I got home and re-watched “Pawnee Zoo” and “Go Big or Go Home”, I realized that a completely different bar had been used for all of the interior scenes – which meant that I had another hunt on my hands.

Because I am like a pit bull when it comes to stalking (once I latch on to a search, I have a very hard time letting go), I immediately started looking online for “divey” bars located in the San Fernando Valley. And while it took me a looooooooong time to track the place down, I am very happy to report that I finally did! As it turns out, the interior of the Bulge is Serra’s Dine & Dance in Studio City. I, of course, dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out there to grab some lunch just a few days later, but unfortunately the eatery is only open at night, so we were unable to go inside. I will be definitely be heading back there for a re-stalk in the near future, though. In the meantime, you can check out some interior photographs of Serra’s here and here. As you can see, it looks much the same in person as it does onscreen.

I am guessing that the reason two different bars were used as the Bulge’s interior and exterior is because the exterior of Serra’s Dine & Dance does not look very much like a small-town dive bar, while the Oxwood Inn does, as you can see below.

Big THANK YOU to Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, for finding this location! Smile

Be sure to “Like” IAMNOTASTALKER on Facebook here and “Friend” me on my personal page here. You can also check out the IAMNOTASTALKER About Me page here and you can follow me on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And don’t forget to check out my new blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Oxwood Inn, aka the exterior of The Bulge from the “Go Big or Go Home” episode of Parks and Recreation, is located at 13713 Oxnard Street in Van Nuys. You can visit the bar’s official website here. Right across the street from the Oxwood Inn at 13726 Oxnard Street is Barone’s Famous Italian Restaurant from The Office, Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Bad News Bears, which I blogged about here. You can visit the Barone’s website here. Serra’s Dine & Dance, aka the interior of The Bulge from Parks and Recreation, is located at 12449 Ventura Boulevard in Studio City. You can visit Serra’s official website here.

June 22, 2012June 21, 2012

April and Andy’s House from “Parks and Recreation”

I hope y’all are not getting tired of my many Parks and Recreation posts, ‘cause here I am yet again with yet another locale from the series that was provided to me, per usual, by fellow stalker Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog – this time the supposed Pawnee, Indiana-area residence where Andy Dwyer (Chris Pratt) and April Ludgate (Aubrey Plaza), and later Ben Wyatt (Adam Scott), live on the show. And I am very sad to say that I am currently about halfway through Season 4 and only have about ten new episodes left to watch before I am all caught up on the series. I honestly have no idea what I am going to do with myself when that time comes. Sad smile Anyway, a couple of weeks ago, while doing some stalking in the Studio City area, I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to stalk April and Andy’s home – before I had even begun to watch Season 3 actually, the season in which the property was first featured.

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April and Andy’s house first shows up in the Season 3 episode of Parks and Recreation titled “Fancy Party” (which actually made me cry), in the scene in which the young couple throws a dinner party for their friends – a dinner party that turns out to be (spoiler alert!) their surprise wedding. Shortly thereafter, in the episode titled “Jerry’s Painting”, April and Andy’s roommate moves out and Ben, in turn, moves in and teaches the duo “how to be adults”. (As you can see below, a dang car was parked directly in front of the house when we showed up to stalk the place, so I was unable to get photographs to match the exact angles shown on the series.)

For the filming, producers had the address number of the house changed from “12718” to “1271” in what I am guessing was an attempt to thrwart the efforts of us stalkers. But, thankfully, it takes more than a simple address change to throw off Owen and his mad stalking skills!

I absolutely LOVE the screen capture pictured below in which there is snow in the home’s front yard! So wish I could have been there to see that in person! You can check out an article written by someone who did get to witness some P&R filming at the property in October 2010 on the Studio City Patch website here. According to the write-up, April and Andy’s house has been used in countless productions over the years (although I am unsure of which productions exactly) and, to attract even more crews, the owner has made the place very film-friendly by placing the kitchen island and most of the furniture on casters for easy movement or removal. So incredibly cool! If I was a homeowner, I would so do the exact same thing!

In real life, the Studio City residence, which was originally built in 1938, boasts four bedrooms, two baths, and 2,831 square feet, and looks exactly the same in person as it does onscreen.

Despite what was reported in the Studio City Patch article, only the exterior of the property is used in Parks and Recreation – and the place most definitely does NOT belong to Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) on the show, as was also reported. (You can read my post on the Altadena residence that is used as Leslie’s here.) As you can see in these images of the real life interior of the home here and here, it does not match what appears onscreen.

Big THANK YOU to Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong site, for finding this location! Smile

Be sure to “Like” IAMNOTASTALKER on Facebook here and “Friend” me on my personal page here. You can also check out the IAMNOTASTALKER About Me page here. And you can follow me on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: April and Andy’s house from Parks and Recreation is located at 12718 Valley Spring Lane in Studio City.

June 21, 2012June 20, 2012

Four ‘N 20 – aka JJ’s Diner from “Parks and Recreation”

A couple of weeks ago, fellow stalker Brandon (the very same stalker who told me about the Skyline Residence from fave movie Crazy, Stupid, Love., which I blogged about here) emailed me a list of over twenty Parks and Recreation locations that he had managed to track down. The one locale on the list that intrigued me the most was the exterior of JJ’s Diner – the local Pawnee-area hangout, known for its superior waffles, that is featured regularly on the show.

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Ironically enough, the exterior of JJ’s Diner is not located in Los Angeles at all, but in Atlanta, Georgia of all places! The restaurant used for the establishing shots of Pawnee’s most-famous breakfast joint is actually the Landmark Diner located at 2277 Cheshire Bridge Road NE. I have no idea how producers came to use an out-of-state eatery on the series, but as you can see below, the (craptastic) Google Street View image of the restaurant matches perfectly to what appears onscreen.

Once I found out that the exterior of JJ’s was located in Georgia, I became just a wee-bit obsessed with tracking down the restaurant used for the interior. I ended up finding it thanks to the unique botanical pattern visible on the booths in the background of the many JJ’s scenes. I had a hunch that the eatery was located in or around Van Nuys, where the series seems to do most of its filming, so I began searching through images of cafes in that area on Yelp (which is such a fabulous stalking tool, by the way!) looking for booths with that pattern. Sure enough, it was not long before I came across one on the Yelp page for Four ‘N 20 restaurant in Sherman Oaks. Yay! So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the place a few days later.

Once I saw the outside of Four ‘N 20 in person, I found it even more odd that producers had opted to use the Landmark Diner for JJ’s exterior because, as you can see below, Four ‘N 20 definitely has a Midwestern feel to it.

The interior also has a Midwestern feel and it is not too hard to see how it came to be used on Parks and Recreation. According to a commenter named Kiwi on the Chowhound website, when Four ‘N 20 first opened in 1969, it was located a few blocks north of where it is now. When that spot was demolished to make way for a car dealership sometime during the ‘90s, Four ‘N 20 moved to its current location, which had formerly been the site of “Chicken, Steak and Chocolate Cake” – a buffet-style restaurant where guests were charged based on their weight! Not kidding! Apparently there was a large scale that diners would have to step on before being rung up! Now if that doesn’t scream “Pawnee” – a city’s whose slogan is “First in Friendship, Fourth in Obesity” – than I don’t know what does! A CS&CC-style restaurant so needs to be added to a future storyline! P&R writers, are you listening?

At the time that Four ‘N 20 first opened, it mainly served pies – hence the name, which the GC did not understand. I am not sure who his nursery school teacher was, but he/she obviously did not do a very good job! For those not in the know, the Four ‘N 20 name comes from the “Sing a Song of Sixpence” nursery rhyme, which goes like this: “Sing a song of sixpence, A pocket full of rye; Four and twenty blackbirds, baked in a pie. When the pie was opened, the birds began to sing; Was that not a dainty dish, To set before the king?” Over the years, Four ‘N 20 expanded its menu choices and also opened up a sister restaurant in nearby Valley Village, but the place is still best-known for its pies. CBSLosAngeles even named the diner’s pumpkin pie one of the “Best of L.A.”

The Four ‘N 20 menu is wide and diverse with many comfort food offerings, as well as vegetarian and vegan options – and there’s even a “Fitness Menu” for the Chris Traegers in your life. Winking smile Glaringly missing from the Four ‘N 20 menu, though, were waffles! I almost fell out of the booth when I realized that the restaurant did not serve them and just had to make a suggestion to the manager that he add them to the menu – stat! Heck, he could even create a whole “Pawnee Specials” section! Man, why do I always have to be the one to think of everything?!? Winking smile For my lunch, I opted for the Crispy Chicken salad which, as you can see below, was amazeballs! I literally do not think there was one scrap left on my plate by the time I was done with that thing!

The GC and I had a fabulous time at Four ‘N 20 and the staff could not have been more friendly, although I think a few of them found it odd that we were only dining there because of the place’s many Parks and Recreation appearances. (Check out the super-nice cop we met during our lunch who couldn’t stop photo-bombing me! LOL)

Four ‘N 20 has appeared in numerous episodes of Parks and Recreation, including Season 2’s “The Master Plan” and Season 3’s “Flu Season” and “Ron and Tammy: Part Two”, just to name a few. On the show, Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) describes JJ’s, which is owned by JJ Lipscomb (Brent Briscoe), as “the unofficial meeting place of Pawnee’s political elite”.

JJ’s Diner and its waffles are also mentioned regularly on the series. In the Season 3 episode titled “Time Capsule”, Ron Swanson (Nick Offerman) puts one of JJ’s menus in the Pawnee time capsule because, as he says, the restaurant is a “Pawnee institution” and “home of the world’s best breakfast dish, ‘the Four Horsemeals of the Eggsporkalypse.’” Just another item that Four ‘N 20 could add to its “Pawnee Specials” menu section! Winking smile

Oddly enough, though, a different restaurant – Kountry Folks at 8501 Sepulveda Boulevard in North Hills, which I have yet to stalk – was used as JJ’s during the show’s first season. As you can see below, it looks nothing like Four ‘N 20.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Brandon for finding the location of JJ’s exterior. Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The interior of JJ’s Diner on Parks and Recreation is actually Four ‘N 20 located at 5530 Van Nuys Boulevard in Sherman Oaks. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here. The exterior of JJ’s is the Landmark Diner, which is located at 2277 Cheshire Bridge Road NE in Atlanta, Georgia. You can check out the Landmark’s official website here.

June 8, 2012June 7, 2012

Ann’s House from “Parks and Recreation”

As I mentioned in Wednesday’s post about the Sullivan Street Pit from fave new show Parks and Recreation, during our whirlwind stalking adventure last Friday, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I also hit up the house where Ann Perkins (Rashida Jones) lives on the show. Just as it is made to appear on P&R, Ann’s supposed Pawnee, Indiana-area residence is actually located directly behind the undeveloped plot of land in Van Nuys that stands in for the Pit on the series. So, after snapping some pictures of Lot 48, Mike and I walked one block east to do some stalking of the abode. I, of course, found this location thanks to Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog – the very same fellow stalker who also informed me of countless other Parks and Recreation locations, including Leslie Knope’s house and the Sullivan Street Pit.

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Ann’s house first popped up in the pilot of Parks and Recreation and has subsequently been featured in pretty much every episode since. During the first season, Ann lived in the one-story residence with her slacker boyfriend, musician Andy Dwyer (Chris Pratt), but she ends up kicking him out in the episode titled “Rock Show” after discovering that he had asked his doctor to keep his leg casts on for an extra two weeks because, as he explained to Ann, “I really, really like it when you serve me food.” LOL

In real life, Ann’s house, which was originally built in 1948, boasts two bedrooms, one bath and 1,407 square feet and, thankfully, looks pretty much exactly the same in person as it does onscreen in Parks and Recreation. Even the yellow fire hydrant located at the edge of the front lawn is there in real life, which was absolutely shocking to me as I had always assumed that the hydrant was a prop put in place for the show. I mean, has anyone ever seen a fire hydrant situated inside of someone’s front yard before? Will wonders never cease? Winking smile

The property’s back gate area also appears quite frequently on the show.

And the home’s backyard was featured in the Season 1 episode of Parks and Recreation titled “Boys’ Club”, in what was hands down one of my very favorites scenes in the entire series – the scene in which Andy takes a bath in a kiddie pool before chasing his neighbor down the street, while naked and on crutches.

And while I would have bet money on the fact that the real life interior of the home had been used in the filming of the pilot episode before later being recreated on a soundstage (which is a fairly typical scenario), I came across some interior photographs of the residence on fave website Zillow and, as you can see below, it looks NOTHING AT ALL like Ann’s house. So incredibly odd!

While doing research for today’s post, I happened to discover that the apartment complex that formerly stood on the site of the Sullivan Street Pit is actually still visible on Bing aerial maps. LOVE IT!

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, for finding this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Ann Perkins’ house from Parks and Recreation is located at 5655 Murietta Avenue in Van Nuys. The Sullivan Street Pit from the series is located directly behind Ann’s house at at the southeast corner of Hazeltine Avenue and Collins Street in Van Nuys.

June 5, 2012June 4, 2012

Leslie Knope’s House from “Parks and Recreation”

A few months ago, fellow stalker Brandon (the very same stalker who tracked down the Skyline Residence from Crazy, Stupid, Love., which I blogged about back in November) emailed me to ask for some help in locating the Craftsman-style abode where Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) lives on the television series Parks and Recreation. And while I had never actually seen the show, fellow stalker Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, is a long-time fan and a few years back had sent me a list of several locales from it that he had managed to track down. Thankfully, Leslie’s house just so happened to be on that list and after emailing the address to Brandon, I decided that I should check the place out for myself. Well, let me tell you, once I laid eyes on it, I absolutely fell in love and decided that this stalker seriously needed to start watching some P&R, which I finally sat down to do last month. And I have to say that I am really enjoying it! I am only mid-way through Season 2 right now, but the series just seems to keep getting better and better with each episode and I love the fact that, thanks to Owen, I now have a whole slew of locations from it to stalk. Whoo hoo!

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As far as I know, Leslie’s house has only appeared once on Parks and Recreation (as I said, I am currently only mid-way through the second season) – in the Season 2 episode that was aptly titled “Leslie’s House”. In the episode, Leslie hosts a dinner party to impress her new boyfriend, Justin Anderson (aka Jen Aniston’s real life main squeeze, Justin Theroux), using the help of several Pawnee Recreation Center teachers, which, in typical P&R fashion, leads to her getting called in for a disciplinary hearing on an abuse of power charge. As you can see below, the dwelling looks much the same in person as it did onscreen, minus the fake snow, of course. I find it quite ironic that producers chose to use the property to stand in for Leslie’s supposed Pawnee, Indiana-area residence, though, being that the Craftsman style of architecture is so quintessentially Southern Californian.

As you can see in these real life photographs of the home as compared to the screen captures below, the actual interior of the property (which is stunning!) was also used in the filming.

In real life, Leslie’s house is quite spectacular! The property, which was originally built in 1916, boasts 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, 2,374 square feet, and sits on a 0.30-acre plot of land.

The Grim Cheaper absolutely fell in love with the huge tree pictured below that drapes over the property and could not stop taking photographs of it. So picturesque!

As you can see below, producers had the home’s address number digitally changed from 2358 to 35 for the filming in what I am guessing was an effort to deter us stalkers. Thank goodness Owen is smarter than the average bear, though, and was able to find the place as I am not sure I would have been able to.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, for finding this location! Smile And stay tuned for many more Parks and Recreation locales to come!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Leslie’s house from Parks and Recreation is located at 2358 Highland Avenue in Altadena.

September 15, 2011September 14, 2011

The “Beaches” Mansion

One location that I have been asked about repeatedly ever since I first started my blog almost four years ago (and I CANNOT even believe that it has been that long!!!) is the large Tudor-style mansion where Hillary Whitney Essex (aka Barbara Hershey) lived in the 1988 tearjerker Beaches. And while it had long been noted on various websites that the property was located somewhere in the Pasadena area, try as I might, I just could not seem to track the place down. Then this past January a fellow stalker named Alain who lives in France emailed me to ask about a mansion that had appeared in the Season 7 episode of Columbo titled “Try and Catch Me”. He mentioned that the same estate had also been used in Beaches. I explained to Alain that I had been trying to find that particular home for years, but had had absolutely no luck. Flash forward 9 months to this past Tuesday afternoon when I received another email from Alain, this one announcing that he had found the property! Whoo-hoo! How he managed to locate it while living thousands of miles away in France, when I failed to do so while living right here in Pasadena, is absolutely beyond me! My hat is most-definitely off to you, Alain!

So I, of course, ran right out to stalk the place early Wednesday morning. Sadly though, as you can see above, hardly any of the property is visible from the street.

But, as I have said before, that is why God created aerial views. In real life, the 7,479-square-foot, 8-bedroom, 4-bath home, which was built in 1916 by the noted Pasadena architecture firm Marston & Van Pelt (who also designed the Twins mansion), is known as the S. S. Hinds Estate. The property was named for one of its original owners, actor Samuel S. Hinds, who is best known for playing Peter Bailey, George Bailey’s (aka James Stewart’s) father, in the 1946 classic It’s A Wonderful Life. According to my buddy E.J. over at The Movieland Directory, Hinds lived in the home from the 1920s until the 1940s. Ironically enough, Hinds was originally a very prominent attorney who lost his fortune in the stock market crash of 1929. He was able to keep his Pasadena manse during that difficult time by renting it out to various boarders. Finding himself destitute at the age of 54, he decided to abandon law and try his hand at acting and it was not long before Hollywood came a’callin’. Hinds went on to star in over 200 films before his death in 1948.

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In Beaches, the S.S Hinds Estate stood in for the supposed Atherton-area residence where Hillary lived both as a child and an adult.

The house’s front gate was used quite prominently in the movie in the scenes in which Hillary checked her mailbox in anticipation of receiving letters from her lifelong best friend, Cecilia “CC” Carol Bloom (aka Bette Midler).

And while the gate is thankfully visible from the street and still looks EXACTLY the same today as it did in 1988 when Beaches was filmed, sadly, as you can see above, Hillary’s mailbox is not there in real life. I am guessing that it was just a set piece that was brought in solely for the filming.

The real life interior of the property was also used in the flick.

Thanks to fave website OnLocationVacations, I learned that the Season 3 episode of Mad Men titled “My Old Kentucky Home” was also filmed at the S.S. Hinds Estate. In the episode, the property stood in for the country club where Roger Sterling (aka John Slattery) and Jane Siegel (aka Peyton List) hosted their Kentucky Derby party.

As you can see in the screen captures above, one of the hallways that appeared in Beaches was also used in Mad Men as the spot where Betty Draper (aka January Jones) first met Henry Francis (aka Christopher Stanley).

I am fairly certain, though, that the club’s bar, where Don Draper (aka Jon Hamm) spent most of his evening, is not actually located inside of the Hinds Estate, but is a real life bar somewhere in Los Angeles.

And again thanks to OnLocationVacations, I also learned that the estate was used as the Turnbill Mansion, which Leslie Knope (aka Amy Poehler) fought to save, in the Season 2 episode of Parks & Recreation titled “94 Meetings”.

Amazingly, the very same hallway that appeared in both Mad Men and Beaches was also featured in Parks and Recreation.

As was the stairway from Beaches.

And the front gate, which Leslie Knopes barricaded herself to, thinking it opened in the middle, on Parks and Recreation. LOL

A large painting of the mansion was created for the filming of Parks and Recreation, as well. Being that I doubt the painting would ever be used again on the series, I am wondering if the owners of the Hinds Estate got to keep it. So cool if they did!

Unfortunately, I was not able to find a copy of the Columbo “Try and Catch Me” episode anywhere, so I could not make screen captures of the Hinds Estate’s appearance in it for this post.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Alain for telling me about this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Beaches mansion is located at 880 La Loma Road in Pasadena.