Be sure to head over to Discover Los Angeles today to check out my latest article, about restaurants featured in movies and television shows.
South Fork Inn from “Revenge”
Finding today’s location had me feeling like a complete moron. Though my obsession with Revenge has waned in recent months (I have only watched three episodes from the current season), I remained hell-bent on tracking down the Colonial-style structure used in establishing shots of the South Fork Inn on the series. I figured the location was most likely a private home and scoured the internet for months looking for it, all to no avail. Then a couple of weeks ago, I decided to once again try my hand at finding it and proceeded to search through every location database that I knew of, comparing the Colonial-style homes listed with screen captures from the show. I found the right spot fairly quickly and could not believe my eyes once I did. Turns out the location is well-known to me – it was featured regularly and prominently on my favorite TV show of all time, Beverly Hills, 90210. South Fork Inn is none other than the Marion Davies Guest House at the Annenberg Community Beach House, aka the former Sand & Sea Club, aka the very same spot that stood in for the Beverly Hills Beach Club on 90210. (Insert facepalm here.) Granted, the property has changed quite a bit since 90210 filmed on the premises, but still, how I did not recognize it is beyond me.
[ad]
The five-acre beachfront property, which was originally known as Ocean House, was constructed in 1928 at a cost of $3.5 million for newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst and his mistress, Marion Davies. The lavish compound was designed in the Georgian Colonial-style by architects Julia Morgan and William Flannery. The site was comprised of a three-story main house featuring 55 bathrooms, 37 fireplaces, a theatre, a ballroom and a basement pub. The property also boasted three detached guest houses, as well as servants quarters, dog kennels, tennis courts, and two swimming pools. (Flannery designed the main estate, while Morgan was responsible for the pool, guest houses and other detached structures, as well as all interiors.) The parties held at the compound during Hearst and Davies’ tenure there were legendary and often included guest lists numbering in the thousands. Such luminaries as Howard Hughes, Clark Gable, Charlie Chaplin, Bette Davis, Carole Lombard, Cary Grant, Winston Churchill, and Gloria Swanson all spent time at the massive estate at one time or another.
Hearst and Davies vacated the mansion in 1946 in order to move to Beverly Hills. The couple took quite a loss on the place, selling it to a man named Joseph Drown for a measly $600,000. Drown immediately transformed the site into a hotel named Oceanhouse and a beach club named the Sand & Sea Club. The hotel was never a huge success, though, and in 1956, Drown had the main house and many of the original structures demolished. He then added three new buildings to the premises and continued to operate the property as the Sand & Sea Club.
For reasons that are a bit hazy, the land where the Sand & Seas Club stood was acquired by the State of California in 1959. The state in turn handed management of the land over to the City of Santa Monica. It was still being leased back by Drown, though, and the site run as a beach club. In 1964, Drown sold the club to Douglas Badt, who continued to operate it as the Sand & Sea Club until October 1990, when the city decided that a private club could not be situated on public land. It became a public club for a short time after that and was used often for filming. Then, the 1994 Northridge Earthquake rendered the site unsuitable for public use. It sat vacant and boarded up for several years following. (I took the below photo of the place in 2000.)
The city eventually started making plans to renovate the site and turn it into a public beach club, and renowned philanthropist Wallis Annenberg donated $28 million to the cause. Annenberg had been a member of the Sand & Sea Club as a child and wanted to see the once-great property resurrected. During the renovation, all of the remaining Ocean House structures were demolished, aside from one of the guest houses, which is currently known as the Marion Davies Guest House . . .
. . . and a 110-foot Italian marble swimming pool. Sadly, other than those two elements, no part of Hearst’s original compound, or the Sand & Sea Club remains.
The Annenberg Community Beach House opened on April 25, 2009. The site is open to the public daily and is also used as a special events/wedding venue – and, of course, for filming.
The Marion Davies Guest House pops up regularly as the South Fork Inn on Revenge.
The Guest House is only used for establishing shots, though. The interior of the Inn is just a set built inside of a soundstage at MBS Media Campus where the series is lensed.
In the pilot episode of Revenge, which was shot on location in North Carolina, the City Club of Wilmington was used as the exterior of the South Fork Inn.
Oddly, the interior South Fork Inn scenes from that episode were shot elsewhere, though.
As you can see in the images below, the property used for interior filming (which could very well be a private residence) is addressed “400.” That number does not match up to the address of the City Club of Wilmington, which is located at 23 South 2nd Street. UPDATE – A fellow stalker named Brian let me know that the interior scenes were shot at the Dudley Mansion located at 400 South Front Street in Wilmington. You can see some interior photographs of the place here.
Fellow stalker Glenn also just let me know that a different exterior was used as the South Fork Inn in the Season 3 episode titled “Homecoming.” That location is actually The Culver Studios at 9336 West Washington Boulevard in Culver City.
The Annenberg Community Beach House also popped up in the Season 3 episode of Revenge titled “Confession,” this time as a swanky beach club in the scene in which Nolan Ross (Gabriel Mann) first met Patrick Osbourne (Justin Hartley).
Filming of that scene took place on the patio overlooking the pool area.
During the second and third seasons of Beverly Hills, 90210, which aired in 1991 and 1992, the Sand & Sea Club masked as the Beverly Hills Beach Club, where Brandon Walsh (Jason Priestley) worked and the rest of the West Bev gang hung out. The Marion Davies Guest House was not used in the filming of those episodes, though. [To make screen captures for this post, I had to re-watch several of the episodes in which Dylan McKay (Luke Perry) and Kelly Taylor (Jennie Garth) cheated on my girl Brenda Walsh (Shannen Doherty) and let’s just say it had me feeling all kinds of ragey! ;)]
During the third season of Saved by the Bell (or fifth, if you’re watching Netflix), which aired in 1991, the Sand & Sea Club masked as the Malibu Sands Beach Club, where Zack Morris (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) and the gang worked for a summer.
While the Marion Davies Guest House was not used in the filming of Saved by the Bell, either, it was briefly visible in the background of the episode titled “The Game,” as you can see below.
No interior filming of Saved by the Bell took place at the Sand & Sea Club. The interior of the Malibu Sands Beach Club was just a set built inside of a soundstage.
While doing research on the Sand & Sea Club for this post, I came across the photograph below. Apparently, Bethenny Frankel was a Production Assistant on Saved by the Bell during the early ‘90s and worked on some of the beach club episodes! How cool is that?
The Sand & Sea Club also made an appearance in the 1990 movie Side Out.
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online.
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: The Marion Davis Guest House, aka South Fork Inn from Revenge, is part of the Annenberg Community Beach House, which is located at 415 Pacific Coast Highway in Santa Monica. You can visit the property’s official website here.
The Donna Martin Graduates Protest Site
As big of a Beverly Hills, 90210 fan as I am, it will probably come as a shock to learn that up until recently I had yet to stalk the spot where one of the show’s most iconic moments was filmed – Burbank City Hall, aka the Donna Martin Graduates protest site from the Season 3 episode titled “Something in the Air.” So, since I was in the area recently stalking The Wonder Years houses (you can read those posts here and here), I decided that it was about time that I amended that fact.
[ad]
Burbank City Hall, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, was designed by architects William Allen and W. George Lutzi. Construction on the Moderne/Art Deco-style building began in 1941 and lasted until 1943. The final cost of the project was $409,000.
The building’s most impressive feature is its tower, which stands at 77 feet.
The lobby area, which I, unfortunately, did not get to see, boasts twenty different kinds of marble, bass relief sculptures and a grand staircase. The building also houses two large murals painted by Hugo Ballin. In a 1996 Daily News article about the structure, Councilman Ted McConkey is quoted as saying, “Anyone walking into City Hall would recognize that it’s something unique. It’s special because of the period in which it was built, because of the way it’s been maintained and because of all the murals at City Hall. We get an inordinate number of requests to use City Hall from film companies.” Love it! You can check out a fabulous photograph of the lobby here.
In “Something in the Air,” Brandon Walsh (Jason Priestley) stages a Senior Class walk-out during final exams to protest the fact that Donna Martin (Tori Spelling), after showing up drunk to the prom, is not being allowed to graduate with her class. (The Juniors also participate in the walk-out, in order to protest the dress code that the school board has implemented for the upcoming school year.) The protestors – chanting the now legendary line “Donna Martin graduates!” – wind up at the steps of Burbank City Hall, which (I think) is supposed to be masquerading as the West Beverly Hills School District in the episode.
This guy had a little trouble with his “No scapegoats” sign. 
During the rally, Mrs. Teasley (Denise Dowse) warns the students that they are all in danger of being flunked, which only serves to rile them up further. With Brandon leading the charge, they head inside the building and into the school board meeting.
Once inside, Brandon, of course, makes a speech in Donna’s defense. That speech never ceases to crack me up. He says, “Donna Martin is the kind of girl that goes out of her way for people. That’s why all these people here are going out of their way for her.” Like, huh? Did I miss something in all of my avid 90210 watching? When did Donna ever go out of her way for anyone, let alone the entire Junior and Senior class? It all ends well, though, as the board members wind up being moved by Brandon’s speech and vote to allow Donna to graduate. Donna Martin graduates, indeed!
“Something in the Air” was not the first Beverly Hills, 90210 episode to be lensed at Burbank City Hall. Although the exterior of Beverly Hills City Hall was used as an establishing shot . . .
. . . the interior of Burbank City Hall was where Jim Walsh (James Eckhouse) and Brandon attended a meeting about the Highpoint Center project in the Season 2 episode titled “The Pit and the Pendulum.”
Thanks to the Dear Old Hollywood website, I learned that Burbank City Hall stood in for a police station in the 1954 film Pushover.
In the Season 3 episode of The Rockford Files titled “Crack Back,” which aired in 1977, Burbank City Hall masqueraded as the courthouse where Beth Davenport (Gretchen Corbett) defended a professional football player who was on trial for murder.
In 1980’s American Gigolo, Burbank City Hall was where Julian (Richard Gere) was accosted by the press after being arrested. Very little of the building is visible in the scene, though.
The building masqueraded as a courthouse once again in the 1993 made-for-TV movie A Place to Be Loved (aka Shattered Family).
The interior of Burbank City Hall stood in for the U.S. Naval Headquarters at Pearl Harbor in the ending scene of the 1995 movie Crimson Tide.
For the exterior of the U.S. Naval Headquarters, a different building was used – Memorial Hall at Chapman University in the City of Orange.
The IMDB website states that Burbank City Hall was also utilized in the 1961 film The Choppers, the Season 2 episode of Police Woman titled “Generation of Evil,” the Season 2 episode of S.W.A.T. titled “Courthouse,” and the Season 1 episode of Matt Houston titled “The Showgirl Murders,” but, unfortunately, I could not find copies of any of those productions to verify that information.
On a Donna Martin Graduates side-note – Even though we don’t have kids, during the holidays the GC and I participate in a bit of Elf on the Shelf fun by trading off hiding our elf (named Max) every night for each other. This year, Max decided to hold a walk-out – with some nutcrackers, a couple of Santas, and my 90210 dolls – in honor of my favorite television show. While I thought it was genius, the GC did not share in my enthusiasm.
For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: The Donna Martin Graduates protest from the “Something in the Air” episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 was filmed at Burbank City Hall, which is located at 275 East Olive Avenue in Burbank.
The Infamous Ray Pruit Stairs
Since moving to the desert last January (I cannot believe it has been a year!), I have wanted to revisit Rancho Las Palmas, the sprawling Rancho Mirage resort where Ray Pruit (Jamie Walters) pushed girlfriend Donna Martin (Tori Spelling) down a flight of stairs in the Season 5 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 titled “P.S. I Love You: Part II.” I originally stalked and blogged about the location back in September 2008, but, because the hotel has 120 sets of identical stairs, at the time I was unsure of which set had appeared in the episode. Thankfully, the resort’s sales manager saw my post and left a comment, informing me of exactly where the scene had been shot. And while it took me over five years to get back out there to re-stalk the place, once I did, I could NOT have been more excited!
[ad]
Rancho Las Palmas is massive. The 240-acre resort boasts a 27-hole championship golf course, four eateries, a spa, 50,000-square-feet of event/meeting space, and three pools – one of which is Splashtopia, a two-acre water feature made complete with a 425-foot lazy river, two 100-foot water slides, a man-made sand beach, a Jacuzzi, and a café. Guests also have access to 25 tennis courts at the Palm Springs tennis center located in the Rancho Las Palmas Country Club, which is adjacent to the hotel.
Rancho Las Palmas has quite an interesting history. The property was originally the site of the Desert Air Hotel & Resort, a 320-acre compound that was founded by architect H.L. Gogerty in 1946. The resort consisted of an airstrip for private planes, World War II army barracks that pilots and travelers could rent for the night, and a bar and a pool that were added in 1951. You can see a picture of what the property looked like at that time here. Luminaries like Edgar Bergen, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Robert Taylor flocked to the place and The Bob Cummings Show was even filmed onsite for a time. The resort was sadly shuttered in 1976 and then demolished a year later to make way for a new Marriott hotel. According to the Abandoned & Little-Known Airfields website, one former Desert Air patron had this to say of the new lodging, “I visited the site several years ago – nothing left, except that the main fairway of the golf course seems to be aligned with the old northwest/southeast runway, and there’s a Desert Air Drive in the condos by the hotel. Very ritzy, very posh, but it will never have the understated chill-out class of the old place, with guest cottages made from recycled WW2 barracks huts. I think the difference speaks volumes about the way this country has changed.” I have to admit, it would have been pretty darn cool to vacation in authentic World War II barracks.
At the time that 90210 was filmed, the hotel was known as Marriott’s Rancho Las Palmas. After being taken over by KLM in 2006, the site underwent a massive renovation and the “Marriott” dropped from its name. Today, the property is operated by Omni Hotels & Resorts.
In “P.S. I Love You: Part I” and “P.S. I Love You: Part II,” Rancho Las Palmas was where Steve Sanders (Ian Ziering), Brandon Walsh (Jason Priestley) and the rest of the C.U. gang attended a national KEG/ALPHA convention. Several areas of the resort were shown in the episodes, including the front entrance;
the Azure Adult Pool (where Ray had a fit over Donna’s choice of swimwear);
and, of course, the infamous stairs that Ray pushed Donna down.
The stair scene was shot on the northwest side of Building #5.
In real life, the stairwell leads up to Room 520.
You can watch the stair scene by clicking below. I love when Valerie says, “Ray, go get the hotel doctor! Go!” LOL Hotel doctor??? How about, “Let’s get her to a hospital,” Val!
And you know I just had to do it! 
While re-watching the “P.S. I Love You” episodes (big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for loaning me his Season 5 DVDs), I was shocked to see that the interior scenes had not been filmed inside Rancho Las Palmas (the Rancho lobby is pictured below), but at another location that I was familiar with – Hyatt Westlake Plaza in Westlake Village, which also appeared as a Coachella Valley-resort in the Season 1 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 titled “Palm Springs Weekend.” I stalked Hyatt Westlake Plaza in February 2010 (you can read that post here) and recognized it immediately when it popped up in “P.S. I Love You.” I guess the Hyatt was 90210’s go-to Palm Springs hotel stand-in.
The first thing that clued me in to the fact that Hyatt Westlake Plaza had been used in “P.S. I Love You: Part I” and “Part II” was the large fountain that was seen in the center of the lobby in the episodes. That same fountain is pictured below in a 2010 photograph that I took of the Hyatt lobby. While no longer tiled, the shape of the Hyatt fountain is an exact match to the shape of the 90210 fountain.
The general layout of the Hyatt lobby also matches the lobby that appeared on 90210. Sadly, the Hyatt was remodeled sometime after the episodes were filmed, so the décor and flooring look quite a bit different today.
In “P.S. I Love You: Part II,” Brandon is shown walking through the Hyatt lobby, past a side table. That same side table (as well as the lamps on it and the painting behind it) is a direct match to a side table that Brenda Walsh (my girl Shannen Doherty) walked by in “Palm Springs Weekend.” Love it!
The recessed hotel room doors and positioning of the room signage that appeared in the “P.S. I Love You” episodes also match those of Hyatt Westlake Plaza.
For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: The “P.S. I Love You” episodes of Beverly Hills, 90210 were filmed at Rancho Las Palmas, which is located at 41000 Bob Hope Drive in Rancho Mirage. You can visit the resort’s official website here. Ray Pruit’s infamous stairs can be found on the south side of the property, just off Avenue Las Palmas, in Building #5, which is denoted with a pink arrow below. The stairs are on the north side of the building and lead up to Room 520. The pool that appeared in the episode is the Azure Adult Pool, which is located just outside of the hotel’s main lobby and is denoted with a blue arrow below. The interior scenes from the “P.S. I Love You” episodes were shot at the Hyatt Westlake Plaza, which is located at 880 South Westlake Boulevard in Thousand Oaks. You can visit the hotel’s official website here.
Boardner’s of Hollywood from “Beverly Hills, 90210”
Another destination included on the Grim Cheaper’s Valentine’s Day scavenger hunt was Boardner’s of Hollywood, a historic bar which was recommended to me by fellow stalker John who lives in the Bay Area. John had emailed me quite a few months back to let me know that the legendary watering hole had been featured in countless productions over the years, including my fave show Beverly Hills, 90210, and that it was a very cool place to hang out. So, because the GC loves anyplace with a history, I decided to add the bar to his hunt and we headed out there to grab a cocktail this past Saturday evening.
[ad]
The space which now houses Boardner’s was first opened in the 1930’s by legendary singer Gene Austin in a Moorish-style, L-shaped building designed by architect Norman Alpaugh and was known at the time as the “My Blue Heaven” night club. After Austin sold the watering hole, it went through several different incarnations, including a restaurant named Padres and a gay bar named Cherokee House, until January of 1944 when a young man named Steve Boardner purchased the place and renamed it Boardner’s. Boardner’s became an immediate success with the Hollywood crowd and such luminaries as Errol Flynn, W.C. Fields, Walter E. Scott (aka “Death Valley Scotty”), Elizabeth Short (aka “The Black Dahlia”), Robert Mitchum, Mickey Cohen, Jack Dragna, Andy Griffith, Donald Sutherland, Ed Wood, Jimmy Stewart, George Burns, Mickey Mantle, and Joe DiMaggio all hung out there. Steve remained the proprietor of Boardner’s for just over three decades, until 1980, when he retired to Palm Springs and sold his beloved bar to a man named Dave Hadley. Sadly, the place was completely remodeled with an Art Deco-theme in March of 2006 and, despite being known as “one of the oldest bars in Hollywood”, does not look anything like it did back in the heyday of Tinseltown.
Don’t get me wrong – Boardner’s is still a VERY cool place to hang out and the food is absolutely FABULOUS (especially the crab cakes!), but it would be an even cooler place to hang out if it had retained its historic interior. As I have mentioned a few times before on this blog, I am not big on change, especially when said change involves altering a filming location in some way! Sigh! Boardner’s has remained popular with the Hollywood set despite the remodel, though, and just a few of the celebs who have been spotted there in more recent years include Drew Barrymore, Holly Madison, Hugh Hefner, Bridget Marquardt, Kendra Wilkinson, Nicole Kidman, Slash, Axl Rose, Courtney Love, Scott Wolfe, Piper Perabo, Rose McGowan, Fran Dresher, Jason Patric, Tommy Lee, John Lennon, Ben Affleck, Paul Bettany, Jake Gyllenhaal, Vince Vaughn, Keifer Sutherland, Heath Ledger, Bela Lugosi Jr., Jared Leto, Tim McGraw, Lee Majors, Miley Cyrus, and Pete Wentz.
The back of the bar boasts a super-cute little hearth area, complete with a plush couch, a coffee table, and board games. So adorable!
And, each Saturday night, Boardner’s Moroccan-tiled back patio area . . .
. . . and its private events space, which is named the Casablanca Room, are transformed into an extremely popular gothic-themed nightclub known as Bar Sinister. The Casablanca Room has also become a popular wrap party venue over the years.
While stalking Boardner’s, I asked the bartender if she happened to know which episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 had been filmed on the premises, but, unfortunately, because she did not work there at the time, she was not sure. And because I only watched the first four seasons of the series, before the characters were of drinking age, I was absolutely stumped on this one. So, I called on Geoff, from the 90210locations website, who pretty much immediately figured out that Boardner’s had been used in the Season 9 episode of the series titled “That’s the Guy”, as the spot where Dylan McKay (aka Luke Perry) sought out information about the man who raped Kelly Taylor (aka Jennie Garth).
The establishing shot of the bar which appeared in that episode was filmed at another location altogether, though, and looks nothing like the actual exterior of Boardner’s.
Boardner’s also popped up in 1994’s Ed Wood, as the spot where fledgling film director Ed Wood (aka Johnny Depp) grabbed a drink just before meeting Bela Lugosi (aka Martin Landau) for the first time. Interestingly enough, the real Ed Wood had been a regular at Boardner’s throughout most of his lifetime, which is most likely how the bar ended up being chosen as a filming location for the flick.
Boardner’s was also the spot where Dudley Smith (aka James Cromwell) met up with Bud White (aka Russell Crowe) in order to return his badge and his gun towards the beginning of 1997’s L.A. Confidential.
The exterior of Boardner’s was also used very briefly as the exterior of a cowboy-themed gay bar that Mick Dundee (aka Paul Hogan) and Jacko (aka Alec Wilson) attempt to visit in 2001’s Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles.
In the 2003 movie Hollywood Homicide, Boardner’s was the regular hangout of Sergeant Joe Gavilan (aka Harrison Ford) and Detective K.C. Calden (aka Josh Harnett). Boardner’s has also appeared in the movie Up Close & Personal and in episodes of the television series Alias, Numb3rs, and Cold Case. Supposedly, Boardner’s was also featured in 1995’s Leaving Las Vegas and in 1997’s Wag the Dog, but I scanned through both of those movies earlier today while writing this post and did not spot the bar in either one.
Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker John for recommending this location to me and to Geoff, from the 90210locations website, for figuring out which episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 it appeared in! 
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: Boardner’s of Hollywood, from Beverly Hills, 90210, is located at 1652 North Cherokee Avenue in Hollywood. You can visit the bar’s official website here.