Cameron Diaz – IAMNOTASTALKER

May 27, 2016May 29, 2018

NoMo Kitchen from “The Other Woman”

My favorite movie of 2014 was The Other Woman. The romcom may have been heavily panned by critics, but I loved everything about it. The Grim Cheaper and I saw it in theatres shortly after it premiered and then I purchased a copy as soon as it came out on DVD and have proceeded to watch it copious times since. I’m addicted! The flick was lensed primarily in New York and its environs and I, of course, tracked down the vast majority of its locales immediately upon buying the DVD. (I chronicled a few of them in an August 2014 Los Angeles magazine post which you can read here.) The spot I was most anxious to stalk was the restaurant featured at the end of the movie. I finally got my chance while in NYC last month.

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At the end of The Other Woman (spoiler alert!), after exacting revenge upon their cheating husband/boyfriend Mark King (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), Carly Whitten (Cameron Diaz), Kate King (Leslie Man), and Amber (Kate Upton) headed to an absolutely gorgeous restaurant to celebrate.

The eatery’s setting was nothing short of magical and, even though it was only featured briefly in the movie, I became captivated by it while watching. Thanks to the On the Set of New York site, I learned that filming of the restaurant scene had taken place at Isola Trattoria & Crudo Bar located at 9 Crosby Street in SoHo. I added the information to my vast file of New York filming locations and did not do any further thinking on it until I started planning out itineraries for our April trip. Isola Trattoria was one of my must-see/must-eat-at locales and, upon Googling the restaurant’s name to see if reservations were suggested, I was heartbroken to learn that it had closed. I added it to my To-Stalk List regardless with the hope that I might be able to peek through a window and catch a glimpse of the place’s stunning interior.

Imagine my surprise – and elation! – when I arrived on the scene and discovered that the restaurant was not only still open, but that it looked exactly the same as it did onscreen! Thanks to the super friendly staff, I learned that the eatery had never actually closed, but had only undergone a name change, from Isola Trattoria & Crudo Bar to NoMo Kitchen.

NoMo Kitchen is located on the ground floor of the hip and elegant NoMo SoHo hotel, which was originally constructed as the Mondrian SoHo in 2011. The unique, dream-like schematic of both the hotel and restaurant was conceived by interior designer Benjamin Noriega-Ortiz, who drew inspiration from the 1946 film La Belle et la Bete (a French adaptation of the Beauty and the Beast fairytale).

When the Mondrian first opened, the restaurant was a “sustainable seafood spot” known as Imperial No. 9. Helmed by former Top Chef contestant Sam Talbot, the 180-seat, 5,000-square-foot venue consisted of two sections – an interior dining room and a greenhouse-like space enclosed by a glass atrium. The stunning greenhouse is the area that appeared in The Other Woman.

By August 2012, the eatery had become Isola Trattoria. While the menu received an overhaul at that time, the striking dining area thankfully did not. Aside from swapping out Imperial’s odd patio-furniture-like tables and chairs for more sleek leather and wood combinations, the space was left untouched. It was also left unaltered during the transition from Isola to NoMo Kitchen (the name is a combination of the words “nostalgic” and “modern”) in 2015.

NoMo Kitchen still retains its breathtaking garden-like setting, with towering crystal chandeliers hanging from the peaked glass roof, a sprawling cream stone bar backed by handsome oak shelving, and massive amounts of foliage adorned with twinkle lights.

The site also boasts an adorable outdoor patio.

I half expected fairies to start flying around while we were exploring the place. It’s truly that magical!

NoMo Kitchen is easily one of New York’s most beautiful spaces.

So it is no surprise that it also popped up in an episode of The Real Housewives of New York City. In Season 8’s “Airing Your Dirty Laundry,” Bethenny Frankel, Carole Radziwill and Ramona Singer met up there and discussed Sonja Morgan’s “cheater brand,” Tipsy Girl.

Besides functioning as a working restaurant and filming location, NoMo Kitchen is also available as a special events venue. I can’t even image how gorgeous a wedding there would be!

On a side-note – and speaking of special events – while in New York, the GC, my friend Owen (from the When Write Is Wrong blog), and I happened to meet a woman named Man-Lai Liang who did us an enormous favor. I won’t get into specifics, but to say she hooked us up would be a vast understatement. I wanted to say a huge thank you to her for her incredible kindness and also give her a shout-out. Man-Lai is a New York-based special events coordinator, so if you are looking for help in planning your next Big Apple party, I urge you to contact her. You can visit her website here.

Big THANK YOU to the On the Set of New York website for finding this location!

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: NoMo Kitchen, from The Other Woman, is located at 9 Crosby Street, inside of the NoMo SoHo hotel, in New York’s SoHo district. You can visit the eatery’s official website here.

July 31, 2014August 28, 2014

New Scene It Before Post – About “The Mask” Bank

Be sure to head over to LAMag.com today to read my latest Scene It Before post – about Edge City Savings & Loan from The Mask. My columns typically get published in the late morning/early afternoon hours.

August 2, 2011August 1, 2011

The Cree Estate in Cathedral City

While doing research on Las-Vegas-Dunes-Hotel-owner Charlie “Kewpie” Rich’s former Palm Springs home, which I blogged about last Tuesday, I came across some information about another Coachella Valley location where my girl Jen Aniston and former-husband Brad Pitt had once vacationed. The property is known as the historic Cree Estate in Cathedral City and it is apparently a big-time celebrity hot-spot and wedding venue. According to this FASCINATING January 2004 Palm Springs Life article, which chronicles the adventures of area location scout Sylvia Schmitt who manages rentals of the Cree Estate, Brad and Jen spent a Thanksgiving weekend at the secluded Spanish-style hacienda a few years back. Upon their arrival in the desert, Sylvia met up with the famous couple to hand over the property’s keys and walk the grounds with them. As you can imagine, I was literally drooling upon reading those words! Never in my life have I so badly wanted to be a location scout! Sigh! Anyway, at some point during their stay, Sylvia received a late-night phone call from Brad who informed her that the home’s dishwasher had broken and was leaking water all over the floor. Sylvia promptly hired a plumber to go out to the property to fix the leak. Well, as fate would have it, after the plumber finished working, he ended up hanging out with Jen until about 2 a.m.!!!! Drool, drool, drool! How incredibly cool is Jen to hang out chatting with a random stranger until the wee hours of the morning! I love her even more now after reading that story! According to Sylvia, the plumber said the experience was “the highlight of his life”. Um, you’re telling me!!!!!! So while vacationing in Palm Springs two weekends ago, I, of course, just had to drag the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the estate.

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Real estate developer Raymond Cree built his private, 5000-square foot, all-adobe estate, along with two stand-alone guest houses, on a sprawling two-and-a-half-acre plot of land sometime during the 1930s. The property boasts 6 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms, a whopping 78 palm trees, a regulation-sized tennis court, three separate kitchens, wood-beamed ceilings, white-washed brick walls, a wood-burning fireplace, classical statuaries (including a replica of Michelangelo’s David), two jacuzzis, a swim-up bar, a permanent dance floor, and sweeping views of the San Jacinto Mountains. The estate also features two black-bottomed swimming pools, one of which is the largest privately owned pool in the entire Coachella Valley and was featured by Huell Howser in an episode of his television series Palm Springs. Sadly, as you can above, though, even though the front gate was open when we showed up to stalk the place, not much of the ultra-secluded property is visible from the street.

But, as I have said before, that is why God created aerial views! As you can see above, the property is quite magnificent and absolutely enormous. Other stars who have spent time at the Cree Estate include Christina Applegate and now ex-husband Johnathon Schaech, who got married on the premises on October 20th, 2001, with such celebs as David Faustino, Cameron Diaz, Jared Leto, and hairstylist Ken Paves in attendance. Apparently, in 2003 the contestants and the crew from The Bachelorette stayed at the Cree Estate for over a month during the filming of the series’ first installment starring Trista Rehn, although for the life of me I do not remember that season taking place in the Palm Springs area. CSI:Crime Scene Investigation’s William Petersen also once vacationed at the property. Being that rates start at $1,500 per night with a three-night minimum, though, this is one Jen location that I seriously doubt I will ever have the opportunity to visit. But . . . to any of my friends reading this who might be planning a wedding in the near future, I think you should seriously consider the estate as your venue. I will even go scout it for you, if you want! Winking smile You can see some fabulous close-up and interior photographs of the historic Cree Estate here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Cree Estate is located at 67698 Carey Road in Cathedral City. You can visit the home’s vacation rental website here and its wedding website here.

June 15, 2010January 17, 2012

Amanda’s House from “The Holiday”

I thought I’d mix it up a bit today by forgoing blogging about one of the many Pacific Northwest locations that I stalked while in Vancouver and Seattle two weeks ago, in order to write about a residence that can be found right here in the San Gabriel Valley – the mansion which belonged to Amanda (aka Cameron Diaz) in the 2006 romantic comedy The Holiday. I found this location thanks to fellow stalker Nick, who had done some research on the subject and had managed to discern that the home featured in the movie was located somewhere in San Marino and had been designed in 1928 by legendary Los Angeles architect Wallace Neff. According to Nick, Neff, along with his family, had even lived in the property at one point during the 1930’s. So, I immediately headed over to my friend, and fellow stalker, E.J.’s website – The Movieland Directory – which has an entire page dedicated to Wallace Neff-designed homes in the L.A. area. The Movieland Directory listed a total of three San Marino residences that the famed architect had once called home. Because I had never seen The Holiday, I sent all three addresses to Nick to see if one of them was the mansion featured in the movie and, sure enough, one was! YAY! So, I immediately ran right out to stalk it and, then yesterday, finally sat down to watch The Holiday for the first time. And I have to say that I absolutely LOVED it!!! I have NO idea how I missed it when it first came out four years ago. But I digress.

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In person, The Holiday mansion is absolutely beautiful and absolutely humongous! The Tuscan-style villa boasts 9 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms, and a whopping 10,324 square feet of living space!

The residence pops up quite a few times in The Holiday, especially the front entrance and second story balcony areas.

And while, for the most part, the mansion looks much the same as it did in the movie, there have been quite a few changes, including the front gate, which is now wrought-iron instead of wood . . .

. . . the front door which is now recessed . . .

. . . and the driveway area, to which a fountain had since been added.

And while I was fairly certain that the real life interior of the mansion had been used in the filming, according to IMDB’s trivia page for The Holiday, all of the interiors of the house were actually just sets that had been built on a soundstage and had cost a whopping $1 million to construct!

But as you can see in the above screen captures and aerial view, the home’s real life backyard and pool were actually used in the flick.

On a side note – Sadly, the picturesque English cottage which belonged to Iris (aka Kate Winslet) in The Holiday does not actually exist in real life. Both the interiors and the exteriors of the adorable little home were built solely for the filming of the movie. You can see photographs of the construction of Iris’ cottage on fave website Hooked on Houses here.

Big THANK YOU to Nick for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Cameron Diaz’s mansion from The Holiday is located at 1883 Orlando Road in San Marino.

March 4, 2010March 3, 2010

The “13 Going On 30” Thriller Dance Location

A few months ago, I enlisted the help of fellow stalker Owen in tracking down the location from fave movie 13 Going On 30 where Jenna Rink (aka Jennifer Garner) saved the Poise Magazine party by performing her rendition of the Zombie Dance from Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”, which, not surprisingly, just so happens to be my very favorite scene in the flick. From the beginning, I was absolutely convinced that the “Thriller” scene had been filmed in a building located somewhere in New York, but Owen had a hunch that it had actually taken place right here in Los Angeles. And, as usual, Owen was right. After doing a bit of cyber-stalking, he somehow managed to track down one of the movie’s location managers who told him that Jenna’s “Thriller” dance had actually been performed inside of an oft-used filming location in Downtown Los Angeles, one that I am ashamed to admit I was already very familiar with – the former Bank of American building located on the corner of 7th and South Spring Streets. The building has been used in COUNTLESS productions over the years, but I am sad to say that, for whatever reason, I somehow failed to recognize it.

Being that the former bank’s big ol’ safe is clearly visible in the background of the “Thriller” scene, I really should have figured this one out. Man, I’m such a blonde sometimes!

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Once Owen had tracked down the location for me, I put the former bank building on my very long “To-Stalk” list and finally managed to visit the place in person while out doing some stalking in the Downtown Los Angeles area a couple of weeks ago. The Spring Street Tower, as it is sometimes called, which was built in 1912 by the architectural firm of Schultze and Weaver, served as the Los Angeles headquarters for the Bank of America Corporation from 1930 to 1972. After Bank of America vacated the twelve story high Beaux Arts style building, the upper floors served as offices for various companies throughout the years, while the marble clad lobby became an extremely popular filming location. In recent years, SB Properties, a building development company, took over the building and converted the former offices into lofts. And while the lobby area still looks much the same as it did during the time when it was operating as a bank, there are currently plans in the works for a restaurant and club to open up in that space, which is both good news and bad news. Bad news because I am guessing that once the space becomes a restaurant, it will cease to be a filming location and will most likely be heavily remodeled and good news because if it does eventually become a restaurant that means that someday in the near future I will be able to stalk the area where Jennifer Garner danced, a place which is currently off limits to the public. YAY! 🙂

When we first arrived to stalk the former Bank of America building, I did not actually have high hopes that I would be able to see any of the interior. So, let me tell you, I just about passed out from excitement when I discovered that the lobby area, where the “Thriller” dance scene took place, was thoroughly visible through the former bank’s front windows. From the windows you can see the vault;

the main staircase;

the second floor balcony;

and several of the wood-paneled main offices. You can also see some fabulous interior photographs of the bank building here.

In 13 Going On 30, the former Bank of America building was the location of the Poise Magazine “Girls Night Out” party, during which Jenna’s boss, Richard (aka Andy Serkis) complains that the guests are leaving far too early and if someone doesn’t do something to liven up the joint – and quick – then the entire magazine might go down the drain. So, Jenna immediately heads over to the DJ booth where she requests Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” and then proceeds to lead the entire party in the famous Zombie Dance. Oh, how I would love to do that dance at my wedding! 😉

So I, of course, just had to imitate Jenna doing the “Thriller” dance while I was at the building. 🙂 I think it goes without saying that my fiancé was HIGHLY embarrassed while taking the above photographs of me.

The former bank is also where Robbie (aka Adam Sandler) tries to get a job to impress Julia (aka Drew Barrymore) in 1998’s The Wedding Singer. When the bank’s manager, who was played by Kevin Nealon, turns him down, Robbie says, “You don’t even have to give me the job. If you could just give me some business cards with my name on it, I think that might help. How ‘bout this – I’ll give you ten singing lessons for one business card. Please?” LOL

In 1995’s Se7en, the bank building was dressed to look like a library and appeared in the scene in which Detective Lt. William Somerset (aka Morgan Freeman) researches the Seven Deadly Sins.

In L.A. Story, the bank stood in for the Fourth Reich Bank of Hamburg where Steve Martin is forced to show his financial records to the owner of the impossible-to-get-into L’Idiot Restaurant in order to secure a dinner reservation there.

In 1994’s The Mask, the bank was used as Edge City Savings and Loan where Stanley Ipkiss (aka Jim Carrey) worked.

In Spiderman 2, the bank appeared up as the spot where Peter Parker (aka Tobey Maguire) takes his Aunt May (aka Rosemary Harris) to apply for a loan from a bank teller played by none other than The Soup’s Joel McHale. 🙂 While the two are in the bank, Doc Ock shows up to rob the place and almost succeeds until Spiderman steps in and, of course, saves the day.

In Ghost, the bank was used as the place where Sam Wheat (aka Patrick Swayze) takes Oda Mae Brown (aka Whoopi Goldberg) to fill out a signature card under the false name of Rita Miller.

In Blow, the former Bank of America building stood in for the Bank of Panama in one very brief scene.

In The Prestige, the building shows up twice. First, the bank lobby appeared as the courtroom where Alfred Borden’s (aka Christian Bale’s) murder trial is held.

And second, the bank’s second floor mezzanine area stood in for the bar where Robert Angier (aka Hugh Jackman) shared a drink with Cutter (aka Michael Caine).

The bank also appeared in the movies Marathon Man, Traffic, Fatal Vision, Prizzi’s Honor, St. Elmo’s Fire, All of Me, and in episodes of 24, Cagney & Lacey, Hill Street Blues, Matlock, and Hardcastle & McCormick.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The old Bank of America building is located at 650 South Spring Street in Downtown Los Angeles. The best place to catch a glimpse of the interior of the property is through the windows located on either side of the building’s front doors, which are pictured above.

May 11, 2008February 13, 2009

Charlie’s Angels

$Charlie\'s Angels$ I must admit that I absolutely loved the first Charlie’s Angels movie, so when I found the location of the headquarters of Charles Townsend Investigations in my stalking tome last weekend, I just had to stalk it. This same location was used in both the filming of the Charlie’s Angels television show back in 1976 and the more recent first Charlie’s Angels movie in 2000. In the movie, Townsend Investigations is actually blown up by the evil Eric Knox, but for the big blow up scene, producers built a replica of the headquarters building on a studio soundstage.

Townsend Investigations looks much the same today as it did in 1976, except that now a Miele store occupies the space. Miele is a high end German appliance store.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Townsend Enterprises is located at 189 Robertson Boulevard, on the corner of Clifton Way and Robertson Boulevard, in Beverly Hills. A few blocks South of the Miele store is the chic, celeb favorite shopping district of Robertson Boulevard which is home to Kitson, Lisa Kline, the Ivy restaurant, and the MAC Pro Store. Robertson is a shopping haven for celebs and paparazzi can often be seen milling around outside of the many high-end stores located there.

March 11, 2008February 13, 2009

Charlie’s Angels

Although I am not a big fan of Charlie’s Angels 2: Full Throttle – it was just a bit too over the top for me! – when I found the address of Cameron Diaz’s house from the movie on my fave stalking website – and since I just happened to be in the neighborhood this weekend – I just had to stalk it!

In Charlie’s Angels 2, Cameron Diaz’s character, Natalie, moves into a new beachfront home with her boyfriend, Pete. That house is located in Hermosa Beach and it is absolutely adorable!! The home was actually built in 1905, as stated on a plaque located on the front of the house. It’s not very hard to see why the producers chose to use this house for filming – it is extremely charming and cute, much like Cameron’s character in the movie. I highly recommend stalking it, even if you are not a Full Throttle fan!

Stalk It: Natalie’s house is located at 2028 The Strand in Hermosa Beach. You can park on Hermosa Avenue and hit up the shops (and Starbucks!) before making your way down Pier Avenue towards The Strand – a walkway that runs along the beach. The house is located near where The Strand meets 20th Street.