Canadian attractions – IAMNOTASTALKER

June 30, 2010June 29, 2010

The Michael J. Fox Theatre

A few months back, while fellow stalker Owen and I were doing research on Michael J. Fox’s childhood home which I blogged about yesterday, I came across some information about a place called “the Michael J. Fox Theatre” which is located on the campus of Burnaby South Secondary School and, let me tell you, I just about passed out from excitement. I absolutely could NOT WAIT to tell Owen about the location, as he just so happens to be MJF’s biggest fan. Apparently, in November of 1995 Burnaby South renamed their 613-seat professional theatre, which originally opened in 1993, in recognition of the Canadian-born actor and his many achievements in the entertainment industry and contributions to the community that he once called home. Owen was extremely excited to hear about the theatre and I immediately added it to my list of Must-Stalk locations in Vancouver. So, Owen, this one’s for you! 🙂

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As I mentioned above, the Michael J. Fox Theatre is located on the campus of Burnaby South Secondary School, which is not actually the high school that Michael J. Fox attended as a teen. The actor was actually enrolled at the similarly-named Burnaby Central Secondary School, which is located about three miles north of Burnaby South. I’m not entirely sure why city officials did not dedicate a theatre in his honor at his actual alma mater, but I believe the reasoning behind the decision had to do with the fact that Burnaby South is a very technologically advanced institution that offers several communications and broadcasting courses to its 1,700-member student body. The school also televises its morning announcements via a daily news program each morning and offers a broadcasting class in which theatrically-inclined students can create and film short movies and television series which are then broadcast over the school’s airwaves during each lunch hour. Add to that the fact that the British Columbia School for the Deaf was moved to the Burnaby South campus in 1995 and that the theatre which now bears MJF’s name was designed with the hearing-impaired, and other special needs students, in mind, and it’s obvious why they chose the campus as the location of the Michael J. Fox Theatre.

And, let me tell you, I just about died when we pulled up to the Burnaby South campus and spotted the above sign. So darn cool! 🙂

Because the theatre is located on a high school campus and because we were stalking the place on a Saturday, I didn’t have high hopes that we would actually be able to see the inside of it. So, imagine my surprise when we pulled up and found the front doors standing wide open, thanks to a dance recital that was taking place inside. YAY!

The Michael J. Fox Theatre is truly beautiful inside, but my favorite part had to be the huge tile wall mosaic made up of brightly-colored musicians and dancers which greets patrons as they enter (pictured above).

And while the theatre’s logo, which consists of MJF’s initials written in his own handwriting – which I think is just about the coolest thing ever! – appears in numerous spots throughout the theatre, sadly there are no photographs of the actor displayed anywhere on the premises. Nor could I find any information about him or about the history of the theatre. I had expected there to be, at the very least, some sort of plaque honoring the theatre’s namesake along with a photograph of him at the theatre’s dedication ceremony, but all we could find was the above display which lists the names of those who have donated to the property at one time or another. Such a bummer!

Due to the dance recital which was taking place while we were there, the interior of the actual auditorium was far too dark for us to be able to snap any photographs. 🙁 Which is such a bummer as I had so wanted to see the Michael J. Fox and Tracy Pollan honorary chair! You can see what the auditorium looks like on the official Michael J. Fox Theatre website here, which is where I got the two photographs pictured above.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Michael J. Fox Theatre is located on the campus of Burnaby South Secondary School at 7373 Macpherson Avenue in Burnaby, British Columbia. You can visit the office Michael J. Fox Theatre website here.

June 29, 2010June 28, 2010

Michael J. Fox’s Childhood Home

My good friend – and fellow stalker – Owen is an absolutely huge and longtime fan of actor Michael J. Fox. In fact, I think it’s safe to say that MJF is Owen’s Jennifer Aniston. So, when I found out that the Canadian-born actor grew up in Burnaby, British Columbia, the very same Vancouver suburb where my man Michael Buble also spent his formative years, I just about died and decided I had to try to track down his childhood home before my trip up to the Pacific Northwest. I immediately emailed Owen and asked him to skim through Michael J. Fox’s autobiography, Lucky Man: A Memoir, which I knew he had a copy of, to see if the actor gave any clues as to where his former abode was located. And, sure enough, he did! I should mention here that celebrity autobiographies and biographies are FABULOUS stalking tools as they almost always dole out the addresses of otherwise unknown stalking locations, but I digress. Anyway, Owen got right down to scanning through the book, which was first published in 2002, and quickly sent me back an email. As it turns out, while MJF didn’t actually disclose the exact location of his childhood abode, he did write a detailed enough description of it that Owen was able to track it down. YAY! Thank you, Owen!

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In his autobiography, Michael J. Fox mentions that during the 1970’s he lived on the second floor of a three-story walk-up building named the Middlegate Apartments, which were located across the street from a “sprawling strip mall with an enormous parking lot perfect for endless hours of street hockey”. And while Googling the terms “Middlegate Apartments” got him nowhere, thanks to this Google Maps posting Owen was able to track down the location of the now-defunct strip mall with the large parking lot where MJF used to play. That strip mall was known as the Middlegate Shopping Centre and it was demolished in 2004 in order to make room for a new, more upscale complex named Highgate Mall. Once Owen had tracked down the former Middlegate Center’s address, it was simply a matter of using aerial maps to see if there was a three-story apartment building located across the street from it. And, sure enough, there was!

As a matter of fact, there were two! And while Owen and I were unable to discern which one of the the two very similar-looking, U-shaped buildings MJF used to call home, after visiting the place in person last month, I can say with 99.9% certainty that it was the one denoted with the blue arrow in the above aerial view.

Michael first moved into the Middlegate Apartments in 1971, at the tender age of ten, following his father’s retirement from the Canadian Army Signal Corps. According to the book, MJF spent quite a bit of time in the building’s “large, if indifferently maintained, outdoor swimming pool”, which, as you can see in the above photograph, has since been filled in with cement. It is because of that now-filled-in pool that I believe Michael lived in the eastern-most of the two buildings. While looking at the location using aerial maps, I had assumed that the two neighboring buildings were part of the same apartment complex, but after seeing the place in person, I now believe that they are actually two separate properties. And since the western-most building does not have a pool, nor does it look like it ever did, I am fairly certain that Michael J. Fox lived in the building located on the east. According to the book, Michael lived at the Middlegate Apartments until 1979 – the year he migrated south to Los Angeles in order to pursue a career in acting. And thank goodness he did, too, because just three short years later he was cast as one of the most iconic characters in television history – Alex P. Keaton on Family Ties.

Sadly, I can’t really recommend stalking MJF’s former building, as it is a fairly depressing place, although I don’t believe it was that way forty years ago when Michael lived there. Today, the building is extremely run-down and has a very bleak air about it. As you can see in the above photograph, even the word “middle” is misspelled on the awing above the front door. I don’t even know what to make of that!!! (At least I think it’s misspelled, being that I’ve never heard of the word “midle”.) And while my original plan was to knock on the manager’s door to see if he or she might know the exact unit where MJF used to live, the place gave off such an unfriendly vibe (I could even hear some tenants yelling at each other through one of the apartment windows) that I decided to abort my mission. Such a bummer, too, as I had so wanted to track down and snap a picture of MJF’s former front door for Owen. 🙁 Note to any celebrities who are currently penning an autobiography – please take a page out of Carol Burnett’s book (pardon the pun) and publish the exact location of your childhood home – including any apartment numbers, if need be! Hmph! Do I honestly have to think of everything? 😉

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location! 🙂

Stalk It: The Middle Gate Apartments, where Michael J. Fox grew up, are located at 6961 Collier Street in Burnaby, British Columbia.

June 24, 2010June 23, 2010

Juno’s House from “Juno”

While I realize that most of my fellow stalkers are currently clamoring for me to put my Pacific Northwest blogging on hold in order to write about locales in the Southern California area, there are two more locations from the Academy Award-winning movie Juno that I wanted to blog about before doing so. So, please bear with me for now, as I promise to get back to my L.A. roots first thing next week. 🙂 In the meantime, the second Juno location that I stalked while in Vancouver three weeks ago was the supposed Minnesota-area house where the flick’s eponymous lead character, the lovable, but quirky Juno MacGuff (aka Ellen Page), lived with her equally lovable, but quirky parents, Mac (aka J.K. Simmons) and Brenda (aka Allison Janney). I, of course, found this location yet again thanks to fellow stalker Owen who had, in turn, tracked it down thanks to this ever-informative Flikr page. Thank you, Owen! On a side note, I am quickly discovering the endless values of using Flikr as a stalking tool. The site is an enormous treasure trove of location information that one can easily sift through using key word searches and I highly recommend it to anyone who is currently trying to track down an elusive locale. But, as usual, I digress.

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According to this fabulous February 2008 Vancouver Sun article about Juno filming locations in the area, two different homes actually stood in for the MacGuff residence in the movie – one property was used for all interior filming, while a different one entirely was used for all of the exterior scenes. The article states that while scouting residences for his lead character in January of 2007, just one short month before filming began, director Ivan Reitman, along with Canadian location scout Neil Robertson, sought out an average-looking, middle-America-type home that had some “old-school” elements to it, like La-Z-Boy recliners and wood paneling. Reitman found his perfect home (pictured above) in the Dunbar area of West Vancouver. Unfortunately, though, upon closer inspection, the property’s interior proved to be too small for the filming, so, the scenes involving Juno’s kitchen, family room, and basement had to be shot at a different residence, which was also located in the Dunbar area, although I am not sure of exactly where. The shooting of the interior scenes took a week to complete, during which time the owner, Yvonne Kolstee – along with her cat – had to relocate to a hotel. And although one of Kolstee’s lamps did make an appearance in the flick, for the most part her property was completely revamped for the filming. According to the article, set-designers made her “multi-million dollar home in Dunbar look like a trailer”. Which begs the question, why not just build a set to film on? Ah, I’ll never understand the decision-making process behind choosing filming locations. Anyway, the article also states that Kolstee used the money she made off of the filming to take not one, but two vacations to Mexico, along with trips to India and Singapore, as well. Oh, when are location scouts going to come knocking on my door??? 😉

I am very happy to report that the home which was used for the exterior of Juno’s residence looks pretty much EXACTLY the same in person as it did onscreen in the movie.

The only notable difference is the fact that the tree from which Juno tried to hang herself using a few feet of Red Rope licorice in the beginning of the flick is not there in real life. In actuality, that tree was a fake that was brought in solely for the filming. The MacGuff residence is absolutely adorable in person and it’s not very hard to see why producers chose to use it.

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Juno’s house from the hit movie Juno is located at 4053 32 Avenue West in the Dunbar suburb of Vancouver, British Columbia. Mark and Vanessa’s house, which we, unfortunately, didn’t have time to stalk, is located at 13926 23 Avenue in the city of Surrey, which is located about 30 miles southeast of Vancouver.

June 23, 2010June 22, 2010

Bleeker’s House from “Juno”

Another Vancouver location that fellow stalker Owen managed to track down was the supposed Minnesota-area house belonging to dorky high school track-star Paulie Bleeker (aka Michael Cera) in the 2007 breakout dramedy Juno. And even though I was not a big fan of the flick – it was funny and all, but not especially spectacular and, in my never-to-be-humble opinion, dealt with the issue of teenage pregnancy far too cavalierly for my taste – because it was such a huge hit and because I was in the area three weeks ago, I just had to stalk the house where Paulie lived. I should mention here that I did love Ellen Page’s performance in the movie – she was absolutely adorable, not to mention the fact that her acting was phenomenal. So, I guess there’s that. 🙂 But I digress. Owen managed to find the Bleeker family residence thanks to a Flikr page which posted a number of photos of locales featured in Juno, along with a rather vague description of where they could be found. From there, he did a bit of cyber-stalking and was fairly quickly able to pin down the exact location of Paulie’s house. Thank you, Owen!

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According to the blog written by Academy-Award-winning Juno screenwriter Diablo Cody during the filming of the flick, Bleeker’s house was the very first location that the cast and crew shot at. Sadly, though, the owners of the property gave the exterior of their home a slight facelift after filming wrapped, so the residence looks a bit different today than it did on February 14, 2007, when the filming of Juno began. Boo!

The most notable difference, for me at least, was the fact that the mailbox which Juno filled with Tic Tacs candies in order to surprise Bleeker was not actually there in real life.

Nor was it there in the movie’s final scene, though, which was a fairly big gaff on the filmmakers’ part.

Because Bleeker’s mailbox was M.I.A. in the movie’s closing scene, I am fairly certain that it was, in actuality, just a prop that was brought in for the filming. As you can see in the above photograph, the home’s real life mailbox is located just to the left of the front door.

And I, of course, just had to sit in the same spot where Bleeker and Juno sat while singing The Moldy Peaches’ “Anyone Else But You” in that final scene.

Amazingly enough, while we were stalking the house, the owner happened to walk outside – well, truth be told, she actually came outside to investigate why I was sitting on her front stoop 😉 – and she truly could NOT have been nicer. She answered all of my silly little questions about the filming and didn’t even mind at all that I was sitting on her property. She explained that her home has become a frequent stalking destination ever since Juno premiered back in 2007 and that visitors frequently stop by to pose for photographs on her front stoop. She said she doesn’t really mind the massive attention her home draws as the majority of the picture-takers are all very respectful. 🙂 She also told us that some filming of Juno did take place inside of the house, which was redecorated slightly for the movie, and that she and her family even had to relocate to a hotel for a brief period of time during the shoot. She also got to meet actors Ellen Page and Michael Cera, whom she said were both extremely nice. 🙂 Love it!

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Bleeker’s house from Juno is located at 3961 36 Avenue West in Vancouver.

June 21, 2010June 21, 2010

Brockton Point Lighthouse from “The Crush”

The third and final filming location that I stalked from the 1993 thriller The Crush while I was visiting Vancouver two weeks ago was the Brockton Point Lighthouse – the spot where 14-year old Adrian Forrester (aka Alicia Silverstone) tried to seduce Nick Eliot (aka Cary Elwes), the much older man who was leasing her parents’ guest house in the flick. I found this location, once again, thanks to fellow stalker Owen, who in turn tracked it down via one of the movie’s crew members. Thank you, Owen! Brockton Point Lighthouse is one of three lighthouses that currently serve the Port of Vancouver and is located in British Columbia’s extremely popular, 1,000-acre Stanley Park. The original Brockton Point Lighthouse tower was built in 1890, but it was replaced in 1914 with the tower that is currently standing today. The lighthouse was designed by Canadian Colonel William P. Anderson, a civil engineer who over his lifetime designed more than 500 lighthouses situated along the Canadian waterfront.

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Brockton Point Lighthouse only pops up in one scene in The Crush, but it is a rather pivotal scene which provides the movie’s turning point. In the scene, the seemingly innocent Adrian begs Nick to take her for a ride in his Valiant, claiming that there is a place she really wants to show him. That place is the Brockton Point Lighthouse and it is there that Adrian first confides in Nick, telling him that she has no friends and that most people treat her like a freak due to her abnormally high intelligence. When Nick promises to be a friend to her, Adrian immediately kisses him and the story takes off from there.

As I mentioned in last Thursday’s post about the Forrester mansion, while The Crush was set in Seattle, the entire movie was actually filmed on location in Vancouver, British Columbia. Ironically enough, though, when Nick and Adrian first pull up to the lighthouse, you can clearly see the word “Brockton” painted on the ground. I am very surprised that producers didn’t have the lettering digitally removed in post-production, being that the Brockton Point Lighthouse is a fairly well-known Canadian landmark. In fact, Stanley Park, where the lighthouse is located, is pretty much known as Vancouver’s number one tourist attraction and is visited by over eight million people per year.

Sadly, though, when we got there, we discovered that the lighthouse is currently fenced in and closed to the public while it undergoes an extensive, $2 million federal restoration project. And, while the lighthouse tower is still visible, the area where Adrian kissed Nick is, unfortunately, not. Such a bummer!!

Brockton Point Lighthouse features unparalleled views of Burrard Inlet and the Lions Gate Bridge and is a truly beautiful place. I so wish I could have seen it at night as the view of the lights of the North Vancouver skyline is supposed to be spectacular. In fact, I’m fairly certain that the lighthouse’s spectacular views are the main reason that it was chosen as the site of Adrian and Nick’s first kiss.

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Brockton Point Lighthouse is located on Brockton Point at the far east end of Stanley Park, off of Stanley Park Drive, in Vancouver, British Columbia. Its exact location is denoted with the blue arrow in the above aerial map.

June 18, 2010June 17, 2010

Nick’s (Almost) Apartment from “The Crush”

Just a mile and a half away from the Forrester mansion, which appeared in the 1993 thriller The Crush and which I blogged about yesterday, is the supposed Seattle-area apartment house where Nick Eliot (aka Cary Elwes) tried to rent a unit after discovering that his current landlords’ 14-year old daughter Adrian (aka Alicia Silverstone) had developed a highly-inappropriate and psychotically-obsessive crush on him. I found this location, yet again, thanks to master stalker Owen, who had managed to track down one of the movie’s crew members who happened to remember the general vicinity where the apartment house was located. From there, Owen once again employed Google Street View to pinpoint the property’s exact location. And even though the building only showed up in two very brief scenes in The Crush, because of my Alicia Silverstone connection, I just had to stalk the place.

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I am very happy to report that Nick’s apartment house looks much the same in person as it did onscreen in The Crush, except for one pretty glaring difference – the building is now located in a different place.

Yes, you read that right – according to this Flikr website, Nick’s apartment house was formerly located just a bit north of where it is now, adjacent to a vacant lot, and was numbered 2132 (as you can see in the above screen capture). When the neighboring Reeve house, a historic property, was moved for preservation purposes in 1999, the Crush apartment also had to be moved a few hundred feet to the south to accommodate it. The Crush building’s address number was subsequently changed to 2156 and, because it had to be built into the side of a hill, appears to be a bit lower to the ground now than it was previously. Isn’t that incredible? I mean, I’ve heard of filming locations being torn down entirely, but I’ve never heard of one being moved from one plot of land to another! I’m so, so glad that the property was preserved, though, for all of us stalkers to continue to appreciate. You can see some great interior photographs of the building’s super-cute little front unit on a former real estate listing from 2008 here. I absolutely LOVE the built-in bookshelves next to the fireplace!! So darn cute! I am a little upset, though, that the real estate agent failed to make mention of the property’s cinematic history on the listing. Hmph!

On an interesting side note – While doing research on The Crush for yesterday’s blog post, I came across some information on IMDB which stated that the flick’s screenwriter/director Alan Shapiro based his screenplay on actual events from his life that took place while he was living in a guesthouse on the property of a wealthy Beverly Hills family back in 1982. And while I don’t know how much of the movie was actually based on fact and how much was embellished for dramatic effect, apparently Shapiro touted his production as being inspired by “real-life events”. Quite a bit of the story must have been factual, though, because after the movie premiered in April of 1993, Shapiro was sued by his former landlords over the fact that he had named his lead character “Darian” – the actual name of his former landlords’ daughter. The lawsuit was eventually settled and producers agreed to dub the name “Adrian” in for “Darian” in all future airings and DVD/VHS copies of the flick.

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The apartment Nick unsuccessfully tries to rent towards the end of The Crush is located at 2156 Cypress Street in Vancouver, British Columbia.

June 16, 2010June 15, 2010

The Cullen House from “The Twilight Saga: New Moon”

Another location that I stalked while in Vancouver two weeks ago was the residence where the Cullen family – including Edward (aka Robert Pattinson), Alice (aka Ashley Greene), Jasper (aka Jackson Rathbone), Carlisle (aka Peter Facinelli), Esme (aka Elizabeth Reaser), Emmett (aka Kellan Lutz), and Rosalie (aka Nikki Reed) – lived in the 2009 movie The Twilight Saga: New Moon. And even though I am not at all a fan of the Twilight series, nor have I yet to even see the New Moon installment, I was absolutely dying to stalk the home where filming took place ever since first seeing it in a real estate listing when it went on the market this past November. From what I saw in the listing, the modern-style abode was nothing short of spectacular, so when fellow stalker Kerry mentioned that she knew the property’s location, I practically salivated and begged her to take me there. And I have to say that, in person, the home definitely did NOT disappoint! The Cullen house is absolutely breathtaking and I would give anything to live in something even remotely as beautiful. And while I would have loved to have taken a peek at the interior of the property, unfortunately, due to the many inquiries about the home from various Twi-hards the world over, the real estate agent is currently only offering tours to serious buyers.

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Oddly enough, the exterior of the West Vancouver-area home never actually appeared in New Moon. For the lone exterior shot featured in the flick (pictured above), producers used footage of the Hoke house in Portland, Oregon – the very same residence which stood in for the Cullen abode in the original Twilight movie. When it was decided that the Twilight sequel would be shot entirely on location in Canada – where filming is much less expensive than in the U.S. – location scouts had to track down a home which had somewhat similar interiors to the residence that was used in the original flick.

They found that home in West Vancouver and fans of the movie followed – in droves. Apparently the residence has become quite the tourist attraction ever since New Moon was filmed there beginning on April 15th of last year. The house was the setting for two scenes in the movie – the scene involving Bella’s ill-fated 18th birthday party and the scene in which the Cullen family is put to a vote to decide Bella’s fate. Those relatively short segments took a whopping four days to film. The same home will also be standing in for the interior of the Cullen residence in the upcoming The Twilight Saga: Eclipse movie.

The 5 bedroom, 4 bathroom, 5,117 square-foot abode, which was completely remodeled in 2001 and is currently for sale for a whopping $2,998,000, features 20 foot ceilings, a media room, slate and concrete flooring, a pool, a spa, a koi pond, a chef’s kitchen with granite countertops and cherry wood cabinets, and a 1/2 acre of wooded, creekside land. Ironically enough, the home’s real estate listing touts its numerous picture windows which allow for “bright sunfilled exposure” throughout – something I don’t think the Cullen family would have appreciated very much. 😉 You can view the home’s real estate listing here.

Big THANK YOU to Kerry for not only finding this location, but for taking me to stalk it, as well! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Cullen house from The Twilight Saga: New Moon is located at 118 Stevens Drive in West Vancouver, British Columbia. You can check out the home’s real estate website here.

June 11, 2010June 16, 2011

The Hyatt Regency Vancouver from “Love Happens”

My fifth and final Love Happens location – which I found thanks to fellow stalker Owen, as was the case with all of the other Love Happens locations I stalked while in Canada two weeks ago – is the Hyatt Regency Vancouver hotel, where Burke Ryan (aka Aaron Eckhart) hosted his week-long “A-OKAY!” grief workshop seminar in the 2009 romantic comedy. The Hyatt was one of Love Happens’ focal locations and appeared in countless scenes, including the scene in which florist Eloise Chandler (aka Jennifer Aniston), who hand-delivers floral arrangements to the hotel on a daily basis, first meets Burke. It is definitely not love at first sight, though, because, in one of the movie’s lighter moments, Eloise pretends to be deaf in order to avoid speaking with him. LOL

I cannot tell you how badly I wanted to go upstairs to take a photograph of the exact spot where Burke first caught Eloise writing the word “Quidnunc” with a pink pen on the hotel’s wall, which is located just outside of Room 1731 on the Hyatt Regency Vancouver’s 17th floor, but, sadly, a room key is required to gain access to each of the different floors. I explained to the concierge on duty that I was a film locations buff (using the word “stalker” in cases like this typically doesn’t help my cause – ha!) and that I really wanted to snap a quick photograph of “Eloise’s wall” and asked if there was any way she would allow me to take a brief trip up to the 17th floor, but she very adamantly said “No”. I told her that she could accompany me to make sure I didn’t cause any mischief while up there, but she again declined. HMPH! Such a bummer as seeing that wall in person was pretty much the only reason I wanted to stalk the hotel in the first place. 🙁 Ironically enough, the first Hyatt employee that I spoke with about the filming had absolutely NO IDEA WHATSOEVER that any sort of motion picture had been shot on the premises. After a few minutes of speaking with her she finally said, “Wait, so Love Happens was filmed here? In this hotel? Honestly?” I mean, HELLO! How do you not know something like that? It’s not like she was a new employee, either – she was actually working at the hotel at the time the movie was being filmed!! I really don’t understand people sometimes. Sigh!

I did get to stalk most of the other areas of the hotel that appeared in Love Happens, though, including the main lobby, which at the time of filming featured a Seattle’s Best Coffee bar near the main entrance. But I am VERY happy to report that Starbucks (my old staple) has now moved into that same space. YAY! 🙂

Also featured was the hotel’s check-in desk area;

the elevator bay located just off of the main lobby;

and the Gallery Lounge bar, which you can just barely see in the above photograph. According to the movie’s productions notes, the Vancouver Marriot Pinnacle Downtown hotel was also used in the filming of Love Happens, but I am unsure of exactly which scene it appeared in.

On a side note – no, you are not seeing things – that is actually an autographed photo of Michael Buble pictured above. Yes, a photograph of MB that was actually autographed . . . TO ME!!!!!!!!!!! The photo was gifted to me yesterday by fellow stalker Owen for my birthday and, as you can imagine, I literally just about PASSED OUT upon opening it!!!! I’m not joking when I say that my mouth was hanging open for a good five minutes. You’d think I would have screamed upon first laying eyes on it, but I was actually dead silent. It doesn’t happen often, but Owen managed to render me absolutely speechless! How did he get the autograph, you ask? (And believe me, that was the first question playing on my mind when I finally came to after opening it!) As fate would have it, Owen’s brother Paul has a good friend who is a regular on Saturday Night Live. When Owen found out that MB would be performing on the show WAY BACK in January of this year, he called in a massively huge favor and asked Paul’s friend if he would get an autograph for me. Paul’s friend came through BIG TIME and the result is the photograph you see above. What can I say except it’s, hands down, the BEST BIRTHDAY GIFT I’ve ever received! I told my friend Nat about it yesterday and she said, “Well, I guess I’m going to have to return what I got you, ‘cause there is no way it can compare to that! Tell Owen ’Thanks a lot!’” 🙂 My dad actually had surgery yesterday – yes, on my birthday – and when I opened Owen’s present in the morning before heading out to the hospital, I knew it was a good omen, especially being that my dad loves MB just as much as I do. Sure enough, the surgery went really well and, at the time of this writing, my dad has been out of pain for about ten hours. The doctors remain very hopeful that the surgery solved his problem, which, after two full years of him being in and out of the hospital on a regular basis and one VERY unsuccessful trip to the Mayo Clinic, would be simply amazing. So, truth be told, I received TWO of the best gifts of my life yesterday! And even though I spent the majority of the day in the hospital, I have to say it was, hands down, one of my best birthdays ever. 🙂

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location . . . and, ahem, for the AMAZING birthday present! Big THANK YOU to Paul, too! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Hyatt Regency Vancouver from Love Happens is located at 655 Burrard Street in Vancouver, British Columbia. Burke first caught Eloise writing on the wall just outside of Room 1731 on the hotel’s 17th floor. You can visit the Hyatt Regency Vancouver website here.

June 8, 2010June 16, 2011

Eloise’s Garden from “Love Happens”

Another location that I was dying to stalk while in Canada last weekend was the storefront which stood in for Eloise’s Garden, the flower shop owned by Eloise Chandler (aka Jennifer Aniston), in the 2009 romantic dramedy Love Happens. I found this location thanks to fellow stalker Owen, who has amassed quite an extensive collection of Pacific Northwest stalking sites over the past few years. And, even though I didn’t particularly love Love Happens, a largely depressing flick which centers around a young widower/self help guru named Burke Ryan (aka Aaron Eckhart) who finds a second chance at love while hosting a grief seminar in Seattle, because it starred my girl Jen, I just had to stalk all of the locations featured in it. And, again, I really have to apologize for the photographs which appear in this post – apparently I had my new camera on the wrong setting during my entire Canadian vacation, which caused all of the photographs I took to come out slightly blurry. Ugh!

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Even though Love Happens is set in Seattle, Washington, the vast majority of the movie was actually filmed about 150 miles north of the Emerald City in Vancouver, British Columbia. As a matter of fact, only one week out of the entire nine week production schedule was spent in Seattle. The remaining eight weeks were spent on location in Canada. And, amazingly enough, Jennifer Aniston never actually set foot in the State of Washington during the entire filming – all of her scenes were lensed north of the border in Vancouver. Producers ended up finding the perfect space to house Eloise’s Garden, the supposed Pioneer Square-area flower shop that served as one of the movie’s central locations, at a lingerie store named Tabu Boutique in the Gastown section of Downtown Vancouver. Both the interior and the exterior of Tabu were used in the filming of Love Happens and producers even went so far as to completely dismantle the inside of the lingerie store in order to create Eloise’s colorful floral shop.

Sadly, though, Tabu Boutique closed its doors in May of this year and the space it once occupied is currently vacant, so we were unable to stalk the interior. I took the above photographs through the store’s front window, but, oh, how I would have loved to have actually gone inside to take a closer look at the premises and to speak to the Tabu employees about the filming. Fellow stalker Kerry and I both agreed that this was one of the more disappointing stalks of our trip. 🙁 Especially since, according to some information that I found online, there were several photographs of the filming of Love Happens and its leading lady Jennifer Aniston featured on display when the store was still open.

As you can see in the above screen captures, the interior of Eloise’s Garden appears to be much larger than the size of the actual former Tabu space. So much larger, in fact, that I was convinced a set had been used for the filming of the interior scenes. But we spoke to some employees of a neighboring store who told us that the inside of Tabu did indeed stand in for the interior of Eloise’s Garden. The movie’s production notes further corroborate that fact. You can see photographs of what the interior of Tabu used to look like here and you can see some photographs of the shop as it was dressed for the filming here. Of the florist set, Love Happens producer Scott Stuber said, it was the “best-smelling set on which we’ve all worked”. 🙂

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Owen for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The former Tabu Boutique, aka Eloise’s Garden from Love Happens, is located at 51 Powell Street in the Gastown area of Vancouver, Canada.