Tag: Celebrities

The Kenaston Residence

Even though I have always been one hundred percent on Team Aniston – I even have the sweatshirt to prove it 😉 – while visiting Palm Springs during Halloween weekend a few months back I became a bit obsessed with stalking the home where Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie posed for their famous “Domestic Bliss” photo spread which appeared in the July 2005 issue of W Magazine. It all started a few days before Halloween when I came across the following People Magazine article while doing some cyberstalking of the Palm Springs area, trying to come up with a list of desert locations to stalk. The article mentioned that Brangelina’s controversial photoshoot – controversial because it occurred on March 25, 2005, the very same day that Jennifer Aniston filed for divorce from Brad – had taken place at a private residence located in Rancho Mirage. And that was it for me! The next few hours were spent trying to track down the exact location of the property where my least favorite celebrity couple had posed for their 60-page spread. Being that I can’t stand either Brad or Angelina, I have no valid explanation as to why I became so darn determined to find the house. All I can say is that when I get on a kick, I get on a kick and there’s absolutely no stopping me. So, I was completely overjoyed when I was finally able to pinpoint the location of the house, which is known as the Kenaston Residence in real life, and I made my fiancé stop there during our drive over to Palm Springs, before we even had a chance to check into our hotel. Not kidding. 🙂

The Kenaston Residence was built in 1957 by mid-century modernist architect E. Stewart Williams for a Palm Springs resident named Roderick W. Kenaston. Stewart Williams is perhaps best known for building Frank Sinatra’s desert hideaway with the piano shaped swimming pool, which I stalked a couple of years ago and the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway’s Mountaintop Station, which I have also stalked but have yet to blog about. In 2003, after several different ownerships and re-models, a Los Angeles area art director and his wife purchased the Kenaston Residence and spent two years restoring it back to its original grandeur. Sadly, out of the five Rancho Mirage area homes built by Stewart Williams, the Kenaston Residence is the only property that still looks the same today as it did when it was built. The remaining homes have all either been altered or completely destroyed. 🙁

The U-shaped Kenaston Residence, which was built around a large square shaped swimming pool, features four bedrooms, 3.5 baths, over 5,000 square feet of living space, a media room, 50 palm trees!, a six car garage, an interior/exterior rock wall, a “floating fireplace”, floor to ceiling glass walls, mountain views, concrete floors, and a 17 foot long living room planter. The house was built on a half acre of land and Williams even had the remarkable foresight to situate the home facing North, so as to avoid the extreme desert temperatures.   Besides the Brangelina shoot, the Kenaston Residence has also been the site of photoshoots for Madonna, James Blunt, the band Coldplay and has been featured in Italian Elle, Luxury Living, The London Independent, and on Bravo Television. In 2007, the home was sold to new owners for $2,350,000. I swear, if I owned a house like that, I don’t think I would ever be able to let it go. Especially since, according to the previous owner, it earned at least $50,000 in photoshoot rental fees each year! Cha-ching! 🙂 You can see interior photographs of the home from its 2007 real estate website here.

Brad and Angie’s “Domestic Bliss” photo spread, which featured the couple and several children acting out scenes of an unhappy family life in the 60s, made use of the entire Kenaston Residence, both inside and out. According to this article, because Pitt, who actually co-created and co-directed the shoot with photographer Stephen Klein, was “tired of celebrity portraiture and always up for an artistic ‘jam sesh’”(UGH, gag me!), he came up with the unique idea of basing the spread on “unidentifiable malaise” in a marriage. Speaking about what I can only assume was his union with my girl Jen, he said, “You don’t know what’s wrong because the marriage is everything you signed up for.” You honestly don’t know what’s wrong, Brad? Um, I think your wandering eye might have had something to do with it!! The duo’s photo shoot took two full days to complete, during which time Angelina, who had brought along her then-only son Maddox, and Brad stayed in separate rooms at the Le Parker Meridien Hotel in Palm Springs. So, I guess I am going to have to stalk the Le Parker in the near future, too.   Oh honey, I feel a trip to Palm Springs coming on! 😉

The property is actually quite unassuming and non-descript from the street. One could easily drive right by, without realizing the rich architectural history that lies just beyond the home’s walnut wood walls.

Amazingly enough, even though there is a large concrete wall surrounding the back of the property, much of the Kenaston Residence can still be seen from the street. And because the surrounding wall is only about four feet tall, you can easily see into the backyard area, where the cover photo from Brangelina’s W Magazine issue was shot, as well.   Love it!

Interestingly enough, photographer Steven Klein’s inspiration for the “Domestic Bliss” photo spread came from the photographs of legendary architectural photographer Julius Shulman. One of the poses from the issue was almost a direct copy of a very famous photograph Shulman took of Case Study House #21, aka the Bailey House (pictured above). I found this little bit of trivia out while doing some research on the Kenaston Residence and became absolutely fascinated by it, as I am a huge fan of Julius Shulman, who sadly passed away in July of this past year. Those of you who read my blog regularly will remember the post I wrote about the tour of Case Study House #22 (aka The Stahl House) that I took in March of last year and Julius Shulman’s iconic photograph which led me to stalk the house in the first place.

[ad]

You can see the entire 60-page “Domestic Bliss” portfolio here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Kenaston Residence is located at 39-767 Desert Sun Drive in Rancho Mirage. To get an overall view of the house, I would also recommend venturing west on Mashie Drive and south onto Keenan Drive. The Case Study House #21, upon which one of the Brangelina pictures was based, is located at 9036 Wonderland Park Avenue in Los Angeles.

January 7, 2010
The “Father of the Bride” Churches

One location that I have wanted to stalk for what seems like years now is the church where Annie Banks married Bryan MacKenzie in my all time favorite wedding movie, the 1991 classic Father of the Bride. But, according to IMDB, two different locations actually stood in for Annie’s wedding church in the film – one for the exterior shots and a different one altogether for the interior scenes. And I’d been longing to stalk both of them pretty much ever since I moved to the Southern California area. What I didn’t realize at the time, though, was that IMDB actually got one of the churches – the one which they claim was used for the establishing shots – wrong. Get out of here! IMDB posted a bogus address?? Well, I simply don’t believe it! 😉 Thankfully though, fellow stalker Owen stepped in and decided to put the mystery of Annie’s wedding location to rest once and for all. While doing some cyberstalking recently, he happened to stumble upon this blog in which the author randomly mentions that he lives down the street from the church used in Father of the Bride. So, Owen contacted the blog author and asked for the name and address of the church, which he happily gave him and, voila, the mystery was solved! YAY! And once I had the correct addresses, I immediately dragged my fiancé right out to stalk both churches!

Surprisingly enough, even though the church used for the exterior shots – which is named HOPE Christian Fellowship in real life – looks very much the same today as it did when Father of the Bride was filmed back in 1991, it wasn’t at all what I was expecting to see in person. In the movie, the church, which is covered in snow thanks to an unprecedented Los Angeles snowstorm which takes place the night before Annie’s wedding, seems to be a charming, little small-town type of parish. But in real life, HOPE Christian Fellowship is located on a very busy and very wide thoroughfare, which takes away from its small-town feel. Other than that, though, I am happy to report that the church – and its bell tower – look pretty much identical in person to how they appeared onscreen in Father of the Bride. 🙂

The interior scenes of the Banks/MacKenzie wedding were filmed at Trinity Church in Santa Monica (pictured above), which is located a good thirty miles away from HOPE Christian Fellowship. Why the producers chose to film at two churches that were located thirty miles away from each other is beyond me, especially since the exteriors of both are quite similar looking. I am guessing, though, that they wanted the exterior of Annie’s wedding church to have a quaint feel to it, and Trinity Church, while pretty, is anything but quaint. You would think that producers would have been able to find a quaint church in the Santa Monica area to use for the exteriors, but I guess that’s Hollywood for you! 🙂

According to an EXTREMELY nice congregation member whom I spoke with named Bob, the Father of the Bride producers had the interior of Trinity Church painted for the filming and it has not been repainted since! So, in essence, the church still looks EXACTLY the same today as it did when the movie was filmed back in 1991! How incredibly cool is that??? Sadly, though, Bob told me that there are currently plans in the works to paint the entire interior an ivory color sometime this year. SO SAD! I tried to talk Bob into leaving the church exactly as it appeared in the movie, but unfortunately, being that I am not a member of the congregation, I don’t think what I had to say had much merit. LOL So, if you are a fan of FOTB and want to stalk the church where Annie got married, I suggest you do so sooner rather than later, as Trinity may look a whole lot different in the coming months. 🙁 Bob, who was actually the very person who negotiated the deal for Father of the Bride to be filmed at Trinity, also told me that producers had the crew lower the church’s overhead hanging lights for the filming, after which time they were returned to their normal height. As you can see in the above screen captures, the lights do not hang quite as low in real life as they did in the movie. The crew also brought in a red carpet to cover up the white tile located in the lobby’s entrance area and after the filming was over that carpet was gifted to the church. In fact, that very same carpet is still used to this day when the church hosts special events such as – you guessed it – weddings! 🙂 So cool!

As you can see in the above screen capture, it also appears that producers covered one of the church’s side doors with a fake wall for the filming, to make it appear as though the lobby had an ante-room. In reality, though, that area is little more than a hallway. Other than the height of the lights, the lobby rug, and the covering of the side door, though, Trinity Church still looks EXACTLY – and I do mean EXACTLY – the same today as it did when Father of the Bride was filmed there 18 years ago! Love it! Love it! Love it!

And, of course, I just had to take a picture sitting in the spot where George and Nina Banks (aka Steve Martin and Diane Keaton) sat during Annie’s wedding. In real life, though, there is no barrier separating the first row of pews from the altar as there was in the movie.

Trinity’s main entrance doors were also used in Father of the Bride, in the very brief scene in which Annie and her new husband, Bryan, exit the church immediately following their wedding ceremony.

Trinity Church of Santa Monica is absolutely beautiful in person and the people I spoke with while there could NOT have been nicer to me or more informative! I honestly can’t recommend stalking the place – or even getting married there – enough! If I didn’t already have my wedding venue locked down, I would seriously consider Trinity Church. I mean, how cool would be it be to get married in the same place where Annie Banks tied the knot? 😉

[ad]

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding these locations! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The church used for the exterior shots in Father of the Bride is named HOPE Christian Fellowship and it is located at 6116 North San Gabriel Boulevard in San Gabriel. You can visit their website here. The church used for the interior shots is named Trinity Church of Santa Monica and it is located at 1015 California Avenue in Santa Monica. You can visit their website here.

January 6, 2010
Simon Baker’s Former House

While doing some cyberstalking on fave website Virtual Globetrotting a few weeks back, I came across this post listing the address of a Santa Monica home which formerly belonged to cutie Mentalist star – and my latest celebrity crush – Simon Baker and I just about keeled over from excitement. So, when my dad asked if I would be able to take him to a doctor appointment in the Santa Monica area yesterday morning, I literally jumped at the opportunity and informed him that we’d be making a little stalking pit stop first. 🙂 Thankfully, since my dad is also a big Mentalist fan, he didn’t give me much grief about being dragged along on this particular stalking expedition.

My dad and I were both quite shocked when we pulled up to the residence and saw it in person, as it is a lot smaller than we had anticipated and looks like a fairly normal suburban home. A very nice suburban home, of course, but still fairly normal, nonetheless. My dad kept saying, “There is no way Simon Baker lived there!” Thanks to the property’s ostensible lack of a front wall and exterior gate, it’s hard to imagine a celeb like SB ever calling the place home. But I guess it sort of makes sense being that Simon lived in the house about nine months before The Mentalist hit the airwaves, turning him into a household name and creating the need for some sort of exterior wall to keep stalkers like myself at bay. 😉

SB and his wife, actress Rebecca Rigg, purchased the 2,394 square foot, three bedroom, two bath home, which was originally built in 1934, on December 13, 2006 for a whopping $2,626,000 and sold it just a little under 13 months later, on January 10, 2008, for a nice little profit at $2,895,000. While living in the house, the couple remodeled and expanded the kitchen area and added a pool and spa to the backyard. You can see interior photographs of the home at the time it belonged to SB here. The area where the house is located – which just so happens to be one of the most expensive areas in all of Los Angeles County – is known as Gillette’s Regent Square and was developed by none other than King Camp Gillette, the razor blade magnate who also gave us King Gillette Ranch, aka the Biggest Loser Ranch, in Calabasas. Amazingly enough, during the time that Simon lived in the house, my fiancé lived just a few blocks away [in a much less expensive area, of course. ;)], yet we never ran into him! How we missed each other is beyond me, being that Owen Wilson also used to live in that same vicinity (at 947 23rd Street) and my fiancé and I ran into him not once, but twice!!!! Oh, SB, where were you hiding??? 😉 According to fave website The Real Estalker, when SB sold this house, he purchased an even larger one also in the Santa Monica area. So, you know what that means, don’t you?? Yessiree, there’s a whole other Simon Baker residence out there just waiting for me to stalk it! 🙂 YAY!

On an interesting side note – Fellow stalker and Mentalist aficionado Liz recently alerted to me to the fact that Rebecca Rigg, SB’s real life wife and mother of his three children, played widowed actress Felicia Scott in the Season One episode of The Mentalist entitled “A Dozen Red Roses”. So cool! 🙂

[ad]

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Simon Baker’s former house is located at 534 20th Street in Santa Monica. Owen Wilson’s former residence is just a few blocks away at 947 23rd Street. Courteney Cox also owned a house in the area, at 606 Alta Avenue, during her Friends days. Across the street from Courteney’s former digs is the 7th Heaven house, which can be found at 527 Alta Avenue. Also in the area is Danny Devito’s house from Twins, which can be found at 323 11th Street, and Darrin and Samantha’s house from Bewitched, which is located at 267 18th Street.

January 5, 2010
Vertical Wine Bistro

Even though I am not usually a going-out-on-New-Year’s-Eve type of girl, this year I wanted nothing more than to ring in 2010 with a glass of champagne at my very favorite restaurant, POP Champagne Bar in Pasadena. But being that I am not now, nor never have been, a night person – I can’t tell you the last time I’ve actually stayed up past midnight on New Year’s Eve – my fiancé and I decided to head over to POP early in the evening, at around 5 p.m., so that we could grab an early drink and be back home, comfy mumfy in our pajamas, by 6:30. Yes, I am that much of a dork! 😉 So, you can imagine my disappointment when we arrived at POP only to discover a note taped to the front door announcing that the champagne bar would be opening later than usual – at 7 p.m. – that particular night. 🙁 Such a bummer! But, as fate would have it, as we headed back to our apartment, my head hung low, we stumbled upon a little place called Vertical Wine Bistro, which just so happens to be owned by movie producer Gale Anne Hurd, the mastermind behind such Hollywood blockbusters as Armageddon, Aliens, The Abyss, and the Terminator movies, and I immediately grabbed my fiancé’s hand and dragged him right inside! I figured if I wasn’t going to be able to spend my New Year’s Eve at POP, I was at least going to get a blog post out of the evening! 😉

Longtime Pasadena resident Gale Anne Hurd opened Vertical Wine Bistro back in October of 2006 after deciding that Old Town Pasadena was in desperate need of an upscale and sleek, but laidback wine bar where someone like herself could hang out. She named the bistro in honor of a type of wine tasting known as “vertical” in which patrons sample different vintages of one type of wine from a single winery. (In case you’re wondering, horizontal tasting, consequently, consists of sampling wines of the same vintage from a variety of different wineries.) Vertical Wine Bistro features an eclectic menu and an extensive wine list with over 400 different wines by the bottle and almost 100 by the glass varieties. And even though I’ve known about the restaurant and it’s celebrity connection since it’s opening three years ago, for some reason, until this past New Year’s Eve, I’d never ventured inside. But I have to say that the place was definitely worth the wait! Vertical is a very cool, very “New-Yorky” style bar, with a simply amazing menu!! My fiancé and I chose to share the crab cake appetizer on New Year’s and just about died it was so good! Our crab cake was flanked by a fennel cream and chanterelle mushroom sauce and it was so good, I honestly could have been given just a bowl of that and been happy! I’m telling you, this stalker is all about chanterelle mushrooms from here on out. 🙂

I honestly can’t recommend stalking Vertical Wine Bistro enough! And, who knows, you might even spot a celeb while doing so! Besides Gale and her screenwriter husband Jonathan Hensleigh, other celebrities who have been spotted at the restaurant include former Bachelor Jason Mesnick and then-girlfriend Molly Malaney and Today Show stars Al Roker, Matt Lauer and Ann Curry.

[ad]

On a side note – I really have to apologize for the craptastic photographs featured in this post. Because I hadn’t planned on stalking anything on New Year’s Eve, I left my purse (and the camera I keep inside of it) at home. Thankfully, my fiancé had his iPhone on him, so we were able to take the pictures posted above, but unfortunately they aren’t of the best quality, which just proves what I’ve been saying for years – if you live in L.A., NEVER, EVER leave your camera at home! 😉

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Vertical Wine Bistro is located upstairs at 70 North Raymond Avenue in Old Town Pasadena. You can visit their website here.

January 4, 2010
The Blair House Inn from “Murder, She Wrote”

Way back in August, I received an email from a fellow stalker named Jenny who wanted to know if I had ever stalked Mendocino’s Blair House Inn – a quaint little Victorian bed and breakfast better known as Jessica Fletcher’s (aka Angela Lansbury’s) residence on the long-running television series Murder, She Wrote. And, amazingly enough, I actually had! As I’ve mentioned a few times before, I grew up in Northern California – San Francisco to be exact – and when I was about 18 years old, my mom, my dad, and I started spending our Easters in Mendocino, a small coastal town located just about two hours north of the Bay Area. Well, as you can imagine, I was absolutely floored during that first Easter when I discovered – thanks to the now out-of-print book Mendocino & The Movies – that countless productions had been filmed in the area. So, I, of course, immediately dragged my parents right out to do some stalking! And the first location I stalked just happened to be the Murder, She Wrote house. I had yet to blog about the residence, though, because that particular stalking adventure took place long before the digital age of film and I had absolutely no idea whatsoever where I had stored my Blair House photographs. It wasn’t until just a couple of weeks ago that I was finally able to sift through the numerous picture boxes I keep in my parents’ garage and, thankfully, I found my Mendocino stalking photos pretty much immediately. So, without further ado . . . I give you my post on the Murder, She Wrote house, aka the Blair House Inn. 🙂

The Blair House Inn was originally built in 1888 as a private residence for a successful banker named Elisha Blair, who had migrated to the area from Maine with his family in 1857. It’s quite ironic to me that the original owner of the Blair House hailed from Maine, being that on Murder, She Wrote, Jessica Fletcher’s residence was also supposedly located in the Pine Tree State. I guess you can say that the property came full circle! 🙂 The Blair House was built by Mendocino architect Oliver Johnson and was constructed entirely out of Douglas Fir and Redwood trees and, amazingly enough, still looks almost exactly the same today as it did back in 1888!

The Blair House Inn is extremely proud of its cinematic history and even had a replica of Jessica Fletcher’s beloved bike built to put on display in the property’s front yard, which I think is just about the coolest thing ever! They also named their largest room “Angela’s Suite”, in honor of Murder, She Wrote’s lead actress Angela Lansbury. You can see photograph’s of Angela’s Suite here. And while my family never actually stayed at the Blair House Inn, it looks like a fabulous place to spend a weekend.

Being that Mendocino doubled for the fictitious town of Cabot Cove on Murder, She Wrote, the Blair House Inn was hardly the only area locale to be featured on the series. In fact, once a year, the entire cast and crew of the highly popular mystery show would venture out to Mendocino and spend at least one week on location shooting exterior scenes and establishing shots to be used throughout each season. Out of the 264 Murder, She Wrote episodes that aired during the series’ twelve year run, only nine were actually filmed on location in Mendocino, but establishing shots of the town were featured almost weekly. Some Mendocino citizens were even cast in the various episodes shot on location. Oh, if only I had lived there while the show was being filmed!!! 😉

[ad]

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Blair House Inn from Murder, She Wrote is located at 45110 Little Lake Street in Mendocino. You can visit their website here. The Heritage House, which was the hotel used in the movie Same Time, Next Year, is located just a few miles south at 5200 North Highway 1 in Little River.

December 31, 2009
The “Keep It Together” Park from “Beverly Hills, 90210”

Another location that Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I visited during our Valley stalking day back in October was the Van Nuys – Sherman Oaks War Memorial Park, aka the spot where Brandon Walsh was “discovered” in the Season One episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 entitled “Fame Is Where You Find It”.    The War Memorial Park is so named because in 1947 the American Legion organization raised money to purchase a 63 acre parcel of land which was then donated to the City of Los Angeles to be used as a public park dedicated to the memory of war veterans. The original plan was to build the park as a sort of homage to “The Wizard of Oz” books – what “The Wizard of Oz” has to do with war veterans, I’m not exactly sure, but I guess that’s why I’m not a city planner 🙂 – with different sections of the property featuring scenery from the Land of Oz.   In the end, though, only two “Wizard of Oz” structures were ever built – an “Over the Rainbow” bridge and a castle, both of which have since been demolished. 🙁 The absolutely ginormous War Memorial Park currently boasts two basketball courts, a jungle gym, a football field, a soccer field, a gymnasium, eight tennis courts, three running tracks, and eight baseball diamonds. Like I said, the place is absolutely HUGE! And it is actually thanks to those baseball diamonds that Mike discovered this location. As fate would have it, in the early ‘90s Mike belonged to a softball league which held its weekly games on the War Memorial Park fields. So, when he first watched the “Fame Is Where You Find It” episode of 90210, he recognized the park immediately. YAY!   And, of course, ever since he mentioned the place to me, I was absolutely dying to stalk it. Which I finally got to do this past October. Thank you, Mike!

Sadly, though, when we arrived at the park we discovered that the little picnic table canopy area, which just so happens to be the part of War Memorial most recognizable from 90210, was in the process of being torn down. 🙁 Such a bummer!!

War Memorial Park shows up numerous times in the “Fame Is Where You Find It” episode. It first appears at the very beginning of the show, in the scene in which Brandon plays a little solo game of street hockey next to a playground.

As fate would have it, an episode of the show Keep It Together just so happens to be filming at the very same park where Brandon is playing. When a key actor fails to show up to the set, Brandon is immediately hired to replace him, and voila, a star is born! Or so Brandon thinks.

Brandon’s small Keep It Together scene, in which his only line is “Hey, Babe! Looking good. Real good, babe.” – LOL – was also filmed at War Memorial Park. The now defunct “Over The Rainbow” Bridge is visible behind Keep It Together’s lead actress Lydia Leeds in the above screen capture.



At the end of the episode, the park pops up once again in the scene in which Brandon forgives Lydia for being such a diva.

On a very interesting side note – While watching the “Fame Is Where You Find It” episode a few months back, Mike – who has got to be one of the most observant people I’ve ever met in my life!!! – noticed some very fascinating scenery in the background of a few of the scenes. Because the episode centered around the filming of the television show Keep It Together, much of the action took place on a studio backlot. But instead of renting out a different Hollywood lot for the filming of the Keep It Together scenes, producers simply decided to masquerade their own 90210 soundstages as those of the show within the show. Which, of course, makes sense. But what they didn’t realize was that, years later, an eagle-eyed stalker would figure out their little location trick. As you can see in the above screen capture, the famous red brick Peach Pit After Dark wall is visible in the background of the scene in which Lydia Leeds applies Brandon’s makeup in the Keep It Together makeup trailer. And I am fairly certain that the makeup trailer used in that scene was the real life 90210 makeup trailer!   Yes, ladies and gentleman, that means that you are looking at the actual spot where Shannen Doherty, Luke Perry, Jennie Garth, and Jason Priestley got their makeup done before filming each and every morning! SO DARN COOL!

I took the above photograph of the Peach Pit’s brick wall back in August of 2008 during Mike and my private tour of the former 90210 studio.   As you can see, it matches the brick wall pictured behind Lydia in the make-up trailer scene perfectly. Mike told me that he actually drove by the 90210 studio several times while the show was still on the air and that the make-up and wardrobe trailers were indeed parked in the area directly in front of the Peach Pit wall. So darn cool!!!!!!!

Because the former 90210 studio was located in a industrial area, it was surrounded by various warehouses, one of which happened to be a washing machine factory. When Mike and I visited the studio last year, he pointed out the factory to me and, let me tell you, I’ve never seen so many washing machines in my entire life! There were literally hundreds upon hundreds of them lined up alongside the building. LOL Well, in the scene in which Brandon and Lydia arrive at the Keep It Together studios via limousine, you can not only see that washing machine factory, but you can even see quite a few of their washing machines! Too darn funny!

The above image is an aerial view of the area where that scene was filmed. The pink “X” denotes the spot where Lydia and Brandon were standing and the purple circle shows the hundreds upon hundreds of washing machines stationed just outside of the studio. LOL LOL LOL

Most interesting, though, was what showed up in a later scene from the “Fame Is Where You Find It” episode – the scene in which, while walking around the studio, Brandon finds out that the entire Keep It Together script has been rewritten.

In that scene, you can ACTUALLY SEE THE REAL LIFE WALSH FRONT PORCH SET AND THE EXTERIOR OF THE WALSH’S DINING ROOM WINDOW (denoted with the pink arrows above)!!!!! How incredibly cool is that???? When Mike first sent me the screen captures from that scene and pointed out the Walsh house in the background I just about died I was so excited. LOVE IT! LOVE IT! LOVE IT! 🙂

And, a little bit of 90210 trivia for you – a very young Melissa Rivers (pictured above) made one of her first television appearances in the “Fame Is Where You Find It” episode playing an actress named MacKenzie, who, according to Lydia Leeds, only has a career because her uncle is “like this really big producer” . Hmmm, sound familiar, Tori Spelling?? 😉

[ad]

A big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for finding this location and for discovering all of the behind-the-scenes location information from the “Fame Is Where You Find It” episode! You are my hero! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Van Nuys-Sherman Oaks War Memorial Park, aka the park where Brandon Walsh was discovered, is located at 14201 Huston Street in Sherman Oaks. The area used in the “Fame Is Where You Find It” episode can be found near the corner of Hazeltine Avenue and Huston Street.

December 30, 2009
Tamale Heaven from “Beverly Hills, 90210”

One location that Mike, from MovieShotsLA, has been begging me to blog about for over a year now is the Canoga Park burger restaurant that stood in for Tamale Heaven in the Season Two episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 entitled “Ashes to Ashes”. In real life that restaurant is named Michael’s Burgers and even though it has been on my “To Stalk” list for ages now, because I rarely find myself in the Canoga Park area, I had yet to visit the place. So, during our Valley stalking day back in October, Mike made a point of stopping by the tiny restaurant to finally show it to me. And, let me tell you, I could NOT have been more excited! 🙂    Especially because the “Ashes to Ashes” episode has always been one of my favorites, thanks to the fact that it featured all of the elements that made 90210 such a classic show – a sugary sweet, albeit cheesy, moral message, Dylan and Brenda back together and madly in love, and boyscout Brandon not only taking on the Beverly Hills Security Patrol, but race relations, as well! Love it! One of my favorite 90210 lines EVER was actually spoken during this episode, in the scene in which Devo (love the name!) accuses Brandon of trying to score drugs at Tamale Heaven, causing Brandon to say, “Hey, I’m not a doper, man!” LOL LOL LOL See what I mean? Classic 90210!



Amazingly enough, Mike frequented Michael’s Burgers on a regular basis back in the early ‘90s. So, when the restaurant appeared in the “Ashes to Ashes” episode, he immediately recognized the place.   Love it! According to Mike, the burgers at Michael’s are out of this world, but unfortunately we didn’t get a chance to eat there while stalking the place. 🙁 Oh well, it looks like I’m just going to have to drag my fiancé back there in the near future. In the “Ashes to Ashes” episode, only the back entrance and rear parking lot area of Michael’s Burgers were used.

For some reason, the front exterior, which is pictured above, was never shown.

The areas which appeared in the episode include the main rear door,



the interior,

the rear employee entrance,



and the dumpster area. Because Tamale Heaven is supposed to be located in the ghetto, somewhere between “Watts and the airport”, producers really dressed the place down for the filming. In reality, though, Michael’s Burgers is not located in a bad area at all, nor is it completely covered over with graffiti. And, amazingly enough, despite a change in paint color and the lack of graffiti, Michael’s Burgers still looks almost exactly the same today as it did eighteen years ago when the episode was filmed! LOVE IT!

On a side note – While making screen captures for today’s post, I spotted something quite interesting. If you look in the above screen capture, you will notice a sign in the upper left hand corner which ends with the letters “R” and “S”. I am fairly certain that that sign read “Michael’s Burgers” and that it wasn’t actually supposed to appear in the scene. I am guessing that producers either forgot to take the sign down for the filming or left it up thinking it would not be visible in the shot. Whoopsie! 🙂

[ad]

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for finding this location and for taking all of the photographs featured in this post. 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Michael’s Burgers, aka Tamale Heaven, is located at 7225 Topanga Canyon Boulevard in Canoga Park. You can visit their website here. Directly across the street from Michael’s, at 7218 Topanga Canyon Boulevard, is the strip mall that was used in the 1999 movie Blast from the Past.

December 29, 2009
Wollman Ice Skating Rink

I’m sticking with my Christmas stalking theme for one more day – even though it’s already December 28th – as I had originally intended to publish this post on Christmas Eve, but, unfortunately, ran out of time. As I’ve said many times before, though, it’s better to be late than never!   So, here goes! One New York location that definitely belongs in any collection of Christmas movie locales is Wollman Ice Skating Rink, a spot which appeared in one of my very favorite holiday flicks of all time, Home Alone 2: Lost In New York. I had the pleasure of skating at Wollman Rink with my fiancé back in 2004 and absolutely fell in love with the place.   With the Plaza Hotel and other New York skyscrapers towering in the background, the rink actually looks more like a picture postcard than a real life location. If you haven’t been there yourself, take my word for it, Wollman Rink is absolutely magical. 🙂

Wollman Rink was originally constructed in 1949 thanks to a $600,000 donation from New York philanthropist Kate Wollman. Kate had the ice skating rink built in honor of her parents, Jonas and Bettie, and her four brothers, William, Morton, Henry, and Benjamin. From the beginning, Wollman Rink was an immediate success, welcoming over 300,000 skaters in its first year alone.   Today, it is visited by an average of 4,000 skaters per day.

Like practically everything else in New York, Wollman Rink is currently owned and operated by real estate mogul Donald Trump, who purchased and completely rebuilt the property back in the ‘90s.   His name is displayed on almost every square inch of the rink, lest anyone ever forget who it belongs to. 😉 In the summer months, the rink is transformed into a small amusement park named Victorian Gardens. Wollman Rink is not to be confused with the similarly named Kate Wollman Memorial Rink, which was constructed in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park by the William J. Wollman Foundation upon Kate’s death in 1955.



Thanks to its picturesque appearance, Wollman Rink has long been a favorite of location scouts, appearing in countless movies and television shows over the years. In Home Alone 2: Lost In New York, Harry and Marv, aka “The Sticky Bandits”, plan their robbery of Duncan’s Toy Chest while skating at Wollman Rink. Ironically enough, though, before my first visit to New York, this stalker was under the mistaken assumption that the Home Alone scene had been filmed at the famous Rockefeller Center ice staking rink. It wasn’t until I started making a stalking itinerary for my first Big Apple vacation that I realized my mistake. As it turns out, New York has not one, but TWO cinematically historic ice skating rinks.   But I’ll save the Rockefeller Center rink for a future post. 😉

Wollman Rink also appeared in the Season One episode of Gossip Girl entitled “Roman Holiday”, in the scene in which Blair Waldorf (aka Leighton Meester), along with her mother, her father, and her father’s new boyfriend go ice skating just a few days before Christmas.

On a side note – I am absolutely IN LOVE with the skates with the hanging pink pompoms that Blair wore in that scene!!!! I have GOT to get me a pair of those!   🙂

In Serendipity – one of my fave romcoms of all time! – Jonathan (aka John Cusack) and Sara (aka Kate Beckinsale) go for a late night skate at Wollman Rink after sharing a Frrrozen Hot Chocolate at Serendipity 3 Restaurant.



After their skate, Jonathan draws the constellation of Cassiopeia on Sara’s arm while sitting on the rink’s benches.



And at the end of the movie, the two star-crossed lovers finally reunite at the rink. Wollman Rink has also been featured in Stepmom, Autumn in New York, Love Story, The January Man, The Devil’s Own, Odds Against Tomorrow, Carnal Knowledge, August Rush, A Journey That Wasn’t, Love and Other Impossible Pursuits, and the 2005 version of King Kong.

Celebrities also often visit Wollman Rink. In December of 2005, Tom Cruise took his then-pregnant girlfriend Katie Holmes there to celebrate her 27th birthday.

[ad]

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Wollman Rink is located inside Central Park, near the corner of Central Park South and 5th Avenue, in New York. Follow the footpath from the Park’s 59th Street entrance over Gapstow Bridge and the rink will be visible on the west. Wollman Rink is open from November through March. You can visit its official website here.

December 28, 2009
The Martini House from “It’s A Wonderful Life”

As difficult as it may be to believe, even though I absolutely love Christmas and even though I am a huge film buff, up until this past weekend I had never in my life watched the 1946 holiday classic It’s A Wonderful Life. I know, I know, for a person like me, not having seen that movie borders on sacrilege! But when fellow stalker David contacted me a few months back and let me know that he had tracked down a location used in the film, I just HAD to stalk the place – and, of course, include it in my Christmas posts. I also just HAD to sit down and finally watch It’s A Wonderful Life, which my fiancé and I did this past Saturday night. I have to admit that I didn’t actually have high hopes for the flick, as I pretty much expected it to be right on par with Citizen Kane, a movie I could hardly sit through despite the fact that it is generally regarded as the greatest film of all time. So, I was absolutely shocked when I ended up LOVING It’s A Wonderful Life. The movie was funny, heart-warming, and poignant. Most shocking of all, though, was how prevalent and timeless it actually was, despite the fact that it was filmed over 63 years ago. I literally almost fell off the couch laughing in the scene in which the Bailey’s housekeeper, Annie, eavesdrops on George and his father’s dinner conversation, causing George to say, “Well, Annie, why don’t you draw up a chair, then you’d be more comfortable and you could hear everything that’s going on.” LOL LOL LOL For those of you hold-outs out there who have yet to watch It’s A Wonderful Life, the movie truly is a must-see – especially in these days leading up to Christmas. 🙂

Unlike me, fellow stalker David has long been a fan of It’s A Wonderful Life.   In the late ‘80s, he even got to stalk the inside of the Beverly Hills High School gym, where the infamous Charleston dance contest scene took place. And, yes, the floor of the BHHS gym really does open up to reveal a 25-yard swimming pool which is housed beneath. You can see a photograph of the pool here. So cool! Anyway, flash forward to about twenty years later when David’s wife bought him a book about the making of It’s A Wonderful Life for Christmas. The book stated that the house belonging to the Martini Family in the movie was located somewhere in La Canada Flintridge, a small city situated just outside of Pasadena. So, of course, David got to cyber-stalking, but, sadly, couldn’t seem to locate the residence. A short while later, though, he discovered a little website called Zillow, which he used to search the La Canada Flintridge area, and voila, it wasn’t long before he stumbled upon the correct house! YAY!   David immediately posted the newfound address on Wikipedia’s It’s A Wonderful Life page, but – surprise, surprise – that information was quickly removed due to the fact that no source had been cited. Why legitimate information on Wikipedia is continuously removed while incongruous information is allowed to stay posted is BEYOND me. Not that I am bitter about it or anything. 😉 Anyway, David got into a bit of a Wiki-war with the administrators of the encyclopedia website, re-posting the information each and every time it was taken down LOL, which finally resulted in his posting about the house being deleted from the site for good. But, ironically enough, in the midst of the Wikipedia battle, numerous filming location websites and It’s A Wonderful Life fansites picked up David’s information and posted it online, ultimately resulting in Wikipedia re-posting the address and deeming it “reliable” years later. LOVE IT! 🙂





The Martini House is featured very briefly in It’s A Wonderful Life, in the scene in which George (aka James Stewart) welcomes the Martini Family to their new home in Bailey Park and his wife Mary (aka Donna Reed) presents them with bread, so “that this house will never known hunger”, salt, so “that life will always have flavor”, and wine, so “that joy and prosperity may reign forever”. 🙂 I am very happy to report that the house looks EXACTLY the same today – over 63 years later!!!!!! – as it did when the movie was filmed! 🙂 Even the position of the address number, the doorbell, and the mail slot are EXACTLY the same!   LOVE IT! LOVE IT! LOVE IT! 🙂

The Martini’s neighbor’s home, which flashes by quickly in the scene, also looks very much the same as it did back in 1946.

A few of the other homes on the street were also featured briefly in the Martini house scene, but as you can see in the above screen captures and photographs, those residences look much different today.

And try as I might, I have not been able to determine the exact house in front of which Sam Wainwright was parked during that scene, but I am pretty sure it is the property pictured above, which as you can see, has also changed significantly. Don’t quote me on that one, though. 🙂

The shot showing the Bailey Park entrance sign was filmed just down the street from the Martini House, at the corner of Viro Road and Lamour Drive, but as you can see in the above screen capture and photograph, that corner looks much different today. The curved tree where the sign once hung is now gone and new foliage has popped up all along Viro Road blocking the view of most of the houses.



In real life, the Martini neighborhood was completed in 1946, just prior to the filming of It’s A Wonderful Life. With the picturesque mountains in the background and the obviously new construction, it’s not hard to see why producers chose the community to stand in for the newly built Bailey Park neighborhood in the flick. As you can see, though, the area has grown quite significantly since the ‘40s.

I highly recommend stalking the Martini house to all fans of It’s A Wonderful Life. It truly is remarkable to see a location look exactly the same in person as it did in a movie which was filmed over six decades ago!

[ad]

Big THANK YOU to David for finding this location.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Martini house from It’s A Wonderful Life is located at 4587 Viro Road in La Canada Flintridge. The neighbor’s house is located at 4581 Viro Road. The entrance to the Bailey Park community can be found at the Southwest corner of Viro Road and Lamour Drive. In the shot showing the Bailey Park sign, the camera was looking north. In the scene, George’s car turns west off of Viro Road onto East Lamour Drive, but, in reality, he should have just continued straight on Viro Road to head to the Martini House. The houses George and Mary walk in front of at the end of the scene are located at 4588 and 4592 Viro Road. And, finally, I believe that the house where Sam’s car was parked is located at 4582 Viro Road.

December 22, 2009
Bullocks Wilshire – The Department Store from “Christmas Vacation”

One location that I have been dying to stalk for months now is the former Bullocks Wilshire department store located just outside of Downtown Los Angeles – a spot which has been featured in countless productions since its grand opening way back in 1929. And, even though I am usually a big fan of immediate gratification, I waited to stalk this location until just recently as I wanted to blog about it in December, along with my other Christmas movie posts. So, what holiday movie was the building featured in, you ask? One of my very favorite Christmas flicks of all time – the 1989 holiday classic Christmas Vacation.   In the movie, Bullocks Wilshire stood in for the Chicago area department store where Clark Griswold (aka Chevy Chase), accompanied by his son, Rusty (aka The Big Bang Theory’s Johnny Galecki), shopped for lingerie. I found this location thanks to fellow stalker Mike, from MovieShotsLA, who, as luck would have it, just happened to be driving right by the department store on the day filming took place way back in 1989. Once Mike noticed the production trucks, he, of course, immediately pulled over to inquire about what was being filmed and to watch some of the action. And, let me tell you, when Mike told me about the location a few months back, I just about passed out from excitement as I had always wanted to know where that scene had taken place! Thank you, Mike! 🙂

The Bullocks Wilshire building was originally built in 1929 by the father and son architecture firm of John and Donald Parkinson, a team who was also responsible for designing the Continental Building, which is better known as Los Angeles’ first skyscraper, Union Station, L.A.’s City Hall and the Memorial Coliseum. Department store magnate John G. Bullock commissioned the building in the hopes of creating the most luxurious and upscale shopping experience Angelinos had ever seen. The interior, which was designed by Eleanor Lemaire and Jock Peters, was the utmost in splendor, featuring travertine flooring, marble walls, ornate elevators, and rosewood display cases.

For the design of the relief located above the department store’s Wilshire Boulevard entrance, which reads, “To build a business that will never known completion”, Bullock looked to MGM art director Cedric Gibbons, who is best known for designing the first ever Oscar statue.

Because Bullock wanted to cater to the growing number of motorists in the L.A. area, the department store was the first in Los Angeles ever to feature a porte cochere, aka a covered driveway under which shoppers could hand over their vehicles to waiting valets.

The building’s most remarkable feature – in my mind, at least – has to be the highly elaborate mural painted on the ceiling of the porte cochere. Romanian painter Herman Sachs designed the brightly colored fresco secco as a tribute to Mercury, the god of travel. The painting features renderings of different forms of modern-day transportation, including airplanes, trains, and ships.

Upon its opening on September 26, 1929, the 241 foot tall Bullocks Wilshire encompassed over 230,000 square feet of retail space which included a perfume hall, a penthouse tea room, a “doggery” which sold trinkets for shoppers’ furry companions, a saddle shop, a Louis XVI room, a furrier, live mannequins, a salon, and a private suite where the truly elite could shop in complete privacy, all the while sipping martinis and snacking on the finest hors d’oeuvres. Years later, Bullock added a Chanel Room, a photography studio operated by celebrity photographer Neil Gittings, and a Ladies Custom Salon, run by future Hollywood costume designer Irene Lentz. Thanks to Bullock’s incredible attention to detail, the department store quickly became the place to see and be seen in Los Angeles. Such stars as Mae West, Clark Gable, Greta Garbo, Alfred Hitchcock, John Wayne, and Marlene Dietrich all visited Bullocks Wilshire at one time or another. And actresses June Lockhart and Angela Lansbury and former First Lady Patricia Nixon even worked there in their early years. Thanks to the building’s architectural detail and rich history, Bullocks Wilshire was added to the National Registry of Historic Places on May 25, 1978. Sadly, in the late 80s, the store began a precipitous decline, eventually being sold to the Macy’s chain. A few years later, the historic building was heavily vandalized both inside and out during the riots of 1992, with looters destroying display cases, prized artifacts, and even setting fire to the property. Bullocks Wilshire ended up closing its doors for the last time in 1993. But its story doesn’t end there.    About a year later, the property was purchased by Southwestern Law School, which had long occupied a neighboring building. The school then set out on a ten year, $29 million restoration project which completely restored the historic building back to its original state. For this endeavor, Southwestern Law School received a National Preservation Award from the National Trust for Historic Preservation.   Today, Bullocks Wilshire is used as a part of the Southwestern Law School campus, where, coincidentally, actor Jerry O’Connell (husband of Rebecca Romijn) is currently a student. 🙂

And, while the building is not actually opened to the public, while stalking the place, I ventured inside and asked the security guard on duty if I might be allowed to take a quick peek. The guard truly could NOT have been nicer and allowed my fiancé and me to walk around the school. Unfortunately, though, photography is not allowed indoors, so I couldn’t take any pictures, other than the two pictured above, which I snapped through the building’s front window. But, take my word for it, the interior – which you can see photographs of here – is nothing short of magnificent. Walking into Bullocks Wilshire is like stepping back in time to a more glamorous era. The cafe, the lounge area, even the bathrooms have all been restored to their original state and I couldn’t have been more excited to be seeing it all with my own two eyes. And, even though the building is now technically a college campus, the interior still looks much as it did when it operated as an upscale department store. I was so mesmerized with the place, in fact, that I am just dying to get my hands on a copy of this book to learn more about the building’s rich history!



Bullocks Wilshire shows up just briefly in Christmas Vacation in the very memorable scene in which, while out shopping with his son Rusty, Clark Griswold meets and flirts with a lingerie saleswoman named Mary and utters that famous line, “It’s a bit nipply out”. LOL LOL LOL When I was a Senior in high school – and I should mention here that I went to a Catholic high school – one of my classmates, Marcus, came up with the inspired idea of reading a surf report to the entire school each morning during our daily announcements. Marcus’ little experiment was going well, too, until one particularly cold morning, when he announced to the student body that the ocean “was a bit nipply” that day. Needless to say, that was the end of that morning’s announcements – and our daily surf report. But, ever since that fateful day, even all these years later, I can’t help but think of Marcus and laugh every time I watch the Christmas Vacation shopping scene. 🙂



Bullocks Wilshire was also the store where Benjamin Siegel shopped at the beginning of the movie Bugsy;

its La Directoire room was the site of the ”Romantic Dinner” Taco Bell commercial featuring Gidget, the talking Chihuahua;

it was where Angela Chase (aka Claire Danes) shopped with her mother Patty (aka Bess Armstrong) in the Season 1 episode of My So-Called Life titled “The Zit”;

and the Louis XVI Room was where the Mother/Daughter Fashion Show was filmed in that same episode.

it was the location of the eponymous elevator in Aerosmith’s “Love in an Elevator” music video;

the exterior was featured briefly in Public Enemy’s “By The Time I Get to Arizona” music video;



and in The Aviator, it stood in for the nightclub where Howard Hughes and Ava Gardner got attacked by Hughes’ former girlfriend.



Supposedly, the final scene in Ghostbusters was filmed on the roof of Bullocks Wilshire, but as you can see in the above screen captures and photograph, the Ghostbusters roof and the Bullocks Wilshire roof look nothing alike. And, while it’s entirely possible that some close-up filming for that scene did take place on top of the Bullocks Wilshire tower, my best guess is that the entire scene was filmed on a studio soundstage somewhere in Hollywood. Bullocks Wilshire has also been featured in the movies Topper (where it stood in for the luxurious Connecticut area Seabreeze Hotel), Tarzan’s New York Adventure (where it was used as a New York hotel), Dunston Checks In (where it again stood in for a New York hotel), Fist of the North Star, On Deadly Ground, Family Plot, The Tie That Binds, Rough Magic, and in episodes of Murder, She Wrote, Judging Amy, and The Agency.

[ad]

Big THANK YOU to Mike for finding this location! 🙂

On a very sad side note – My thoughts and prayers go out to Brittany Murphy’s friends and loved ones today. I can’t even imagine losing someone so young, especially this close to the holidays. 🙁    Rest in peace, Brittany.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Bullocks Wilshire is located at 3050 Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. You can visit the building’s official website and see interior photographs of it here. Because Bullocks Wilshire is part of the Southwestern Law School campus, it is not open to the public. Once a year, though, tours of the property are given. You can check the Southwestern Law School website for further tour information.

December 21, 2009