Tag: Celebrities

Justine’s House from “The Good Girl”

Today’s post is going to be a rather short one as I spent most of the day yesterday with my girl Miss Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog, attending the annual craft fair at her work – which was loads of fun, but, unfortunately, did not leave much time for blogging. So please pardon my brevity. Anyway, last Tuesday morning, when I texted Mike, from MovieShotsLA, to let him know that I was heading back out to Santa Clarita to stalk Bill Cozbi’s Auto Body Shop from Bridesmaids, he suggested that I also make a stalking stop at the house where Justine Last (Jennifer Aniston) and her pothead husband, Phil Last (John C. Reilly), lived in The Good Girl. And even though I was not a huge of the ultra-depressing 2002 film, because Justine and Phil’s residence was only a short two miles away from the auto body shop, I figured why not. Then, when I found out there was a Starbucks in between the two locations, that pretty much sealed the deal.

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Mike, who does not live too far from Santa Clarita, first learned about this location way back in 2001 when The Good Girl was being filmed. I never had occasion to stalk the place, though, as I do not get out to Canyon Country very often and, for some reason, whenever I did happen to be in the area, I completely forgot to drive by.

Justine and Phil’s house was one of the main locations used in The Good Girl and the pad showed up repeatedly throughout the movie. As you can see below, though, the residence looks quite a bit different in person than it did onscreen. The front door that appeared in the film has since been swapped out with a new, glass-paned one, a stone façade has been added to the home’s exterior, the garage door has been replaced, and the wood paneling removed from the side of the garage. Boo! Thankfully though, the abode is still, for the most part, recognizable as The Good Girl house.

Of the locale, The Good Girl production notes state, “Although the design concept was naturalistic, finding locations in sunny California to pass for small town Texas was difficult, specifically the search for Justine and Phil’s house, which is painstakingly defined in the script. ‘Our principal character lived physically and emotionally in the very last house on the street, out from which stretched miles of dry, barren nothingness,’ clarifies [production designer Daniel] Bradford. ‘And of course, everywhere, everywhere, everywhere there are palm trees which are not appropriate for West Texas.’” I really have to give kudos to The Good Girl location managers for finding the property because when I pulled up and saw the large telephone poles, flat streets and general ruralness of the area, my first thought was, ‘This neighborhood does not look AT ALL like an L.A. neighborhood.’

In real life, Justine’s house, which was originally built in 1961, boasts three bedrooms, two baths, 1,125 square feet of living space, and a 0.16-acre plot of land.

And while I would have bet money on the real life interior of the home being used in The Good Girl, that does not appear to have been the case. As you can see in the photographs below, which I got off of an old real estate listing for the property, while the living room very closely resembles what appeared onscreen . . .

. . . the kitchen area does not. And while the real estate listing does mention that the kitchen was “recently remodeled”, it differs far too much from the Last kitchen for me to believe it was used in the flick.

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

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for finding this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Justine’s house from The Good Girl is located at 25103 Fourl Road in Santa Clarita. Ricardo’s Auto Upholstery, aka Bill Cozbi’s Auto Body Shop from Bridesmaids, is located nearby at 24347 Main Street. Judy’s home from Bridesmaids is located right around the corner from Ricardo’s at 23418 8th Street. And Officer Rhodes’ residence is located directly across the street from Judy’s at 23425 8th Street. Note – the Bridesmaids houses cannot be reached via Calgrove Boulevard, as that street is blocked just east of Creekside Drive. To gain access to the sites, you can take either Apple or Valley Street south off of Lyons Avenue to 8th Street.

December 7, 2012
Bill Cozbi’s Auto Body Shop from “Bridesmaids”

As I mentioned in my post about the apartment building where Lillian (Maya Rudolph) lived in Bridesmaids, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I finally managed to track down all of the L.A.-area locations from the 2011 flick last week. Or so I thought. While scanning through the movie on Monday afternoon, making screen captures for my post about Officer Rhodes’ (Chris O’Dowd’s) house, I came across the scene that took place at Bill Cozbi’s (Richard Riehle’s) Auto Body Shop and realized that Mike and I had both somehow completely forgotten about the locale and failed to do any sort of search for it. I immediately shot him an email asking for some help in tracking the place down and five minutes later I received a text that said, “Oh no! You were just there!” As it turns out, the auto body shop that stood in for Bill Cozbi’s in the flick is located in Santa Clarita, right around the corner from Officer Rhodes’ and Judy’s (Jill Clayburgh’s) houses. UGH! So – after smacking myself in the forehead for being such a ditz – I drove all the way back out to the SC yesterday to stalk the place.

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Fortunately, finding this location was a snap. When Mike first received my email, he had to the foresight to do a Google search for Bill Cozbi’s Auto Body Shop. Because that name was obviously a fake, it did not even occur to me to search for it – I had instead been Googling Bridesmaids and auto body shop. Thankfully though, Mike’s query led him to a page on the Ricardo’s Auto Upholstery website which identified the shop as a Bridesmaids filming location and also featured the photograph below. Whoo hoo – I so LOVE it when location owners embrace their property’s filming history!

Bill Cozbi’s Auto Body Shop is first mentioned by Officer Rhodes towards the beginning of Bridesmaids, in the scene in which he pulls Annie (Kristen Wiig) over for having broken taillights. Rhodes tells Annie that she should go see his friend who has a body shop, “Bill Cozbi, with a z – different guy. And don’t mention the whole Bill Cosby thing to him. It drives him nuts. I mean it!” LOL Annie ends up going to the shop at the very end of the movie, after finally deciding to start getting her life back on track. Thankfully, as you can see below, Ricardo’s Auto Upholstery looks pretty much exactly the same in person as it did onscreen – aside from the name (and, therefore signage) change, of course.

I so love that a variation of one of the shop’s real life signs was used in the movie, though.

While I was stalking the shop, I happened to meet the super-nice owner, who is aptly named Ricardo. He was in absolute SHOCK that I had driven all the way from Pasadena just to see the location. Ricardo spent quite a few minutes filling me in on the filming of Bridesmaids, showing me photographs from the shoot, and he was even nice enough to take the picture of me that appears at the top of this post. He also informed me that producers had taken down a chain link fence that had originally surrounded his property during the shoot and that, after filming wrapped, he decided to replace the old fence with a nicer, more permanent metal one, as you can see below. Personally, I like the look of the place sans fence, but that’s probably because that is how it appeared in Bridesmaids.

Mike has most of the remaining Bridesmaids filming locations posted on his site. You can check out Annie’s Cake Baby shop here, the Brazilian restaurant here, the house where Annie went on a blind date here, and Joni’s Restaurant here.

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

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for finding this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Ricardo’s Auto Upholstery, aka Bill Cozbi’s Auto Body Shop from Bridesmaids, is located at 24347 Main Street in Santa Clarita. You can visit the shop’s official website here. Judy’s home from the movie is located right around the corner at 23418 8th Street. And Officer Rhodes’ residence is located directly across the street from Judy’s at 23425 8th Street. Note – the Bridesmaids houses cannot be reached via Calgrove Boulevard, as that street is blocked just east of Creekside Drive. To gain access to the sites, you can take either Apple or Valley Street south off of Lyons Avenue to 8th Street.

December 6, 2012
Judy’s House from “Bridesmaids”

The one location from Bridesmaids that I was most determined to track down – the one that I would not stop bugging poor Mike, from MovieShotsLA, about – was the yellow ranch-style dwelling where Annie’s (Kristen Wigg’s) mom, Judy (Jill Clayburgh, who was ABSOLUTELY ADORABLE in the role, which was, sadly, her last), lived in the 2011 flick. Thankfully, once Mike managed to find Officer Rhodes’ (Chris O’Dowd’s) house, which I blogged about yesterday, tracking down Judy’s was a snap because, in an odd twist, the two properties are located right across the street from one another. While I had told Mike when we first began the search that I had a hunch that the residences would most likely be found in the same vicinity, perhaps even the same town, never in a million years did I think that they would be directly across the street from each other!

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Mike had an inkling that they would be, though. While scanning through Bridesmaids, he noticed that the fake address numbers that producers had given the properties for the filming – 8409 and 8410 – were sequential, which would, in fact, put the two structures across the street from one another. He figured that the residence’s actual addresses had most likely just been shortened – from 28409 to 8409 and from 28410 to 8410, perhaps – for the shoot. So, when he ended up finding the locations, we were both absolutely flabbergasted to learn that the real life numbers – 23418 and 23425 – are not actually in any sort of sequence. Why on earth producers would give two homes that are not supposed to be located anywhere near each other random, but sequential address numbers is absolutely beyond me!

Judy’s house shows up numerous times throughout Bridesmaids, especially towards the end of the movie when Annie moves in with her mother.

As you can see below, the abode looked quite a bit different onscreen than it does in real life. While I figured that the pad had most likely been remodeled in recent months, a super-nice neighbor informed us that the enclosed front porch area that appeared in Bridesmaids was actually a fake that had been built specifically for the filming. I actually think the front porch makes the house much more appealing, which is most likely why it was added.

You can see the home’s real life front door behind Judy, inside of the fake enclosed front porch, in the screen capture below.

The exterior of the home is actually quite deceiving as it looks to be fairly moderate in size. In reality, though, the property, which was originally built in 1948, boasts two bedrooms, one bath, a scant 882 square feet of living space, and a 0.21-acre plot of land. It’s teensy!

And while I originally thought that the residence’s actual interior was used in the filming, that does not seem to be the case. You can check out some photographs of the home’s real life interior here. As you can see, it looks nothing at all like Judy’s wood-paneled, 70s-style abode.

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

Big THANK YOU to the world famous Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for finding this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Judy’s house from Bridesmaids is located at 23418 8th Street in Santa Clarita. Officer Rhodes’ house is located directly across the street at 23425 8th Street. Note – these properties cannot be reached via Calgrove Boulevard, as that street is blocked just east of Creekside Drive. To gain access to the sites, you can take either Apple or Valley Street south off of Lyons Avenue to 8th Street.

December 5, 2012
Officer Rhodes’ House from “Bridesmaids”

As I mentioned in last Thursday’s post about the apartment building where Lillian (Maya Rudolph) lived in Bridesmaids, I recently became just a wee-bit obsessed with tracking down all of the locales featured in the 2011 hit. One of the sites I was most interested in finding, of course, was the small blue ranch-style house belonging to Officer Rhodes (Chris O’Dowd). I bugged Mike, from MovieShotsLA, relentlessly to help me out with the search and he finally managed to track the place down last Wednesday morning. Needless to say, I was absolutely ecstatic and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk it just a few days later – despite the fact that it was raining at the time. As I have mentioned before, this stalker absolutely HATES rain (thank goodness I am moving to the desert) and there are very few locations that I would actually venture out to stalk during a downpour. But Officer Rhodes’ house was one of ‘em!

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Finding this location took quite a bit of work, actually, so Mike definitely deserves a HUGE pat on the back! While scanning through Bridesmaids looking for clues as to the house’s location, I noticed an address number of 8410 behind Rhodes in the scene in which Annie (Kristen Wiig) leaves a cake on his doorstep. Mike and I both had an inkling that the number was a fake, though.

That inkling was solidified when I spotted a five-digit address number on the residence pictured behind Annie’s car in the same scene. And while I was unable to make out the number with any sort of certainty, I told Mike that I thought it read 23430. As luck would have it, I was right! I had read in the Bridesmaids production notes that towns surrounding Los Angeles had been used to stand in for Milwaukee and Chicago in the flick, so Mike and I decided to begin our hunt in the 23400 blocks of small towns surrounding L.A. proper. And, sure enough, although it took a while, Mike worked his magic and found the pad – in Santa Clarita of all places. Yay!

Officer Rhodes’ house shows up a few times in Bridesmaids and, as you can see below, has not been altered much from its silver screen appearance.

In real life, the tiny cottage, which was originally built in 1948, boasts 1 bedroom, 1 bath, 605 square feet of living space (that’s smaller than my apartment!), and a small 0.085-acre parcel of land.

As you can see below, the place is absolutely adorable in person – and does not seem like an L.A.-area house at all.

I was most excited to see the front porch area where the raccoons devoured Annie’s cake in the movie. LOL LOVE IT!

And while I am not certain, I have a hunch that the interior (LOVE the beamed roof and French doors, by the way!) of Rhodes’ house was just a set.

Tomorrow, I will be blogging about the residence where Annie’s mom, Judy (Jill Clayburgh), lived in Bridesmaids – which just so happens to be located directly across the street from Rhodes’ house! I was going to blog both properties together, but ran out of time today. So until tomorrow . . .

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for finding this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Officer Rhodes’ house from Bridesmaids is located at 23425 8th Street in Santa Clarita. Note – the property cannot be reached via Calgrove Boulevard, as that street is blocked just east of Creekside Drive. To gain access to the site, you can take either Apple or Valley Street south off of Lyons Avenue to 8th Street.

December 4, 2012
Lillian and Sam’s House from “People Like Us”

After I tracked down Frankie (Elizabeth Banks) and Josh’s (Michael Hall D’Addario’s) house from 2012’s People Like Us (which I blogged about on Friday), the next item on my To-Search-For list was the gorgeous Craftsman-style abode where Lillian Harper (Michelle Pfeiffer) and her son, Sam Harper (Chris Pine), lived in the flick. Thankfully, this locale proved to be an easy find, despite the fact that very little of the exterior was ever shown.

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Towards the end of People Like Us, there is a scene in which a phone book listing of Lillian and Sam’s address is shown. And while the residence is said to be located at 2523 Wonderland Avenue in the Laurel Canyon area, I knew from this June 2012 Los Angeles Times article that the place could actually be found in L.A.’s West Adams District. Because the real life address of Frankie’s home had been used in the movie, I had an inkling that the address number of Lillian’s house was most likely real, as well. So I started looking at aerial views of all residences numbered 2523 in the West Adams area and, sure enough, found the place after just a few minutes. Whoo hoo! And I, of course, dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out there to stalk it just a few days later.

As luck would have it, the SUPER-nice owner of the People Like Us house happened to come outside while we were stalking the place and filled us in on all sorts of filming information about the neighborhood. Ironically enough, the Eppes family’s home from the 2005 television series Numb3rs (pictured below), which I stalked and blogged about way back in March of 2008, is located right next door.

The owner answered all of my silly little questions about the filming of People Like Us and even said that if she was not running to appointment at the time, she would have invited us inside to see the interior of the house, which was used extensively in the film! OMG! That would have been amazing! Sigh! She also told me that I was welcome to go up onto the front porch to pose for a pic in the spot where Josh knocked on the door in the movie. Yay!

Lillian and Sam’s house popped up numerous times in People Like Us, although, as I mentioned above, not much of the exterior was shown.

The 6-bedroom, 5-bath, 4,030-square-foot abode, which was originally built in 1922 and sits on 0.16 acres, is quite spectacular in real life, as you can see below. Despite its large size, it does very much look like a Laurel Canyon-area home. I am guessing that the reason producers opted not to use an actual LC residence is that the streets there are extremely narrow and twisty and not very conducive to the transportation and parking needs of large production trucks.

As I mentioned above, the to-die-for interior of the home was used extensively in the flick. Of the fact that actual places and not sets were used in People Like Us, producer Bobby Cohen said, “There is something special about shooting in real locations. There is a texture to them that you can’t rebuild. It makes a difference.” I definitely agree. While some sets are absolutely spectacular (the bar from Burlesque comes to mind), I much prefer the look of real life locations. And the look of the interior of the People Like Us home is pretty darn spectacular. It would have been pretty foolish to use a set when an interior like that was available.

The home’s real life garage, which you can barely see in the background of the photograph below, was also used in the movie.

As was the majestic backyard. What I wouldn’t give to see that backyard in person!

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Lillian’s house from People Like Us is located at 2523 4th Avenue in Los Angeles’ West Adams District. The Numb3rs house is located right next door at 2515 4th Avenue. The Fisher & Sons Funeral Home from Six Feet Under (which I blogged about here) is located around the corner at 2302 West 25th Street.

December 3, 2012
Frankie’s House from “People Like Us”

As I mentioned in early November in my post about Henry’s Tacos, I did not especially love the 2012 movie People Like Us as I found it to be a bit too depressing. What I did love, though, was the fact that the flick was filmed in its entirety in L.A. So after watching, I, of course, set about tracking down as many of its locales as I could – all by myself! Lately I feel like I do not get to spend much time searching for locations as I am usually too busy writing about them. While I love the hunt, blogging each day and physically stalking sites each weekend does not leave much time for actually tracking them down. So while I typically hand over the task of searching to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, with People Like Us, I decided that I was going to do all of the heavy lifting myself. And I loved every minute of it! The locale I was most interested in finding, of course, was the house that Frankie (Elizabeth Banks) moved into towards the very end of the movie. And I am embarrassed to admit that while finding it should have been a slam dunk, it took me more than a few hours to do so.

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In People Like Us, an address number of 809 was visible on the side of Frankie’s front door. For whatever reason, though, I was absolutely convinced that the number was a fake, so I initially did not pay much attention to it.

And while the filming locations map on the People Like Us Facebook page states that Frankie’s house is located on Laurel Canyon Boulevard in Los Angeles, because the residence was shown to be on a flat, straight street in the movie and because Laurel Canyon is an extremely twisty and hilly road, I knew that information had to be incorrect. (I somehow did not even notice the word Burbank written next to the drawing of Frankie’s home on the map until making a screen capture of it for this post – yes, I am that blonde!) My gut was telling me that the abode was most likely located in the Valley somewhere, so I began searching for it in Van Nuys, Reseda, Valley Village and North Hollywood, but, unfortunately, came up completely empty-handed.

It was not until a few hours into the hunt that I recalled a scene in which Frankie’s son, Josh (Michael Hall D’Addario), wrote a note to Sam (Chris Pine) giving him their new address. And while I did not in a million years imagine that the home’s actual address would have been used in the note, I thought the address given might provide some sort of clue as to the pad’s real life location. So I scanned to that portion of the flick and saw that Josh wrote down 809 Fairview. On a whim, I punched 809 Fairview and Los Angeles into Google and it kicked back a map of 809 North Fairview Street in Burbank. One quick Google Street View glance and I saw that it was the right place. As you can imagine, I felt like a complete and total dolt after that! All those hours searching and it turns out that the home’s location had been spelled right out for me the entire time! D’oh!

Frankie’s house shows up only twice in People Like Us – first in the scene in which she is shown moving into the abode.

And next in the scene in which Sam shows up at Frankie’s house unexpectedly, hoping for a reconciliation. Sadly, as you can see in the photographs and screen captures both above and below, the house has changed quite a bit since the filming of People Like Us. Gone is Frankie’s landscaping and front lawn, the exterior trim is now painted red instead of white, the brick front porch steps have been swapped out for Spanish-style ones, a railing has been added, and the front porch overhang altered. Boo! At least the shutters flanking both front windows still look the same despite a change in paint color.

Thankfully though, the abode pretty closely resembles its onscreen self on Google Street View, as you can see below, so I guess there’s that.

I much prefer the look of the house in the movie to its real life appearance. I am just not all that into drought-resistant landscaping, I guess. According to Zillow, the 2-bedroom, 1-bath, 1,148-square-foot abode was originally built in 1936 and sits on 0.16 acres of land.

I am fairly certain that the real life interior of the home was also used in People Like Us, although very briefly.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Frankie’s house from People Like Us is located at 809 North Fairview Street in Burbank.

November 30, 2012
Lillian’s Apartment from “Bridesmaids”

This past Monday, the Grim Cheaper and I both had some business to attend to on L.A.’s West Side, so we decided to drive out that way together. Because his meetings were going to run a lot longer than mine, I figured I would do some stalking in the area while I waited. And I really have to give myself a major pat on the back here as I managed to get quite a bit of stalking done using the GC’s car, which does not have a GPS. I am seriously directionally-challenged and typically cannot find my way out of a paper bag, but the direction gods were definitely smiling down upon me on Monday because I managed to get to several locales with no problems whatsoever . . . in Venice, mind you – an area I am not particularly fond of due to the crowds, the sketchiness, and the lack of parking places and public restrooms. So needless to say I am very proud of myself! I feel like I can conquer the world now! Anyway, one of the locations that I managed to successfully find my way to was the supposed Milwaukee-area apartment building where Lillian (Maya Rudolph) lived in the 2011 hit Bridesmaids.

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I should mention here that I did not particularly enjoy Bridesmaids the first time I saw it – perhaps because I was home alone at the time and had no one to laugh with. But when the GC and I randomly caught the last half of it on TV while vacationing in La Quinta last August, I was practically rolling on the floor in hysterics. Then when my good friends, fellow stalkers Lavonna and Kim, came for a visit in November they quoted the movie constantly, so I re-watched it during their stay and became just a wee bit obsessed – the airplane scene (which you can watch by clicking below – caution, it is NSFW) is SO me, I cannot even tell you! Anyway, I spent the past few weeks bugging Mike, from MovieShotsLA, to help me track down all of the locations from the flick, the final two of which he did yesterday, after which he sent me a text that said, “Can we move on from this now?” LOL (I have to say that I was seriously disappointed to learn that Joni’s Restaurant, where Lillian and Annie Walker (Kristen Wiig) had coffee at the beginning of the flick, was just a set built on the Paramount Studios backlot. But I digress.)

Lillian’s apartment was kind of a random find, actually. While the majority of the Bridesmaids establishing shots were taken in the Milwaukee area, all actual filming was done right here in Southern California. At one point in the movie, Officer Rhodes (Chris O’Dowd) mentioned that Lillian’s building was located on the corner of Craner and Rose. And while I was not aware of any L.A. street named Craner, I was, of course, aware of Venice Beach’s famous Rose Avenue and decided to begin my search there. Sure enough, I found Lillian’s apartment just a bit east of Rose Avenue, on the corner of San Juan and Cabrillo. Woot woot!

Amazingly enough, despite the fact that the building is quite beautiful and looks to be somewhat historic, I could find absolutely no information whatsoever about it online, outside of the fact that it was originally built in 1922 (thank you, Property Shark!). According to a Panoramio poster named “gregmaz”, the domicile was designed and constructed by Abbot Kinney, the father of Venice himself, but I could not find any other references which support that claim. And being that Kinney passed away in 1920, two full years before Property Shark states that the place was built, I am fairly certain that he had nothing to do with its creation.

The building shows up twice in Bridesmaids – first in a brief establishing shot before the scene in which Lillian tells Annie that she has just gotten engaged.

And next towards the very end of the movie, in the scene in which Annie and Helen (Rose Byrne) track Lillian to her apartment on the morning of her wedding.

The interior of Lillian’s apartment was just a set, though. You can check out the real life interior of two of the building’s actual units here and here.

The very same building was also featured very briefly (blink and you’ll miss it, in fact) in the 1990 movie A Girl to Kill For, in the scene in which Chuck (Sasha Jenson) and Sue (Karen Medak) are being chased by the police. (Please pardon the craptastic screen captures below.)

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Lillian’s apartment building from Bridesmaids is located at 300 San Juan Avenue in Venice.

November 29, 2012
Merv Griffin’s Former House – and Some Big News!

The Grim Cheaper and I had a fabulous time in Palm Springs last week celebrating Thanksgiving with my parents – so much so that we have decided to move there permanently! We have been seriously considering a move to the Desert for a few months now, but finally decided to pull the trigger while driving back to Pasadena last Saturday afternoon and called up our landlord to officially give our 60 days notice. While I will miss my beloved L.A. more than words can express, I think our being in the desert will do wonders for my dad’s health (not to mention my poor mom’s sanity). The fact that our new apartment (which we LOVE) is half the price of our current apartment – and twice the size! – AND features a HUGE walk-in closet only sweetens the deal. (My current closet situation is absolutely pitiful, but I digress.) And not to worry, my fellow stalkers, my blog is not going anywhere. We own a condo in Santa Monica that is only rented out part time and we will be staying in it whenever it is free so that I will be able to stalk. IAMNOTASTALKER is most-definitely here to stay, I promise. And now, on with the post!

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A couple of months ago, my mom mentioned that she had seen a real estate listing for Merv Griffin’s former 39-acre estate in La Quinta. The listing did not cite an address, though, and my mom was desperate for me to track the place down because she could not imagine where an almost forty-acre property could possibly be located in the LQ. Thankfully, I was able to find the abode fairly quickly via a Google search and, as it turns out, the pad is pretty darn close to my parents’ house. So I dragged the GC right on out to stalk the place Thanksgiving morning.

Merv, who had been a frequent Desert visitor in the past, purchased the land for his La Quinta estate while in town for a tennis tournament sometime during the 1980s. According to a 2006 Palm Springs Life article, he said, “I looked around and thought this would be a great place to bring my horses. I bought the first and only 80-acre parcel I saw. It was a disaster — nothing but sand, cactus, a little old motel, and a small lake. My son asked me, ‘What are you going to do with this?’ And I said, ‘See if I can make Kentucky out of it.’” Griffin bought up several adjacent plots of land in the following years, eventually amassing a whopping 240-acre compound. He built a private home for himself on the site in 1986 and the surrounding acreage was transformed into Griffin Ranch, an exclusive equestrian-themed gated community that formally opened in 2007. And while the Ranch was originally expected to feature 393 custom estates, according to Brad Schmett’s La Quinta real estate website, new construction was halted in 2009 and the fate of future development there is currently unknown.

Griffin’s ginormous Moroccan-style residence was inspired in part by clothing designer Yves Saint Laurent’s home in Marrakech, which Merv claims to have once snuck into while on a visit to Morocco (a man after my own heart, I swear ). He commissioned famed interior decorator Waldo Fernandez (who is/was the go-to designer for such stars as Elizabeth Taylor, Sean Connery, and Jennifer Aniston and who handled the 1980s remodel of the Beverly Hills Hotel, which was also owned by Griffin at the time) to style the interior. Sadly, Merv’s home was gutted in an electrical fire in 1987, not long after it was first constructed, and had to be completely rebuilt.

Griffin’s former estate, not much of which is visible from the road, is nothing short of spectacular, as you can see in the aerial views below. In fact, when I first saw the below images I thought I was looking at a resort! The estate boasts a 5,483-square-foot main house with a 2000-square-foot living room, retractable dome skylight, 20-foot ceilings, and two master suites with Moroccan-style steam showers. The property also features four detached circular-shaped casitas, a 1,712-square-foot guest house (with three bedrooms and two baths!), separate staff quarters, an equestrian center with a 16-stall stable, a barn, a regulation-sized racetrack (apparently the only one in the entire Coachella Valley), an infinity pool, and a 2.5-acre(!) pond complete with a swan paddle boat.

Upon Griffin’s passing in 2007, the home became a vacation rental and was then put up for sale this past March for a whopping $14.5 million. It was relisted in June for $9.5 million and appears to still be on the market today.

Thanks to fave website The Real Estalker, I learned that Griffin’s former house is also a filming location! The dwelling was where Slade Smiley and Gretchen Rossi vacationed with Gretchen’s parents, Brenda and Scott, in the Season 5 episode of The Real Housewives of Orange County titled “Let’s Bow Our Heads and Pray”.

Um, can you say “product placement”?

The interior of the home was also shown in the episode.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Merv Griffin’s former house is located at 81345 Avenue 54 in La Quinta.

November 28, 2012
Temple Israel of Hollywood from “Will & Grace”

Earlier this year, fellow stalker Lavonna informed me that she had just tracked down the temple where Grace Adler (Debra Messing) married Leo Markus (Harry Connick Jr.) in the Season 5 episode of Will & Grace titled “Marry Me a Little, Marry Me a Little More”. As it turns out, while the wedding supposedly took place on the island of Manhattan, in reality Leo and Grace tied the knot right here in Los Angeles – at Temple Israel of Hollywood. Because Lavonna has long been obsessed with the series (it is pretty much her Beverly Hills, 90210), she put in a special request for me to stalk the place. So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out there one (very cold) day in March. Sadly though, the temple was closed when we showed up, so we only got to catch a glimpse of its exterior . . .

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Flash forward to this past October when Lavonna and her good friend Kim came out to L.A. for a visit from Ohio. Lavonna was absolutely dying to see the interior of Temple Israel of Hollywood (natch!) and called up the main office to ask for a tour. Amazingly enough, they told us to come right on over! So we headed out there immediately after our Dearly Departed tour (which I will be blogging about soon) had ended. And I am very happy to report that the place did not disappoint!

Temple Israel of Hollywood was originally founded in 1926 by a small group of individuals, most of whom were involved in the entertainment industry. In fact, the place had such major Hollywood connections that it was quickly given the nickname “Filmland’s House of Worship”. Um, LOVE it! For its early meetings, members rented a now-defunct castle-like mansion that, at the time, belonged to Japanese actor Sessue Hayakawa and stood on the corner of Franklin Avenue and Ivar Street. In 1930, the growing congregation purchased the former First Methodist Church on Hollywood Boulevard and proceeded to hold services there until 1948, when it was decided that a new and even bigger temple – the one that stands today – would be constructed about a mile west. The new synagogue was designed by architects S. Charles Lee (who also designed the Max Factor Building, the Los Angeles Theatre, and the Hollywood & Western Building) and Samuel Lunden.

Today, the Temple Israel of Hollywood congregation consists of over 950 families – and is still a major draw for the entertainment industry. Just a few of the celebrities who have attended services there at some point in time include Eddie Fisher, Tony Curtis, Marlon Brando, Bob Dylan, Al Jolson, Sammy Davis Jr., Eddie Cantor, Leonard Nimoy, Mike Todd, David O. Selznick, Lea Thompson, Amanda Peet, and Ben Stein. In 1965, Martin Luther King Jr. gave a speech on the premises and, on March 27th, 1959, Elizabeth Taylor converted to Judaism there, taking the Hebrew name Elisheba Rachel. The place definitely deserves its “Filmland’s House of Worship” nickname! In fact, I think I may need to convert and start attending services there!

In the two-part “Marry Me a Little, Marry Me a Little More” episode of Will & Grace, Grace and Leo decide to get married in a temple, after learning that their first wedding, in which they tied the knot on a whim while on The Today Show, was not valid. Only the interior of Temple Israel of Hollywood was featured in the episode, though. For the exterior of their wedding venue, Temple Emanu-El, located at One East 65th Street in New York, was used.

Grace and Leo’s wedding took place in Temple Israel of Hollywood’s Sanctuary area.

Visible in the episode is the temple’s real life Ark, which was constructed out of silver and white Italian marble and is flanked by two large lions representing strength, courage and majesty. The Ark was a bit covered over by a chuppah in the scene, though, as you can see below.

In a perplexing twist, while the real life altar area matches up to what appeared in the episode, the back half of the temple does not. Although it is not readily apparent in my photograph below, the temple’s actual ceiling is much shorter than what was depicted onscreen, due to the existence of a large mezzanine.

And while both the green rug underneath the aisle runner and the velvet and wooden seats match up perfectly to what was shown in the episode, the real life doors of the temple are completely different. I had Mike, from MovieShotsLA, call the temple’s main office for me (for some reason I am petrified of making phone calls to strangers – in person, I LOVE talking to random people, but on the phone I’m a total wuss) to ask if the Sanctuary had been remodeled in recent years and, as it turns out, there was a renovation done in 2009. But, while doing further research, I came across a black and white photograph (from an undetermined year) on the Paradise Leased blog which shows the Sanctuary in the exact same state that it is today. So a few different scenarios are possible here – the Paradise Leased photo may very well be a recent one that just happened to have been taken in black and white, making it possible that the back portion of the Sanctuary was drastically changed during the 2009 remodel OR Grace and Leo’s wedding ceremony was filmed partially on a set and partially in the actual temple. Hey, stranger things have been known to happen in Hollywood.

While I am unsure of the Sanctuary situation, I am almost positive that both the anteroom . . .

. . . and bride’s dressing room that appeared in the episode were sets built at CBS Studio Center, where Will & Grace was lensed.

And I, of course, just had to pose for a pic next to the chair where Will Truman (Eric McCormack) sat after he gave Grace away.

On a Will & Grace side-note – I absolutely LOVE the shearling coat that Grace wore in the “Marry Me a Little, Marry Me a Little More” episode. I want, I want, I want! Oh, GC – are you listening?

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

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Lavonna for finding this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Temple Israel of Hollywood, where Grace and Leo got married in the “Marry Me a Little, Marry Me a Little More” episode of Will & Grace, is located at 7300 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood. Their wedding took place in the Sanctuary. You can visit the temple’s official website here.

November 15, 2012
Henry’s Tacos from “People Like Us”

Last weekend, the Grim Cheaper and I finally decided to check out People Like Us. And while I can’t say that I loved it (I am not big on depressing movies), it was an enjoyable watch and Chris Pine was, as always, oh-so-yummy. And the flick was filmed in its entirety in Los Angeles, so there’s that. Anyway, while watching, I became a wee-bit intrigued with Henry’s Tacos – a walk-up taqueria where several scenes were filmed. In one of the scenes that took place there, I noticed a sign in the background that, on first glance, I thought read “Silver Lake” and immediately assumed that Henry’s was located in that area. And while I made a mental note to do some further research on the place, for whatever reason (probably too much champagne ), I promptly forgot about it.

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So imagine my surprise when I spotted the place on the corner of Moorpark Street and Tujunga Avenue in Studio City last Monday morning while heading to one of my favorite stores, Swag Antiques, for a little retail therapy. As it turns out, the sign behind Henry’s is actually for a bar named the Starlite Room. Yes, I am that blonde! Anyway, I could not believe my good fortune in stumbling upon the restaurant and immediately pulled over to snap some pics.

Henry’s Tacos was originally founded on December 13th, 1961 by an Assembly of God minister from Nebraska named Henry Comstock. The Googie-style walk-up eatery was designed by architect John B. Ferguson and, at the time of its opening, tacos were priced at 35 cents. When Henry retired in 1968, his daughter, LeVonne Eloff, took over the business and ran it for more than four decades until she passed away in 2009, at which point her daughter, Janis Hood, stepped in. Amazingly, Janis still employs the exact same recipes that her grandfather did over fifty years ago. The corner building that houses Henry’s has also been left unaltered during all of that time and still looks exactly the same today as it did when it first opened. As Janis said in a NoHo Arts District article, “When you have something that works . . . don’t change it. If it works it doesn’t need to be fixed. People like good homemade food at affordable prices . . . no matter what decade it is.” Couldn’t agree with you more, Janis! I wish the owner of Vitello’s (which is located down the street from Henry’s and used to be one of my very favorite restaurants) had heeded the same advice. Sadly, the place was recently gutted and remodeled, its menu completely revamped, and currently is a sad shadow of its former self. Sigh. But I am happy to report that Henry’s is still going strong!

Unfortunately it was 10:30 in the morning when I stalked Henry’s – a bit too early for tacos (I was only on my second Starbucks of the day at the time ) – so I did not get to sample any of the fare. But I do plan on dragging the GC back there as soon as possible for some lunch.

In People Like Us, long-lost siblings Sam (Chris Pine) and Frankie (Elizabeth Banks) head to Henry’s Tacos for a bite to eat after attending an AA meeting.

Sam and Frankie are later shown eating at the taqueria once again during a montage sequence in which the two are getting to know each other. The idea to use Henry’s Tacos in the flick was actually Chris Pine’s. According to a June 2012 Los Angeles Daily News article, the actor, who grew up in the Studio City area, used to grab a bite to eat at Henry’s regularly during his childhood years. Other celebrity fans of the eatery include Larry King, Brad Pitt, Sarah Hyland, Michelle Branch, James Marsden, Adam Levine, Marla Sokoloff, Jason Reitman, Tony Danza, Adam Carolla, Tom Hanks, Andy Griffith, George Lopez, and Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. Mary-Kate even told Oprah Winfrey in a special “favorite foods” segment that Henry’s has “the most incredible hard shell tacos I’ve ever had”.

People Like Us is not the first production to film at Henry’s. The taqueria also appeared in the Season 1 episode of Adam –12 titled “Log 91: You’re Not the First Guy’s Had the Problem”, in the scene in which Officer Pete Malloy (Martin Milner) and Officer Jim Reed (Kent McCord) discuss the difficulties of being a married police officer.

It is amazing to me that the restaurant still looks EXACTLY the same today as it did in 1968 when the episode was shot. So incredibly cool!

Henry’s also appeared very briefly in the background of the 1978 Cheech and Chong flick Up in Smoke, in the scene in which “Stoned Motorcycle Cop” (Otto Felix) pulled over Pedro De Pacas (Cheech Marin) and Anthony ‘Man’ Stoner (Tommy Chong).

And, according to fave website OnLocationVacations, the yet-to-air Alyssa Milano series Mistresses also filmed at Henry’s this past August.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Henry’s Tacos from People Like Us is located at 11401 Moorpark Street in Studio City.

November 9, 2012