Chace Crawford – IAMNOTASTALKER

November 8, 2011October 16, 2011

Diana Payne’s House from “Gossip Girl”

Another Los-Angeles-area location from fave show Gossip Girl that fellow stalker Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, tracked down recently was the home belonging to Diana Payne (aka Elizabeth Hurley) in the Season 5 episode titled “Yes, Then Zero”. Because Gossip Girl is primarily filmed on the East Coast, I was beyond excited when the cast and crew descended upon Tinseltown in early August to lens a few scenes and was positively itching to stalk absolutely everything and anything from the New-York-based series that I could. And being that I had fallen in love with Diana’s Mid-Century-modern-style abode at first sight while watching the episode, I just about died of excitement when Geoff emailed me to let me know that he had somehow managed to track the place down. So I, of course, promptly dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to the Hollywood Hills to stalk the dwelling the very next day.

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In the “Yes, Then Zero” episode of Gossip Girl, recent Los-Angeles-transplant Serena van der Woodsen (aka Blake Lively) invites her visiting friends Nate Archibald (aka Chace Crawford) and Chuck Bass (aka cutie Ed Westwick – sigh!) to attend a show biz party at the hilltop home of media mogul Diane Payne. And I just have to say here that the “Yes, Then Zero” episode featured one of my very favorite lines ever uttered on the series – when Serena’s boss, Marshall (aka Ethan Peck), speaks to her in a condescending manner, Nate says, “Well, the zip codes may be different, but douchebags are the same no matter where you go!” LOVE IT! But I digress. Anyway, several areas of Diana’s abode were featured in the Hollywood party scene, including the front exterior;

the amazing backyard;

. . . and some of the property’s interior.

I am fairly certain, though, that the bedroom that was shown in the episode was just a set (most likely built on a soundstage at Silvercup Studios in New York where the series is filmed) as it does not match up to any of the bedrooms featured on the home’s real estate website.

It, in fact, even reminds me a bit of Serena’s former bedroom at her mother’s house (which you can see more pictures of here) where Cousin Charlie (aka Kaylee DeFer) is now living, which makes me wonder if the same space was redressed to be used for the filming of the scene at Diana’s house. But who knows.

Diana’s home pops up a second time in the “Yes, Then Zero” episode, in the scene in which Nate returns to the residence in order to retrieve his phone, which he accidentally left behind the previous evening. The areas featured in that scene include the front exterior;

the backyard;

and the main entrance.

I am very happy to report that Diana’s house is just as cool in person as it appeared to be onscreen. In fact, it is exactly the type of place I imagine Frank Sinatra used to hang out at back in the heyday of Hollywood. I can so picture Ol’ Blue Eyes kicking back there, looking out at the view, listening to LP records, and mixing up martinis for the rest of the Rat Pack. Ironically enough, the property, which was first built in 1972, was not originally designed in the Mid-Century-modern-style you see pictured above, but as a French-ranch-style abode!

As you can see in the aerial views pictured above, Diana’s abode was given an extensive facelift in recent years, whereupon it was transformed into the Mid-Century modern marvel that it is today. Bonura Building Architects & General Contractors, along with CTW Engineers and Mark Schomisch Design, handled the remodel, during which an infinity edge pool was added, walls were taken down, and an open floor plan was created. As you can see in these pictures, the result was nothing short of spectacular! The home, which boasts 3 bedrooms, 4 baths, and approximately 3,300 square feet of living space, currently features cantilevered stairs, travertine flooring, and floor-to-ceiling glass walls. And, according to fave website The Real Estalker, the property also has a celebrity connection! In February of 2007, American-Idol-creator Simon Fuller purchased the dwelling for a cool $7,650,000 to use as an interim residence while his Beverly Hills manse was being renovated. He then sold the place in May of 2008 for $8.5 million.

There is an ABSOLUTELY amazing home visible from the front of Diana’s house that the GC and I became just a wee bit obsessed with while there. The home is located at 1474 Blue Jay Way and it was apparently only built just recently. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to live there!

You can watch a video which showcases that house by clicking above.

Big THANK YOU to Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, for finding this location.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Diana Payne’s house, from the “Yes, Then Zero” episode of Gossip Girl, is located at 1407 Tanager Way in the Hollywood Hills.

October 19, 2009October 19, 2009

Nate Archibald’s Townhouse

Rather than suffer through the re-run abyss airing on most television networks this past summer, my fiance and I instead decided to purchase and watch the first two seasons of the hit CW series Gossip Girl, which neither of us had ever before seen. Even though Mike, from MovieShotsLA, had been telling me for months that I would love the show, I steered clear of it as I had been under the incorrect assumption that it catered mostly to the teeny-bopper set. But, let me tell you, once we finally sat down to watch, it didn’t take long for my fiance and I to become totally and completely hooked!!! As much as it pains me to admit, there were literally whole weekends spent watching back to back episodes, the two of us never once leaving the couch! LOL Needless to say, I absolutely FELL IN LOVE with the show . . . and its locations. And, even though Blair Waldorf and Chuck Bass are the two GG characters I love the most, the locale I was most excited about stalking while in New York two weeks ago was the absolutely beautiful Neoclassical townhouse belonging to Nate Archibald (aka Chace Crawford) on the show. I found this location – and a few others – thanks to this awesome website. So, bright and early on our very first morning in NYC, I dragged my parents and my fiance out to finally do some Gossip Girl stalking! 🙂

Ironically enough, when we arrived at the townhouse, I almost didn’t recognize the place thanks to the fact that it was COMPLETELY covered in Halloween decorations. LOL But being that Halloween is my favorite holiday, I really didn’t mind. 🙂 The six story townhouse, which was built in 1910 and measures 11,296 square feet, is absolutely beautiful in person and it’s not very hard to see why producers chose to use it as the residence of the Archibald family – heirs to the Vanderbilt fortune – on the show.

As fate would have it, while we were taking photographs of the townhouse, the real life owner happened to walk outside, so I, of course, had to ask him a few questions about the filming. He was SUPER nice to us, but was very nonchalant about Gossip Girl, as if the filming of a hit television show on his property was an everyday occurrence, which I suppose, for him, it actually is. LOL Besides telling us that Chace Crawford is very nice in person, the owner also mentioned that the real interiors of his house are used for the filming of the interiors of the Archibald home, as well. So cool! 🙂

Even cooler is the fact that in the Season 2 episode of Gossip Girl entitled “There Might Be Blood”, the real life address of the home is shown as Nate’s return address on the letter he mails to Jenny! 🙂 Love it!

And thanks to fave book Manhattan on Film: Walking Tours of Hollywood’s Fabled Front Lot, I found out that the Archibald townhouse was also used as the office of therapist Susan Lowenstein (aka Barbra Streisand) in the 1991 movie The Prince of Tides.

And, from how it appears in the movie, I am pretty sure the real life interiors of the home were also used in the filming.

AND, according to this article, the King of Pop himself, Michael Jackson, rented this very same house for about six months back in 1999 for the bargain price of $75,000 a month while recording his “Invincible” album. SO COOL!

I honestly can’t recommend stalking Nate’s townhouse enough! It is such an amazing piece of property, that even if it wasn’t a filming location, I’m pretty sure I’d still be obsessed with it. 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Nate Archibald’s townhouse from Gossip Girl is located at 4 East 74th Street on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Located right around the corner at 25 East 73rd Street is Via Quadronno, my very favorite place to eat breakfast in all of New York. Their croissants are out of this world!

January 19, 2009February 14, 2009

The Campbell Apartment

One of my favorite bars in all of New York is called the Campbell Apartment and it is located right inside the most famous train depot of them all, Grand Central Station. I discovered the bar thanks to a guide book I was reading during my first trip to New York, back in December of 2005.

The Campbell Apartment was never actually an apartment at all, but rather the business office of millionaire railroad tycoon John William Campbell. In 1920, after retiring from his position as chairman of Credit Clearing House, Campbell became a member of the board of the New York Public Railroad and decided to find a suitable office for himself close to Grand Central Station. In 1923, Campbell found his perfect office – a 3,500 square foot single room located right inside Grand Central Station. The room measured 35 feet wide, 60 feet long, and had 25 foot high ceilings. Campbell hired New York architect Augustus N. Allen to renovate the large room into his dream Florentine-style office – and no expense was spared in doing so. The office became a sort of museum, housing a million dollar art collection which consisted of vases, statues, rare books, and antique rugs. One of those rugs covered the entire floor of the large room and was worth a reported $300,000. The office featured gorgeous leaded windows, dark wood-paneled walls, a large marble fireplace, 13th Century Italian furnishings, a huge steel safe, a grand piano and a pipe organ. Besides conducting his business affairs there, Campbell and his wife would often entertain in his office, as well, hosting large groups of friends for dinner, dancing, and cocktails.

Those parties perhaps served as the inspiration for Mark Grossich, current owner of the Campbell Apartment. Mark purchased the space in 1999, 42 years after John Campbell’s death. In the interim between Campbell’s death and Grossich’s purchase, the once grand space fell into serious disarray, at different times serving as a warehouse, a storage room, and even a jail! Mark had the foresite to restore the beautiful space to its former glory, hoping that Grand Central commuters of today would step into the grand office of yesterday to sip “cocktails from another era”. And indeed they did. Ten years later they are still coming – in droves. As I learned on my first visit to the Campbell Apartment, most nights it’s standing room only.

On that first visit back in 2005, I pulled what my boyfriend likes to call my “Sex and the City coup”. In the Season One episode of SATC entitled “The Power of Female Sex”, Carrie and the girls are repeatedly denied entrance to hot new New York eatery Balzac. After their final failed attempt to dine at the eatery, Carrie makes a pit stop at Balzac’s restroom. While there she runs into the hostess who denied them entry only moments before and who is currently in need of a tampon. Carrie provides it, and after her good deed, never again has trouble getting a table at Balzac. 🙂 Well, on our first trip to the Campbell Apartment, we put our names in with the hostess and were told it was going to be at least an hour wait. It was at that point that I noticed the hostess’ sparkling, two carat, princess cut, diamond engagement ring and proceeded to drool all over it. Ever since I was old enough to know what an engagement ring was, I have known that I want a princess cut one. I don’t care how big it is, or what “clarity” or “color”, but my boyfriend knows that if he wants me to say yes, he had better be proposing with a princess cut. 🙂 Well, the hostess LOVED that I loved her ring and even let me try the huge rock on. I was dying, it was so beautiful . . . and big! Well, not five minutes later we were seated at one of the best spots in the bar. 🙂 As my mom always says, the quickest way to a girl’s heart is to compliment her engagement ring. 🙂

I am actually very surprised that Campbell Apartment was not featured in an episode of Sex and the City – it seems like just the place Carrie and the girls would kick back a few cosmos. But the Campbell Apartment was featured in the pilot episode of the ever-popular teen soap Gossip Girl as the location of Serena and Nate’s illicit affair (pictured above). The bartender told us that the bar was also used in one of this season’s GG episodes, but he was unsure of which one. I guess he’s not a big Gossip Girl fan. 🙂 The bar has also been host to many movie wrap parties and industry get-togethers.

I can’t recommend stalking the Campbell Apartment enough! It is an absolutely fabulous place to grab a drink. Stepping through the doors is like stepping back in time to a more glamorous and fabulous era – the era of Old New York.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Campbell Apartment is located at 15 Vanderbilt Avenue, inside Grand Central Station, in New York. Baseball caps and tennis shoes are not permitted, so dress appropriately. You can visit the Campbell Apartment website here.