Charmed – IAMNOTASTALKER

June 28, 2017June 26, 2017

The Gilmore Mansion from “Gilmore Girls”

While I realize this may be considered blasphemy in some circles, I have never really watched Gilmore Girls. On paper, the show definitely looks like something that would appeal to me, but for whatever reason, I failed to tune in when it originally started airing in 2000. At the behest of fellow stalker/Gilmore Girls aficionado Chas, from the It’s Filmed There website, I finally viewed six or so episodes early last year, but the series just didn’t hook me. Don’t get me wrong – GG is not bad or unentertaining by any means. I just can’t seem to get into it – which I think is largely due to the fact that the show boasts 7 seasons, 153 episodes, and a 4-part reboot. That’s a lot of binge-watching to get through. It’s kind of overwhelming to even think about. Despite my viewing neglect, I do know quite a bit about the series’ locations, thanks both to Chas and the fact that I’ve gone on the Warner Bros. Studio Tour Hollywood, where GG was mainly lensed, countless times. One locale I did not know about – heck, not even Chas knew about it – was the home used for establishing shots of the Gilmore mansion, aka the stately pad where Richard (Edward Herrmann) and Emily Gilmore (Kelly Bishop) lived.

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It is pretty common knowledge among Gilmore Girls fans – and regular Warner Bros. tourgoers such as myself – that the exterior of the Gilmore mansion was a façade built inside of a soundstage on the studio lot. So imagine Chas’ surprise when he received an email from Thomas Pucher, of the Falcon Crest website, a couple of months back informing him that said façade was modeled after the exterior of an actual house – a handsome 1924 French Provincial Revival-style manse located in Pasadena. Not only that, but actual footage of the dwelling was used in establishing shots of the Gilmore residence during Season 1.

In real life, the massive 5-bedroom, 7-bath, 8,124-square-foot property, which sits on a 0.74-acre lot, is known as the William R. Staats House.

It was designed by the Marston, Van Pelt & Maybury architecture firm for real estate developer William Staats, who worked with Henry Huntington in developing Pasadena.

The William R. Staats House was not the only mansion utilized as the Gilmore home on Gilmore Girls. In fact, the tale of Richard and Emily’s residence is a bit of a long one. The GG pilot was lensed largely in Toronto, Canada and its environs, with a few re-shoots done on the Warner Bros. Studio backlot. In the pilot, a dwelling at 61 Binscarth Road masked as the Gilmore mansion.

The interior of the Binscarth Road pad was also utilized in the pilot.

Once Gilmore Girls got picked up, production moved to Los Angeles. Virtually all series filming took place at Warner Bros. GG is not a show that left the lot very often. One of the few non-studio locales utilized was the William R. Staats House. The exterior of the residence was first featured in the Season 1 episode titled “Kill Me Now.”

The exterior also appeared in “Star-Crossed Lovers and Other Strangers.”

While I knew that the studio-built façade was also utilized during Season 1, because I don’t watch the show, I was unsure of which bits were shot at the real house and which were shot on set. Enter my friend/guest poster extraordinaire Michael (you can read his many IAMNOTASTALKER articles here). Michael is a big fan of GG, so I passed the information about the Staats House along to him. He wound up reviewing several Season 1 episodes and came to the conclusion that the Pasadena pad only appeared in establishing shots a couple of times on the series and that all of the scenes that took place in front of the Gilmore mansion involving actors were lensed at the set re-creation. It was easy for him to distinguish between the real home and the façade based on three factors – the façade bricks are much whiter and flatter than those of the real house, the studio re-creation bushes are much taller than those of the real home, and, most telling of all, the set mansion does not have a threshold, while the real house does.

As Michael further explained, “In the first season they keep pretty close to the door. I assume they hadn’t built much of the exterior at that point. Then in the second season, the front driveway set is expanded, ivy is added to the facade, and a second light is added next to the door, all deviating from the Pasadena location.”

Though some commenters on this recent Reddit post about the Gilmore mansion speculate that the actual interior of the Staats House was utilized during Season 1, that is incorrect. Once the series was picked up, a set replica of the interior of the Toronto residence used in the pilot was constructed. Said set was featured from the second episode, titled “The Lorelais’ First Day at Chilton” (pictured below), through the end of the series – though it was altered a bit over the years. As creator Amy Sherman-Palladino explained during Entertainment Weekly’s PopFest in October 2016, “We always had this issue with the Gilmore house where we didn’t have a lot of money that first season, so it was a little tiny, and it kinda looked like Ed [Herrmann] was in a doll house. He was a very tall man, and the next year we had a little bit more money, so we could make a room a little bigger every year.”

The enlarged Gilmore mansion interior from Season 2 is pictured below.

As Thomas informed Chas, the Staats House also popped up in two Season 5 episodes of Falcon Crest as the Monte Carlo chateau where Peter Stavros (Cesar Romero) was held prisoner. It first appeared in “Gambit Exposed.”

The interior of the property was also shown in the episode and, as you can see, it does not look anything like the Gilmore mansion.

The Staats House then appeared in the subsequent Falcon Crest episode, titled “Finders and Losers.”

Thanks to Chas, I also learned that the Staats House masked as the home of Richard Montana (Balthazar Getty) in the Season 6 episode of Charmed titled “Love’s a Witch.”

The episode affords us a fabulous look at the interior of the residence.

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

Big THANK YOU to Thomas Pucher, from the Falcon Crest website, for finding this location and to Chas, from It’s Filmed There, for telling me about it.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Richard and Emily Gilmore’s mansion from Gilmore Girls is located at 293 South Grand Avenue in Pasadena.

September 28, 2015September 27, 2015

L’Opera Restaurant from “Charmed”

I rarely find myself in the LBC (that’s Long Beach, California, for those not in the know), so when I was out there a couple of months ago snapping photos for The Ultimate Guide to Clueless Movie Locations in Los Angeles Part I and Part II (which, if you haven’t checked out yet, you really should!), I made a quick detour to L’Opera Restaurant on Pine Avenue. The upscale Italian eatery was featured in the pilot episode of Charmed and had remained unchecked on my To-Stalk List for literally years, so I was thrilled to finally see the place in person.

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L’Opera Restaurant was originally established by restaurateurs Terry Antonelli and Enzo DeMuro. For their culinary endeavor, the duo chose a large corner unit of a 1906 building that formerly housed the First National Bank of Long Beach. When they initially leased the space in 1988, it was an empty shell and Terry and Enzo spent two years and $2.4 million renovating it. The eatery finally opened its doors on April 19th, 1990.

L’Opera was an immediate hit and has gone on to win countless awards throughout its 25-year history, including “Best Award of Excellence” from Wine Spectator magazine, which should come as no surprise being that the place offers 600 different wine selections and stocks more than 18,000 bottles in its cellar. The eatery has also won the Southern California Restaurant Writers’ two highest awards, the “5-Star Award” and “Golden Bacchus,” for the past 23 years running.

Celebrities have long flocked to L’Opera. Just a few of the stars who have dined there include Paul Newman, Jimmy Vasser, Roger Penske, Mario Andretti, Tom Cruise, Dustin Hoffman, George Clooney, John Travolta, and Pete Sampras.

Sadly, L’Opera was closed when we showed up to stalk it, so we were not able to venture inside and grab a bite to eat, but I did manage to snap a photograph of the interior through the front window. You can check out some more interior photos of the place here.

L’Opera Restaurant was only featured once on Charmed, in the pilot episode which was titled “Something Wicca This Way Comes.” In it, Piper Halliwell (Holly Marie Combs) gets a job as a chef at the supposed San Francisco-area eatery. Both the exterior . . .

. . . and kitchen area appeared in the episode.

By the second episode, “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” filming had moved to a different location – the Pasadena Livery Building, where producers set up a fake restaurant entrance. The name of Piper’s workplace was also changed to “Quake” at that time. In reality, there is no eatery located in that spot. As you can see below, what appeared as Quake is actually just an exterior walkway that leads to the Livery Building’s front doors.

Producers must have really liked the Quake exterior, because they sure got a lot of mileage out of it. During Season 6 it showed up as two different restaurants – first as Café Le Blue in the episode titled “Spin City” . . .

. . . and then as Anthony’s Restaurant in “Love’s a Witch.”

Quake’s interior, which I believe was just a set, very closely resembles L’Opera’s interior.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: L’Opera Restaurant, from Charmed, is located at 101 Pine Avenue in Long Beach. You can visit the eatery’s official website here. The exterior of the fictional Quake restaurant is really the entrance to the Pasadena Livery Building located at 101 East Green Street in Pasadena.

February 2, 2012February 1, 2012

La Villa Consolata – The Day Spa from the “Driven” Episode of “CSI: Miami”

Back in January, a fellow stalker named Brandi left a comment on my post about the mansion from The Beverly Hillbillies movie informing me that the property’s indoor spa had not actually been used in the Season 4 episode of CSI: Miami titled “Driven”, as I had originally presumed, but that that spa could actually be found at a different ostentatious estate, this one on Mapleton Drive in Beverly Hills. One quick online search and I discovered that Brandi was, indeed, correct and I immediately added the residence to my “To-Stalk” list. As fate would have it, just a few days later, the Grim Cheaper and I happened to be watching the 2001 romantic comedy Good Advice (for about the hundredth time, mind you – it is one of our favorite movies EVER!) and I just about fell off the couch when I spotted the very same spa from CSI: Miami! So I decided that I just HAD to stalk the estate as soon as possible and dragged the GC right on out there this past Saturday afternoon.

As you can see above, in real life, the “Driven” mansion is absolutely GINORMOUS and actually looks more like a palace than a private residence. In fact, according to the Wikinfo website, the property is one of the largest single family homes in all of the United States! Ironically enough, while we were stalking the dwelling, a Hollywood tour van happened to pull up and the guide announced that the estate had once been leased by Donatella Versace, to which the GC yelled out, “It was also featured in an episode of CSI: Miami!” Thanks for having my back, honey! Smile And while I cannot find any information online to back up the Donatella Versace claim, it does look like exactly the sort of place that I would imagine her living. There are also a few internet reports floating around that the home was lived in (at different times, of course) by both Janet Jackson and Tommy Hilfiger, but I believe that information is incorrect. According to CurbedLA, the residence was originally built in 1993 by Pacific-Brokerage-Services-founder Steven Wallace and was awarded to his ex-wife, Jo-Anne, in their divorce shortly thereafter. Current property records show that Jo-Anne still owns the mansion to this day, although it is possible she rented it out to various celebrities over the years.

As you can see in the above photographs from the home’s MLS listing, the 6-bedroom, 7-bath, 27,816-square-foot abode, which sits on 1.15 well-manicured acres of land, is nothing short of unbelievable! The property, dubbed “La Villa Consolata”, features a whopping eight fireplaces!, a domed entryway, a gourmet kitchen, formal gardens, a gym, an indoor and an outdoor pool, a massage room, a game room, a two-level library (which I would give anything to have in my own home!), a master bedroom wing, three elevators!, staff quarters, three family rooms, a detached theater, a guard house, a wine cellar, and a three-level underground disco named “Atlantis”! Who knew that those kinds of amenities were even available in homes?!?! And while the residence has been on and off the market for a couple of years now, it seems to currently be back on again at the bargain price of $27.5 million. You can check out the dwelling’s real estate website and see more photographs of it in all of its ornate grandeur here.

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In the “Driven” episode of CSI: Miami, La Villa Consolata stood in for a supposed Dade-County-area day spa where a group of wealthy women are robbed at gunpoint.

The mansion’s indoor lap pool was used extensively in the episode.

That pool area is pictured above and I have to say that it is pretty darn magnificent!

The interior of La Villa Consolata also masqueraded as a second location in “Driven”. Towards the end of the episode, the mansion stood in for the residence belonging to Cynthia Gilmore (Jacqueline Pinol), where a home-invasion robbery took place.

In Good Advice, La Villa Consolata’s indoor pool is where Cathy Sherman (Rosanna Arquette) attends a yoga class and gets interrupted by a phone call from her husband, Barry Sherman (Jon Lovitz). I SO love that Cathy has a coffee with her while practicing yoga, by the way! SO something I would do! Smile

In the Season 1 episode of Charmed titled “The Wedding from Hell”, La Villa Consolata’s front exterior;

interior;

and backyard stood in for the mansion where Mrs. Grace Spencer (Barbara Stock) lived.

Oddly enough, though, the mansion grounds shown in the beginning of the episode are unmistakably those of The Huntington Library and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, which I blogged about way back in October of 2008. I have no idea why two different locations would be used to stand in for the same backyard, but I am guessing that it was some sort of a timing issue in which La Villa Consolata was not available for the entire stretch of time that was needed to film “The Wedding from Hell”, so producers found a similar-looking spot to double for it in certain scenes.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Brandi for finding this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: La Villa Consolata, aka the mansion from Good Advice, the “Driven” episode of CSI: Miami and “The Wedding from Hell” episode of Charmed, is located at 330 South Mapleton Drive in the Holmby Hills section of Los Angeles. The home used for all of the backyard scenes in Mommie Dearest is located across the street at 355 South Mapleton Drive.

May 6, 2011May 5, 2011

Double A Cafe from “Charmed”

Another Charmed location that fellow stalker Chas, from the ItsFilmedThere website, told me about prior to the Grim Cheaper’s and my recent stalking trip to the Heritage Valley two weekends ago was the service station/mini-mart where the Charmed Ones – sisters Prue (aka Shannen Doherty), Piper (aka Holly Marie Combs), and Phoebe Halliwell (aka Alyssa Milano) – stopped for gas in the Season 2 episode of the series titled “How to Make a Quilt Out of Americans”. That property is actually no longer a service station, but is, of all things, a full service restaurant named the Double A Café and it is located on the corner of Santa Clara Street and Central Avenue in the tiny city of Fillmore, just off of Highway 126. Chas found this location thanks to a very helpful Charmed crewmember he had managed to track down and, even though at the time I had yet to watch the “How to Make a Quilt Out of Americans” episode, because my girl Shannen Doherty had once been there, I just had to stalk the place.

In the episode, the Charmed Ones stop for gas at the Double A Café while on their way to visit their evil Aunt Gail (aka Anne Haney) in the fictional Northern-California town of Santa Costa. While Piper fills the car with gas, Phoebe asks a couple of older gentleman for directions to her aunt’s mansion. (Filming of the mansion scenes took place at the Newhall Mansion in Piru which I blogged about last week.)

Later on in the episode, the girls return to the gas station while chasing after Cryto, the Demon of Vanity [aka Cameron Bancroft, who also played Donna Martin’s (aka Tori Spelling’s) All-star-quarterback boyfriend Joe Bradley on Beverly Hills, 90210], whereupon they find that the older gentlemen Phoebe had previously asked for directions have since been transformed into young men.

At the time of the filming, the Double A Café was an actual service station/mini-mart named Gasoline Alley. I could not find much information about the history of the place online, but at some point the property was converted from a gas station into a restaurant, as odd as that may sound. Subsequently, in October of 2011, a professional chef and Fillmore native named Dustin Anderson opened up an upscale eatery in the space which he named the Double A Café. And, amazingly enough, even with the vast transformation, the property still looks very much the same today as it did back when Charmed was filmed!

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A few other parts of Fillmore were also featured in the “How to Make a Quilt Out of Americans” episode of Charmed. The establishing shot of the supposed-Santa-Costa-downtown-area which was shown just before the Halliwell sisters pulled into the service station was actually a view of Downtown Fillmore’s Central Avenue. The shot was taken from the intersection of Sespe and Central Avenues and the camera was facing south, looking towards Santa Clara Street.

The spot where the girls hid from Cryto, the Demon of Vanity was the alcove area of the historic Fillmore Town Theatre, which has sadly since closed.

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While scanning through the 2002 movie Enough to make screen captures for last week’s post on the Piru Creek Bridge, I spotted the Double A Café space standing in for the supposed-Northern-Michigan-area roadside diner where Slim Hiller (aka Jennifer Lopez) and her daughter, Gracie (aka Tessa Allen), stopped for a bite to eat while on the run from Slim’s ex-husband, Mitch (aka Bill Campbell).

And while not much of the interior of the café was shown in Enough, I immediately recognized Fillmore City Hall, which is located directly across the street from the restaurant, through the window where Slim and Gracie sat in the scene. As you can see in this photograph, the real life view from the window of the Double A Café perfectly matches the view that was shown in the movie.

Big THANK YOU to Chas, from the ItsFilmedThere website, for finding this location! Smile You can check out Chas’ ultra-detailed Charmed filming locations page, which covers Seasons 1 through 6, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Double A Café, from the “How to Make a Quilt Out of Americans” episode of Charmed, is located at 501 Santa Clara Street in Fillmore. You can visit the restaurant’s Facebook page here. The Fillmore Town Theatre, where the Charmed Ones hid in the episode, is located at 338 Central Avenue in Fillmore. And the shot of the downtown area that appeared at the beginning of the scene was taken at the intersection of Sespe and Central Avenues in Fillmore.

May 2, 2011April 29, 2011

The Newhall Mansion from “Charmed”

Another location that the Grim Cheaper and I visited two Saturdays ago while doing some stalking in the Heritage Valley area was the Newhall Mansion, formerly the Piru Mansion, which fellow stalker Chas, from the ItsFilmedThere website, had told me about a few weeks prior. The Newhall Mansion has appeared in countless productions over the years, most notably the Season 2 episode of Charmed titled “How To Make a Quilt Out of Americans” and Chas figured that because my girl Shannen Doherty had once been there, I might be interested in stalking the place. Oh, how right he was!

The Newhall Mansion was originally built in 1889 by David C. Cook, the founder of the town of Piru. Cook, a wealthy religious book publisher who hailed from Elgin, Illinois, first came to Piru in 1887 after becoming afflicted with a debilitating coughing illness. Doctors suggested that he move to a more temperate climate to ease his lungs and he found that climate in Piru. He purchased 12,000 acres of unincorporated land in the Santa Clara River Valley and in 1887 he built the Colonial-Revival-style property pictured above. That residence is now a bed and breakfast known as the Heritage Valley Inn and it made a brief appearance in 1983’s Twilight Zone: The Movie.

In 1889, Cook commissioned a new home to be built, this one in the Queen-Anne-style, on a parcel of land located just a few blocks up the road from his first home. Although it is not known for sure, it is largely believed that the architectural firm of Joseph and Cather Newsom designed the 12,000-square-foot abode. Cook wanted his new home to be a “second Garden of Eden” and had the grounds surrounding the mansion planted with only those fruits and plants mentioned in the Bible, including dates, pomegranates, figs, apricots, olives, and grapes. Although it was considered to be grand for its day, the original mansion had no electricity, running water, or even bathrooms! Occupants had to use a three-hole outhouse located on a walking path a few yards up the road from the home whenever nature called! Yikes! In 1968, the property was purchased by Scott and Ruth Newhall, owners of The Newhall Signal newspaper. Soon after the couple inherited some money and in 1981 decided to use it to renovate their historic home, but sadly tragedy struck. In February of that year, one of the workers who had been hired to paint the property made the unfortunate decision of using a blowtorch to burn off the home’s numerous layers of old paint. The 92-year-old structure immediately caught fire and burned to the ground. Thanks to a solid insurance policy, the Newhalls were able to rebuild the gutted residence and, using old photographs and workers who had maintained the property over the years as guides, they reconstructed the mansion in the exact form in which it was originally built. In 2003, the home was sold to another member of the Newhall family, David Newhall Hill, who spent the next 6 years renovating and updating it, adding state-of-the-art heating and air conditioning, a security system, and a fire safety system consisting of on-site emergency water tanks and built-in rooftop rain birds. Today, the 4-story home, which sits on over 10 acres of land, boasts 6 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms, and – count ‘em! – 8 fireplaces and is currently for sale for a cool $2.7 million. According to the real estate listing, the property generates over $65,000 a year in film and rental income, so it almost pays for itself!

The GC and I randomly caught a great glimpse of the back side of the property while stalking the trailer park from Burlesque, which I blogged about last Thursday.

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In the “How To Make a Quilt Out of Americans” episode of Charmed, the Newhall Mansion stood in for the home of Gail (aka Anne Haney), the evil aunt of the Charmed Ones – Prue (aka Shannen Doherty), Piper (aka Holly Marie Combs), and Phoebe (aka Alyssa Milano).

In the Season 6 episode of The X-Files titled “How the Ghosts Stole Christmas”, the Newhall Mansion was used extensively as the haunted house belonging to Maurice (aka Edward Asner) and Lydia (aka Lily Tomlin) in which Fox Mulder (aka David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (aka Gillian Anderson) get trapped one dark and stormy Christmas Eve night. Scanning through the episode to make screen captures for today’s post I was reminded of what a great show The X-Files was! Man, I used to love it – and its star, Mr. David Duchovny. Until he went to rehab for sex addiction, that is! Sad smile

In the Season 4 episode of Charlie’s Angels titled “Of Ghosts and Angels”, the Newhall Mansion stood in for the haunted home belonging to Tiffany Welles’ (aka Shelley Hack’s) childhood friend, Erica Burke (aka Robin Mattson).

The mansion also supposedly appeared in two episodes of the original Melrose Place– the Season 7 episodes titled “Lethal Wedding 4” and “When Cheerleaders Attack”. It was apparently used as the wedding location of Dr. Peter Burns (aka Jack Wagner) and Eve Cleary (aka Rena Sofer), but because I have never seen those episodes and because Season 7 is not yet available on DVD, I was not able to verify that. According to the official Newhall Mansion website, the property has also appeared in episodes of Monk, Murder, She Wrote, The Incredible Hulk, Payne, Ping!, and Reno 911.

Big THANK YOU to Chas, from the ItsFilmedThere website, for telling me about this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Newhall Mansion from Charmed is located at 829 North Park Street in Piru. You can visit the mansion’s official website here. Tours of the property are offered the first weekend of each month. You can catch a glimpse of the back side of the mansion from Warring Canyon Road, just north of Center Street, near the trailer park from Burlesque, which I blogged about last Thursday.

April 11, 2011June 16, 2011

Fred 62 from “Commander in Chief”

Me on Ellen! 🙂

Before I begin today’s blog, I thought I would post a clip of the game I played on The Ellen DeGeneres Show last week. I just have to say here, too, that going to see the show was a FABULOUS experience and I highly recommend doing so if you are in the area. I would also like to thank my friend and fellow stalker, Beth, for inviting me to tag along with her to watched Ellen being filmed. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, Beth! Smile And now, on with the post!

The Grim Cheaper and I recently sat down to watch the 2005 series Commander in Chief in its entirety. The short-lived show about a female president, Mackenzie Allen (aka Geena Davis), sadly only lasted one season with a scant 18 episodes ever being broadcast. I had originally been interested in watching the series because it starred cutie Matt Lanter (aka Liam Court on 90210) as the First Son, Horace Calloway, but, as it turned out, both the GC and I absolutely LOVED it! I am beyond shocked that the show was cancelled after such a short time period. There’s no accounting for taste, I guess. Anyway, while watching one of the episodes, I recognized a location that I had actually stalked almost a decade prior – Fred 62 restaurant in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles. The GC’s best friend, Chris, had taken us there for a late lunch one afternoon back in 2001 and at the time I had no idea the place was a filming location. So once I saw it pop up on Commander in Chief, I immediately dragged the GC right on out to re-stalk it. And thankfully Fred 62 was just as great as I remembered it.

Fred 62 was originally founded in 1997 by two men named Fred who were both born in the year 1962, hence the name. Nightclub designer Fred Sutherland, who fashioned everything from The Palladium in New York City to Deep in Hollywood, created the look of the diner, while his friend, chef Fred Eric, of Olive, Vida, and Airstream fame, was responsible for the fare. The restaurant became a hit right of the bat and, due to its distinct retro-look, also became an instant favorite with area location scouts. Besides being a filming location, though, Fred’s is also something of a celebrity hot-spot and such stars as Drew Barrymore, Britney Spears, Cameron Diaz, Heather Graham, Shane West, Dax Shepard, Johnny Knoxville, Kristen Bell, Kirstie Alley, Samantha Ronson, Lindsay Lohan, Katy Perry, Russell Brand, Mandy Moore, Kate Bosworth, Naomi Watts, Cam Gigandet, and Ben Stiller have all been spotted there. Ironically enough, as we were leaving Fred 62 we saw Archie Panjabi, who plays investigator Kalinda Sharma on The Good Wife, which is another show the GC and I just recently started watching. She was dining a few doors down from Fred’s at Figaro Bistro and I just about had a heart attack upon spotting her as Kalinda is my favorite character on the series. Smile

The Fred 62 menu is quite extensive and offers a selection of everything from typical diner fare like burgers and hot dogs (with homemade potato chips, no less!) to Japanese entrees like udon and soba noodle soup to Mexican favorites such as tacos and burritos. I opted for the S.W.S. Southwestern Pacific Railroad Salad with chicken fingers (pictured above) and it was OUT OF THIS WORLD! There was literally not one scrap of lettuce or droplet of ranch dressing left on my plate when I got done with it! The GC had a roast beef sandwich which he also devoured. I honestly cannot say enough good things about Fred 62 – great food, fab atmosphere! I loved, loved, loved the place and cannot wait for a re-stalk!

Fred 62 popped up in the Season 1 episode of Commander in Chief titled First Disaster as the supposed Washington, D.C.-area diner where First Daughter Rebecca Calloway (aka Caitlin Wachs) goes on a date with schoolmate Mike Fleming (aka Matt Barr).

As fate would have it, the GC and I ended up sitting in pretty much the exact same spot where Rebecca and Mike sat in the scene.

After finishing their meal, the two get mobbed by a crowd of people while standing on the street just outside of Fred’s and wind up having to be rescued by the Secret Service.

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Fred 62 was also featured in the 2006 flick Friends With Money as the spot where Mike (aka Scott Caan) and Olivia (aka my girl Jen Aniston) go out on a blind date.

Mike and Olivia sat in the second booth in from Fred’s front door while on their date.

The restaurant also popped up a few times in 2009’s Spread, which has honestly got to be one of the WORST movies I have ever seen in my entire life!! I should say “half-seen”, as I turned it off about halfway through. Anyway, it first pops up as the spot where Nikki (aka Ashton Kutcher) grabs breakfast and while doing so meets and becomes obsessed with his waitress, Heather (aka Margarita Levieva).

Nikki later takes his friend Harry (aka Sebastian Stan) to the diner and has him pretend to be his assistant in the hopes that it will make him more attractive to Heather, but he only ends up making a fool of himself and getting a parking ticket, to boot.

Fellow stalker Chas, of the ItsFilmedThere website, let me know that Fred62 also appeared in the Season 1 episode of Charmed titled “That ‘70s Episode” in the scene in which the Charmed Ones – Prue (aka Shannen Doherty), Phoebe (aka Alyssa Milano), and Piper Halliwell (aka Holly Marie Combs) – travel back in time to March 24th, 1975 to visit their deceased mother, Patty (aka Finola Hughes), at the restaurant where she then worked.

In the episode, Prue and Piper sat in the booth closest to Fred’s front door.

And Phoebe got into a fist fight with Nicolas (aka Andrew Jackson) on the sidewalk out in front of Fred’s.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Fred 62 is located at 1850 North Vermont Avenue in Los Feliz. The restaurant is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. You can visit Fred’s official website here.

March 7, 2011March 7, 2011

Buckland Auction House from “Charmed”

I am taking a break from my wedding blogging once again today in order to write about a locale that I stalked this past Thursday evening while on my way to dinner in Downtown Los Angeles – the fictional Buckland Auction House where Prue Halliwell (aka my girl Shannen Doherty) worked during the first two seasons of the television series Charmed. Fellow stalker Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, tracked this location down – along with pretty much every other locale that ever appeared on the series – a good two years ago and how he did so is a complete and total mystery to me!

In reality, the exterior of the Buckland Auction House is the back side of a Downtown Los Angeles apartment building known as the Renaissance Tower. The portion of the building which appeared on Charmed is not at all visible from the street nor via Google Street View and can only be reached from the inside of Downtown’s Grand Hope Park, so how Chas managed to find the place while sitting in front of his computer screen all the way across the country in Warsaw, Indiana is absolutely BEYOND me! All I can say is that my hat is definitely off to him on this one! Especially being that I had actually stalked Grand Hope Park once before – and had even blogged about it – yet did not recognize the Renaissance Tower as the Buckland Auction House!

Renaissance Tower Apartments first showed up in the Season 1 episode of Charmed titled “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” in the scene in which Prue interviews for a job as an exhibition curator at the supposed San-Francisco-area Buckland Auction House. Prue lands the job and continues to work at Buckland through all of Season 1 and most of Season 2, until the episode titled “Awakening”, in which she quits her job in order to go back to school to study photography.

As I mentioned above, Renaissance Tower is situated along the south end of Downtown’s Grand Hope Park. Because the park also borders FIDM, aka the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising where Lauren Conrad and Stephanie Pratt attended fashion school on The Hills, the area popped up on regularly on the reality series during its six-season run. In the Season 3 episode titled “A Date with the Past”, the two girls are shown discussing Lauren’s recent house-warming party while sitting on a planter box located on the southern end of the park, just outside of FIDM’s entrance.

In the Season 4 episode titled “Don’t Act Innocent . . .”, Lauren confronts Stephanie about going out with Doug Reinhardt behind her back while the two are sitting on a planter box located on the park’s northern end.

This past Saturday afternoon, I dragged the GC back out to FIDM to stalk the 19th Annual Art of Motion Picture Costume Design currently on exhibit at FIDM’s Museum & Galleries (which I will be blogging about soon) and while there, I, of course, just had to pose like Lauren in the “Don’t Act Innocent . . .” episode. Smile

Grand Hope Park also appeared in the opening scene of the 2009 movie All About Steve, in which Mary Horowitz (aka Sandra Bullock) walks to the supposed Sacramento-area newspaper office where she works as a crossword puzzle editor.

In that scene, Mary walks through the water fountain located in the southeast portion of the park.

Big THANK YOU to Chas, from It’sFilmedThere, for finding this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Buckland Auction House, from Charmed, is actually the back side of the Renaissance Tower Apartments building, which is located at 501 West Olympic Boulevard in Downtown Los Angeles. The area which appeared on Charmed (which is denoted with the pink circle in the above aerial view) can best be reached from Grand Hope Park, which is located at the southeast corner of South Hope Street and West 9th Street in Downtown Los Angeles. The planter box where Lauren and Stephanie sat in the “Don’t Act Innocent” episode of The Hills is denoted with a blue arrow in the above aerial view and the planter box where they sat in the “A Date With the Past” episode is denoted with a pink arrow. The fountain Sandra Bullock walked across in All About Steve is denoted with a purple circle.

October 28, 2010September 29, 2017

The “Thriller” House

Today, in honor of Halloween, I thought I’d blog about what is arguably the most famous haunted house of all time – the Victorian-style residence that was featured in the 1983 music video “Michael Jackson’s Thriller”. Even though I’ve actually already blogged about this location once before (way back in December of 2007 when I first started my site!), because I mixed it in with a post about Halliwell Manor from Charmed which is located on the same street, I thought it was about time that the “Thriller” house was given proper recognition with its very own post. Especially since my dad recently transferred our VHS recording of “The Making of Michael Jackson’s Thriller” onto a DVD so that we could finally watch it again, being that neither of us has owned a working VCR in about five years time. I used to watch the “Making Of” special almost weekly as a child and was absolutely ENTRALLED with it. And I am very happy to report that over twenty-seven years later, the behind-the-scenes special is JUST as enthralling. 🙂 I wish the Jackson family would release it on DVD as I’d love to have a copy that wasn’t taped off of television.

In real life, the property is known as the Sanders House and it was originally built in 1887! Yes, you read that right – the residence is over 123 years old! It was commissioned by a man named Michael Sanders who ran a storage warehouse in Los Angeles at the time. The Queen Anne/Eastlake-style home boasts 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, and 3,532 square feet of living space – which I was shocked to discover as the residence looks to be much smaller from the street. The property was originally a single family residence, but has since been converted into a duplex-type dwelling, and has been undergoing an extensive restoration project for the past decade. In 1971, the home was declared a cultural historic monument and the entire 1300 block of Carroll Avenue, where the “Thriller” house is located, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. You can see some fabulous historic photographs of the “Thriller” house and its neighboring homes here. And you can read a more in-depth write-up on the history of the Sanders House on fave website Big Orange Landmarks here.

I was only at the “Thriller” house for about ten minutes yesterday and no less than three different groups of fellow stalkers showed up to take pictures of the place while I was there – and it was in the middle of the day no less! Simply amazing! I was really hoping that the “Thriller” homeowners would have decorated their abode for Halloween, but as it turns out they are not currently very thrilled about the publicity that their property’s famous history generates. According to a SUPER nice neighbor whom I spoke with while I was stalking the place yesterday, shortly after Michael Jackson passed away in June of last year, a deplorable fan stole the mailbox from the “Thriller” house and the homeowner is still pretty upset about it – especially being that the mailbox was the original one which was installed when the residence was first built over 123 years ago! I can’t even believe that a person would have the audacity to not only trespass on someone else’s property, but to then steal something from that property while doing so. It is people like that who give us harmless stalkers a bad name and it makes me madder and madder the more I think about it. Not only did that thief sour the residents on the magic of owning and living in the “Thriller” house, but they also destroyed part of a historic landmark in the process. UGH! Don’t even get me started!

The super nice neighbor also informed me that the 1300 block of Carroll Avenue is THE place to be on Halloween. One year he counted over 2,000 trick-or-treaters knocking on his front door alone! Halliwell Manor from Charmed (pictured above) is already decked out for the occasion, but the neighbor said that all of the houses on the block – not just the famous ones – typically have lines of about twenty to thirty people standing out in front of them all night long. Amazing! I would SO love to stalk the neighborhood on Halloween, but I already have plans to spend the holiday in Santa Barbara this year. Ah well, there’s always next year.

Only the exterior of the “Thriller” house was used in the filming of the music video.

All of the interior scenes were shot on a soundstage somewhere in Los Angeles.

You can watch the video “Michael Jackson’s Thriller” by clicking above.

The “Thriller” house was also used as the residence of Finn (aka Reynaldo Rosales) in the Season 4 episode of Charmed titled “Size Matters’”.

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And fellow stalker Angela from Florida alerted me to the fact that the dwelling was also used as the residence of Madam Serena (aka Zelda Rubinstein) in the 1989 movie Teen Witch. It is quite ironic that the house belonged to a woman named Serena in the flick, as the star of Teen Witch was none other than Robin Lively – real life sister of Blake Lively, who plays the famous Serena van der Woodsen on TV’s Gossip Girl.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The house from “Michael Jackson’s Thriller” is located at 1345 Carroll Avenue in the Angelino Heights section of Los Angeles, just a few miles north of Downtown. The Halliwell sisters’ house from Charmed is located two doors east of the “Thriller” house at 1329 Carroll Avenue. And Holly’s Nashua house from the “Employee Transfer” episode of The Office is located just around the corner at 1347 Kellam Avenue. If you stalk any of these locations, please, please do not trespass and, for God’s sake, do NOT steal, touch, or destroy ANYTHING while there!

February 12, 2009February 14, 2009

Quake!

The other night while driving home from the hospital – yes, my dad is in the hospital yet again – I happened to hit a red light at the corner of Green Street and Arroyo Parkway in Pasadena. The light took a really long time to change and while waiting I just happened to gaze off to my left. What I saw almost made me run my car right off the road! LOL Just down the street from me on Green Street, I saw what looked a whole lot like the exterior of Quake Restaurant from the television series Charmed. Even though I never watched Charmed while it was on the air, I have been slightly obsessed with finding Quake’s exterior ever since some Charmed fanatics challenged me to find it this past summer. And let me tell you, it was one difficult location to find!

For Christmas Mike from MovieShotsLA bought me the entire Charmed series on DVD and I just started watching the first season last week. By scrutinizing some screen captures I could tell that the exterior of Quake was not the exterior of a real restaurant. Basically Quake’s entrance consisted of two pillars and an archway that producers spruced up a little by adding some foliage, potted plants, and a sign reading “Quake”. My best guess was that the pillars were the entrance to an apartment building or a commercial driveway of some sort. But trying to find two random pillars in L.A. proved to be quite difficult and to tell you the truth I had no idea even where to begin looking. Due to the vagueness of what was shown on TV, this is one location I had no hope of ever finding. Until Sunday night, that is!

What caught my eye as I drove by Green Street the other night were the twinkle lights covering “Quake’s” archway (pictured above). I’ve probably driven by this location about a hundred times in the past, but in the daylight I never really noticed it. At night, though, the bright twinkle lights caught my eye and triggered something in my mind. I immediately pulled off to the side of the road, snapped a few photographs, and sent them off to Mike. He called me back right away and said that the Green Street location was, indeed, Quake!!!!

It turns out that in real life the exterior of Quake is the entrance to an office building named the Pasadena Livery Building. The lit archway in front leads to a small brick courtyard located at the Livery’s entrance. While the archway and courtyard area are very cute in person, I’m sure it will be pretty disappointing for Charmed fans to find out that in real life Quake is just a nondescript office building that one could easily drive right by without even noticing. LOL I was still SUPER excited to find it, though!!

Now that I can check Quake off my must-find locations list, I can pour all of my stalking attention yet again into finding the ever elusive Girls Just Want to Have Fun apartment . LOL For some reason not even Mike, master stalker, can locate that apartment building. But like I told him the other day, if we can find two pillars and an archway that were used in the filming of a television series over 11 years ago, surely we can find the Girls Just Want To Have Fun apartment!!!! LOL

And it’s definitely true what they say – every cloud does have a silver lining. Because while my dad might have spent all week in the hospital, had I not been driving home from visiting him late at night I never would have discovered Quake. Sometimes you’ve just gotta keep your eyes open to what the universe is trying to show you. 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The exterior of the fictional Quake restaurant is really the entrance to the Pasadena Livery Building located at 101 East Green Street in Pasadena.

August 27, 2008March 20, 2009

Charmed Challenge!

Got a challenge from Jenna a few weeks back to find a whole bunch of Charmed locations, one of which being the “San Francisco” city street featured in both the Season 7 episode “The Bare Witch Project” and the Season 8 episode “Still Charmed and Kicking”. In “The Bare With Project” (pictured above), the street is featured twice. In the opening scene of that episode, Phoebe and Piper are shown eating lunch at an outdoor corner cafe located on a public street. In the scene Piper is breastfeeding and is asked to leave by the restaurant manager. In the closing scene of that episode, Phoebe rides a horse naked – a la Lady Godiva – down the same street to protest against the restaurant for mistreating her sister.

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In the “Still Charmed and Kicking” episode (pictured above), that same street shows up yet again as the spot where Phoebe and Piper do some serious shoe shopping after faking their own deaths.

Well, Jenna, I have good news and I have bad news. If you’re like me, you prefer the bad news first, so here goes. The bad news is that the street the sisters walked along is not a real street – it is actually part of the Paramount Studios backlot in Hollywood. While doing some online Charmed research to try to figure out where this street was located, I found out that after the sixth season of the series, production moved from its small Canoga Park studio to Hollywood mega-lot Paramount Studios. After carefully watching both episodes, something about the “street” didn’t seem realistic to me. If you look closely at both episodes, everything seems just a bit smaller than it should be – much like Wisteria Lane from Desperate Housewives. The streets are a bit too narrow, the sidewalks a bit too skinny, the buildings a little too short – all causing me to realize that a back lot, not a real city street, must have been used for the filming. If you look in the background of the above screen capture, a house or small apartment building (circled) is visible behind Alyssa Milano on the left hand side. That was a dead giveaway for me that the street was really a set, as residential street sets are commonly located right next to city street sets on most movie studio backlots. After I learned that both of the episodes were filmed during the time that Charmed was being produced on the Paramount lot, I became convinced that the street was in actuality just a set. I believe that for both of the episodes mentioned one of Paramount’s New York street scenes was used.

Now for the good news – even though this street is located on a set, you can still see it in person. 🙂 Paramount Studios offers a behind the scenes tour and one of the stops is the New York area of the back lot. While I have never been on the Paramount Tour, it is definitely something I want to do in the near future. Seeing Stars does a great write-up on the Paramount Tour, with some great photos and while he didn’t seem to like the tour much, this stalker still really wants to check it out. When I do go on the tour, I will be sure to post some photographs of the New York City streets for comparison. Sadly, though, I don’t think the streets will be that recognizable from Charmed due to the fact that studio street scenes and building facades are constantly changed and redressed to make way for new productions. That being said, I would still recommend stalking the Paramount Tour, as I think it would still be really fun to see.

And don’t worry, Jenna, I am still stalking the other Charmed locations you challenged me to find. 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Paramount Studios is located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles. To book a tour, you can call (323)956-4848. Tours cost $39 per person.