Eddie Murphy – IAMNOTASTALKER

October 15, 2015September 29, 2017

The Evers’ House from “The Haunted Mansion”

My Los Angeles magazine editor is on vacation this week, so I will not have a post on LAmag.com today. To make up for it, though, I’ve got a Haunted Hollywood locale for you right here! One of my favorite parts about the Halloween season is watching scary movies. (And of course stalking their locations and blogging about them.) It always shocks me how many horror flicks and thrillers there are out there that I have yet to see. One of my more recent screenings was of The Haunted Mansion, the 2003 Disney flick based on Disneyland’s popular ride of the same name. I didn’t have very high hopes for the movie, but it turned out to be really cute – and a perfect watch for this time of year. The best part? Years ago, my buddy Mike, from MovieShotsLA, told me about the location of the home where the Evers family – Jim (Eddie Murphy), Sara (Marsha Thomason), Michael (Marc John Jefferies), and Megan (Aree Davis) – lived in the flick. He had tracked it down via this 2006 Pasadena Weekly article. As it turns out, not only is the pad an extremely popular filming location, but it is located very close to where I used to live. For whatever reason, I had never stalked it, though. So I finally amended that by running right on over there while I was in the area a few weeks back.

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In real life, the Colonial-Revival-style residence, which was originally built in 1925 and sits on a 0.26-acre plot of land, boasts 4 bedrooms, 3.5 baths, and 3,234 square feet.

As you can see below, the dwelling is extremely picturesque. For some odd reason, though, the exterior rarely makes it onto the silver screen.

Such was the case with The Haunted Mansion – only the interior of the property was used in the filming. The exterior of the Evers’ house was never shown, not even in an establishing shot, which I found a bit weird. You can check out some photographs of the inside of the home here and here.

According to the Pasadena Weekly article, to accommodate the filming, the home’s then owners had to move out for two and a half weeks (the longest they had ever been displaced for a shoot), which is surprising being that the residence was only shown in a couple of brief scenes.

The haunted mansion that appeared in the movie, which was referred to as the Gracey Estate, was unfortunately just a façade that was built at Sable Ranch in Santa Clarita. Only the lower part of the manse was constructed for the shoot – the top portion was added via CGI in post-production – and was subsequently torn down after filming wrapped. You can check out some photographs of the façade here and here. What I wouldn’t give to have been able to have seen it in person! (Side note – I was floored to discover while researching this post that the Haunted Mansion ride at Disneyland was modeled after a real home, the Shipley-Lydecker House in Baltimore, Maryland. Sadly, it no longer stands, but you can see an image of what it used to look like here. It is the spitting image of the Disneyland mansion. SO incredibly cool!)

I actually think the mansion looks quite fake in the faraway shots that appeared in the movie.

But the close-up views of it are amazing! Personally, I think they should have forgone the CGI and utilized the façade as it was.

The interior of the Gracey Estate was an elaborate set constructed at Barwick Studios where The Haunted Mansion was lensed. You can read a fabulous blog post written by a few lucky souls who were able to visit the set on the DoomBuggies website here.

According to DoomBuggies, the couch that appeared in the library scene was also used in the 1954 movie 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

And, according to internet lore, after filming wrapped a chair from the mansion’s dining room set was placed inside the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland. It is said to be the chair that Jack Sparrow is sitting in at the very end of the attraction. Upon closer inspection, though, I do not believe that to be correct.

You can check out a picture of the Pirates chair here. While the two chairs are strikingly similar, there are some differences. Most notably, the movie chairs have an elevated carving of some sort located at the top, while the Pirates chair does not. Internet lore further states that one of the same chairs is also pictured in a portrait of a bride in the attic area of the Haunted Mansion ride. You can see an image of it here.

The Evers’ house was also where Michael Feller (Ken Howard) and Sydelle Feller (Candice Azzara) lived in the 2005 dramedy In Her Shoes. That movie was one of the few instances in which the exterior of the dwelling was shown.

The interior of the home made an appearance in the film, as well.

In the 2009 drama State of Play, the residence belonged to Anne Collins (Robin Wright).

And while 2007’s Spiderman 3 also did some filming on the premises, those scenes wound up on the cutting room floor.

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

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for telling me about this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Evers’ house from The Haunted Mansion is located at 1480 North Michigan Avenue in Pasadena.

May 1, 2015May 1, 2015

Golden Gate Fields from “Metro” – And a Special Fundraising Event for the Alzheimer’s Association

My BFF since the age of 9, Natalie, will be hosting a charity event in honor of her grandfather, Ed Lingsch, on June 14th in the San Francisco area. Ed passed away just shy of his 98th birthday on November 12th, 2011 after a long battle with Alzheimer’s Disease. Nat worked for Ed’s real estate company, eventually taking over the business, and cared for her beloved “Gramps” for the last decade of his life. During that time, she penned a blog called Laugh or Cry which chronicled the heartbreaking and sometimes funny trials and tribulations of dealing with an Alzheimer’s patient. This particular post about Gramps’ plans to run away, armed solely with a briefcase full of pilfered Starbucks gift cards, is one of my favorites. A man after my own heart! Ed was a longtime fan of horseracing and even owned several winning steeds during his lifetime. I remember attending one of his winning races with Nat and watching with glee as he stepped into the winner’s circle to pose for photographs. So when Nat decided to host a fundraising event in his honor, she figured what better place to do it than at Golden Gate Fields in Berkeley. As fate would have it, Golden Gate Fields just so happens to be a filming location! But more on that in a bit.

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The Ed Lingsch Derby Day Alzheimer’s Benefit will consist of an afternoon at the races, a buffet lunch, and a silent auction for such items as a week-long stay in Tahoe, gifts from my favorite store Lula Mae, cooking lessons, a Producer of the Day spot on the Sarah & Vinnie Morning Show on Alice 97.3, 49ers tickets, as well as many more. All proceeds will be donated to the Alzheimer’s Association. So the purpose of today’s blog post is not just to chronicle a filming location, but to inform my San Francisco-based readers about the event (tickets are $46 and can be purchased here) and to ask any fellow stalkers who feel so inclined to donate an item for the silent auction (you can find our more information on donating to the auction by emailing Nat at info@alzderbyday.com). You can also donate directly to the Alzheimer’s Association in Ed Lingsch’s name here. (That’s Nat dancing with Gramps at her wedding in 2006.)

Golden Gate Fields is Northern California’s last remaining major racetrack. [Bay Meadows (where I would often accompany Nat and her family to watch Ed’s horses race) was shuttered in May 2008.] The 140-acre site, which originally opened to the public on February 1st, 1941, boasts two tracks – a one-mile synthetic track and a 9/10-mile turf course.

The site also features an 8,000-seat grandstand, a club house, a turf club, simulcast rooms and stunning views of San Francisco Bay and and the Berkeley Hills.

Golden Gate Fields has many claims to fame. Russell Baze, the winningest jockey in the world, won 27 titles there. The location was also the home track of the celebrated horses Silky Sullivan and Lost in the Fog. Silky is now buried on the premises, beneath the yellow and white marker visible in the photograph below.

As I mentioned, Golden Gate Fields is also a filming location. Shortly before it opened to the public, it was utilized briefly for the 1941 comedy Shadow of a Thin Man.

It was at Golden Gate Fields that hostage negotiator Scott Roper (Eddie Murphy) taught Kevin McCall (Michael Rapaport) the intricacies of racing in the 1997 action comedy Metro.

While there, Roper explains that the reason he likes the races is, “The multitude of possibilities. Everything is here for you to see if you just know what conditions to look for, just like a hostage situation.”

A portion of Rancid’s 2009 “Last One To Die” music video was also shot at Golden Gate Fields.

Don’t forget, you can visit the Alzheimer’s Derby Day website here, purchase tickets to the event and/or donate to the Alzheimer’s Association on Eventbrite here, make a donation to the silent auction by emailing info@alzderbyday.com, and follow the event on Facebook here, Instagram here and Twitter here. Any help my fellow stalkers can give would be much appreciated!

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: Golden Gate Fields, from Metro, is located at 1100 Eastshore Highway in Berkeley. You can visit the Fields’ official website here.

July 28, 2014July 25, 2014

Bowfinger International Pictures from “Bowfinger”

I am a sucker for any movie about Los Angeles. Coincidentally (or perhaps no so coincidentally), Steve Martin has written and starred in two of my favorites – L.A. Story and Bowfinger. Two completely different takes on life in LaLaLand, but both equally valid and poignant. Because I originally moved to Southern California to pursue an acting career, Bowfinger really hit home for me. Especially the scene in which wannabe actress Daisy (Heather Graham) jumped off the bus that transported her from Ohio to Hollywood, suitcase in hand, and asked of random passersby, “Where do I go to be an actress?” That was so me when I moved to SoCal – bright-eyed, full of dreams and so, so naïve. Who am I kidding, that is still so me – the dreams have just shifted a bit. So when Mike, from MovieShotsLA, told me years back that he had tracked down the bungalow that served as both the residence of Robert K. Bowfinger (Martin) and the headquarters of Bowfinger International Pictures in the flick, I immediately added it to my To-Stalk list. Somehow, though, I did not make it over there until a couple of weeks ago.

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Sadly, the house has changed considerably since filming took place. While the columned portico stationed around the front door was a set piece added for the filming and never an actual fixture of the property, the front door itself used to be in the same spot it was shown to be in Bowfinger, but has since been moved.

Mike took some photographs of the residence a couple of years ago and, as you can see, the location of the front door at that time matched what appeared onscreen. You can check out some other pictures of what the front door originally looked like here and here.

The door has since been covered over and moved to the side of the dwelling, as you can see in the image below (which I got off of the Yelp page for the FunHouse 420 Café and Lounge which was formerly housed in the bungalow).

Oddly enough, though, while taking a closer look at Bowfinger I noticed that an opening in that area was visible, so it seems that the home used to have two front doors.

Despite the front door alteration, the dwelling is still recognizable from the movie.

The area surrounding it is not, though. While the neighborhood used to be chock full of bungalows and apartment buildings, it now consists mainly of parking lots. The Bowfinger house is pretty much the only home in the vicinity still standing. And, sadly, it does not look like it will remain so for long. The land the residence is located on is currently being offered for sale (for $5million!) for the purpose of building a high-tech storage facility.

I am fairly certain that the interior of Bowfinger International Pictures was a set and not the bungalow’s actual interior, which you can see some photographs of here.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for finding this location and for loaning me the picture that appears in this post! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Bowfinger International Pictures from Bowfinger is located at 1621 Vista Del Mar Avenue in Hollywood.

February 23, 2012February 22, 2012

The Milbank Mansion – aka Chapman Academy Preschool from “Daddy Day Care”

A couple of weeks ago, Tony, my friend and fellow stalker who has the fabulous On Location in Los Angeles Flickr photostream (seriously, it’s amazing – go check it out!), asked me for some help in tracking down the ginormous Mediterranean mansion that stood in for the prestigious Chapman Academy Preschool in the 2003 comedy Daddy Day Care. Tony had informed me that the residence was used regularly for filming and that it had also been featured recently in the Season 10 episode of fave show CSI: Miami titled “By the Book”. So I started doing some research on oft-filmed-at Mediterranean estates in Los Angeles and, amazingly, fairly quickly came across a photograph of a gorgeous Country Club Park property named the Milbank Mansion that, sure enough, was the right spot. So, while Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I were out doing some stalking in the area this past Monday morning, we stopped by the place. And I have to say that it is pretty darn incredible in person! Not to mention pretty darn huge!

The Milbank Mansion was originally built in 1913 for prominent local businessman Isaac Milbank and his wife, Virginia. The 12-bedroom, 5-bath, 10,059-square-foot home, which sits on 1.79 acres of land, was designed by G. Laurence Stimson, the very same architect who also gave us the legendary Wrigley Mansion, now the Tournament of Roses House, in Pasadena. The estate is located in the heart of Country Club Park – a historic 250-acre neighborhood situated on the site of the original Los Angeles Country Club, which closed its doors in 1905. The area was developed and subdivided by none other than Isaac Milbank himself, along with a business partner named George Chase, beginning in 1906. The Milbank Mansion, which, according to a June 1988 Los Angeles Times article, is “considered to be the most substantial surviving estate built for a single family in the city of Los Angeles before World War I”, became a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument on December 13, 1989. You can see some interior photographs of the property here.

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In Daddy Day Care, both the exterior . . .

. . . and the interior of the Milbank Mansion were used as the Chapman Academy Preschool.

In the Season 10 Halloween-themed episode of CSI: Miami titled “By the Book”, the mansion stood in for the island estate where a female body that had been entirely drained of blood was found hanging upside down.

The interior of the estate was also used in the episode.

In the 1929 silent film Wrong Again, the exterior of the Milbank Mansion was used as the residence where stable hands Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy mistakenly returned a horse named “Blue Boy” thinking they would be able to collect on some reward money being offered for a missing painting also known as “Blue Boy”.

In the 1975 film noir Farewell, My Lovely, both the interior and the exterior of the Milbank Mansion stood in for the brothel belonging to “L.A.’s famous madam” Francis Amthor (Kate Murtagh). Of the estate, detective Phillip Marlowe (Robert Mitchum) says, “It was an old house, built as they once built them and don’t build them anymore. Fitting and proper for housing the world’s oldest profession.”

In 2006’s Running with Scissors, the interior of the mansion stood in for the home where Dr. Finch (Brian Cox) lived with his crazy family – wife Agnes (Jill Clayburgh) and daughters Hope (Gwyneth Paltrow) and Natalie (Evan Rachel Wood). The property was dressed rather heavily for the production, though, and is virtually unrecognizable onscreen.

As you can see above, for the exterior of Dr. Finch’s mansion a different location was used.

The Milbank Mansion was also supposedly featured in Harold Lloyd’s 1922 silent film Dr. Jack, the 1971 movie Hit Man, and the reality series Beauty and the Geek, but unfortunately I could not find copies of any of those productions to verify that information. And while several websites have stated that the property also appeared in the 2001 biopic Ali, I scanned through the movie yesterday while making screen captures for this post and did not see it anywhere.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Tony for asking me to find this location! You can check out Tony’s FANTASTIC On Location in Los Angeles Flickr photostream here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Milbank Mansion, aka the Chapman Academy Preschool from Daddy Day Care, is located at 3340 Country Club Drive in the Country Club Park section of Los Angeles.

September 14, 2010September 14, 2010

Griffith Observatory

A couple of months ago I dragged my parents and my then-fiancé/now husband out to Los Feliz to do some stalking of the Griffith Observatory in Griffith Park – a place which I had never before visited despite having lived in Los Angeles for over a decade. I had actually wanted to stalk the Observatory for close to 18 years – ever since November of 1992, to be exact – thanks to the fact that it was featured in a Season 3 episode of fave show Beverly Hills, 90210. But more on that later.

The land that now encompasses Griffith Park was donated to the City of Los Angeles by Welsh industrialist Colonel Griffith J. Griffith (and no, that was not a typo – the guy’s first name was actually the same as his last!) on December 16, 1896. Griffith stipulated that the donated parcel of land, which measured 3,015 acres, was to be used as a public park. He said, “It must be made a place of rest and relaxation for the masses, a resort for the rank and file, for the plain people. I consider it my obligation to make Los Angeles a happy, cleaner, and finer city. I wish to pay my debt of duty in this way to the community in which I have prospered.” When Griffith passed away 26 years later, in 1919, he bequeathed the majority of his $1.5 million estate to the city for the purposes of building a theatre and an observatory inside of the park. Construction on the observatory, which was designed by architect John C. Austin and engineer Russell W. Porter, began on June 20th, 1933 and the building opened to the public just under two years later, on May 14, 1935.

The Griffith Observatory, which sits high atop Mount Hollywood, features a 300-seat state-of-the-art planetarium, a 2,700-square foot multimedia theatre, a Zeiss refracting telescope, an exhibit hall, and, as you can see above, views which are nothing short of incredible.

Hollywood location scouts took notice of the property right from the very beginning when it was chosen to appear in the 1935 movie The Phantom Empire shortly after its opening. Since that time, the Observatory has been featured in hundreds upon hundreds of productions – far too many for me to be able to properly catalog here, but I’ll do my best to give my fellow stalkers a broad overview.

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As I mentioned above, the Observatory was featured in a Season 3 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210. That episode was titled “Rebel With A Cause” and it was, ironically enough, one of my least favorite episodes in the entire history of the series. The episode centers around the break-up of longtime couple Dylan McKay (aka Luke Perry) and Brenda Walsh (aka my girl Shannen Doherty), immediately after which Dylan puts the moves on Brenda’s best friend Kelly Taylor (aka Jennie Garth). Mind you, Dylan and Kelly had also been seeing each other behind Brenda’s back for an entire summer at that point in the series. Dylan then decides to take Kelly out on a date – just two nights after his break-up with Brenda! – and when Brenda randomly catches the two of them together in a restaurant, she calls Kelly a “bimbo” and Kelly actually has the nerve to be mad at Brenda. I mean, HELLO, Kelly! Not only did you spend an entire summer making out with your BEST FRIEND’S boyfriend, but when said best friend and said boyfriend break-up, it’s not 48 hours later that you are out on a date with him. With friends like that, who needs enemies?? Let me tell you, had that happened to me, I would have been calling Kelly a whole lot worse things than “bimbo”. And yes, I realize Beverly Hills, 90210 is just a television show and that the “Rebel With A Cause” episode aired almost two decades ago, but the whole thing still seriously upsets me! But I digress. Anyway, in the episode, before taking her out to dinner, Dylan brings Kelly to the Griffith Observatory, where they watch a show in the planetarium.

After the show, the two little home-wreckers head outside for a heart-to-heart chat and, even though I was strongly opposed to the whole Kelly/Dylan romance, for whatever reason, it was the location of that chat that I was most interested in stalking.

I had a very difficult time locating the wall where Dylan and Kelly sat, though, as it is not in an easily-visible part of the building. It actually wasn’t until we were heading back to our car that I finally spotted the right place.

As it turns out, Kelly and Dylan’s wall is located in the eastern-most section of the Observatory. It is actually the wall to a ramp which leads to the back of the building and is located on the left-hand side of the Observatory (as you are facing it) and is denoted with a pink arrow in the above aerial view.

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The Observatory’s most famous onscreen appearance was, of course, in the 1955 James Dean classic Rebel Without a Cause, which, amazingly enough, I have never actually seen! In the beginning of the flick, Jim (aka James Dean) and Judy (aka Natalie Wood), along with the rest of their high school class, go on a field trip to the Observatory where they watch a show in the planetarium.

And the very same wall from 90210 also appears in that scene.

Rebel’s final scene also takes place at the Observatory, but I do not want to post any screen caps of that scene as they would spoil the ending.

There is a statue of James Dean on display on the Observatory’s front lawn which commemorates the historic filming that took place there in 1955. So darn cool!

Griffith Observatory was also the site of the climatic scene in 1999’s hilarious comedy Bowfinger, in which renegade, wanna-be movie director Bowfinger (aka Steve Martin) and his ragamuffin film crew secretly tape Daisy (aka Heather Graham) and Kit Ramsey (aka Eddie Murphy) fighting off a fictitious band of aliens.

In the first Transformers movie, Mikaela Banes (aka Megan Fox) and Sam Witwicky (aka Shia LaBeouf) are at the Observatory when they witness a group of Transformers crash landing on earth in the form of meteorites.

In The Terminator, the Observatory is the spot where the Terminator (aka Arnold Schwarzenegger) first emerges from a time warp and begins his mission to kill Sarah Conner (aka Linda Hamilton).

In 2008’s Yes Man, the Observatory is the location of Allison’s (aka Zooey Deschanel’s) weekly jogging/photo class, during which Carl (aka Jim Carrey) crashes after drinking waaaaaaay too many Red Bull energy drinks.

It is also where Carl professes his love to Allison at the very end of the movie.

And it is during that ending scene that Carl and Allison run right by the exact spot where Beverly Hills, 90210 was filmed 16 years beforehand. 🙂

The scene in which Natalie Cook (aka Cameron Diaz), Dylan Sanders (aka Drew Barrymore) and Alex Munday (aka Lucy Liu) discover that Madison Lee (aka Demi Moore) is actually a fallen angel in Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle takes place at the Observatory.

The observatory was also featured in the music video for Paula Abdul’s hit single “Rush Rush”, which was an homage to the movie Rebel Without a Cause.

You can watch the full video, which starred Keanu Reeves, by clicking above.

Griffith Observatory has also appeared in the movies Dragnet, Devil in a Blue Dress, The Rocketeer, House on Haunted Hill, Nancy Drew, and Earth Girls are Easy, and in episodes of NCIS: Los Angeles, 24, Star Trek Voyager, Alias, MacGyver, Melrose Place, Angel, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and The Colbys.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Griffith Observatory is located at 2800 East Observatory Road, inside of Griffith Park, in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles. You can visit the observatory’s official website here. Admission is free. The observatory is closed to the public on Mondays and Tuesdays.

April 6, 2010May 12, 2010

Wayne Manor From the “Batman” Television Series

Just up the street from the Just Married mansion which I blogged about yesterday is the residence which stood in for Wayne Manor, aka Batman’s abode, in the 1966 television series and movie of the same name. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, the Batman mansion and the Just Married mansion are quite often mistaken for each other due to a myriad of reasons. So, to set the record straight – and since we already were in the area a couple of weeks ago doing some Just Married stalking- I decided to drag my fiancé a few hundreds yards up the road to also stalk Bruce Wayne’s pad. Sadly, though, not very much of it is visible from the street.

According to Zillow, the residence, which was built in 1928, boasts ten bedrooms, six bathrooms, a whopping 16,599 square feet of living space, and sits on over five acres of land! And if you look at the above photographs, it is very easy to see why the property is often confused with the Just Married mansion that burned down in October of 2005. Not only are both houses gargantuan, set far back from the road, and Tudor/Gothic Revival in style, but both were constructed almost entirely out of brick by the very same architect, Paul Revere Williams, and bear a striking resemblance to each other. Further adding to the confusion between the properties is the fact that they are located within blocks of each other on the very same street, San Rafael Avenue, in Pasadena and have both been featured in countless productions over the years.

Because the location rumors about the two mansions have been running rampant for so very long, this weekend I decided to try to get my hands on as many of the productions filmed on the premises as I could to try to set the record straight once and for all. And I didn’t do too bad – the only movies I wasn’t able to track down were Topper, Three Men and a Little Lady, Executive Action, The Gumball Rally, The Bells of St. Mary’s, Sweet Bird of Youth, and True Confessions. If anyone has those movies or has seen them in the past, can you let me know which, if either, of the San Rafael mansions was featured in them?

As I mentioned above, the mansion’s most famous appearance was as Wayne Manor in the 1966 television series Batman and the subsequent movie of the same name that was made that very same year. But its resume hardly ends there.

The residence was also used as both the St. Audrey’s Home for Boys where Grace (aka Emma Thompson) was taken in by a nun . . .

. . . and as Roman Strauss’ (aka Kenneth Branagh’s) home in 1991’s Dead Again.

In the first Rush Hour movie, the mansion stood in for Los Angeles’ Chinese Consulate.

As you can see in the above photograph and screen capture, though, the exterior gate which appears in that movie is not the home’s real life gate.

In 1999’s Bowfinger, the mansion was used as the residence of action star Kit Ramsey (aka Eddie Murphy).

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And in that flick the home’s real life gate does actually appear and was the site of one of the movie’s funniest scenes.

In Scary Movie 2, the mansion stood in for Hell House/Kane Manor where most of the film’s action takes place.

In X-Files: Fight The Future, it was used as the Somerset, England home of the Well-Manicured Man (aka John Neville).

According to some reports that I found online, the mansion was also featured in 1986’s Stand By Me, which seemed a bit odd being that I had always heard that Stand By Me was filmed almost in its entirety in the state of Oregon. After re-watching the flick earlier today, though, I believe that the mansion did appear once at the very end of the movie as the residence of “The Writer” (aka Richard Dreyfuss). As you can see in the above screen captures, the front driveway area does match that of the Batman mansion. Why would they come all the way to Pasadena to film this one brief scene, though, when the rest of the movie was filmed hundreds of miles away in Oregon, you ask? Well, according to IMDB’s Stand By Me trivia page, an actor named David Dukes was originally cast in the role of “The Writer”. After his scenes were shot, though, and filming had wrapped, they re-cast the role with actor Richard Dreyfuss and re-shot all of his character’s scenes. So, since the Richard Dreyfuss scenes were filmed at a later date – I am guessing after principal photography in Oregon had already wrapped – it makes sense that they would have been shot somewhere in the L.A. area, closer to where the film was being edited.

And if you’ll notice in the above screen captures, which were taken from the movie Dead Again, the mansion’s front window and the view from it does sort of match that which appeared in Stand By Me, which makes me think that the property was actually used in the movie, although I don’t have any concrete proof to back that up.

Fellow stalker Ivan just sent me the above screen captures from the television series Land of Giants, in which Wayne Manor stood in for the residence belonging to Uncle Trojar in the episode entitled “Collector’s Item”. And, yes, the mansion was blown up t the end of that episode. Thank you, Ivan! 🙂

According to fave website OnLocationVacations, the mansion was also the site of some filming from the upcoming Dinner For Schmucks movie starring Steve Carell, Paul Rudd, and Zach Galifianikis. Besides being a filming location, the mansion was also the Pasadena Showcase House of Design in 1997. So, I hope that at least partially puts to rest some of the locations rumors about the two landmark San Rafael Avenue mansions. If I come across any further information, I will post it here! And please let me know, dear readers, if you come across any information yourselves!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Wayne Manor from the Batman television series is located at 380 South San Rafael Avenue in Pasadena. Unfortunately, the residence is not very visible from the street. To see the best views of the home, drive just a bit north of where the main gates are located.

May 27, 2009June 27, 2019

Descanso Gardens

This past weekend I dragged my fiance and my parents out to stalk Descanso Gardens in La Canada Flintridge – another location that I discovered thanks to my new favorite stalking book. The 160-acre botanical garden has been featured in countless movies and television shows over the years and is also a popular wedding venue.

E. Manchester Boddy (pronounced “Boh-dee”) first purchased the property now known as Descanso Gardens in 1937 to build a home for his family. Besides being the owner and publisher of the Los Angeles Illustrated Daily News, Boddy was also a horticulturalist and a commercial camellia grower and he needed a piece of property large enough to cultivate his prized flowers. Rancho de Descanso, as it was then known, fit the bill perfectly. In 1938, he commissioned a 12,000 square foot home to be built on the property. The 22-room mansion, named the Boddy House, was designed in the Hollywood Regency style by “architect to the stars” James E. Dolena. Boddy positioned the home in the very southeast corner of Descanso – which means “rest and repose” in Spanish – so that he and his family would be able to enjoy specatular views of the San Gabriel Mountains. In 1953, Boddy sold the entire 160 acre property, including his custom built home, to the City of Los Angeles, who later opened it up to the public. In 2007, the Boddy Home was featured as the Pasadena Showcase House of Design and was completely renovated and restored to its former glory. The bottom floor of the home is open for all visitors of Descanso Gardens to tour. The Boddy House can also be rented out for weddings and private events.

Descanso Gardens encompasses a twenty-acre oak tree forest, a bird sanctuary, a five-acre rosarium featuring over three thousand roses, a Japanese tea garden, countless waterfalls and koi ponds, a lilac garden, and a California garden featuring Redwood trees, California poppies, and chaparral plants. The site is stunning and extremely expansive, but also, sadly, very crowded, I believe due to its low admission price.

The venue’s beauty has, of course, led to countless onscreen cameos. Descanso was the location of Nikolas Natchios’ funeral in the 2003 movie Daredevil.

Its greenhouse was used in a prominent scene in Minority Report.

And Reese Witherspoon has filmed no less than three productions at the Gardens! In Legally Blonde, Descanso was transformed into Golden Springs Spa where Reese and her partner Luke Wilson interviewed Raquel Welch. The building located just to left of Descanso’s main entrance was used as the entrance to the spa.

Both the interior and the exterior of the Boddy House were used as the home of John Voight, where Reese spends Christmas, in last year’s Four Christmases. Because the movie has not yet been released on DVD, I was not able to make screen captures of it. 🙁 According to one of the Boddy House docents, though, the mansion was significantly dressed up for the filming of the movie and is not very recognizable. Four Christmases featured many areas of the Boddy House, including the front entrance, main foyer, library, and living room. Reese also filmed her latest Avon commercial, which has yet to be released, at Descanso Gardens.

An episode of Mad Mad was also recently filmed on Descanso’s main lawn area (pictured above). Descanso Gardens was also featured in Memoirs of a Geisha, America’s Sweethearts, Graduation Day, Tiny Dancer, Congo, Land of the Lost, the recently wrapped Untitled Duplass Brothers Project starring Marisa Tomei, Jonah Hill, and John C. Reily, and Eddie Murphy’s new movie The Incredible Shrinking Man.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Descanso Gardens is located at 1418 Descanso Drive in La Canada Flintridge. The Gardens are open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The entrance fee is $8 for adults and $3 for children aged 5 to 12. Children under 5 are free. You can visit the Descanso Gardens website here.

May 26, 2008February 13, 2009

Daddy Day Care

While out and about with my dad this week, I decided to stalk the home used in the Eddie Murphy movie Daddy Day Care. Since my dad just retired, he has been recruited to be my new stalking side kick! I think he loves it about just as much as my boyfriend does. 🙂 Anyway, my fave stalking guide provided me with the location of Eddie Murphy’s house in the movie, so, of course, I had to run right out and stalk it.

It is an absolutely adorable home and I can totally picture a day care center being run there. The house is HUGE – a lot bigger than it appeared in the movie, but otherwise it looks just like it did onscreen. From what I remember of the movie, much of the backyard of this home was used for filming, as well. I definitely recommend stalking this location – even if you’ve never seen the movie – because the house is just that cute!!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Daddy Day Care house is located at 351 N. Congress in Pasadena.