famous haunted homes – IAMNOTASTALKER

January 3, 2012January 2, 2012

Carrie Fisher’s House

I would like to start off by wishing all of my fellow stalkers a very happy New Year! I hope that 2012 brings each of you joy, laughter, fulfillment, and much good stalking. And now, on with the post! When my good friend, fellow stalker Lavonna, visited Los Angeles back in mid-November, she, along with her daughter Melissa and friends Beth, Kim, and Sandy, attended a taping of The Talk (during which she got a hug from none other than Henry Winkler himself, aka The Fonz!). The guest on that particular day was Carrie Fisher and all audience members were given a copy of the Star Wars actress’ latest book, Shockaholic. Because Lavonna knows how much this stalker absolutely loves herself some celebrity biographies, she kindly passed her copy along to me and I read the 162-page tome in just a few days. And while I did not find it particularly enthralling (it is a very odd, sometimes incoherent, rambling collection of stories), one portion that did pique my interest was when Carrie discussed her current home and its famous former owners, one of whom was the legendary Academy-Award-winning costume designer Edith Head (on whom the character of Edna in the 2004 movie The Incredibles was based). Of the property, and the fact that it is supposedly haunted, Carrie said, “ . . . if Edith did happen to roam her once-beloved home, she never floated past me. Nor did I spot any visions of Bette Davis, who sold the property to Edith, or Robert Armstrong, King Kong’s captor in the original film, who built the house and sold it to Bette.” Well, believe you me, once I read those words and learned of how much the property was steeped in Hollywood history, I became just a wee-bit obsessed with stalking the place. Thankfully, a simple input of the terms “Carrie’s Fisher’s house” on Google yielded a link to a page on fave website Virtual Globetrotting which featured the home’s location. So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk it the very next weekend.

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Carrie’s 4-bedroom, 4-bath, 4,210-square-foot home, which sits on over 2.5 acres of land, was originally built in 1933 for actor Robert Armstrong, as I mentioned above. According to Zillow, Carrie purchased the property in May of 1993 for a cool $13,745,454. Sadly though, as you can see above, aside from the gate, no part of the house is visible from the street. There are some rather quirky signs posted on the gate, though, which made me LOL. The signs read, “Dear Crossing”, “Beware of Crabs”, and “Public Telephone Within”. I was a bit tempted to ring the buzzer to ask if I could use said public telephone, but the GC ixnayed that idea real fast.

As you can see in the above aerial views, Carrie Fisher’s hacienda-style home is nothing if not private. The residence sits far back at the end of a long driveway and is surrounded by huge trees and tall hedges. According to fave book Movie Star Homes: The Famous to the Forgotten, the property was even more secluded in its early days when it encompassed 5 acres of land, but Edith Head had the lot subdivided sometime during the 1950s. Thankfully, Carrie showed off the dwelling in the November 2004 issue of Architectural Digest, allowing us stalkers an insider’s peek. Aside from Edith Head, Bette Davis, Robert Armstrong, and Carrie Fisher, singer James Blunt also lived on the premises, in Carrie’s guest house, for a time. He even recorded a song in one of the property’s bathrooms – yes, in a bathroom. Apparently, Carrie has a stand-up piano on display in one of her lavatories because, as she says, “We had no place else to put it and the room has good acoustics.”

As I mentioned earlier, I did not particularly enjoy Shockaholic, but there was one section that I did absolutely love and would be remiss by not referencing here. In the beautifully-written chapter titled “The Princess and The King”, Carrie discusses her friendship with Michael Jackson and, as you can imagine, I was absolutely drooling while reading it. One particularly poignant paragraph really hit home for me and I found myself wishing I had written it myself. The paragraph reads, “The thing is, though, I never thought Michael’s whole thing with kids was sexual. Never. Granted, it was miles from appropriate, but just because it wasn’t normal doesn’t mean that it had to be perverse. Those aren’t the only two choices for what can happen between an adult and an unrelated child spending time together. Even if that adult has had too much plastic surgery and what would appear to be tattooed makeup on his face. And yes, he had an amusement park, a zoo, a movie theater, popcorn, candy, and an elephant. But to draw a line under all that and add it up to the assumption that he fiendishly rubbed his hands together as he assembled this giant super spiderweb to lure and trap kids into it is just bad math.” I couldn’t agree more, Carrie, I couldn’t agree more! (The photograph pictured above, from Shockaholic, is of MJ reading Carrie’s 2008 book Wishful Drinking. The caption reads, “President Harry Truman playing golf on island of Kailua, Hawaii. June 1911.” Um, OK. See what I mean about the book being very odd, sometimes incoherent, and rambling? )

A big THANK YOU to my good friend, fellow stalker Lavonna for gifting me with her copy of Shockaholic!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Carrie Fisher’s house is located at 1700 Coldwater Canyon Drive in Beverly Hills. Please keep in mind that the home is private property and do not trespass.

October 26, 2011September 29, 2017

The So-Called Houdini Ruins

One location that I have wanted to stalk for just about forever now is the so-called Harry Houdini Estate, or Houdini Ruins, located at the corner of Laurel Canyon Boulevard and Lookout Mountain Avenue in Laurel Canyon. I first read about the site five years ago in fave stalking tome Hollywood: The Movie Lover’s Guide, but, for whatever reason, had never made the trip out there to stalk it. Then, a couple of weeks ago, the Grim Cheaper and I found ourselves in the Laurel Canyon area and decided that, because the locale had long been rumored to be haunted by the ghost of the famous magician, the timing could not have been more perfect to finally stop by. It was not until after I got home and did some research that I discovered that Houdini had most likely never even set foot on the property, let alone lived there, and therefore had pretty much no reason whatsoever to haunt it.

It is not exactly clear how or why the rumor about the Houdini Estate got started. According to an October 1989 Los Angeles Times article written by Michael Szymanski, the first printed mention of it was in Kenneth Schessler’s 1972 book This is Hollywood. When Szymanski told Schessler that his information about the Estate had largely been panned, Schessler responded, “I heard about the controversy, but I proved it by finding it in a directory of some sort. I just can’t remember where.” Um, OK, I believe you, then! Winking smile What is known as fact is this: Harry Houdini did reside in the Los Angeles area for a brief period around 1919 while filming two movies for the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation/Paramount Pictures. Where he stayed during that time, though, is anybody’s guess. Journalist Maurice Zolotow once researched the magician for a Los Angeles Magazine article and said, “Houdini resided in Hollywood for about two years, yet I’ve never been able to discover where he lived.” Further adding to the mystery and allure of the Laurel Canyon site is the fact that the 40-room Italianate-style mansion which once stood there burned entirely to the ground in 1959. All that remained after the blaze were some ornate stone staircases, cement walls, and the former servant’s quarters. The main home was never rebuilt and the ruins of the fire, which came to be known as the “Houdini Ruins” and which you can take a look at here and here, were visible from Laurel Canyon Boulevard for years to come. As you can see in the above photographs, though, that is, unfortunately, no longer the case.

However it began, the Houdini Estate rumor spread even further after the fire and countless websites and books still to this day state that the Laurel Canyon ruins were once a part of the magician’s property, despite many claims to the contrary. Houdini historian Manny Weltman even went so far as to say, “Houdini never set foot on those grounds, and anyone who says so is lying. If anyone comes up with proof I’ll eat my magic hat.” When the site went up for sale in 1989, Merrill Lynch hired two different title search companies to research the title, but neither could find any link to Houdini. Today, the location, which mainly serves as an event venue and is known as “Houdini House”, consists of a 3.9-acre plot of land with landscaped terraces, waterfalls, ponds, hiking trails, meandering pathways, and an Old-Hollywood-style home that sleeps twelve. One of my friends actually attended a wedding at the estate and said it was an absolutely magical experience. So, whether Houdini ever set foot on the property or not seems to be entirely irrelevant, as it has somehow managed to generate a mystique all on its own. Oh, what I would not give to throw a Halloween party there! Can you imagine how incredibly cool that would be?!?! And while the Houdini House rental rates are actually quite reasonable, somehow I still don’t think the GC would ever go for it.

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Someone who did go for it, though, was The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills’ Taylor Armstrong, who in the Season 1 episode titled “It’s My Party and I’ll Spend If I Want To”, famously threw her 4-year-old daughter, Kennedy, a $60,000 Mad-Hatter-themed birthday party at the Houdini Estate. And no, that was not a typo – the party, which was for a FOUR-YEAR-OLD, actually cost $60,000!!!!! The spectacle caused fellow Housewife Lisa Vanderpump to ask, “What ever happened to Pin the Tail on the Donkey?” Love it!

The bust of Houdini which was shown in the Housewives episode can just barely be viewed from Laurel Canyon Boulevard and is pictured above, albeit quite blurrily.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The so-called Houdini Ruins are located at 2400 Laurel Canyon Boulevard in Laurel Canyon. Unfortunately, as I mentioned above, no part of the property is visible from the street, so I cannot really recommend stalking it. You can visit the Houdini House’s official website here.

October 17, 2011September 29, 2017

George Reeves’ Former Home

Another location that has long been woven into the fabric of Hollywood lore is George Reeves’ former Benedict Canyon bungalow, where in the early morning hours of June 16th, 1958 the Adventures of Superman star was found dead from a single gunshot wound to the head. The events surrounding his death have been the subject of much conjecture ever since. Did the 45-year-old actor commit suicide (as was the official finding), was his death accidental, or was he murdered by his vengeful ex-lover or her jealous husband? Conspiracy theories abound and Reeves’ death has remained the stuff of Hollywood legend for over five decades since. His passing even became the subject of the 2006 biographical docudrama Hollywoodland, in which Ben Affleck plays the Pasadena-bred television star. For whatever reason, though, in my ten-plus years of living in Los Angeles, I had yet to stalk the former Superman’s home. So I figured this was the perfect time to do so and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out there last weekend.

George Reeve’s former residence is rather small, especially by Hollywood standards. The brown-shingled bungalow, which was built in 1947, boasts 2 bedrooms, 3 baths, and 1,717 square feet. It was purchased for the actor at a cost of $12,000 by his longtime lover, MGM Vice-President E.J. Mannix’s wife Toni Lanier, whom the actor had broken up with shorty before his death. Reeves’ new girlfriend, who had since moved in, was a New York socialite named Leonore Lemmon, with whom he was rumored to be engaged. On the night of June 15th, 1959, Reeves and Lemmon went out to dinner and the two reportedly drank a great deal. When they returned home, they continued to kick back the alcohol until around 12:30 p.m., at which point Reeves retired to his bedroom. Lemmon stayed awake and about thirty minutes later three friends dropped by for a visit. Shortly after their arrival, Reeves came downstairs to hang out with the group and then once again retired to his room at around 1:20. A few minutes later a shot was heard and the foursome ran upstairs. The actor was discovered laying face up on his bed, naked, with a single gunshot wound to his right temple and a .30 caliber Luger on the floor in between his lifeless feet. Television’s beloved Superman was dead at the tender age of 45. Reeves was dressed in one of his character’s Clark Kent suits for the funeral, which took place two weeks later, on June 30th, 1959. His body was later cremated and interred at the Mountain View Cemetery in Altadena, which I blogged about during my Haunted Hollywood theme last year.

Reeves’ death was quickly ruled a suicide, but some facts of the case appear to be murky at best. For instance, Lemmon and her friends pulled a Conrad Murray by failing to call the police until about thirty minutes after discovering the body, and each seemed to have a differing account of the evening due to their inebriated states. Reeves himself was also severely under the influence, with a blood alcohol level of .27 and, because the actor had long enjoyed playing with unloaded weapons, it was thought possible he accidentally shot himself while doing so. It was also widely believed that Toni, to whom Reeves bequeathed his entire estate, may have shot him in a jealous rage after hearing news of his engagement, or that her husband, E.J. Mannix, who had ties to the mob, had him “whacked” due to the affair. Whatever the case may be, no charges were ever filed and Reeves’ death remains one of the most talked about Hollywood scandals to this day.

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Amazingly, George Reeves shot part of a Kellogg’s Corn Flakes commercial (the cereal company was the sponsor of Adventures of Superman) inside of his actual Benedict Canyon home. The areas which appeared in the commercial include the den;

the master bedroom (where the actor died);

the kitchen;

and the backyard. According to Jim Nolt’s fabulous Superman-themed The Adventures Continue website, the house has remained largely unchanged since the time Reeves lived there over fifty years ago.

George Reeves’ Kellogg’s Corn Flakes Commercial–Filmed in his Home

You can watch George Reeves’ Kellogg’s Corn Flakes commercial by clicking above.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: George Reeves’ former home is located at 1579 Benedict Canyon Drive in Beverly Hills.

October 12, 2011September 29, 2017

The “American Horror Story” House

Last week, fellow stalker Owen sent me an email with a tip, as well as this Curbed LA article, about a Haunted-Hollywood-type location that he thought I might be interested in stalking – the imposing brick and marble abode which figures as the focal point of the new television series American Horror Story. And right he was! I had just TiVo-ed the premiere episode of the show the previous night and could hardly wait to sit down and watch it. And I was not disappointed – American Horror Story is absolutely riveting! The fact that Owen had already tracked down the main location used in it was like icing on the cake! Randomly enough, another fellow stalker named August sent me an email this past Thursday evening in which he also tipped me off to the location of the American Horror Story house, along with a link to the exact same Curbed LA article that Owen had also sent! I figured the universe was most definitely trying to tell me something, so I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the place this past weekend.

The American Horror Story house was originally built sometime during the early 1900s (the home’s official website says it was built in 1902, but Curbed LA and various other sites state that it was most likely constructed in 1908) by Alfred F. Rosenheim as his personal residence. The prominent Los Angeles architect also designed the Majestic Theatre on Broadway, the Herman W. Hellman Building in Downtown Los Angeles (L.A.’s very first first ten-story building), the Doheny Mansion’s glass conservancy and palm house in West Adams, and the Second Church of Christ Scientist, also in West Adams. The Rosenheim residence, which in 1999 was declared Los Angeles’ Historic-Cultural Monument Number 660, features a 9,660-square-foot, three-story main house, 7 bedrooms, 7 baths, Tiffany stained-glass windows, as well as Tiffany glass doors and light fixtures, maid’s quarters, a library, a hand-painted Japanese gold- and silver-leafed ceiling, a formal dining room, six different Batchelder fireplaces, a solarium, and a 1,600-square-foot basement. According to the Paradise Leased blog, upon its unveiling, the Los Angeles Times stated that the mansion was “magnificently appointed” and featured “almost every conceivable modern convenience and luxury” – including an intercom system that is still in working condition to this day!

In 1918, Rosenheim sold his self-designed abode to a mining tycoon named A.J. McQuatters, who used the mansion as his winter home. The property went through a succession of different residents in the following years, including character actor Edward Everett Horton, who leased the home for a short while, and the Sisters of Social Service, who converted the dwelling into a convent. In 1954, the Sisters also built a 50-foot-long, 4,500-square-foot detached chapel on the premises. That chapel has since been transformed into a recording studio. According to Curbed LA, the Rosenheim house has been on and off the market since 1999 and is currently for sale for a cool $4.5 million.

As you can see above, the residence, which sits on a 3/4-acre, corner plot of land and is truly magnificent in person, is actually much larger than its façade would lead you to believe. The place is absolutely GINORMOUS!

American Horror Story House–For Sale

You can watch the home’s real estate video by clicking above.

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The pilot episode of American Horror Story opens up in the year 1978 and shows two twin boys wreaking havoc on a dilapidated old mansion.

The real life interior of the property, which you can see pictures of here, was used in the filming of those scenes, although it was dressed considerably to appear neglected and run-down.

The episode then switches to the present day where it begins to follow the story of the Harmon family – mother Vivien (aka Connie Britton), father Ben (aka Dylan McDermott), and daughter Violet (aka Taissa Farmiga, who, in real life, is the younger sister of Up in the Air’s Vera Farmiga) – who has moved from Boston to Los Angeles in order to start a new life after suffering a considerable series of misfortunes. The family purchases the old mansion, which has since been fixed-up, despite being told about the previous owners’ murder-suicide, which took place shortly beforehand.

The real life interior of the house, in its actual state, is used extensively as the interior of the Harmon residence. You can see more interior photographs of the property here.

Oddly enough, though, the series does not make use of the property’s kitchen, which you can take a look at here. As you can see, it looks nothing like the kitchen that is shown on TV.

Thanks to fellow stalker Robert, from the Movie Locations and More website, I learned that the Rosenheim home was also used in the Halloween-themed Season 4 episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer titled “Fear, Itself”, as the Alpha Delta fraternity house where Buffy Summers (aka Sarah Michelle Gellar) and her friends attended a Halloween party.

The interior scenes look to have been shot at a different location, though.

Except for the scene in which Oz (aka Seth Green) turned into a werewolf, which was filmed inside of one of the property’s real life bathrooms.

There seems to be quite a bit of erroneous information about the home’s filming history floating around online. According to the property’s official website, it appeared in a 1950’s movie named Old Blue Eyes which starred Frank Sinatra, although I can find no such production listed on Frank’s IMDB page. And according to this website, the house was also used in 2002’s Spiderman and 2007’s Because I Said So, but I scanned through both of those movies earlier today and did not spot the place anywhere. That same website also states that the residence appeared in Seabiscuit, but because I do not own the film and could not find it to rent or stream anywhere, I was not able to verify that.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalkers Owen and August for telling me about this location! Smile

Stalk It: The American Horror Story house is located at 1120 Westchester Place in the Country Club Park section of Los Angeles.

October 3, 2011September 29, 2017

The Mills View House from “Picket Fences”

Well, my fellow stalkers, it is finally that time of year again, the month I look forward to all year long – October! With it comes fall leaves, cooler temperatures, and my favorite holiday of them all, Halloween. And you know what that means – I will once again be devoting the entire month of blog posts to locations having to do with Haunted Hollywood! First up is the Mills View house, a Monrovia-area property that I learned about way back in March from a journalist named Toni Momberger who interviewed me for an Inland Valley Daily Bulletin newspaper article she was writing about famous movie homes. Toni told me that she had toured the huge, Victorian-style abode as part of her research for the article and she was shocked to discover that I had never before heard of the place. As fate would have it, the house had been featured prominently in not one, but two spooky productions over the years, so I figured it would be the perfect start to my Haunted Hollywood theme and I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk it a few weeks back.

The 5-bedroom, 2-bath, 3,140-square-foot Mills View house, which was built in 1887 by architects Luther Reed Blair and Uriah Zimmerman, was originally situated on a 5-acre plot of land on what was then the corner of Banana Avenue (now Hillcrest Boulevard) and Melrose Avenue. The Eastlake-Victorian-style home was commissioned by William N. Monroe, the founder of Monrovia, as a wedding gift for his son, Milton Monroe, and his new bride, Mary Nevada. Construction on the property began in May of 1887, shortly after Milton and his wife were married, and was completed a mere seven months later. Sadly, the Monroes divorced a short time after tying the knot and ended up selling their wedding home to Colonel John H. Mills and his wife, Elizabeth Cook Mills, in 1893. The Mills dubbed their new residence “Mills View” because on a clear day the island of Catalina was supposedly visible from one of the third floor windows. Unfortunately, Colonel Mills passed away only three months after moving into the home and it went through several ownership changes after Elizabeth subsequently died in 1905. Mills View, which boasts numerous stained glass windows, a third floor attic, hardwood flooring throughout, and five fireplaces with original tilework, became a Monrovia City Landmark on June 4, 1996.

According to this Monrovia Patch article, Mills View has appeared in over 20 productions since 1980 alone. Sadly though, I know of only two – both of which, as I mentioned above, fit the thriller genre. And the property definitely does give off a spooky vibe in person – I think primarily due to its gargantuan size – so it is not very hard to see why location scouts have flocked to it over the years.

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In the Season 1 Halloween-themed episode of fave show Picket Fences titled “Remembering Rosemary”, Mills View was where Rosemary Bauer committed suicide ten years prior by jumping out of a third-floor window, and where Sheriff Jimmy Brock (aka Tom Skerritt) and his deputies Maxine Stewart (aka Lauren Holly) and Kenny Lacos (aka Costas Mandylor) returned to investigate the case after deciding to re-open it a few days before Halloween.

I am fairly certain that the real life interior of the house, which you can see some photographs of here, was used in the episode.

Mills View was also the primary location used in the 1986 horror flick House. In the movie, it was the haunted property that mystery-writer Roger Cobb (aka William Katt) inherited from his Aunt Elizabeth (aka Susan French). According to the House production notes, for the onsite filming, which lasted two weeks, production designer Gregg Fonseca repainted the exterior of the property and added Victorian gingerbread detailing, a few spires, a wrought-iron fence, and a sidewalk. At the rear of the residence, he covered up the home’s real life clapboard siding with a fake brick edifice and added some much-needed landscaping.

No filming took place inside of the actual home, though. For all of the interior scenes, a replica of the house, which included two full stories, a living room, a den, a staircase, and three upstairs bedrooms, was built on a soundstage at Ren Mar Studios in Hollywood.

And I am fairly certain that the pool shown in the movie was either a fake built on the property solely for the filming or that a second location was used, as Mills View does not currently appear to have a pool.

Two very lucky British House fans were given a personalized tour of Mills View last year and wrote a great blog post about it which you can check out here.

On a Halloween side note – I was finally able to dig up a photograph of me dressed up as Agent Dana Scully for Halloween one year during college, which I had mentioned in the blog post I wrote about meeting David Duchovny back in June. The only picture I could find, though, was not a very good one as my eyes are closed in it. Ah well. That is my good friend Alex, who was dressed up a Parrothead, posing with me.

While going through boxes at my parents’ new house looking for the Dana Scully picture, I also stumbled upon my Fox Mulder doll, which I could NOT have been more excited about! I am so going to have to stalk DD again and get him to sign the doll for me. How incredibly cool would that be??

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Mills View, from the movie House and the “Remembering Rosemary” episode of Picket Fences, is located at 329 Melrose Avenue in Monrovia.