famous hotels – Page 8 – IAMNOTASTALKER

December 9, 2010December 8, 2010

La Quinta Resort & Club

Brace yourselves, my fellow stalkers, ‘cause today’s post is going to be a long one! As I mentioned yesterday, the Grim Cheaper and I spent this past weekend in Palm Springs and we came to do so thanks to an extremely serendipitous course of events. Last Wednesday night, I was curled up on my couch reading the December issue of fave publication Los Angeles Magazine when I came across an advertisement for La Quinta Resort & Club which stated that Frank Capra had written the screenplay for It’s A Wonderful Life while staying at the legendary hotel. In honor of the iconic movie, the resort was featuring an It’s a Wonderful Life-themed Christmas celebration each night throughout the month of December. I, of course, just about had a heart attack upon reading those words and immediately informed the GC that we would be making a trip out to the desert in the coming weeks. Well, not five minutes later, my mom called to inform me that she and my father were heading to Palm Springs for the weekend and that she had booked a room at . . . you guessed it – La Quinta Resort! Talk about the stars aligning! She asked if the GC and I would like to join them for the weekend and I started packing my bags pretty much right then and there. Smile

The resort, which was originally named Hotel La Quinta meaning “country retreat”, was first opened in 1926 by Walter H. Morgan, heir to the Morgan Oyster Company fortune. Morgan had moved from his native San Francisco to the Palm Springs area in 1921 after purchasing 1,400 acres of land in what was then known as “Happy Hollow”. He decided to use that land to build an intimate and exclusive hotel where his rich and famous friends could be pampered while escaping the hustle and bustle of the city. He enlisted Pasadena-area architect Gordon Kaufman, who is most famous for constructing the Santa Anita Racetrack in Arcadia and the L.A. Times Building in Downtown Los Angeles, to design the hotel, which was to be modeled after a Spanish hacienda. The retreat, which consisted of 20 individual casitas, a restaurant, a lobby, and a nine-hole golf course (the Coachella Valley’s first golf course, in fact!) was constructed at a cost of a whopping $150,000. The resort officially opened to the public in January of 1927 – although Morgan had hosted a select group of his friends there in December of the previous year – and became enormously popular over the next decade and a half, mostly due to word of mouth among Los Angeles’ elite, and counted such stars as Greta Garbo, Clark Gable, Ginger Rogers, Bette Davis, Robert Montgomery, and Erroll Flynn as its guests. World War II sadly took its toll on the hotel, though, thanks to gas rationing which prevented people from traveling long distances. In 1942, the property closed its doors at which point the US Army took over and the Army Tank and Army Air Corps Division made use of the premises. After the war ended, the resort was sold and once again became a popular getaway for the rich and famous, as it remains to this day. A private airstrip even had to built on the property to accommodate those guests traveling by air. In 1982, the City of La Quinta was incorporated, becoming one of only two cities on the West Coast to be named in honor of a hotel. The other? Beverly Hills, which became incorporated in 1914 and was named after the Pink Palace, aka the Beverly Hills Hotel.

Today, La Quinta Resort & Club, which is a part of the Waldorf-Astoria Collection of hotels, is an absolutely BEAUTIFUL retreat consisting of 796 different rooms and suites, most of which are individual single-story dwellings or “casitas” situated around sprawling courtyards and pools. And even though the resort is staggeringly HUGE – besides having 796 rooms, it also currently boasts 23 tennis courts, 4 restaurants, a 23,000-square foot spa, 41 pools, 53 Jacuzzis, and 5 golf courses – somehow the property has managed to maintain an intimate, small hotel-feel. Because the rooms are spread across a vast 45 acres of land, the grounds are extremely quiet and private. So private, in fact, that it almost felt as if my parents, the GC, and I were the only people on the property the entire weekend. So love it!

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Upon check-in, we were given a booklet which not only detailed the hotel’s legendary history, but also listed many of the luminaries who have stayed there over the years. It was at that moment that I knew that La Quinta was my kind of place! Smile Just a few of the stars who have vacationed there at one time or another include Drew Barrymore, Danny DeVito, Jim Belushi, Annette Bening, Sean Connery, Clint Eastwood, Kevin Costner, Simon Cowell, Casey Kasem, Diane Keaton, Ben Kingsley, Ginger Rogers (who got married on the property in 1953), Harvey Keitel, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Ray Charles, Harry Connick Jr., Neil Diamond, Cyndi Lauper, Justin Timberlake, Al Pacino, Matthew Perry, Tom Hanks, Katherine Hepburn, Adam Sandler, Katie Holmes, Gregory Hines, Shirley Temple, Mark Wahlberg, and Bruce Willis. I could literally go on and on and on! Several presidents have also checked into the hotel over the years, including George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Gerald Ford, Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, and Calvin Coolidge. And numerous sports stars have also stayed there, including Andre Agassi, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Roger Clemens, Roger Federer, Wayne Gretzky, Ken Griffey Jr., Magic Johnson, Joe Montana, Bruce Jenner, Michael Jordan, Jack Nicklaus, and Arnold Palmer. I was most excited to find out, though, that the King of Pop himself, Michael Jackson, had once visited the hotel!

Well, let me tell you, once I heard that MJ had vacationed there, I became ABSOLUTELY OBSESSED with finding out exactly which room he had stayed in. So, I immediately sought out the resort’s concierge and ended up speaking with a woman who literally could NOT have been nicer. Truth be told, though, EVERYONE at the hotel was INCREDIBLY nice! Anyway, the concierge told me that she was fairly certain the hotel had a detailed list of what particular rooms various celebrities had stayed in over the years and that she would try to track it down for me. And track it down she did! And even though Michael Jackson was not named on the list, due to the fact that it hadn’t been updated in quite a few years, the concierge did some research and managed to find out exactly where he had stayed during his visit – Room 735, otherwise known as Hacienda Grande. YAY!

So, I, of course, immediately dragged my parents right on over to stalk it. According to the concierge, Hacienda Grande is the resort’s largest room and boasts its own living room with a fireplace, an entertainment center, a dining room, kitchen area, a separate master bedroom, a private pool, a private Jacuzzi, a carport, and a private walled patio. Oh, how I wish we could have seen the inside of it!

The concierge also told us that Britney Spears had stayed in Room 225 – El Presidente – while at the resort. El Presidente is the resort’s presidential suite and it consists of a one-bedroom casita AND a one-bedroom guest house, along with a parlor room, a dining room, a kitchen area, two bathrooms, a fireplace, and a private patio, pool, and spa. Actors Jerry Lewis and Cliff Robertson have also stayed in Room 225 in the past.

The concierge also told me that in each room where a celebrity has stayed, the hotel has put a replica of that celebrity’s star from the Hollywood Walk of Fame on display. How incredibly cool is that? (And yes, you can call up and ask to stay in the “Drew Barrymore” or “Mark Wahlberg” room, for example.) My mom happened to book Casita Number 936 for our stay and I just about died upon opening the front door and seeing the above-pictured star on the wall. As it turns out, Robert Wagner had once stayed in our room! SO INCREDIBLY COOL! Especially since my grandma had gifted me with his autobiography Pieces of my Heart: A Life last Christmas and I absolutely LOVED it.

Casita 936 was absolutely gorgeous and consisted of a king bed and a queen-sized sleeper sofa, a fireplace, a HUGE bathroom . . .

. . . and an absolutely ENOURMOUS private walled patio which boasted gorgeous pool and mountain views. I seriously did not want to leave!

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, Frank Capra wrote It’s A Wonderful Life while staying at the resort. The legendary director/screenwriter first came to La Quinta in the late 1920s while writing the screenplay for It Happened One Night. After the movie won a staggering five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Screenplay, Capra became superstitious, calling the hotel his “Shangri-La for script-writing”, and returned there to pen many of his subsequent screenplays, including Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Lost Horizon, You Can’t Take It With You, and, of course, It’s A Wonderful Life. Frank, and his wife Lucille, always stayed in the same room while vacationing at the resort – Suite 136 in the San Anselmo Casita – and their room is now marked with both a memorial placard and a memorial bench. According to one of the staff members that I spoke with, the very typewriter that Frank used to write those famous scripts is still on display inside of the room! So incredibly cool! The staff member even offered to take me on a tour of Frank’s former casita and to show me the typewriter, but when he radioed to get a set of keys brought to him, was told it was occupied. Such a bummer!

As you can see in the above picture, the theme of the resort’s month-long winter celebration is apparent as soon as one sets foot on the property!

As you turn into the resort’s long, palm tree-lined driveway, you are immediately greeted with a large saying “You are now in Bedford Falls”, which looks EXACTLY like the sign that was featured in the movie It’s A Wonderful Life. So incredibly cool!

The resort’s Plaza area is awash with Christmas decorations . . .

. . . which, thanks to thousands of Tivoli lights, only gets more spectacular at night!

The pathway leading to the Plaza is decorated with hundreds of candle-lit luminarias, as you can see in the above photograph.

And there is also a HUGE, 43-foot white fir tree flanking the front of the property.

Best of all, though, is the fact that the hotel projects It’s A Wonderful Life onto the wall of the Plaza’s Salon de Fiesta each evening!

Oh, and the front of the resort is also rigged to “snow” each night, which you can kind of see in the above photograph. SO INCREDIBLY COOL!

Legend has it that Irving Berlin also penned the song “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas” while staying at the historic hotel and, as fate would have it, we happened to walk to into the lobby on Saturday night while some carolers were singing that very song. I cannot tell you how cool it was to be sitting in front of the resort’s roaring fireplace, hearing Berlin’s famous words being sung while looking out at the very landscape that inspired them!

I am fairly certain this goes without saying, but I honestly cannot recommend stalking La Quinta Resort & Club enough! It is a truly magical, truly unique place and I loved every minute of being there!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: La Quinta Resort & Club is located at 49-499 Eisenhower Drive in La Quinta. You can visit the hotel’s official website here. Frank Capra stayed in Room 136 in the San Anselmo Casita, Robert Wagner stayed in Room 936, Britney Spears stayed in Room 225 – El Presidente – and Michael Jackson stayed in Room 735 – Hacienda Grande.

November 2, 2010September 29, 2017

Halloween 2010 at the Hotel Santa Barbara

As I mentioned last week, this past Saturday morning the Grim Cheaper and I headed up north to the Central Coast of California to spend Halloween with our good friends who live in Santa Barbara, or the “American Riviera” as the seaside city is colloquially known. For those who have never visited the area during Halloween, I must say that there is just simply no place better to spend the holiday. For whatever, Santa Barbara has got some MAJOR Halloween spirit. Downtown State Street turns into one big Halloween fest each and every October 31st, during which everyone – and I do mean everyone – dresses up for the occasion. It’s an absolute blast and if you EVER have the opportunity, I HIGHLY recommend spending at least one Halloween there!

At one point in the evening, we even witnessed a flash mob dancing to “Michael Jackson’s Thriller”, in which ALL of the participants were dressed like Zombies. So darn cool! But I digress.

Anyway, as I always do when planning a vacation, I set out to find a hotel to stay at that had some sort of Hollywood history or cinematic significance. And find one, I did! While doing some cyberstalking I came across an article on the Santa Barbara Conference & Visitors Bureau website titled “Movie Tourism is a Natural in ‘Hollywood North’”. Besides doling out some fabulous area filming location information, the article also stated that in the 1920s the Hotel Santa Barbara, a place where I have actually always wanted to stay, was “the getaway for many of Hollywood’s brightest stars”, including actors Leo Carrillo, Clark Gable, and Carole Lombard. So, I immediately booked the GC and I a room there.

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The 84-room, Mediterranean-style property, which was originally named “The Saint Barbara Hotel”, was established in 1916 and was one of the first hotels built by famed Santa Barbara hotelier Neal Callahan. The original hotel building was destroyed during the June 29, 1925 earthquake and was rebuilt by Callahan the following year. From the very beginning, the upscale hotel enjoyed a loyal following, housing vacationing starlets and wealthy tourists alike. According to this October 2000 Los Angeles Times article, during Prohibition the property even boasted a hidden gambling room on its premises, where alcohol was indeed still served. And while in later years the hotel degraded a bit in stature, it underwent an extensive $4 million renovation and restoration project in 1997 and is once again a popular upscale vacation venue.

The hotel was very reasonably priced by Santa Barbara standards (most hotels in the seaside city are exorbitantly expensive and not very well maintained), especially considering the place’s centralized downtown location. Lots of freebies, such as bottled water in the room, wireless internet, and a continental breakfast, were also included. Our room, while small, was extremely cozy and very nicely appointed.

And it also boasted a fabulous view of Downtown State Street and the Santa Barbara Mountains. And even thought the staff there couldn’t tell me much about the history of the place nor about any of its celebrity clientele during the heyday of Hollywood, I honestly can’t recommend the Hotel Santa Barbara enough! I’ve stayed in quite a few different hotels in the area over the years and not only was the Hotel Santa Barbara one of the nicest, it was also one of the least expensive, which, of course, pleased the Grim Cheaper to no end. 🙂

As always, the GC and I looked to Hollywood for our costume inspiration this year and decided to dress up as Ferris Bueller (aka Matthew Broderick) and Sloane Peterson (aka Mia Sara) from fave movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. My mom, whose help we enlisted to make Ferris’ leopard print vest, was convinced that no one would recognize us being that the movie is almost two and a half decades old. I, however, knew that would not be the case. I mean, hello! Ferris and Sloane are iconic! How could people NOT know who we were! And sure enough, I was right – people recognized us pretty much everywhere we went that night. 🙂 Well, a few did refer to us as Ferris and “Simone”, but hey, that’s close enough. 😉

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Hotel Santa Barbara is located at 533 State Street in the heart of Downtown Santa Barbara. You can visit the hotel’s official website here.

October 15, 2010June 16, 2011

The Glen Capri Inn & Suites from “The Good Girl”

A few weeks ago, I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to stalk the Glen Capri Inn & Suites – a historic and oft-filmed Glendale-area motel that has appeared in over twenty movie and television productions in the past six years alone. I was most interested in stalking the property due to its appearance in the 2002 flick The Good Girl, which starred my girl Jen Aniston. And even though I didn’t like The Good Girl AT ALL (it was just far too dark and depressing for my taste), because JA had filmed there, I was dying to see the motel which was featured in it in person.

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The Glen Capri is famous not only for its vast motion picture history, but for its distinct architectural style, as well. The property was originally built in 1949 by Louis Armet and Eldon Davis, the architectural team who, according to an August 1999 Los Angeles Times article written by Ed Leibowitz, “defined ‘50s Googie architecture” – Googie being the unique mid-century modern-style of design which had its roots in the now-defunct, John Lautner-constructed Googies Coffee Shop. At the time of its grand opening, the Glen Capri Inn & Suites was called simply the Glen Capri Motel. In 2000, the interior of the property underwent an extensive remodel at which point it was given its more upscale-sounding moniker. Fortunately, the exterior of the property was left intact during the recent remodel and looks almost exactly the same today as it did when it was first built over six decades ago. It is thanks to the motel’s historic facade and authentic 60’s neon signage that location scouts have returned to film there time and time again.

Before arriving at the Glen Capri Inn & Suites, I was a little nervous that the place would not be very stalker-friendly and that taking photographs of the premises would be a big no-no. As it turns out, though, I needn’t have worried. The man working at the front desk was very nice and said that we could take all of the pictures that we wanted. AND there was even a “Wall of Fame” located in the main office, with signed headshots of all of the actors who had filmed at the motel on display.

As you can imagine, I just about died when I saw my girl Jen’s autographed picture hanging on the wall. SO INCREDIBLY COOL!

In The Good Girl, the Glen Capri stood in for the Texas-area motel where Justine Last (aka Jennifer Aniston) and Holden Worther (aka Jake Gyllenhaal) conducted their on-going affair.

Both the main office . . .

. . . and Room 8 were used in the flick. I don’t want to give away the ending, but Room 8 also featured significantly in the movie’s climactic finale. On a Good Girl side note – Mike, from MovieShotsLA, recently stalked Retail Rodeo, the discount store where Justine and Holden worked in the movie. You can see pics of it on his site here.

In 2004’s Raising Helen, the Glen Capri stood in for the New York-area motel where Helen Harris (aka Kate Hudson) and Jenny Portman (aka Joan Cusack) catch their underage niece Audrey Davis (aka Hayden Panettiere) on prom night. Audrey’s room was number 205.

In the 2004 teen comedy The Girl Next Door, Matthew Kidman (aka Emile Hirsch) took Danielle (aka Elisha Cuthbert) to the Glen Capri with the hopes of seducing her while there.

Ironically enough, Emile Hirsch returned to the Glen Capri two years later to film a scene for the 2006 drama Alpha Dog. In the flick, the Glen Capri stood in for the Albuquerque motel where Johnny Truelove and his girlfriend Angela Holden (aka Olivia Wilde) hid out after police had discovered the body of Zack Mazursky (aka Anton Yelchin).

In 2007’s Georgia Rule, the Glen Capri stood in for the Hull, Ohio-area motel where Arnold (aka Cary Elwes) stays while in town visiting his wife, Lily (aka Felicity Huffman), and his step-daughter, Rachel Wilcox (aka Lindsay Lohan). In the movie, Arnold stays in Room 206.

Other movies that have filmed at the Glen Capri include The Country Bears, Diamonds & Guns, and Janky Promoters. Episodes of Without a Trace, Parks and Recreation, Cold Case, Saving Grace, Night Stalker, Close to Home, Day Break, Windfall, Lovespring International, Mad Men, and Nip/Tuck have also been shot at the Glen Capri. You can check out the hotel’s very thorough filming page, which chronicles all of the productions that have been filmed on the premises over the past ten years, on its website here. Love it! There are actually several different motels in the Glen Capri chain and the one located at 326 Colorado Street, also in Glendale, has been used for filming, as well. It has appeared in episodes of Life and The Surreal Life and in a 2007 Smash Mouth music video.

On a Jennifer Aniston side note – my good friend and fellow stalker Kerry recently gifted me with the new Jennifer Aniston Perfume and I have to say that it is absolutely DIVINE. It is honestly the best scented perfume that I’ve ever smelled in my entire life! All of the literature written about it says that it has a “beachy” scent, but to me it seems to have more of a floral feel to it and is a bit reminiscent of Michael Kors signature fragrance, which I also love. Jennifer Aniston perfume smells so amazing that I literally cannot stop smelling my wrists when I wear it – I wouldn’t be surprised if I subconsciously gnaw my arm off in the coming weeks. 😉 Because the perfume is only available at Harrods in London (contrary to what Jen reported during her most recent Chelsea Lately appearance, it cannot be shipped outside of the UK), Kerry had to go through hell and high water to get it for me. So, I’ve had to resort to rationing it out in very small portions each day as I simply do not know WHAT I am going to do when I run out. 🙁 I am hoping that by that time it will be available in the US. (Are you listening, Jen?) Anyway, if you live in London or have plans to travel there, I HIGHLY recommend stopping by Harrods to pick up some JA perfume. Take my word for it, you will NOT be disappointed. And a HUGE thank you to Kerry for getting it for me! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Glen Capri Inn & Suites is located at 6700 San Fernando Road in Glendale. You can visit the hotel’s official website here. The Good Girl was filmed in the main office and in Room 8; Raising Helen also used the main office and Room 205; and Georgia Rule was filmed in Room 206.

September 10, 2010September 9, 2010

Pueblo Bonito Pacifica Holistic Resort & Spa

During our recent Cabo San Lucas honeymoon, the Grim Cheaper and I stayed at the Pueblo Bonito Pacifica Holistic Resort & Spa. And while I knew from looking at the property’s website that it was a beautiful place, at the time I made our reservation I had absolutely NO idea that it was also a celebrity destination AND a filming location! They say that you attract those things to you that you think about the most, and in this case, that was most definitely true! But more on that later.

Before arriving in Cabo, I was a little apprehensive that it might be a somewhat dangerous place. As it turns out, though, I don’t think I’ve ever felt more safe. The city is beautiful, the people are some of the friendliest I’ve ever encountered, and the Cabo way of life is extremely laidback. And while people generally refer to the entire area as being called Cabo San Lucas, it is actually known as Los Cabos and is made up of three different sections which span the southern tip of the Baja Peninsula. The sections include San Jose Del Cabo, The Corridor, and Cabo San Lucas. Long before I had planned our honeymoon, I had heard Jennifer Aniston and Jennifer Love Hewitt describe Cabo as a “sleepy, little fishing town”. As it turns out, though, Jen and Love were not speaking about Cabo San Lucas proper, which is a major party city, but rather about San Jose Del Cabo, which is located about fifteen miles north. Most celebrities choose to stay in one of the many five-star resorts located along The Corridor, the most popular of which are the Esperanza, the One&Only Palmilla, and Las Ventanas Al Paraiso. Because The Corridor hotels are exorbitantly expensive, though, the Grim Cheaper and I chose instead to stay at a resort in Cabo San Lucas, but thankfully it was far removed from the whole party scene.

The 154-room Pueblo Bonito Pacifica Holistic Resort & Spa first opened in 2005 and is located inside of a gated community about five miles north of town. Thanks to the hotel’s strict adults-only policy and its remote location, it is an EXTREMELY quiet destination and has been billed as one of Cabo’s most romantic locales. And let me tell you, the GC and I absolutely LOVED the place. The resort is so quiet that we often looked around and asked ourselves if we were the only two people staying there. It was without a doubt the most relaxing, quiet vacation I have ever been on. In fact, outside of wanting to do a little stalking, neither of us found any reason whatsoever to leave the resort during our entire nine day stay. It was the perfect place to spend our honeymoon and, because it is so reasonably priced, we are already making plans for a return visit. 🙂

Upon first arriving at the resort, the Grim Cheaper and I were greeted with cool, wet towels infused with lavender oil with which to wash our hands.

The lobby, which overlooks the ocean, was also infused with a lavender scent, which made the experience of entering the hotel seem like walking into a spa. Love it!

The Pacifica features two pools, both of which overlook the ocean . . .

. . . and one of which features a swim-up bar.

The property is situated on a beautiful, private beach . . .

. . . where outdoor beds can be rented during the day and for overnight stays. The beds can also be rented for an ultra-romantic dinner under the stars, which we unfortunately didn’t find out about until the very last night we were there. Ugh! I so would have loved to have done that!

Our room was absolutely beautiful . . .

. . . and featured a private balcony . . .

. . . with a stunning view of the ocean and pool area.

And at night the view only got more spectacular. Sigh! Oh, how I wish I was still there!

The Pacifica features four different restaurants and bars, all of which serve up SEPCTACULAR food – especially the nachos, which were some of the best I’ve ever had in my entire life. In fact, I’d book a stay at the hotel just for those nachos – that’s how good they were. Best of all, the Pacifica also offers 24-hour room service, which the Grim Cheaper and I partook of virtually every single night.

Because the resort is so remote and so private, numerous celebrities have checked in there over the years, including John Travolta and Kelly Preston, Lindsay Lohan, Cindy Crawford, Dolph Lundgren, and a bunch of sports stars, including a few Olympic gold medal winners, whose names I didn’t recognize. And, let me tell you, I just about died when I found out that my girl Jen had once visited the hotel’s spa! My Spanish isn’t all that great, so when I was speaking to the woman at the spa, I originally thought she said that Jen had stayed at the hotel on one occasion, but after talking with the concierge it turns out that Jen was only on the premises for a spa appointment. It was still very exciting for me, nonetheless.

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Even more exciting, though, was when one of the Pacifica’s bartenders informed me that all three fantasy dates from Brad Womack’s season of The Bachelor had been filmed at the resort. In the fantasy date episode, which aired on November 5, 2007, Brad flew his top three Bachelorettes – DeAnna Pappas, Jenni Croft, and Bettina Bell – down to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. And not only were all three overnight stays filmed at the resort, but according to this press release, the entire cast and crew also stayed on the premises. ABC.com even sponsored a Bachelor contest, where viewers at home could win their own 4-day, 3-night fantasy vacation at the Pacifica. Sadly, Season 11 of The Bachelor does not seem to be available for purchase anywhere and because I didn’t watch the show that year, I am not sure which parts of the resort were featured in the fantasy date episode. I was able to find the above clip of DeAnna Pappas’ date on YouTube, in which one of the resort’s timeshare villas, named the Montecristo Estates, is briefly shown.

As you can see in the above pictures, which I got off of the Montecristo Estates Website, the entrance, bedroom, and private pool terrace are exact matches to the fantasy suite where DeAnna and Brad spent the night.

Supposedly, the hotel’s main restaurant, Siempre, also appeared on The Bachelor.

I honestly can’t recommend stalking the Pueblo Bonito Pacifica Holistic Resort & Spa enough! My honeymoon was truly one of the best vacations of my life!

On a side note – For those who are planning a trip to the Cabo area, rest assured – the city does have a Starbucks. 🙂

And it looks pretty much like any other Starbucks one might find in America . . .

. . . except that the menu is, of course, in Spanish. So darn cool!

When I asked the baristas to pose for the above photograph, they wrongly assumed that I had never before been to a Starbucks, which prompted them to ask, “Don’t you have a Starbucks where you come from?” LOL LOL LOL Oh, if they only knew!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Pueblo Bonito Pacifica Holistic Resort & Spa is located at Cabo Pacifica S/N, 23450 Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. You can visit the hotel’s official website here. The resort is located inside of a gated community and I believe you have to have a dining reservation at one of the Pacifica’s restaurants or at one of the restaurants located inside of its sister hotel, Pueblo Bonito Sunset Beach Resort & Spa, to be admitted entrance.

September 3, 2010September 2, 2010

Esperanza Resort

Another celebrity hot spot that my husband and I stalked while honeymooning in Cabo San Lucas last week was the world-famous Esperanza Resort hotel – a place my girl Jen A. has checked into frequently over the years. The 17-acre property, which is a member of the Leading Hotels of the World, is consistently referred to as Cabo’s most luxurious and exclusive resort. The hotel is made up of only 57 rooms – fifty individual casitas and seven over-sized suites – so it truly offers its guests, many of whom are movie stars, the ultimate in privacy – and service. Just a few of the amenities offered at the resort include a private beach, an award-winning spa with steam caves and waterfalls, an infinity pool overlooking the ocean, a yoga and Pilates studio where the classes are free, an art gallery, loaner iPods, and coconut-milk popsicles which are doled out regularly to those guests lying poolside. Needless to say, the hotel, which is part of the exclusive Auberge Resort chain, has won countless awards over the years, including three of Travel + Leisure Magazine’s 2010 “World’s Best Awards” – #1 Resort, #1 Spa, and #1 Service for their Best in Mexico section. It truly is a remarkable and absolutely beautiful place!

I absolutely fell in love with Esperanza’s The Signature Restaurant, which is pictured above. The restaurant is composed of three different levels of terraces, all of which overlook both the Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Cortez, and is breathtakingly beautiful. I SO wanted to grab dinner there during our stay in Cabo, but the Grim Cheaper was having none of that. 🙁

Esperanza’s extensive celebrity guest list reads like a Who’s Who of Hollywood. Just a few of the stars who have been spotted there include Fergie and Josh Duhamel (the Esperanza was where the famous 2008 picture of Josh D. painting on the beach was taken), Chelsea Handler, Debra Messing, Courteney Cox and David Arquette, Sheryl Crow, Ashley Simpson and Pete Wentz, Jennie Garth, Usher, Owen Wilson, and Will and Jada Pinkett Smith. In 2003, Elizabeth Berkley married Ralph Lauren’s nephew, Greg, at the Esperanza. That same year Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin honeymooned there, as did Katherine Heigl and Josh Kelley in 2007. And according to this Forbes.com article, the Esperanza gifted a free weekend stay to all of the 2002 Academy Award winners.

And as proof that visiting the hotel almost guarantees one a celeb sighting, while we were there my husband and I spotted LeAnn Rimes and Eddie Cibrian, who were in town to celebrate LeAnn’s 28th birthday. To clarify, I should say that I actually spotted the two stars – the Grim Cheaper was absolutely clueless. He had gone to the restroom immediately upon our arrival at the hotel, while I grabbed a seat in the resort’s outdoor lounge. Shortly after I sat down, who should walk into the bar area but LeAnn Rimes followed by Eddie C. I recognized the two of them immediately and just about had a heart attack I was so excited! When the GC returned from the restroom, he told me that he wanted to head down to the beach right away to search for the rocks where Jennifer Aniston recently posed for the ad for her newly released perfume (the rocks were our sole reason for visiting the Esperanza and I will be blogging about them on Monday) and grab a drink afterwards. I started making faces at him to alert him to the fact that we were in the presence of celebrities, but he remained clueless. I finally grabbed some paper out of my purse and wrote the above-pictured note. GC took one look at the note, glanced over towards LeAnn, and then said, “Oh OK. Well, come on, let’s go down to the beach.” LOL Needless to say he was not at all impressed. We stayed at the bar for a few more minutes while I debated about going up to LeAnn and Eddie to ask for a photograph, but I ultimately decided against it. They were on vacation at an ultra-exclusive and ultra-private resort and I felt that it would be inappropriate to bother them. And I was happy enough just to have seen them in person, anyway. 🙂 When we returned from the beach about an hour and a half later, we again spotted LeAnn and Eddie swimming and eating nachos at the resort’s pool. And I have to say that while I’ve never thought LeAnn was especially attractive in photographs, she is absolutely GORGEOUS in person. I’d even go so far as to say that she was luminous. Needless to say, seeing her was one of the highlights of my honeymoon. 🙂

And, of course, the Esperanza is also a filming location! The hotel stood in for the Cabo San Lucas resort where Eddie (aka Ben Stiller) and Lila (aka Malin Ackerman) honeymooned in the 2007 movie The Heartbreak Kid.

On a side note, one of my former acting teachers, Roy Jenkins (pictured above), played the role of Buzz in The Heartbreak Kid. So darn cool!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Esperanza: An Auberge Resort is located at Carretera Transpeninsular KM 7 in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. You can visit the hotel’s official website here.

September 2, 2010June 16, 2011

The One&Only Palmilla Resort

The Grim Cheaper and I just returned from our Cabo San Lucas honeymoon this past Tuesday evening and, let me tell you, we couldn’t have been sadder to say good-bye to the place! We had an amazing time in Mexico – relaxing, swimming, sunbathing, and, of course, stalking. And while I have plans to publish a whole slew of posts about our recent wedding day, which of course incorporated some stalking and celebrity elements, I am currently waiting on the official pictures from our photographer, so I am going to have to put those columns on the back burner for now. In the meantime, though, I thought I’d write about one of the locations I stalked while in Cabo San Lucas last week – the One&Only Palmilla Resort, which just so happens to be my girl Jennifer Aniston’s very favorite vacation spot.

The One&Only Palmilla, which is Cabo San Lucas’ oldest resort, was first built in 1956 by Don Abelardo Rodriguez, the son of then-Mexican president Abelardo Luis Rodriguez, and at the time was named simply the Palmilla Hotel. The property originally boasted a scant 15 rooms and was so exclusive that it was only accessible via boat or private plane. The completion of the Mexican Federal Highway in 1973 allowed easier access to the property, which only helped it to grow in popularity. In 1984 the hotel expanded to include 50 rooms, ten years later it added the Jack Nicklaus-designed Palmilla Golf Club, and in 1996 the number of rooms expanded once again to 115. In 2002, the resort shuttered its doors to begin a massive $90 million renovation and expansion project. It re-opened as the One&Only Palmilla Resort in February of 2004 and remains one of the city’s most sought after destinations. The hotel is world-renowned for its service, which includes 24-hour personalized butler service for each guest, fresh fruit delivered daily to each room, twice daily maid service, and aromatherapy turndown service each night.

One&Only Palmilla has won such a staggering number of awards over the past six years that it would be virtually impossible to list them all here. A few of them include: “The Gold List” in January 2010 from Conde Nast Traveler, “World’s Best Hotels” in January 2010 from Travel + Leisure Magazine, and “Best Butler Service in Mexico” in July/August 2010 from Bridal Guide. The place truly is one of a kind. As you can see in the above photographs, there are little hidden hammock alcoves which can be found throughout the Palmilla’s extensive property. Next to the hammock is a sign which informs guests that if they require assistance, such as beverage service or an iPod pre-programmed with relaxation music, they only need push the little button located next to the hammock. Sigh! Now that’s what I call the life! Because of its luxuriousness and exclusivity, the hotel has long been a celebrity magnet. Just a few of the stars who have checked in there over the years include Desi Arnaz, Lucille Ball, Bing Crosby, John Wayne, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Mario Lopez, Demi Moore, Ashton Kutcher, Celine Dion, Mandy Moore, Richard Gere, John Travolta, Dustin Hoffman, and Eva Longoria. Giants quarterback Eli Manning tied the knot there in April of 2008, as did Oliver Hudson (Kate Hudson’s brother) in June of 2006. Kevin Jonas honeymooned there with his new wife Danielle Deleasa in December of 2009 and Christina Aguilera threw her bachelorette party there in 2005. And, as I mentioned above, Jennifer Aniston is a frequent guest. The actress loves the hotel so much, in fact, that she visits it several times a year.

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Palmilla One&Only is an absolutely BEAUTIFUL place and it’s not at all hard to see why Jen loves to vacation there. The property is closed to the public, however, and you must have a lunch or dinner reservation to be allowed past the front gates. I wasn’t aware of that little caveat at the time, though, so when we showed up to stalk the place we were almost turned away. The guard at the guard shack was incredibly nice, though – as were ALL of the One&Only employees – and he asked us to wait a moment while he called one of the hotel’s restaurants to see if we could be seated immediately. Thankfully, Breeze, the One&Only’s outdoor lounge, had room and we were able to dine there. And, let me tell you, the food was ABSOLUTELY incredible! Like honestly, some of the best food I’ve ever had in my life. I, of course, ordered a glass of champagne while there (hey, I was on my honeymoon!) and when the waiter arrived with a bottle of Veuve Clicquot to pour, I thought the Grim Cheaper was going to have a heart attack! After the waiter left, GC tuned to me and said, “From now on, honey, please ask for the house ‘sparking wine’ instead of the ‘champagne’.” LOL Being that Veuve is my favorite, though, I wasn’t complaining. 😉

The hotel is also, of course, a filming location. Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt held their Mexican wedding ceremony at the resort’s 50-year old chapel in November of 2008. The event was covered exclusively by US Weekly Magazine, but unfortunately I could only find the above-pictured photograph of it online.

And, for whatever reason, The Hills’s cameras failed to record the ceremony. The only part of the wedding ever shown on the series was in the Season 4 episode titled “Mr. and Mrs. Pratt”, in which Spencer and Heidi are shown watching a brief clip of their nuptials taken on a hand-held camera.

The Palmilla’s tiny chapel, which was originally built in 1956, is absolutely adorable in person and plays host to numerous wedding ceremonies each year.

The hotel was also used extensively in the Season 5 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 titled “Hazardous to your Health”, where it stood in for the Punta Brava-area resort where Dylan McKay (aka Luke Perry) and Valerie Malone (aka Tiffany-Amber-Thiessen) set up a sting to win back Dylan’s stolen fortune.

Due to the recent renovation, though, the hotel looks a bit different now than it did back in 1995 when 90210 was filmed. Guests no longer drive up to the same entrance used by Dylan and Valerie – that area is still there, but it is now a walkway.

And while the shape of the pool is still the same, the area around it has been altered slightly. As you can see in the above photographs, there is now a restaurant located off to the left hand side of the pool and a large “palapa” (the Spanish word for a thatched umbrella) which covers an outdoor bar has also been installed. Thankfully, though, the hotel is still very recognizable from 90210. The real life Los Cabos International Airport was also featured extensively in that episode, but unfortunately I did not take any photographs of it while I was there.

On a side note – Everyone from fellow stalkers to my mom to a high school friend who I haven’t spoken to in over a decade has contacted me today to alert me to the fact that the date is 9-02-10! Yes, it’s officially 90210 day! How I didn’t realize this before is beyond me. I mean, it should be a national holiday or something! When I told my husband (that is SO weird to say!) the significance of today’s date he asked me if Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I were going to hold a seance or something. And then he begged me not to make a pilgrimage to the 90210 house, as Jack, the owner, “already thinks you’re weird enough!” LOL Anyway, just wanted to wish all of my fellow stalkers a VERY HAPPY 90210 day!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The One&Only Palmilla Resort is located at Km 7.5 Carretera Transpeninsular in San Jose Del Cabo, Mexico. The hotel is private and not open to the public, but if you book a reservation for lunch or dinner at one of the property’s three exceptional restaurants you will be granted access. You can visit the hotel’s official website here. Jennifer Aniston rented the One&Only Palmilla’s private, 8,500 square foot Villa Cortez beach house for her recent 41st birthday party this past February. The One&Only chapel, where Spencer and Heidi tied the knot, is located up the steps which lead away from the hotel’s main entrance.

August 31, 2010August 7, 2010

Seattle’s Fairmont Olympic Hotel

Another location that I stalked back in May while visiting the Pacific Northwest was the famous Fairmont Olympic Hotel located in Downtown Seattle. The Olympic is a landmark Seattle building that has appeared in countless productions over the years and has played host to dozens of celebrities in its almost ninety-year history, so there was no way I was going to miss stalking it while visiting the area! The hotel, which first opened on December 6, 1924, was built on the former site of the University of Washington on an area of land known as the “Metropolitan Tract”. The Tract, which encompasses four square blocks, was donated to the University in 1861 by Arthur Denny, one of Seattle’s original founders, and is still owned by the school to this day. In the early 1920s, following the end of World War I, the Seattle Chamber of Commerce put together a committee dedicated to developing a luxury hotel in the downtown area. It was quickly decided that the hotel would be built on the former University of Washington site, which at the time was being leased out by the Metropolitan Building Company. After several battles with the Regents, construction of the hotel, which was made possible through a public bond drive, finally began on April 1, 1923. Architectural firms George B. Post & Sons and Bebb & Gould were chosen to design the property, and construction, the cost of which totaled around $5.5 million, was completed in November of 1924. Amazingly enough, the property still looks very much the same today as it did when it first opened its doors over eight decades ago!

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The Olympic Hotel was constructed using only the finest materials including American Oak, granite, terra cotta, and Belgian marble. The room furnishings alone cost over $800,000 – and we’re talking 1920’s money! The hotel became an immediate success and despite suffering some economic loss during the Great Depression remains one of Seattle’s finest hotels to this day and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. That same year, management of the Olympic was taken over by the Four Seasons Group, who immediately commandeered a $60 million restoration of the property during which the number of guest rooms was actually reduced, in order to make suites larger and more comfortable. The hotel re-opened as the Four Seasons Olympic in 1981. In 2003, management of the property once again changed hands, this time with the Fairmont Hotels and Resorts group taking over, after which point the hotel became known as the Fairmont Olympic. And, as you can see in the above photographs, the property is absolutely breathtaking inside!

I honestly cannot recommend stalking the Olympic enough – not only is it beautiful, but the staff truly could NOT have been nicer! The concierge on duty spent about ten minutes speaking with me about the filming that has taken place on the premises over the years and even gifted me with this awesome Reel Life in Seattle film locations map. So darn cool!

And, in a lucky twist of fate, the property’s famed Spanish Ballroom happened to be unlocked while we were stalking the Olympic, so we got to go inside and take a quick peek at it.

The Fairmont Olympic Hotel has long played host to the rich and famous, including foreign dignitaries, presidents, and celebrities. A few who have stayed there over the years include Herbert Hoover, John F. Kennedy, Jimmy Hoffa, Elvis Presley, Joan Crawford, John Glenn, Bing Crosby, John Wayne, and Bob Hope. Most recently, Twilight actor Jackson Rathbone checked in to do some publicity for his new movie The Last Airbender.

And, as I mentioned above, the Olympic is also a filming location! In the 1994 thriller Disclosure, Tom Sanders (aka Michael Douglas) goes to the Fairmont to break into the room where his co-worker John Conley Jr. is staying in order to gain access to the “Arcamax” – a cutting-edge, digital reality machine.

According to the concierge that we spoke with, the hotel, which was then operated by the Four Seasons, was still using actual keys at the time and not key cards as was portrayed in the movie. For the scene in which John was shown fiddling with his key card, producers had to bring in a fake card reader to attach to one of the hotel’s real life doors. So cool!

In the 1987 thriller House of Games, con-man Mike (aka Joe Mantegna) and psychologist Margaret Ford (aka Lindsay Crouse) sneak into Room 1138 of the Four Seasons Olympic Hotel. It’s absolutely amazing to me that the property still looks so similar today to how it appeared in a movie which was filmed over 23 years ago!!!! At the time, much of the Olympic’s rich wood wall paneling was covered over with white paint, but otherwise the interior looks exactly the same today as it did then! So darn cool!

In 1987’s Black Widow, the Olympic was the Seattle hotel where murderess Catharine Peterson (aka Theresa Russell) holed up while trying to trap her latest mark.

The Olympic’s pool, which you can see a photograph of here, was also used in Black Widow as the spa where journalist Alex Barnes (aka Debra Winger) interviewed Etta (aka Diane Ladd) about her brother’s untimely death.

The Olympic’s former Seneca Street entrance also appeared very briefly in the 1989 flick The Fabulous Baker Boys. And the 1973 movie Harry in your Pocket, which starred James Coburn as a pickpocket, was also filmed at the hotel.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Fairmont Olympic Hotel is located at 411 University Street in Seattle. You can visit the hotel’s official website here.

August 2, 2010August 3, 2010

Jim and Pam’s Wedding Hotel from “The Office”

Now that I have watched all six seasons of The Office, I can honestly say that my favorite episode hands down has to be the Season 6 episode titled “Niagara” in which Jim Halpert (aka John Krasinski) and Pam Beasley (aka Jenna Fischer) finally get married. I loved the episode for two very different reasons – one, because Jim and Pam’s relationship is so incredibly sweet, and two, because it so perfectly captures what it is like to plan a wedding. Whoever wrote “Niagara” must have gone through the ordeal that is planning a wedding just prior to penning it, because, let me tell you, they got things absolutely, one hundred percent SPOT ON! And right now I can TOTALLY relate. Yes, planning a wedding is fun and exciting and heartwarming, but, at the same time, dealing with people is just not my forte. I honestly want to call up some of our guests and/or vendors and scream, “NO, I will not provide you with shade during the ceremony, NO, I will not pick you up from the airport on the morning of my wedding, and NO, it’s not OK that you RSVP-ed yes, but are now backing out even though I have already given my caterer the final head count!” – all of which were recently said to or asked of me and my fiancé! Sigh! The scene in which Pam says to Jim, “Everyone’s driving me crazy. This is supposed to be our wedding day! Why did we invite all these people?” especially resonated with me when I watched the episode and I can’t tell you the number of times since then that I’ve seriously considered jumping on a ship to tie the knot sans guests just like Pam and Jim eventually did. 😉 Anyway, while watching “Niagara”, I immediately recognized the hotel where Jim and Pam’s guests stayed during their wedding as the historic Sportsmen’s Lodge in Studio City. So, I dragged my fiancé right out to stalk it when we were in the area two weekends ago.

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The Sportmen’s Lodge Hotel has been around since the early 1880s, but at the time it was named Hollywood Trout Farms thanks to the fact that it was surrounded by a series of man-made lakes and piers from which guests could fish for trout which would then subsequently be cooked and served to them for dinner by the staff at the main restaurant. In 1962, a new, larger hotel was built on the property, which had since been re-named the Sportsmen’s Lodge. It is that structure that still stands today.

And while the trout lakes have long since been removed, the hotel now boasts an Olympic-sized swimming pool, numerous ponds and waterfalls, and eight picturesque acres of land. Due to its proximity to the Hollywood studios, the Lodge has long been popular with movie stars, including Clark Gable, Marlon Brando, Doris Day, David Lee Roth, Billy Bob Thornton, Trisha Yearwood, Spencer Tracy, Lauren Bacall, Tallulah Bankhead, Lena Horne, Humphrey Bogart, John Wayne, Katharine Hepburn, and Bette Davis, all of whom have been spotted there at one time or another. In 2007, the hotel was purchased by real estate developer Richard Weintraub who set about extensively renovating the property. And, unfortunately, along with that renovation came quite a bit of change. 🙁

In The Office’s aptly named “Niagara” episode, Pam and Jim head to Niagara Falls to tie the knot. And while the interior scenes were filmed at the Sportsmen’s Lodge, as I mentioned above, the exterior shots were filmed at an actual Niagara Falls lodging named the Red Coach Inn. And, as you can see in the above screen capture and photograph, the two hotels look nothing alike.

The Sportsmen’s Lodge Hotel actually has two lobbies, and it is the back lobby, which is located off of Coldwater Canyon Avenue, that was used in the episode. Unfortunately, as you can see in the above screen captures and photographs, that lobby looks MUCH different today than it did when The Office was filmed. During the recent remodel, all of the back lobby’s wood was covered over with white paint, making the space appear much less lodge-like.

Gone, too, is the hotel’s former stone-covered fireplace, which has been revamped to look like an ordinary, everyday fireplace. Such a shame! The hotel, which used to have a very kitschy feel to it, now appears traditional and run-of-the-mill. I am actually quite surprised that Weintraub had the place remodeled in such a way, as I am sure that it is no longer quite as appealing to producers and location managers.

And I have to say here that I absolutely LOVE the scene in which Michael Scott (aka Steve Carell) shows up to the hotel’s front desk and informs the clerk that he doesn’t have a reservation because Jim and Pam have “blocked” rooms for their guests. LOL LOL LOL Man, I can SO see that happening in real life! I don’t know what it is about a wedding that renders seemingly normal, intelligent people into helpless, self-absorbed morons, but, let me tell you, it happens!

Several of the Lodge’s hotel rooms were also featured in the “Niagara” episode, including Room 642, where Pam’s grandmother, Meemaw, stayed;

Room 644, where Pam stayed;

Room 641, where Dwight stayed;

and Suite 639, aka the “Honeymoon Suite”, where Andy stayed.

All of the rooms featured in the episode can be found in the same hallway, which is located on the hotel’s second floor, directly above the main lobby.

I could NOT for the life of me find the ice/vending machine closet where Michael spent the night in “Niagara”, though. Oddly enough, according to the housekeeper that I spoke with, the hotel only has one ice machine area and it is located next to the pool. I checked it out, though, and it looks nothing like the room pictured above, which leads me to believe that producers either created a fake room in one of the hotel’s storage closets for the filming or that the ice machine room where filming took place was removed during the recent remodel.

The very same back lobby which appeared in The Office was also the site of the graduation dance in the Britney Spears’ movie Crossroads. I obtained this information from a crew member while I was working as an extra in the movie and I actually thought it was a bit odd being that a vast majority of the flick was lensed at the now-defunct Ambassador Hotel. It seems like it would have been a whole lot easier to just shoot the dance sequence in one of the former hotel’s many ballrooms since the cast and crew were already filming on location there, but, then again, what do I know? 😉

And, of course, I just HAD to pose on the Sportmen’s Lodge’s stairwell since Britney had once been there. 🙂

The actual dance scene in Crossroads was filmed in the Lodge’s Starlight ballroom. And, as you can see in the above screen captures and photograph, the room’s light fixtures and the banister surrounding the dance floor still look the same today as they did in 2002 when Crossroads was filmed. YAY!

The hotel was also where Lynette Scavo (aka Felicity Huffman) stayed after leaving her husband Tom (aka Doug Savant) in the Season 2 episode of Desperate Housewives titled “Remember (1)”.

And if you look at the room where Lynette stayed in that episode, you will notice that it is a perfect match to the room Lucy Wagner (aka Britney Spears) and Henry (aka Justin Long) rented after the dance in Crossroads, which is extremely odd as I would have guessed – once again – that that scene would have been filmed at the above-mentioned Ambassador, as was the case with all of the other hotel room scenes in the movie. So odd!

The front entrance of the hotel also appeared in Crossroads.

The wedding from the end of I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry was filmed at the Lodge, in the hotel’s lagoon area, and, according to a staff member I spoke with, the movies Leverage, Made, and Day the World Ended, and episodes of the television series Reno 911, Columbo, and Falcon Crest were also all filmed at the Sportsmen’s Lodge,

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Sportmen’s Lodge, aka Jim and Pam’s wedding hotel from The Office, is located at 12825 Ventura Boulevard in Studio City. You can visit the hotel’s official website here. In the “Niagara” episode, Pam stayed in Room 644, Dwight in Room 641, Pam’s Meemaw in Room 642, and Andy in Suite 639. All of the rooms that were featured in the episode are located in the same second floor hallway of the hotel, directly above the main lobby. The back lobby, which appeared in the both The Office and Crossroads, can be reached via Coldwater Canyon Avenue.

June 11, 2010June 16, 2011

The Hyatt Regency Vancouver from “Love Happens”

My fifth and final Love Happens location – which I found thanks to fellow stalker Owen, as was the case with all of the other Love Happens locations I stalked while in Canada two weeks ago – is the Hyatt Regency Vancouver hotel, where Burke Ryan (aka Aaron Eckhart) hosted his week-long “A-OKAY!” grief workshop seminar in the 2009 romantic comedy. The Hyatt was one of Love Happens’ focal locations and appeared in countless scenes, including the scene in which florist Eloise Chandler (aka Jennifer Aniston), who hand-delivers floral arrangements to the hotel on a daily basis, first meets Burke. It is definitely not love at first sight, though, because, in one of the movie’s lighter moments, Eloise pretends to be deaf in order to avoid speaking with him. LOL

I cannot tell you how badly I wanted to go upstairs to take a photograph of the exact spot where Burke first caught Eloise writing the word “Quidnunc” with a pink pen on the hotel’s wall, which is located just outside of Room 1731 on the Hyatt Regency Vancouver’s 17th floor, but, sadly, a room key is required to gain access to each of the different floors. I explained to the concierge on duty that I was a film locations buff (using the word “stalker” in cases like this typically doesn’t help my cause – ha!) and that I really wanted to snap a quick photograph of “Eloise’s wall” and asked if there was any way she would allow me to take a brief trip up to the 17th floor, but she very adamantly said “No”. I told her that she could accompany me to make sure I didn’t cause any mischief while up there, but she again declined. HMPH! Such a bummer as seeing that wall in person was pretty much the only reason I wanted to stalk the hotel in the first place. 🙁 Ironically enough, the first Hyatt employee that I spoke with about the filming had absolutely NO IDEA WHATSOEVER that any sort of motion picture had been shot on the premises. After a few minutes of speaking with her she finally said, “Wait, so Love Happens was filmed here? In this hotel? Honestly?” I mean, HELLO! How do you not know something like that? It’s not like she was a new employee, either – she was actually working at the hotel at the time the movie was being filmed!! I really don’t understand people sometimes. Sigh!

I did get to stalk most of the other areas of the hotel that appeared in Love Happens, though, including the main lobby, which at the time of filming featured a Seattle’s Best Coffee bar near the main entrance. But I am VERY happy to report that Starbucks (my old staple) has now moved into that same space. YAY! 🙂

Also featured was the hotel’s check-in desk area;

the elevator bay located just off of the main lobby;

and the Gallery Lounge bar, which you can just barely see in the above photograph. According to the movie’s productions notes, the Vancouver Marriot Pinnacle Downtown hotel was also used in the filming of Love Happens, but I am unsure of exactly which scene it appeared in.

On a side note – no, you are not seeing things – that is actually an autographed photo of Michael Buble pictured above. Yes, a photograph of MB that was actually autographed . . . TO ME!!!!!!!!!!! The photo was gifted to me yesterday by fellow stalker Owen for my birthday and, as you can imagine, I literally just about PASSED OUT upon opening it!!!! I’m not joking when I say that my mouth was hanging open for a good five minutes. You’d think I would have screamed upon first laying eyes on it, but I was actually dead silent. It doesn’t happen often, but Owen managed to render me absolutely speechless! How did he get the autograph, you ask? (And believe me, that was the first question playing on my mind when I finally came to after opening it!) As fate would have it, Owen’s brother Paul has a good friend who is a regular on Saturday Night Live. When Owen found out that MB would be performing on the show WAY BACK in January of this year, he called in a massively huge favor and asked Paul’s friend if he would get an autograph for me. Paul’s friend came through BIG TIME and the result is the photograph you see above. What can I say except it’s, hands down, the BEST BIRTHDAY GIFT I’ve ever received! I told my friend Nat about it yesterday and she said, “Well, I guess I’m going to have to return what I got you, ‘cause there is no way it can compare to that! Tell Owen ’Thanks a lot!’” 🙂 My dad actually had surgery yesterday – yes, on my birthday – and when I opened Owen’s present in the morning before heading out to the hospital, I knew it was a good omen, especially being that my dad loves MB just as much as I do. Sure enough, the surgery went really well and, at the time of this writing, my dad has been out of pain for about ten hours. The doctors remain very hopeful that the surgery solved his problem, which, after two full years of him being in and out of the hospital on a regular basis and one VERY unsuccessful trip to the Mayo Clinic, would be simply amazing. So, truth be told, I received TWO of the best gifts of my life yesterday! And even though I spent the majority of the day in the hospital, I have to say it was, hands down, one of my best birthdays ever. 🙂

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location . . . and, ahem, for the AMAZING birthday present! Big THANK YOU to Paul, too! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Hyatt Regency Vancouver from Love Happens is located at 655 Burrard Street in Vancouver, British Columbia. Burke first caught Eloise writing on the wall just outside of Room 1731 on the hotel’s 17th floor. You can visit the Hyatt Regency Vancouver website here.

May 19, 2010May 19, 2010

Mickey’s Diner from “The Mighty Ducks”

I thought I’d give y’all a break from the myriad of Beautiful Girls locations that I’ve been blogging about as of late by dedicating today’s post to a very famous and historic St. Paul restaurant named Mickey’s Diner. The diner is something of a Twin Cities landmark and pretty much every Native Minnesotan that my parents and I met while in the North Star State two weeks ago – from the concierge at our hotel to the barista at the local coffee shop – told us that we absolutely HAD to grab a bite to eat there. Ironically enough, though, like any good stalker, I already had Mickey’s at the very top of my Must-See-While-In-Minnesota list long before our plane even touched ground at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. I first found out about the diner a few weeks prior to my trip thanks to the the IMDB Mighty Ducks filming locations page and, since I loved the entire Mighty Ducks series – especially its leading man, Joshua Jackson – I was dying to see the place in person. Unfortunately though, because I had over twenty locations on my To-Stalk list, I didn’t have time to actually eat at Mickey’s, which is a real shame as I hear the food there is absolutely to die for! Not eating at Mickey’s is truly my only Minnesota stalking regret. 🙁 Ah well, there’s always next time!

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Mickey’s Diner was founded by friends David “Mickey” Crimmins and John “Bert” Mattson, who decided to purchase a dining car after attending the National Restaurant Convention in Chicago in 1937. The fifty foot by ten foot car, which was one of the first to be designed in the Art-Deco-style, was originally built in Elizabeth, New Jersey by the Jerry O’Mahoney Company. In 1939, the completed restaurant was transported by a flatbed railcar to its current location at the corner of West 7th and St. Peter Streets in Downtown St. Paul. It has been in continuous operation – 24 hours a day, 365 days a year – ever since and, after three generations, is still owned and operated by the Mattson family. On February 23, 1983, Mickey’s was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

Mickey’s Diner is an incredibly cool little spot and the people there truly could NOT have been nicer. They answered all of my silly little questions about the filming that has taken place there over the years and allowed me to take all of the photographs of the interior that I wanted, even though I wasn’t actually dining there. I’m hardly the first stalker to visit the place, though. According to this article written by Chicago Sun-Times staff writer Dave Hoekstra, the restaurant’s current owner, Melissa Mattson, conducted a survey back in 1999 to determine how many of her patrons were actually movie buffs who had come to stalk the diner due to its many cinematic appearances. According to her findings, stalkers account for five percent of her customers. Love it!

In Disney’s The Mighty Ducks, Mickey’s was the spot where Charlie Conway’s (aka Joshua Jackson’s) mom Casey (aka Heidi Kling) worked. The diner also appeared in the movie’s sequels, D2: The Mighty Ducks and D3: The Mighty Ducks. And yes, that is a VERY young Joshua Jackson pictured in the above screen captures! 🙂

In 1996’s Jingle All The Way, Howard Langston (aka Arnold Schwarzenegger) pushed his car to Mickey’s Diner after running out of gas on a Minnesota bridge. And while the real exterior of the restaurant was used in the filming . . .

. . . the interior was actually a set that was recreated on a soundstage. As you can see in the above screen captures, the set was built to be much larger than the actual restaurant. In real life, the diner boasts four booths, which are located at the far west end of the dining car, 17 counter stools, and can only accommodate a maximum of 36 patrons.

The 2006 movie A Prairie Home Companion actually opens up at Mickey’s Diner, where private investigator Guy Noir (aka Kevin Kline) is shown feasting on “a grilled cheese sandwich with beans for a chaser” before heading across the street to work at the Fitzgerald Theatre one rainy Saturday night in St. Paul.

The diner is also the site of the movie’s closing scene, in which Guy, along with his friends Rhonda Johnson (aka Lilly Tomlin), Yolanda Johnson (aka Meryl Streep), Lola Johnson (aka Lindsay Lohan), Dusty (aka Woody Harrelson), GK (aka Garrison Keillor), and Lefty (aka John C. Reilly), discuss taking their former radio show on the road for a farewell tour. And apparently, quite a few of the stars of A Prairie Home Companion would stop into Mickey’s quite regularly to grab a bite to eat during their time on location in St. Paul. So cool! Mickey’s Diner has also been featured in the television series Rachel Ray’s Tasty Travels, Unwrapped, Roker on the Road, Alton Brown’s Feasting on Asphalt, and Jesse Ventura’s Minnesota. The diner is also something of a celebrity hotspot and has attracted the likes of Roseanne Barr, Tom Arnold, Liv Tyler, Bill Murray, Andy Garcia, Faith Hill, Tim McGraw, John Stewart, the Beach Boys, New Kids on the Block, and Julio Iglesias, who once spontaneously serenaded a Mickey’s waitresses while on bended knee.

On a side note – While making A Prairie Home Companion, the movie’s stars, including Woody Harrelson, Lindsay Lohan, Lily Tomlin, Tommy Lee Jones, Kevin Kline, Virginia Madsen, and John C. Reilly, all bunked at the absolutely gorgeous St. Paul Hotel. The St. Paul was built in 1910 by the Minnesota-area architectural firm of Reed and Stern, who are perhaps best known for designing Grand Central Station in New York. The hotel is absolutely beautiful inside and if you are in the area, I HIGHLY recommend stalking it. The next time I visit Minnesota, I am DEFINITELY booking myself a room there! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Mickey’s Diner is located at 36 West 7th Street in St. Paul, Minnesota. The restaurant is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. You can visit the Mickey’s Diner website here. The St. Paul Hotel is located at 350 Market Street, also in St. Paul, Minnesota. You can visit the St. Paul Hotel website here.