Famous houses – Page 10 – IAMNOTASTALKER

December 6, 2013December 15, 2013

Marilyn Monroe’s Childhood Home

One location that had been on my To-Stalk list for what seemed like ages was the Hawthorne-area home where my girl Miss Marilyn Monroe spent the first eight-and-a-half years of her life. Fellow stalker Lavonna had texted me the address years ago, but because I so rarely find myself in that neck of the woods, I was never able to make it out there. Until a couple of weeks ago, that is, when I realized that the residence was not too far from a hotel near LAX where the Grim Cheaper and I happened to be staying. So I dragged him right on over to stalk it (and to a Four Christmases locale that I will be writing about in late December).

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Gladys Mortensen was single, living in Hollywood and working as a film cutter at Consolidated Film Industries when she became pregnant with Marilyn in 1925. In December of that year, shortly before she was to give birth, she headed to Hawthorne in the hopes that she could move in with her mother, Della, for a brief time before and after the delivery. Della had other plans, though – she was about to sail to Borneo to make amends with her estranged husband, Charles Grainger, who was working in the oil fields there. Arrangements were instead made for Gladys to stay across the street at the home of Wayne and Ida Bolender, a deeply religious couple who served as foster parents to several children.

The Bolenders had moved into the 3-bedroom, 1-bath, 1,376-square-foot clapboard residence pictured below in 1919. At the time, the home, which was built in 1913, boasted 4 four acres of land (it now sits on a 0.20-acre parcel), where the family raised chickens and goats and grew vegetables. The property’s original address was 459 East Rhode Island Street, but during the re-districting of the area in the ‘30s and ‘40s it was changed to 4201 West 134th Street. You can see a photograph of the house from the time that the Bolenders owned it here. It is absolutely REMARKABLE how little of it has changed over the past ninety-plus years! You can also check out a picture of a newborn Marilyn in front of the dwelling here, in which a “459” address placard is visible in the background. So incredibly cool!

Gladys gave birth on June 1st, 1926 in the charity ward of Los Angeles General Hospital. She named her new daughter Norma Jeane Mortensen. After twelve days, the two returned to the Bolender’s. Gladys spent about three weeks at the Hawthorne house with Marilyn before heading back to Hollywood and her job at Consolidated in July. She left her baby behind, paying Wayne and Ida $5 a week to care for her. Contrary to what has been reported, Gladys did not abandon Marilyn entirely, but came to visit her on a weekly basis, often spending the night.

When Gladys’ son from her first marriage, Jackie, from whom she was estranged, died at the age of 14 in August 1933, she became compelled to regain custody of Norma Jeane. She took on a second job and by October 1934, had saved enough money to purchase a six-thousand-dollar house (at 6812 Arbol Drive in Hollywood – sadly, it’s no longer standing). That same month, eight-year-old Marilyn left the Bolenders and moved in with her mother. She didn’t stay long, though. Gladys had a nervous breakdown in late December and was committed to an asylum, at which point Norma Jeane was sent to live with one of her mother’s good friends, Grace McKee. She didn’t stay there long, though, either. By 1935, Gladys could no longer afford to care for Marilyn and sent her to the Los Angeles Orphan’s Home (now Hollygrove Home for Children, which I blogged about here). The girl who would become the world’s most famous blonde spent the remaining years of her childhood being bounced around from foster parents to family members. Then, at the tender age of 16, she married her first husband, James Dougherty, and moved into a guest house in Sherman Oaks, which also, unfortunately, no longer stands. You can read my blog post on that location here.

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

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Lavonna for telling me about this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Marilyn Monroe’s childhood home is located at 4201 West 134th Street in Hawthorne.

November 21, 2013November 20, 2013

Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle’s Former West Adams Houses

I just finished reading a fabulous book about one of Hollywood’s first and biggest controversies titled Room 1219: The Life of Fatty Arbuckle, the Mysterious Death of Virginia Rappe, and the Scandal That Changed Hollywood by Greg Merritt. Prior to reading the tome, I knew little about actor/comedian Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, but had always been fascinated by his rape and murder trial, which rocked Tinseltown to its core. I had actually previously stalked two of Fatty’s former West Adams homes after finding their addresses thanks to fellow stalker E.J., of The Movieland Directory, and his book Hollywood Death and Scandal Sites. My original intent was to blog about them during the month of October, but once I discovered that the pads aren’t reported to be haunted and that the Roscoe scandal did not actually take place on either premises I decided to hold off until November. So here goes!

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The tale of Fatty is a sad one. The robust comedian became Hollywood’s golden boy and one of its highest paid stars in the 1910s, after toiling penniless for years on the Vaudeville circuit. Cut to Labor Day weekend 1921, when Roscoe made the fateful decision to go to San Francisco with two friends. He stayed in Room 1219 of the Saint Francis Hotel (a location that I hope to stalk in the near future) and threw a raucous party. A young actress name Virginia Rappe was in attendance. She drank quite a bit at the soiree and, at some point, ruptured her bladder, dying four days later from peritonitis in a nearby sanitarium. One of Rappe’s friends falsely accused Arbuckle of raping Virginia and causing her death. Despite the fact that doctors found no evidence of a rape, Fatty was arrested for murder. The media had a field day denouncing the comedian and his films were soon banned in most states. His first two trials resulted in hung juries and he was finally acquitted – and given a written apology from the jury – at the third in April 1922. His career never recovered, though, and he was forced to work mostly behind the scenes under a pseudonym for the remainder of his life, which was not long. Roscoe passed away from a heart attack in 1933 at the age of 46.

According to E.J., Roscoe rented the Vienna Secessionist-style mansion pictured below in the late 1910s (although I’ve also heard reports that he lived there after his trials ended). The residence had been commissioned by businessman/real estate developer Lycurgus Lindsay (love the name!) in 1908 and was constructed of hollow hard-burned terra cotta from Western Art Tile Works, a company Lindsay owned. The property was designed by Charles Frederick Whittlesey, who also devised the original Wentworth Hotel in Pasadena, which was later re-built as the Huntington Hotel. In 1908, the home’s grounds measured over four acres, stretched from West Adams Street all the way to West 27th Street, and included three large terraced-pieces of land and a greenhouse. The dwelling, which was considered fire- and earthquake-proof, boasted three stories, a large reception hall with an art-glass window depicting a waterfall, a formal dining room, a butler’s pantry, servants’ quarters, leaded glass windows, a conservatory, and quarter-grain oak and Peruvian mahogany detailing.

According to the Los Angeles History blog, Lindsay lived at the residence, which is a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument, from the time it was completed in 1910 to 1913.

At some point, the property was obtained by the Our Lady of the Bright Mount Roman Catholic Polish Church and a parish was subsequently constructed in the front yard area, almost completely obscuring the mansion from view. In fact, when the Grim Cheaper and I first went to stalk it, we drove right by the place without even realizing it was there.

It is so sad to me that such a gorgeous edifice has been so obscured. Thankfully though, one of the priests who happened to be on the premises noticed us taking photographs and invited us behind the gates for a better view.

In 1919, Roscoe leased another West Adams-area mansion located about three miles east. The property had originally been commissioned in 1905 by United States Navy Commander Randolph Huntington Miner and his wife, shipping heir Tulita Wilcox Miner. The two-story, twenty-room Tudor revival-style dwelling boasted a drawing room that could hold two hundred people, a gabled roof, a Japanese meditation garden, a koi pond, and stained glass windows. In 1917, the Miners migrated to France and leased out their home to silent film siren Theda Bara. When Theda moved out in 1919, Roscoe and his then-wife Minta Durfee moved in. A short time later, they purchased the pad from the Miners for $250,000.

According to Merritt, Arbuckle spent copious amounts to decorate the place. He writes, “He imported an intricately carved front door from Spain (cost: $12,000) and bought and bought and bought: ornate mahogany paneling, gold-leafed bathtubs, crystal chandeliers, Oriental rugs, marble counters, fine-art paintings, antique china. The red lacquer dining room table with golden-clawed feet was from China. The lanai featured a Hawaiian royal chair. There was a Japanese bridge over the pond. Forever fascinated by technical gadgetry, Arbuckle had his closets and dressers wired with lights that came on when a door or drawer was opened.” The home’s humongous detached garage had space for all six of Roscoe’s luxury cars, including his beloved custom-built Pierce-Arrow. (You can see the spire of nearby St. Vincent de Paul Church, which I blogged about here, on the right-hand side of the top photo below.)

The Virgina Rappe scandal and Roscoe’s ensuing unemployment left the actor virtually destitute. To pay for the trials (which it is rumored cost him $750,000 – and that’s 1920s money!), he deeded his mansion to Joseph Schenck. He continued to live on the premises, though, leasing the property back from the legendary producer. By June 1922, Fatty’s manager Lou Anger and his wife had rented the residence for themselves, allowing Arbuckle, whose own wife had since moved out, to stay there as well. By December of that year, the broke – and broken – comedian was living by himself in a small bungalow in Hollywood. Today, the property serves as a rectory for Congregation of the Mission and is known as the Amat House, named (I believe) in honor of the first bishop of Los Angeles, Thaddeus Amat y Brusi.

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

Big THANK YOU to E.J., of The Movieland Directory, for writing about these locations in his book Hollywood Death and Scandal Sites!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Fatty Arbuckle’s former homes are both located in the West Adams District of Los Angeles – the Lycurgus Lindsay house can be found at 3424 West Adams Boulevard and the Amat House is located at 649 West Adams Boulevard.

September 18, 2013September 18, 2013

Liberace’s Valley House from “Behind the Candelabra”

As I mentioned last month in my post about Sherman Way Adult Books from Behind the Candelabra (which you can read here), back in May fellow stalker E.J., of the Movieland Directory website, challenged me to find several locales from the HBO biopic including the L.A.-area home belonging to Liberace (Michael Douglas). It was never made entirely clear where exactly in Los Angeles the house was meant to be located in the flick, but I believe that it was supposed to the pianist’s San Fernando Valley-area residence in Sherman Oaks. (I blogged about Liberace’s real life former Valley dwelling, with the piano-shaped pool, in 2010. You can read that post here).

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Fortunately, this location turned out to be a very easy find thanks to an address number of “4238” that was visible on the home’s mailbox in the scene in which Scott Thorson (Matt Damon) lamented to his friend Bob Black (Scott Bakula) that Liberace wanted him to have plastic surgery. I had an inkling that the number was not faked for the movie (despite its gold coloring), so I started searching 4200 blocks in various Los Angeles neighborhoods for the one-story, 70s-style ranch house. I fairly quickly came across an area known as View Park-Windsor Hills that had a plethora of ranch-style properties, one of which – at 4238 Olympiad Drive – turned out to be the right place. So I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to stalk it two weekends ago while the two of us were in L.A.

I was absolutely FLOORED to discover, while driving there, that the home was located right off of Stocker Street. Winking smile Um, LOVE IT!

And I was even more floored to see that the mailbox and address placard that appeared in the movie were also there in real life.

Liberace’s L.A. house showed up several times in Behind the Candelabra.

As you can see below, the residence looks pretty much exactly the same in person as it did onscreen.

The home’s backyard and pool were also utilized in the filming.

As you can see in the Google aerial view pictured below, the slide that appeared in Behind the Candelabra is also there in real life. So incredibly cool!

I am 99.9% certain that several areas of the residence’s actual interior, including the dining room, kitchen, living room, and den, were also used in the movie, but I could not find any photographs of the inside of the home with which to verify that hunch.

In real life, the 1957 house features three bedrooms, three baths, 2,824 square feet of living space, and a 0.23-acre plot of land.

Before tracking down the dwelling, I had been completely unaware of the View Park-Windsor Hills neighborhood, but once I arrived there, it was easy to see why the residence and area were chosen to be used in Behind the Candelabra. The suburb looks like it has not been touched since the 1970s. Walking among the homes made me feel as if I had stepped into an episode of The Brady Bunch – but in a good way.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Liberace’s Valley house from Behind the Candelabra is located at 4238 Olympiad Drive in the View Park-Windsor Hills area of Los Angeles. Supposedly, Ike and Tina Turner once lived just down the road at 4263 Olympiad Drive.

July 25, 2013December 6, 2013

Bing Crosby’s Palm Desert House – Where JFK Trysted with Marilyn Monroe

Last month, shortly before I headed off to Switzerland, my dad loaned me the book Killing Kennedy, which he had just finished reading. Because there was a chapter devoted to my girl Miss Marilyn Monroe, he thought I might enjoy it. And enjoy it, I did. I could hardly put it down! The chapter about Marilyn focused on the starlet’s first – and most likely only – tryst with the president, which, according to the book, took place the weekend of March 24th, 1962 at the “Spanish-style home of show business legend Bing Crosby” in Palm Springs. Well, believe you me, once I read the words “Marilyn Monroe” and “Palm Springs”, I became hell-bent on tracking down and stalking that house. Unfortunately though, it proved to be quite the difficult find.

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It seems that every book and website that mentions Marilyn’s encounter with JFK sets it at a different Palm Springs-area home of Bing Crosby’s (the crooner owned several desert houses over the course of his lifetime). Most claims state that the tryst took place at Bing’s Thunderbird Country Club residence, which is located at 70375 Calico Road in Rancho Mirage. A December 2012 NBC News article about the then for-sale property even stated, “If the Crosby angle isn’t enough of a celebrity real estate draw, one of the wings of the home is named the Kennedy wing for the presidential visitor that reportedly stayed for a weekend. ‘Robert Kennedy said that Marilyn Monroe and John F. Kennedy stayed a weekend here, so our party named the wing after him,’ [real estate agent Carl] Mitrak explained.” After looking at aerial views of the home, though, and seeing that it was not at all Spanish in style, I became certain that, despite Mitrak’s claims, it was not the right place.

So I started digging further and came across a message board on the Crosby Fan World website on which Crosby biographer Malcolm MacFarlane commented that the Thunderbird Country Club house was, indeed, NOT the spot where Marilyn spent the weekend with JFK. Unfortunately though, no further information was given, so I was still uncertain as to where their encounter actually did take place. And, after stalking Bing’s first desert home at 1011 East El Alameda in Palm Springs (pictured below) and seeing how close it was to the street and neighboring properties and therefore difficult to secure, I quickly ruled it out, as well.

Then fate stepped in. This past Saturday, I happened to mention my quest to the Grim Cheaper’s boss and, amazingly enough, she had the answer for me! She informed me that Marilyn and JFK trysted at Bing Crosby’s Palm Desert estate in Ironwood Country Club. And, as luck would have it, she owns a home inside of the community, which is gated, and granted me access that very afternoon. As you can imagine, I was beyond floored! Unfortunately though, not much of the place, outside of its front gate, is visible from the street.

When I returned home later that day, I did further research and was able to verify that the Ironwood house was indeed the correct spot. As you can see below, the sprawling residence is definitely Spanish in style. You can check out a postcard of what the property looked like back in Bing’s day here.

In the biography Marilyn Monroe: The Final Years, author Keith Badman states “The fact is that Marilyn was intimate with John F. Kennedy only once, during the evening of Saturday 24 March 1962, when both he and the screen actress were guests at singer Bing Crosby’s three-bedroom house in Palm Springs and the adjoining, remote conclave home belonging to songwriter Jimmy Van Heusen and writer Bill Morrow. The houses, situated in a tiny community 100 miles southeast of Los Angeles, stood against a mountain in Palm Desert at a place called Silver Spur and were situated up a single dirt thoroughfare named Van Heusen Road. They had been a favourite of former US President Dwight D. Eisenhower and his men during his tenure.”

To further verify Badman’s claims, according to Peter Lawford (as quoted in the Sinatra biography His Way by Kitty Kelley), while JFK and Marilyn stayed at Bing’s pad, the secret service stayed next door at Jimmy Van Heusen’s abode. That house is located at 49300 Della Robbia Lane and is denoted with a pink arrow below. You can check out a 1960s-era photograph of both Bing and Van Heusen’s properties here.

The Silver Spur area was later absorbed by Ironwood Country Club. A 2012 MyDesert.com article states, “Bing Crosby’s estate that was initially part of neighboring Silver Spur Ranch is now part of Ironwood.”

Today, the property, which was recently remodeled and is currently available as a vacation rental, boasts a three-bedroom main house, two guest casitas with two bedrooms each, 2.5 acres of land, a saltwater pool, a Jacuzzi, a fully-lit tennis court, mountain views, and original Bing Crosby decor.

My favorite aspect of the property, though, has the be the sign outside which reads “The Crosby Estate.” LOVE IT!

I also love the fact that Ironwood embraced its celebrity history by naming two of the community’s streets “JFK Trail” and “Crosby Lane.” So incredibly cool!

And I was extremely excited to discover that the residence is also a filming location! In Season 1, Episode 7 of the reality series Hollywood Exes, the women spend the weekend at The Crosby Estate and discuss the fact that JFK and MM trysted there. Hollywood Exes is terrible by the way! I feel significantly dumber just from having scanned through it to make screen captures for this post!

The interior of the house was also shown in the episode.

As was the pool area.

And the property’s front gates.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Bing Crosby’s former home, where Marilyn Monroe is said to have trysted with President Kennedy, is located at 49400 Della Robbia Lane in Palm Desert. The estate is located inside of Ironwood Country Club, a gated community, and is only accessible to residents and guests of residents, unfortunately. You can check out the property’s vacation rental website – with fabulous interior photographs – here.

June 13, 2013June 12, 2013

Frances’ House from “Behind the Candelabra”

One Behind the Candelabra location that I was not able to stalk two weekends ago was the palatial Palm Springs abode belonging to Frances Liberace (Debbie Reynolds), the flamboyant pianist’s overbearing mother, in the 2013 HBO biopic. So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to do so this past Saturday morning. And, as it turns out, the residence has quite a fascinating history.

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The ornate Hollywood Regency-style dwelling was originally designed in 1962 by James McNaughton, a Palm Springs-area architect who initially got his start in set decoration. In fact, he has the distinction of being television’s first set designer. McNaughton won numerous awards during his stint in show business, including a Look Award, a Christopher Award, and a Peabody award, and he also received quite a few Emmy nominations. I am fairly certain that the residence was commissioned by George Randolph Hearst, Sr. (the eldest son of publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst) and his wife, Rosalie. If the couple did not actually commission the property, they were at least its first owners.

After George’s passing in 1972, Rosalie held onto the residence. It was there that Patty Hearst, George and Rosalie’s niece, hid out in 1977 while on probation awaiting an appeal for her bank robbery conviction. In May 1991, Rosalie sold the house to Harvey and Lori Sarner for a whopping $1,650,000. The Sarners still own the property to this day.

The 7-bedroom, 4.75-bath, 7,557-square-foot house, which sits on a 0.62-acre plot of land, is quite eccentric. According to an August 2012 MyDesert.com article, the dwelling was so lavishly appointed in George and Rosalie’s day that it was known as “Little Hearst’s Castle.” From the looks of things, not much has changed since that time. The place actually has a very Liberace feel to it, ironically enough, and reminds me quite a bit of the pianist’s third desert home, which I blogged about here.

As you can see below, the entire property is surrounded by double-sided Greek goddess statues, which, according to the Radiant Writing blog, are holdouts from the George and Rosalie days. The Radiant Writing author describes the property, which she remembers from her childhood, as such, “This home was gaudy on a small scale and no doubt a son’s attempt at mimicking his father’s extravagant San Simeon Castle. All it looked like to me was a morgue. The home had lion statues guarding both sides of the front door and was surrounded by a wrought iron fence, reminiscent of the Haunted House at Disneyland. The most haunting thing about the always dark house was the presence of the Romanesque goddess bust type statues placed within 3 feet of each other along the scary fence. The goddess busts had 70’s style light globes on their heads.”

The Hearst house appeared once in Behind the Candelabra, in the scene in which Liberace (Michael Douglas) and his boyfriend, Scott Thorson (Matt Damon), visited Frances in Palm Springs and listened to her complain about being lonely. Only the property’s backyard was featured in the flick. As you can see in the screen capture below, the home’s pool area is very reminiscent of the iconic Neptune Pool at Hearst Castle in San Simeon.

Amazingly enough, Behind the Candelabra filming in Palm Springs took place in August, the city’s hottest month of the year, during which high temperatures average 107 degrees! Being that a one-minute segment can take hours upon hours to shoot, the cast and crew must have been absolutely miserable filming the scene in Frances’ backyard! I mean look at the clothes they are wearing! Ugh!

While stalking the house, I was floored to discover that the backyard is partially visible from a neighboring street.

On a Behind the Candelabra side-note – I did not even recognize Debbie Reynolds in the role of Frances Liberace and, in fact, had no idea it was her until after I had finished watching the movie and was researching its locations online. Talk about a fantastic make-up job!

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Frances’ house from Behind the Candelabra is located at 701 West Panorama Road in the Little Tuscany Estates area of Palm Springs. The backyard portion of the residence can be partially viewed from the intersection of West Vista Chino and North Via Monte Vista. The world famous Kauffman House (which I blogged about here) is located right around the corner at 470 West Vista Chino.

April 2, 2013April 2, 2013

The “Burning Love” Mansion

This past February, thanks to Reality Steve and the E! Channel, I was introduced to the brilliance that is the Ben Stiller-produced parody of The Bachelor titled Burning Love. The Hose Ceremonies along with the catchphrase “Will you accept my hose?” are pure comic genius! The last time I found myself laughing so much over a television series was when I first started watching The Office. Anyone who is at all a fan of The Bachelor will LOVE Burning Love. As of yet, I have only seen the Season 1 episodes that have aired on E! (the show started as a web series and was later picked up by the cable channel), but am already eagerly awaiting Season 2 – although I cannot imagine a better lead character than Mark Orlando (Ken Marino – who also directs the series and whose wife, Erica Oyama, is the head writer). So when I saw that fellow stalker Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, had tracked down the mansion where the contestants live on the show, I just about passed out from excitement and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk it while we were in L.A. this past weekend.

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Back in June 2012, Geoff came across this Yahoo TV article about the series in which Ken Marino stated that the Burning Love mansion was located in Calabasas, in the same area as the ranch from The Biggest Loser (which I blogged about here). I so love that Ken knew that, by the way! Most people in the industry could care less about filming locations, but I digress. Anyway, Geoff started looking for the ginormous Tuscan-style estate in the Calabasas hills, but the hunt proved to be a bit of a tough one. Because the property was recently constructed in 2008, most angles of Google and Bing Maps show its location as a vacant plot of land. It was not until Geoff randomly switched the map view to a different direction at one point during his search that the abode appeared and he realized it was the place he had been looking for.

In real life, the massive manse boasts seven en-suite bedrooms, eight baths, 9,684 square feet of living space, a 7.29-acre plot of land, a media room, a play room, an office/library, five fireplaces (!), a 1,500-bottle wine cellar, hand-crafted ceilings, 360-degree views of the Santa Monica Mountains, a sauna, a pool, a spa, and a built-in BBQ. The property last sold in April 2011 for $2,600,000 and is currently for sale for $3,950,000. You can check out the home’s real estate listing here.

Before arriving at the residence, I was nervous that it would not be visible from the street, so I was completely floored to discover that it was, for the most part, in open view!

Burning Love, which is so spot-on in its parody of The Bachelor that I constantly have to remind myself that the show is not actually a reality series, centers around several woman, most of whom are dental hygienists, hoping to find love with Mark, the boneheaded fireman who in the premiere episode announced that his soul mate was “someone who can make me laugh, but isn’t afraid of robots.” LOL The mansion was used extensively in the filming, which according to this Yahoo TV article, took only eight days to complete. The areas of the estate that appeared on the show include the front exterior;

the entryway;

the kitchen [and yes, contestant Haley (Chelsea Lately’s Natasha Leggero), who is pictured below, does not wear pants on the series, causing Mark to say in one scene, “I can definitely see us starting a family together, maybe in a town where they accept people who don’t wear pants.” LOL];

the living room;

the family room, where the Hose Ceremonies take place;

the master bedroom (check out the old school back pillow sitting on the floor – again LOL) . . .

. . . where Mark gazes at himself longingly in the mirror;

and the pool, where Mark throws a pool party because “I thought it would be a great chance to see the girls let loose . . . uh, also to see a lot of top and side-boob and, if we’re lucky, a little butt cleavage.” As Dan Casey said in his post about the show on Nerdist, “From the needlessly confusing rules, the preposterous theme dates and the plucked-from-Guess Who contestants, Burning Love hits the nail on its vapid, empty head.” That it does, Dan. And I couldn’t love it more. If you are at all a fan of The Bachelor (or just simply love to hate it), Burning Love is a must-watch!

You can watch the first episode of Burning Love, which features a cameo appearance by Jennifer Aniston, as well as a handful of other stars, by clicking below.

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Burning Love mansion is located at 2760 Country Ridge Road, just off of Stokes Canyon Road, in Calabasas. King Gillette Ranch, aka The Biggest Loser ranch, is located just down the street at 26800 Mulholland Highway.

March 27, 2013May 22, 2013

The O’Neill House from "Beverly Hills, 90210"

While perusing the article “The Ultimate Guide to Hidden L.A.” in the February 2013 issue of Los Angeles Magazine, I came across a blurb about the O’Neill House in Beverly Hills – one of Southern California’s most unique residences – and recognized the place immediately. I had seen the property featured in a production a year or so prior, became mesmerized by its whimsical architecture and immediately set about tracking it down, which I did fairly quickly. For the life of me, though, I now cannot remember what production it was. I am only 35 – aren’t I a little young for my memory to be failing? Winking smile My gut is saying that the house popped up in an episode of Californication because I distinctly remember first searching for it in the Venice area – Californication is filmed almost entirely in and around Venice Beach – but I scanned through the Grim Cheaper’s DVDs of the series yesterday and did not spot the abode anywhere. I also contacted fellow stalker Geoff, who chronicles Californication filming locales on his 90210Locations website, but he did not recognize the home at all. I am now starting to doubt that Californication is the correct show. At this point, who knows? I decided to stalk the O’Neill House, anyway, while visiting L.A. a few weeks back in the hopes that I would eventually remember what production had been filmed there, but I still have yet to do so. Randomly enough, though, while scanning through early episodes of Beverly Hills, 90210 to make screen captures for yesterday’s post on The Peach Pit, I spotted the property in a very brief scene and just about had a heart attack. It always comes back to 90210 for this stalker. Smile

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In 1978, an art dealer named Don O’Neill and his wife, Sandy, decided to remodel the guest home of their traditional residence in the Art Nouveau-style of Don’s favorite architect, Antoni Gaudi. That guest house is pictured below and is actually the most famous portion of the property.

As you can see below, the detailing on it is nothing short of spectacular.

No matter what one’s architectural style preferences may be, I can honestly say that the residence is amazing to see in person. I don’t know that I would ever want to live there, but I sure could not get enough of looking at the place’s exterior.

Check out the molded fish sculpture to the right of the doorway that conceals what I believe is either a camera or a light fixture. As I said before, the detailing is spectacular!

After construction of the guest house was complete, Don and Sandy decided to rebuild the main part of the house in the same style. Sadly though, Don passed away before the project was finished, but I believe that Sandy still owns the property to this day.

The dwelling, which was designed by architect Tom Oswalt, boasts five bedrooms, six baths, 5,181 square feet of living space, a 0.34-acre plot of land, a pool, a library, maid’s quarters, and a boatload of ornate tile work. As you can see below, the front of the home is much less adorned than the back. According to the fabulous book Los Angeles Attractions, all of the rooms were built in a round or oval shape. You can check out some fabulous interior photographs of the property here.

The O’Neill house is shown very briefly in the Season 1 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 titled “The First Time”, in the scene in which Brandon Walsh (Jason Priestley) shows his former girlfriend, Sheryl (Paula Irvine), who is visiting from Minnesota, around Beverly Hills. As they drive through the city, Sheryl takes pictures of various ostentatious residences, one of which is the O’Neill House.

The O’Neill house was also where Jesse Lujack (Richard Gere) stole a baby blue Thunderbird convertible In the 1983 movie Breathless.

In the 1986 thriller 8 Million Ways to Die, the residence was where Angel Moldonado (Andy Garcia) lived. In the movie, Angel talks quite a bit about Antoni Gaudi and how he inspired the unusual home. Areas of the property that were shown in the flick include the guest house;

the breezeway between the guest house and the main house;

the living room of the main house;

and the kitchen.

I am still at a loss as to the other production I saw the O’Neill house featured in, so if any of my fellow stalkers recognize it, please let me know!

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The O’Neill House, from “The First Time” episode of Beverly Hills, 90210, is located at 507 North Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. The guest house is located behind the property and can be viewed from the alley that runs north off of Park Way in between North Rodeo Drive and North Camden Drive.

March 14, 2013March 13, 2013

The “Easy A” House

The Easy A location that I was most excited about stalking while in the Ojai area almost two years ago was, not surprisingly, the charming clapboard residence where Olive Penderghast (Emma Stone) lived with her unique family (notice they are all named after a food of some sort) – dad Dill (Stanley Tucci), mom Rosemary (Patricia Clarkson) and brother Chip (Bryce Clyde Jenkins). So imagine my disappointment when we arrived there only to discover that the home was located inside of Persimmon Hill, which the sign outside the entrance stated was “a private community”. And while there was no gate restricting access to the neighborhood, nor any “No Trespassing” signs posted, I have always been a by-the-book kind of girl, so I decided to pose for a picture by the Persimmon Hill sign instead of venturing past. Well, as luck would have it, a community resident happened to drive by while I was posing for the photo and asked what I was doing. When I explained that I was a huge fan of Easy A and had come to see Olive’s house, he told me that it would be absolutely fine to head on over there and snap some pics. WAHOO!

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Many months prior to my and the GC’s visit to Ojai, fellow stalker Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, had spent copious hours trying to track down Olive’s residence, all to no avail. Then, one day, he happened to notice the number 300 painted on the curb outside of the home in the scene in which Lobster Todd (Penn Badgley) dropped Olive off after her disastrous date with Anson (Jake Sandvig) at the local Lobster Shack (which I blogged about here). And voila! Once he had a house number, finding the location was a snap.

As you can see below, Olive’s house was absolutely idyllic onscreen in Easy A.

And I am very happy to report that in person it did NOT disappoint. I love, love, love this residence. It reminds me a bit of the house where the Newton family lived in the 1992 comedy Beethoven, which I blogged about here.

And while I am fairly certain that the real life interior of the home was also used in the flick, I could not find any interior photographs with which to verify that hunch.

According to fave website Zillow, in real life, the residence, which was originally built in 1986, boasts four bedrooms, four baths, 2,894 square feet of living space, and sits on a huge 2.11-acre plot of land.

The property was last sold in 1998 (for $700,000) – and it’s not very hard to see why. If I owned that place, I would never let go of it either!

Best closing shot ever, by the way. I am a sucker for any ’80s movie reference. Smile

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Big THANK YOU to Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, for finding this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Olive’s house from Easy A is located at 300 Longhorn Lane in Ojai. Please remember that this home is inside of a private community and that permission is needed to enter.

March 7, 2013March 6, 2013

Clark Gable’s Former House

Speaking of Clark Gable . . . another location that I stalked recently was the Encino-area ranch where the “King of Hollywood” lived for over two decades. I first read about this locale, as I did yesterday’s (the Playa del Rey house where Judy Lewis, Gable and Loretta Young’s secret love child, was born), in fellow stalker E.J.’s book Hollywood Death and Scandal Sites. So, while doing some solo San Fernando Valley stalking a few days before my and the Grim Cheaper’s big move to the desert, I figured I might as well stop by the residence to check it out.

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Clark Gable’s ranch was originally built in 1933 for director and founding member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Raoul Walsh. Gable and his then girlfriend, soon-to-be wife, Carole Lombard visited Walsh at his 20-acre property, which featured a nine-bedroom main house, a detached garage, citrus groves, alfalfa fields, a barn, a pigsty, a henhouse, and horse stables, and absolutely fell in love with it. When they heard that he was planning on selling the site, they jumped at the chance to purchase it, which they did in 1939, shortly after their nuptials, for a cool $50,000. According to E.J., at the time, the home’s entrance was located on Petit Drive (as you can see in this 1940 census, the original address was 4525 Petit Drive; it is now 4543 Tara Drive) and the property was surrounded by acres upon acres of orchards and fields. Tabloids quickly labeled the two-story clapboard residence “The House of Two Gables”.

Lombard tragically passed away in a plane crash just two years later, on January 16th, 1942, and it is said that Gable never recovered from his grief. Shortly after her death, he enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps and was sent to Europe to fight in World War II. Upon his return to America in 1944, he thought about selling the ranch, but ultimately decided to keep it and wound up living there with his fourth and fifth wives, Lady Sylvia Ashley and Kay Williams Spreckles, respectively.

Sadly, on November 5th, 1960, while changing a tractor tire in the ranch’s driveway, Gable suffered a heart attack. The following morning, he was taken to Hollywood Presbyterian hospital, where he passed away ten days later, on November 16th, 1960. Despite being married to Kay at the time, the actor was interred next to Carole Lombard at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale. Spreckles and John Clark Gable (Kay and Clark’s son and Clark’s only legitimate child, who was born four months after the actor’s death) continued to live at the ranch until 1973, at which point it was sold to developers. Financier Michael Milken later bought the place in October 1977 for $587,500 and it appears that he still owns it to this day. According to Zillow, the dwelling currently boasts seven bedrooms, nine baths, 7,093 square feet of living space, and a 1.17-acre lot.

As you can see below, the home’s wooden exterior archway . . .

. . . and crookedly-placed white picket fence still look exactly the same today as they did when Gable lived there. Sadly though, little else of the place is visible from the street. And while the house still stands in much the same form as it did during Gable’s time, the twenty acres that once surrounded it were subdivided during the 1980s and transformed into a housing tract named the Clark Gable Estates. The streets in the neighborhood, Tara Drive and Ashley Oaks, were named in honor of Gable’s most famous movie, Gone with the Wind, which I think is so incredibly cool. I wonder if someday a community will be named after my man Matt Lanter. One of the streets could even be dubbed “Liam Court”!

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Big THANK YOU to E.J., from The Movieland Directory website, for finding this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Clark Gable’s former house is located at 4543 Tara Drive in Encino.

October 2, 2012September 29, 2017

The Blankenhorn Lamphear House from “Teaching Mrs. Tingle”

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post (which you can read here), I recently went on a trek to find all of the locations used in the 1999 thriller Teaching Mrs. Tingle. The locale I was most interested in tracking down, of course, was the huge Victorian manse belonging to the movie’s titular character, who was played by Helen Mirren. Once I learned from the flick’s production notes that the residence was located in the Pasadena area, I figured that, thanks to its fabulous façade, it would most likely be chronicled in the architectural section of Hometown Pasadena. So I immediately started scanning through the tome and fairly quickly came across a blurb about a property named the Blankenhorn Lamphear house which said, “This house is one of Pasadena’s finest examples of the Queen Anne style, the most romantic and fanciful of the Victorian era’s architectural idioms.” I quickly punched the address provided into Google Street View and, sure enough, the Blankenhorn Lamphear house and Mrs. Tingle’s abode were one and the same! So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the place just a few minutes later.

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The Blankenhorn Lamphear house was originally constructed in 1893 by the Bradbeer and Ferris architecture firm. It was commissioned by a wealthy railroad executive named David F. Blankenhorn. David’s son, David F. Blankenhorn Jr., who was born on the premises, grew up to become a very successful real estate mogul – it was he who handled William Wrigley Jr.’s purchase of Catalina Island in 1919. The Blankenhorns later sold the property to a Mr. and Mrs. John Lamphear, who lived there for many years with their three children. The property changed hands once again in 1994 when the Lamphear estate sold it to its current owner for $425,000.

As you can see below, the 6-bedroom, 2-bath, 3,017-square-foot home, which sits on 0.31 acres, is absolutely spectacular in person.

In Teaching Mrs. Tingle, high school students Leigh Ann Watson (Katie Holmes), Luke Churner (Barry Watson) and Jo Lynn Jordan (Marisa Coughlan – in an AMAZING performance) pay a late night visit to the home of their mean-spirited English teacher, Mrs. Tingle, in order to clear up a misunderstanding. Things don’t go quite according to plan, though, and the three wind up holding Mrs. Tingle hostage inside of the abode for a few days.

A large gate and a massive amount of foliage were added to the residence for the filming, so it looks quite a bit different (and a lot less spooky) in person than it did onscreen.

And while the Teaching Mrs. Tingle production notes state, “The filmmakers chose for Mrs. Tingle an elegant Victorian house in Pasadena, split by a mysterious spiral staircase – a layout that matches the constant shifts and turns of plot and ups and downs of the fate of Leigh Ann Watson and Mrs. Tingle”, because the majority of the movie’s action took place inside of the home, I do not believe that the real life interior was used in the flick. Unfortunately, I was not able to find any interior photographs of the property with which to verify that hunch, though.

Fellow stalker Anthony informed me that the very same house was also used as the residence where Helen North Beardsley (Lucille Ball) and Frank Beardsley (Henry Fonda) lived with their eighteen (!) children in the 1968 flick Yours, Mine and Ours. As you can see below, the façade of the house has not changed much since that time.

The home’s real life address number of “346” was even visible in the background of a few scenes. Love it!

According to a 1974 Pasadena Star News article, only the exterior of the Blankenhorn Lamphear house was used in the flick. The interior of the Beardsley home was a set built inside of a soundstage somewhere in Hollywood. As you can see below, it does not match the interior of Mrs. Tingle’s house in the slightest.

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Blankenhorn Lamphear house, aka Mrs. Tingle’s home from Teaching Mrs. Tingle, is located at 346 Markham Place in Pasadena. The Daddy Day Care house is located right around the corner at 351 Congress Place.