Famous houses – Page 13 – IAMNOTASTALKER

December 15, 2011December 14, 2011

Ryden’s House from “Post Grad”

Another location that I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to stalk while in the San Fernando Valley area this past weekend was the ranch-style house where Ryden Malby (aka Alexis Bledel) and her extremely odd, but extremely loveable family – dad Walter (aka Michael Keaton), mom Carmella (aka Jane Lynch), brother Hunter (aka Bobby Coleman), and crazy Grandma Maureen (aka the always fabulous Carol Burnett) – lived in Post Grad. I saw the 2009 romantic comedy back when it first came out on DVD early last year and absolutely fell in love with it. So I, of course, immediately started attempting to track down all of its featured locations, especially the Malby residence, but I am sad to say that I was a complete and total failure at the endeavor. In my defense, though, it was not entirely my fault as the movie did somewhat lead me astray.

As you can see above, in one of Post Grad’s early scenes, Ryden is shown being dropped off by a taxi, on the door of which is written “North Hollywood Cab Co.”, so I made the incorrect assumption that the Malby residence was located in that area. And while I really should have known better, being that movies “cheat” that sort of thing all the time, the home just looked like a North-Hollywood-type residence to me. So I spent more than a few fruitless hours searching NoHo (as Angelinos are now referring to it) before calling off the hunt. Enter fellow stalker Chas, of the It’sFilmedThere website, who is pretty much the biggest Gilmore Girls/Alexis Bledel/Lauren Graham fan on the planet and who a few months later had begun his own trek to find the home. And find it, he did, thanks to a very helpful crew member. Once Chas told me of the location, I immediately added it to my “To-Stalk” list, but because I rarely get out to Woodland Hills, it took me quite a long time to actually visit the place.

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In Post Grad, after losing out on her book-publishing dream job, recent college graduate Ryden Malby is forced to return home to live with her parents in their quirky-looking abode.

I am very happy to report that the Post Grad house, which in real life measures 3 bedrooms, 3 baths, and 2,500 square feet, and was originally built in 1960, looks exactly the same in person as it did onscreen.

I was especially excited to see that the wooden wishing well that was situated in the home’s front yard in the movie was actually there in real life, as well. Love it!

Sadly, the little white fence that flanked the property’s front steps was not there, though.

I am fairly certain that the real life interior of the residence was also used in the filming, but I, unfortunately, could not find any photographs of the interior online with which to verify that hunch.

Big THANK YOU to Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, for finding this location. You can check out Chas’ extensive Post Grad filming locations page here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Ryden’s house from Post Grad is located at 22200 Tiara Street in Woodland Hills.

December 14, 2011December 6, 2013

Farralone – Frank Sinatra’s Former House

While doing research on the Chaplin Court apartment complex, which I blogged about last Thursday, I came across some information about an oft-filmed-at Chatsworth-area estate formerly owned by Old Blue Eyes himself, Frank Sinatra, that, for some inexplicable reason, I had somehow not previously known about. The mansion, which in most circles is known simply as Farralone, is a marvel of modern design that just came on the public market for the very first time in history a couple of weeks ago. And, let me tell you, I took one look at the photographs featured on the real estate listing and became just a wee-bit obsessed with stalking the place. So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out there last weekend to do just that.

Farralone, or the “Great Glass Mansion” or the “Sinatra Compound” as it is also sometimes called, was commissioned by Chase-Manhattan-Bank-heiress Dora Hutchison in 1951 and was designed by Pereira & Luckman, the architecture firm who also gave us the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Transamerica Pyramid in San Francisco, the Theme Building (aka The Encounter Restaurant & Bar) at the Los Angeles International Airport, and, my personal favorite, the Disneyland Hotel. Dora built the house to be used as a party pad and regularly hosted rousing soirees where she counted Ava Gardner, Lucille Ball, Judy Garland, and Vincent Minnelli as guests. When Dora moved back to her native New York, she leased the property to none other than Frank Sinatra, who remained there for almost ten years. Sadly though, as you can see above, not much of the property is visible from the street.

But that’s why God created real estate listings! The estate, which was just put on the market earlier this month for a cool $12 million, boasts sweeping views, parking for over 200 cars, 10,000 square feet of living space, 4 bedrooms, 6 baths, 3 private offices, a conference room, a detached gym, a 50-foot swimming pool, 14 acres of land, a vineyard, a production studio, 16-foot ceilings, glass walls, and a 1,000-square-foot, 1-bedroom, 2-bath guest house (with its own separate pool) where my girl Miss Marilyn Monroe supposedly lived in for a time.

Farralone has seen so much filming over the years that, according to a December 2nd, 2011 Forbes article, it not only nets up to $2 million a year in location fees, but also “comes with a property manager who acts as a liaison with the studios, paid for by the studios.” The article further states that the “main house also boasts a lower level production studio equipped with conference room, edit bays, private office and a separate entrance, all paid for and maintained by the studios.” Ironically enough, when we showed up to stalk the property some filming was actually taking place. The super-nice security guard on duty informed us the the shoot was for a reality dating show of some sort, but she was unsure of the name.

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In the Season 4 episode of Californication titled “Lawyers, Guns, and Money”, Farralone showed up as the residence belonging to Stu Beggs (aka Stephen Tobolowsky), where Marcy Ellen Runkle (aka Pamela Adlon) made a house call to give Stu a “full Kardashian” body wax.

In the 2001 thriller Swordfish, Farralone was the house where Gabriel Shear (aka John Travolta) lived and where Halle Berry famously shed her top for the very first time onscreen – an act for which she was supposedly paid a whopping $500,000. Thanks to some crafty CGI, the Sinatra compound was made to appear as if it was located in the heart of Downtown Los Angeles for the film, instead of Chatsworth.

Farralone was also the home where Jack Wyatt (aka Will Ferrell) lived and threw his post-divorce party in the 2005 romantic comedy Bewitched.

In 2006’s Dreamgirls, Farralone stood in for the residence belonging to pop star Deena Jones (aka Beyonce Knowles) and her music-producer husband, Curtis Taylor Jr. (aka Jamie Foxx).

In the Season 2 episode of Mad Men titled “The Jet Set”, Farralone was used as the supposed-Palm-Springs-area home where Joy (aka Laura Ramsey) took Don Draper (aka Jon Hamm) while he was visiting California.

In the 2002 flick The Salton Sea, Farralone was the home where Nancy Plummer (aka Shirley Knight) and Verne Plummer (aka R. Lee Ermey) lived.

In 2001’s Tomcats, the Sinatra Compound was where Kyle Brenner (aka Jake Busey) lived.

The real estate listing mentioned that Farralone had been featured in an episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and I really have to pat myself on the back for this one because as soon as I read those words I knew immediately that the episode in question was Season 9’s “Kill Me If You Can”. I was not even watching CSI regularly back in 2008 when the “Kill Me If You Can” episode aired, but I had caught it on TV at some point and when I saw CSI mentioned in the listing, my mind immediately flashed to an image of Lawrence Fishburne standing by the Farralone pool while investigating the death of an art dealer. Why these random, useless bits of location information remain stored in my head is beyond me, but they do. Smile

Thanks to commenter Becky on the Design Public blog, I learned that in the Season 1 episode of Six Feet Under titled “An Open Book”, Farralone stood in for the home belonging to the parents of Brenda Chenowith (aka Rachel Griffiths).

And thanks to the HGTV website, I learned that Farralone was where the Design Star contestants lived during Season 4 of the reality series.

Location manager Scott Trimble also let me know that Farralone was where Optimus Prime came out of the swimming pool in the first Transformers movie.

Fellow stalker Jason informed me that the estate also showed up as the party location at the very beginning of 2005’s Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.

Farralone also popped up in the 2004 music video for Usher’s hit song “Burn”.

Usher–Burn–filmed at Farralone in Chatsworth

You can watch the “Burn” video by clicking above.

Several articles have also claimed that the home appeared in the 2001 biopic Ali, but I scanned through that movie yesterday and did not seen anything resembling it pop up onscreen, so I am fairly certain that information is incorrect. I am thinking that the house might have instead been featured in the similarly-named television movie Ali: An American Hero, but because I have never seen it and was unable to find it anywhere online, I cannot verify that hunch. One rumor that I can put to rest is that the Farralone pool was not actually the site of Marilyn Monroe’s second-to-last photo shoot, as the real estate listing and several articles about the property have claimed. Truth be told, that photo shoot was not really a photo shoot at all, but simply consisted of photographer Lawrence Schiller snapping some stills of the starlet while she filmed scenes for her very last movie, Something’s Gotta Give. The shoot, which took place a few days before Marilyn’s death and featured her skinny-dipping while talking to co-star Dean Martin, was not actually shot on location, but on a set that was built inside of Stage 14 on the Fox Studios lot in Century City.

As you can see above, the pool from Something’s Gotta Give does not match the real estate listing photographs of the Farralone pool.

You can watch a YouTube video of the Something’s Gotta Give pool scene being shot, during which it is stated that filming took place on Stage 14 of the Fox lot, by clicking above.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Farralone, the former Frank Sinatra estate, is located at 9361 Farralone Avenue in Chatsworth. You can visit the home’s official real estate listing here and you can check out some fabulous interior pics of the property here.

December 7, 2011December 11, 2011

Judge Crawford’s House from “Fracture”

After tracking down the hilltop abode Willy Beachum (aka cutie Ryan Gosling) called home in fave movie Fracture, which I blogged about last Tuesday, I became just a wee bit obsessed with finding the large brick mansion where Judge Gardner (aka Bob Gunton) lived in the flick. Even though the dwelling showed up only briefly in the movie, because it was pretty much the only location I had yet to track down, I was absolutely itching to find it. The fabulously extensive Fracture production notes stated that some filming had taken place “at a private residence in Hancock Park” and I assumed that the private residence that was referred to had to be Judge Crawford’s. So I started searching aerial views of the area and after about 45 minutes stumbled upon the right property. YAY! And while out and about running some errands in Santa Monica yesterday, I took a little detour through Hancock Park so that I could stalk the place.

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In Fracture, Willy’s love interest, Nikki Gardner (aka Rosamund Pike), invites him to her parent’s home on Thanksgiving to eat dinner with her family.

Later on in the flick, Willie returns to the house to ask Nikki’s father, who is a judge, to sign a court order prohibiting Ted Crawford (aka Anthony Hopkins) from pulling the plug on his comatose wife, Jennifer Crawford (aka Embeth Davidtz).

In real life, the Georgian-Revival-style mansion, which was originally built in 1914, boasts 6 bedrooms, 5 baths, 6,175 square feet of living space, and almost half an acre of land. The house was designed by Meyer & Holler, the noted Los-Angeles-based architecture firm that was responsible for the Alex Theatre in Glendale, Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, Culver Studios in Culver City, and the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood. Thanks to the fabulous The Houses of Hancock Park and JCB blogs, I discovered that the property is currently owned by famed Los Angeles interior designer Suzanne Rheinstein and her husband, Fred. The Rheinsteins purchased the dwelling over thirty years ago and immediately began an extensive redesign of the interior, a lengthy process that was reported on by several home magazines. The residence is nothing short of GORGEOUS in person and is, ironically enough, exactly the type of spot that my mom and I refer to as a “Thanksgiving House” – an idyllic and picturesque dwelling that makes one think of coming home for the holidays. I mean, the place could not look any more like it came out of a Folgers Coffee Christmas commercial if it tried! Winking smile

The interior of the abode, which is BEAUTIFUL, was featured prominently in Suzanne’s 2010 book At Home: A Style for Today with Things from the Past. (The pictures featured above remain the sole and private property of Suzanne Rheinstein and photographer Pieter Estersohn.)

As you can see above, the photographs featured in Suzanne’s book match up to what appeared onscreen, which means that the real life interior of the home, along with some of the furniture, was also used in the filming.

On a side-note that falls into the obscenely-cool category – yesterday I dropped by my very favorite store, Lula Mae in Old Town Pasadena, and just about died when Marci, the adorable owner who has come to be my good friend, informed me that she had just named me the shop’s very first “Customer of the Month”. Um, LOVE IT! For those who have never been there, LA Weekly recently awarded Lula “Best One-Stop Gift Shopping 2011” and in their write-up said, “You know that friend of yours who always upstages the $10 bottle of wine you pull out of your purse when she shows up at parties with the most adorable, clever little trinket wrapped perfectly in a colorful vintage bag? Well that smug b*tch probably has been shopping at Lula Mae for years now.” LOL Couldn’t have said it better myself! The store is so insanely cute, colorful, and fun that I find myself dropping in at least five times a week. It has become an addiction! Lula Mae is the first place I head whenever I am depressed, have writer’s block, or just need a good giggle! So to be named their Customer of the Month was just about the best honor I could have received! Thank you, Marci, Julia, Alison, and Lula Mae! <3

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Judge Crawford’s house from Fracture is located at 435 South Windsor Boulevard in the Windsor Square section of Hancock Park. Lula Mae is located at 100 North Fair Oaks Avenue in Old Town Pasadena.

November 30, 2011November 29, 2011

Kathy Griffin’s House from “Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List”

When fellow stalkers Lavonna, Melissa, Beth, Kim, and Sandy came to town from Ohio for a little stalking vacay two weeks ago, they scored four tickets to the November 14th taping of The Ellen DeGeneres Show and invited me to tag along. A few days before the episode was set to film, though, Lavonna learned that not only would the cast of The Twilight Saga flicks be Ellen’s guests for that particular show, but that the entire audience would be treated to a free screening of the series’ latest installment, Breaking Dawn. Because I am in no way, shape or form a Twi-Hard, I decided to sit this one out, as did fellow non-Twi-Hard Sandy, and the two of ended up spending the day together stalking from one end of Los Angeles to the other. One of the places we stopped at was the hilltop abode that belongs to comedienne Kathy Griffin and that is featured regularly on her Bravo reality series Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List. The only problem was that, as you can see above, I had the incorrect address written down in my trusty “To-Stalk” notebook and Sandy and I wound up stalking the wrong house! Not kidding! As Pinky Lovejoy, from the Thinking Pink blog, would say, “FAIL!”

I was informed of this location by a fellow stalker named Melissa (not the same Melissa visiting from Ohio), who had stalked the dwelling way back in the summer of 2009 and had emailed to tell me about it. Melissa is a huge fan of Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List and had scoured the internet looking for the comedienne’s home prior to a visit to Los Angeles. And while she could not find its exact address, she did manage to track down some photos of the house on a blog in which the street name was mentioned. She searched through the many pictures featured on the blog and, in true stalker fashion, keenly spotted an address number of “2968” on the wall of a neighboring residence. Love it! When Melissa emailed me to let me know about the property, she said that it was “across from 2968 Passmore Drive in the Hollywood Hills”. My blondeness must have been in full effect when I copied the information to my “To-Stalk” list, though, because I somehow failed to take note of the “across from” part, and Sandy and I wound up taking pictures in front of the house numbered “2968”. Doh! After realizing my mistake later that same week, I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on back out to the Hollywood Hills so that I could stalk the right place.

Kathy’s 4-bedroom, 5-bath, 8,098-square-foot home was originally built by a former Los Angeles City fireman/actor named Bernard Subkoski and his wife, Celeste Dickinson. The couple purchased the half-acre vacant plot of land on which the dwelling now sits sometime during the late 1990s and construction on it took four years to complete.

Bernard and Celeste dubbed their residence “Wings”, as, according to Bernard, it very closely resembled a bird in flight. Due to medical issues, though, the couple was forced to put their dream home on the market shortly after it was completed and in April of 2004 it was purchased by Kathy for a cool $2.85 million. Kathy later sued Bernard and Celeste over some structural problems with the dwelling.

As you can see above, located just outside of the main gate is some sort of statuary that was built to resemble the house. I originally thought that the structure was a mailbox, but upon closer inspection it did not seem to have any sort of a mail slot, so I am unsure of what it actually is.

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The home, which in this stalker’s never-to-be-humble opinion is strictly A-List, is featured weekly on Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List.

The interior is also shown regularly. Kathy temporarily moved out of the property in the Season 6 episode of the show titled “Toddlers and Remodelers” due to a massive remodel she had just commissioned.

The home was also featured in an April 2009 OK! Magazine photo shoot in which Kathy posed in a bikini. And it also popped up in the February 2006 issue of W Magazine, in the August 8th, 2005 issue of In Touch Magazine, and in an episode of MTV Cribs.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Kathy Griffin’s house from Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List is located at 2955 Passmore Drive in the Hollywood Hills.

November 28, 2011November 27, 2011

Julia Harris’ House from “Horrible Bosses”

Another location that the Grim Cheaper and I ventured out in the pouring rain to stalk two weekends ago was the ultra-modern abode where Dr. Julia Harris, D.D.S. (aka my girl Jen Aniston) lived in the (horrible) 2011 comedy Horrible Bosses. I was informed of this location via a text from fellow stalker Chas, of the It’sFilmedThere website, who prefaced giving me the address with the query, “Did you like Horrible Bosses?”, to which I wrote back, “Not at all!” When he asked if my dislike stemmed from the fact that the movie was “too crude”, I wrote back, “No! It stemmed from the fact that it was seriously stupid!” Winking smile The GC and I had gone to see Horrible Bosses on opening night in a theatre, as I do with pretty much every new Jen Aniston movie, and were both so bored to tears that we almost walked out! I just did not find the flick funny, like at all, and, for some reason, Charlie Day, who played Dr. Harris’ dental assistant Dale Arbus, seriously grated on my nerves, especially his gravely voice. It was like fingernails on a chalkboard to this stalker, but I digress. Anyway, I was extremely excited to receive Chas’ text, regardless of my feelings about the movie, as I am always, always up for stalking a location that has anything whatsoever to do with my girl.

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Julia’s house actually only shows up twice in Horrible Bosses – first in the scene in which Dale’s friend Kurt Buckman (aka Jason Sudeikis) stakes out the property with the intent of murdering Julia and later on in a flashback scene in which he describes what happens while there. According to the Horrible Bosses production notes, “The deviant doc’s house is stylistically similar to her office — that is, what can be seen of it through its wide street-facing picture windows, which afford her the opportunity to put on the kind of show she couldn’t get away with at work.”

In real life, the five-bedroom, four-bath, 3,906-square-foot home, which was completely rebuilt in 2008, is pretty darn spectacular! The property features a double-sided fireplace, a floating staircase, an open floor plan, Cherry wood and poured concrete flooring, exposed steel beams, a six-burner range, and three fireplaces. The property sold on July 22 of this year for $1.73 million. You can check out some great interior photographs of the place here.

Big THANK YOU to Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, for finding this location. You can check out Chas’ extensive Horrible Bosses filming locations page here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Julia Harris’ house from Horrible Bosses is located at 2361 Midvale Avenue in the Westside area of Los Angeles.

November 22, 2011November 21, 2011

The Skyline Residence – Jacob’s House from “Crazy, Stupid, Love.”

Back in August, I received an email from a fellow stalker named Brandon who wanted to let me know that he had tracked down the ultra-modern abode where Jacob Palmer (aka Ryan Gosling) lived in Crazy, Stupid, Love. At the time I had yet to see the movie, but added the address to my To-Stalk list anyway and am so glad that I did because, as I have mentioned more than a few times before in recent posts, I have since become just a wee bit obsessed with the flick . . . and its cutie leading man. So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to the Hollywood Hills to stalk the place this past Saturday afternoon.

Due to a slight snafu with my GPS, though, I was unable to get to the actual house and could only snap a few pictures of it from afar. While I always research locations to make sure that they are accessible to the public before leaving to stalk them and while Jacob’s house was visible on Google Street View, for some reason, my navigational system just could not seem to get me there.

It was not until I returned home that evening that I was able to figure out why. As you can see in the above aerial view, Skyline Drive, where Jacob’s house is located, dead-ends at a certain point and then picks up again a short distance later. My GPS, thinking Skyline Drive was a through-street, directed me to the wrong end of it, where the abode was nowhere to be found.

So the next morning, paper map in hand, I dragged the GC back on out to the Hollywood Hills to re-stalk the property. As you can see above, it was POURING rain at the time, which I was none too happy about. You see, there is nothing in this world that this stalker hates more than rain, except for maybe Kyle Richards. Winking smile But once I remembered that it was also raining in the scene in Crazy, Stupid, Love. that took place at Jacob’s house, me being there during a downpour seemed quite apropos. The GC could not stop laughing at me posing for the above picture, though, as he said that I looked as if I was dressed for “the tundra”. Hmph! I happen to like my rain coat, thankyouverymuch!

In real life, Jacob’s house is known as the Skyline Residence and it was built in 2007 by Hagy Belzberg, of Belzberg Architects, to be used as his private residence. According to this fabulous Architectural Record blog post, several previous owners had tried to build a home on the narrow plot of land on which the Skyline Residence now stands, but had not had any luck in securing permits. Belzberg said, “I decided that instead of trying to fight the topography I would work with it and create a very narrow building that sits lightly on the land with minimal to no grading.” The architect’s design called for a 20- by 120-foot structure made out of concrete, glass, marble, and wood.

As you can see above, the finished product is nothing short of magnificent! As Pinky Lovejoy, from the Thinking Pink blog, would say, it is “amazeballs”! Love it, love it, love it! The property is pretty much my dream abode.

From the view pictured above, which I got off of the home’s former real estate website, the dwelling is extremely reminiscent of the Stahl House, or Case Study House #22, which I blogged about way back in March of 2009. The Skyline Residence, which according to fave website CurbedLA was sold to new owners for a cool $5.995 million on December 21, 2009, boasts 4 bedrooms, 5 baths, a 1-bedroom, 1-bath detached guest house, a 65-foot long infinity pool, a spa, floor-to-ceiling glass windows, a large, open kitchen and dining area, outdoor terraces, sweeping views, and a whopping 5,200 square feet of living space!

My favorite aspect of the house, though, has to be the outdoor movie deck, which sits atop the garage and in which films are projected onto a wall of the detached guest house. How amazing is that???? A girl I was friends with in high school had an actual full-sized movie theatre located inside of her home and at the time I thought it was just about the coolest thing ever, but I can honestly say that this pretty much blows that right out of the water! I mean have you ever seen anything more incredible??? You can check out some more fabulous interior and exterior photographs of the Skyline Residence on The Contemporist website here.

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Jacob’s house only shows up briefly in Crazy, Stupid, Love. in one of the best scenes of the movie in which Jacob brings Hannah (aka Emma Stone) home and tries to seduce her by showing her his “big move”. Of the property, the Crazy, Stupid, Love. production notes state, “Jacob’s home also reflected his current lifestyle. To serve as his stunning, if stark, bachelor pad, the filmmakers chose the renowned Skyline Residence designed by internationally recognized architect Hagy Belzberg. Located off the Sunset Strip in the Hollywood Hills, the glass-enclosed, ultra-modern home is considered a prime example of world-class contemporary architecture. As no one was residing in the home at the time, it was easy for [production designer William] Arnold and his team to make the few necessary adjustments. ‘We just removed what we didn’t need, and put in a few of our own signature furnishings, leaving it somewhat austere,’ he says. ‘Jacob’s house is a comment on the character’s own emptiness, really. He rattles around in there; it’s very impersonal, yet very tasteful.’”

The main area of the property used in the film was the living room and it appears as if the home’s hanging Fireorb fireplace was removed for the shoot, which was a good call as I personally think the space looks much better without it.

The kitchen area also made a very brief appearance during the montage scene towards the end of the movie.

A photograph of that kitchen is pictured above.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Skyline Residence, aka Jacob’s house from Crazy, Stupid, Love., is located at 8520 Skyline Drive in the Hollywood Hills. A great view of the property can be seen from Crest View Drive, just south of where it meets Skyline Drive. As I mentioned previously, Skyline Drive dead-ends at a certain point and then picks up again a short distance later. Because of that, my GPS took me to the wrong location when I inputted the address “8520 Skyline Drive”. If you have the same problem, I would suggest inputting the intersection of Skyline Drive and Greenvalley Road into your navigational system and then following Skyline Drive west until it dead-ends. Jacob’s residence is the last house on the east side of the street.

November 11, 2011October 23, 2011

The Weaver House from “Crazy, Stupid, Love.”

Back in August, on the recommendation of my girl Miss Pinky Lovejoy, from the Thinking Pink blog, I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to see Crazy, Stupid, Love. and I can honestly say that it was one of the best movies I have seen all year. In fact, I might even go so far as to say that it was one of the best movies I have seen ever! And while I have long thought that Ryan Gosling is one of the most gifted actors of our generation, he entered a whole new level in Crazy, Stupid, Love. and blew all of his past performances right out of the water! The guy is simply phenomenal! And can you say “heartthrob”?! I also absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE me some Emma Stone and she, too, was nothing short of fabulous. If you have yet to see the movie, I cannot more highly recommend doing so! Like now! Stop reading this post, in fact, and go right out and rent it! Seriously! Anyway, because I loved the flick so much, I could absolutely NOT wait for it to come out on DVD – which it finally did last week – so that I could start tracking down some of its locations. And one of the first that I found, thanks to a very helpful crew member, was the residence where the Weaver family lived. So I ran right out to stalk it – Grim Cheaper in tow, of course – just a few days later.

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In Crazy, Stupid, Love., recently-separated Emily Weaver (aka Julianne Moore) and her two children, Robbie (aka Jonah Bobo) and Molly (aka Joey King), live in the two-story Anywhere, U.S.A.-style house pictured above.

The backyard was the area of the property that actually appeared most often in the flick, most notably during Cal Weaver’s (aka Steve Carell’s) late-night gardening sessions. According to the Crazy, Stupid, Love. production notes, of the residence, production designer William Arnold said, “We were really lucky to find that house, which had this beautiful back sun porch. The owners graciously let us tear down their old glass doors and put in windows and doors that opened the house up to the backyard, lending itself to Cal’s late-night ‘visits’ to his garden. He could see almost all the way through the house, but was, tellingly, on the outside looking in.”

The backyard also appeared in my very favorite scene from the movie, in which Cal’s surprise for Emily goes a bit haywire. I will not say anymore than that, as I do not want to spoil the scene for those who have yet to see the movie – and if that is the case, then you really should not be reading this post! You should be out renting Crazy, Stupid, Love. like I told you to before! Winking smile

The real life interior of the house was also used in the flick. Amazingly, according to the production notes, almost all of Crazy, Stupid, Love. was filmed on location at actual sites. Only two sets were constructed for use in the movie – Cal’s post-separation apartment and Plus, the bar where Jacob Palmer (aka Ryan Gosling) taught Cal the finer points of seducing women – which I found shocking!

In real life, the 3-bedroom, 3-bath, 2,270-square-foot home, which was originally built in 1949 and sits on over half an acre of land, looks much the same in person as it did onscreen, except for the cement front walkway, which appears to have been swapped out for a stone one during the filming.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Weaver residence from Crazy, Stupid, Love. is located at 2002 Minoru Drive in Altadena.

November 10, 2011October 18, 2011

Dolly Green’s House from “Eye for an Eye”

Taking a break today from my many Gossip Girl posts, I thought I would write about a residence that I stalked with fellow stalker Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, way back in mid-July. While he was in town for a little Southern California stalking vacay, the two of us, along with his super-sweet mother, Cynthia, headed out to the Los Feliz area to visit the tiny Tudor-style bungalow where Dolly Green (aka Beverly D’Angelo, who will always be “Ellen Griswold” to me) and her husband, Peter (aka Darrell Larson), lived in the 1996 revenge thriller Eye for an Eye. Chas had somehow managed to track down the property – despite only a small portion of it ever being shown – as well as all of the other locations featured in the movie, a little over a year ago. And while I actually could not even remember what Dolly Green’s abode looked like before we arrived there, let me tell you, I absolutely fell in love with the place on site!

Dolly Green’s little fairy-tale-like dwelling, which was built over the side of a cascading cliff on the winding Glendower Avenue high up in the hills of Los Feliz, is absolutely ADORABLE in person. The abode is so quaint and charming that it looks as if it jumped right out of a Disney cartoon. I half expected the Seven Dwarfs to come walking out the front door, marching along to “Whistle While You Work”, while we were there.

Although calling the home “little” is a bit misleading. While it does appear to be small from the street, the residence is actually quite large. According to fave website Zillow, the dwelling, which was originally built in 1926, boasts 3 bedrooms, 3 baths, and measures 2,972 square feet. As you can see above, though, most of that square footage is located on the back side of the hill, below street level and out of view.

And speaking of views, the home boasts some incredible ones! We happened to stalk the residence on a smog-free day and were able to see all the way to Downtown Los Angeles! Amazing!

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Dolly Green’s residence only appears in one brief scene in Eye for an Eye, in which Karen McCann (aka Sally Field) and her husband, Mack (aka Ed Harris), spend the night at their friends’ house immediately following the murder of their teenage daughter, Julie (aka Olivia Burnette). Now that I have seen the property in person, I am shocked that only a small portion of it was shown in the movie. I mean, talk about curb appeal! This place has got it in spades! Why more of it was not featured is beyond me. But then again, I am not a filmmaker, so what do I know? Winking smile

Sadly, I was not able to find any photographs of the actual interior of the residence, so I am not able to say whether or not it was used in Eye for an Eye, but I would guess that it was.

Big THANK YOU to Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, for finding this location! Smile You can check out Chas’ extensive Eye for an Eye filming locations page here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Dolly Green’s house from Eye for an Eye is located at 2757 Glendower Avenue in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles. Quite a few other filming locations can be found nearby – the Doppelganger mansion is at 2421 Glendower Avenue; Donna Martin’s house from the B.Y.O.B. episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 is at 2405 Glendower Avenue; the so-called “Los Feliz Murder House” is at 2475 Glendower Place, and the legendary Ennis-Brown house, which I have yet to stalk, is at 2607 Glendower Avenue.

November 3, 2011September 29, 2017

Halloween at Dick Van Dyke’s House

While doing research on the Strode House from Halloween a couple of weeks back, I came across a blog post about the extravagant yard haunt that actor Dick Van Dyke hosts every Halloween at his home in Malibu. And while you wouldn’t think it would be possible, being that I have lived in Southern California for well over a decade, have spent countless hours stalking, and am obsessed with all things Halloween and all things celebrity, until reading that post I had never before heard anything about it! And, let me tell you, I just about had a heart attack a few minutes later when I discovered that Dick Van Dyke lives inside of the gated Serra Retreat community because some of our good friends just (like literally weeks ago!) moved into that very same community! I immediately texted said friend to ask if she lived near Dick Van Dyke or knew him at all and started hyperventilating when she wrote back that not only are they next-door neighbors, but that the Grim Cheaper and I were welcome to come to his Halloween party! Talk about fate! I mean, do these things actually happen??? Days later, as I sit here typing this, I am still in a bit of shock and can’t quite believe that I was actually at Dick Van Dyke’s house for Halloween! And that right there is why I LOVE L.A. – one simply never knows what unthinkable adventure is waiting just around the corner! (The GC refused to dress up as Dylan again after already dressing up on Saturday night, which is why I am dressed like a flapper above. I am now thinking of changing his nickname to the “Grim Grumper”, by the way. )

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About two seconds after we arrived at our friends’ house on Halloween night, some trick-or-treaters knocked on the door and I just about died when I realized it was none other than James Cameron, dressed as a pirate, and his family! I kid you not! I was absolutely DYING inside as he introduced himself to our friends and welcomed them to the neighborhood. Like really? As I said above, does this stuff actually happen??? Oh, what I would not give to live in the ‘Bu and have James Cameron trick-or-treat at my door! HOW INCREDIBLY COOL! I did not ask James for a photograph as I figured it would have been a bit awkward, but I am kind of kicking myself about it now. As my girl Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog, constantly admonishes me, when an opportunity presents itself, always, always ask for a picture! Ah well, maybe next Halloween! Anyway, shortly after James left, we all headed over to Dick Van Dyke’s house and, let me tell you, it was nothing short of AMAZING! For this Halloween-obsessed stalker, being there was the ultimate experience!

Dick had decorated the entire front of his property – like every single square inch of it – with a myriad of Halloween displays and contraptions and, let me tell you, it was like nothing I had ever seen! The whole thing was like being in the middle of a horror movie set! We were there for well over an hour and I still do not think I saw everything. The spooktacular was comprised of animatronic mannequins, some of which would jump out at people from hidden corners;

a talking statue, a la the talking statues in the graveyard at Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion;

a Pee-Wee Herman lookalike who was controlling an animatronic wolf that would jump out to “attack” each passerby;

and a video-rigged front door that had both a picture of Dick Van Dyke that would change from normal to scary depending on where you were standing and a “window” to an insane asylum in which an inmate with an ax tries to break her way out.

You can watch a video of the door by clicking above. Notice the marks that show up on the door when the inmate hits it with the ax! Simply incredible!

My favorite part of the whole thing, though, had to be the graveyard, which consisted of a myriad of tombstones, some of which moved and had animatronic corpses coming out of them. There was also an invisible screen set up at the back of the graveyard on which was projected a video of cartoon skeletons doing the “Thriller” dance! SO INCREDIBLY COOL! Sadly, the GC could not get a good picture of the video, nor could he get a photograph of the glow-in-the-dark monster footprints that had been painted in the street out in front of Dick’s house. AMAZING, AMAZING, AMAZING!

Because so many celebrities live in Serra Retreat, I was keeping my eyes peeled the entire time we were there and was beyond excited when I spotted Camille Grammer from The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. As I have mentioned several times before on this blog, I absolutely LOATHE RHOBH star Kyle Richards (“hot, heaping hunks of hate!” as Jerry Stiller would say), and I don’t much like her sister Kim or their friend Taylor Armstrong, either. And while I used to like Lisa Vanderpump, after her high-school-like mean-girl behavior in the recently-aired “The Opposite of Relaxation!” episode, I don’t really care for her either. The only two on the show that I like are Adrienne Maloof-Nassif and Camille Grammer. So seeing Camille was especially exciting!

So I, of course, just had to ask her for a pic. I am very happy to report that Camille was a total sweetheart and even told me that I was beautiful!!! How nice is that? And she is absolutely gorgeous in person, far prettier even than she appears to be on TV. Love her!! Ironically enough, fellow stalker Chas later told me that Camille had been featured in an interview on TMZ TV on Halloween night in which she was asked what Halloween party she would be attending. Her response? “Dick Van Dyke’s and his is the best.” LOVE IT!

Shortly after I took the pic with Camille, Dick Van Dyke walked outside and I just about died. I, of course, also asked him for a photo and he happily obliged. Unfortunately, I did not get to talk to him at all, though, as he was extremely busy and had hoards of neighbors coming up to him, all wanting to say hi. All in all it was a magical evening and I still cannot quite believe it all happened! As I said yesterday, between meeting Matthew Lillard on Friday, dressing up as Brenda and Dylan on Saturday, and then spending Halloween night at Dick Van Dyke’s house, this was quite simply the Best. Halloween. Ever.

During the party, I also just had to run around the corner to get my picture taken in front of Britney Spears and Kevin Federline’s former house. 🙂

You can read a great blog post about decorating Dick Van Dyke’s house written by one of his Halloween crew members on the Disney Travel Babble website here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Unfortunately, because Dick Van Dyke lives inside of Serra Retreat, a gated community that is not open to the public, there is no stalking location for this one.

November 1, 2011September 29, 2017

Joan Crawford’s Former Home

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post about the house where Joan Crawford (aka Faye Dunaway) lived in Mommie Dearest, I have become just a wee-bit obsessed with the 1981 film as well as the 1978 autobiography of Joan’s daughter, Christina Crawford, on which it was based. The book is a fabulous, fabulous read, by the way – whether you believe the abuse allegations or not, and apparently many people do not – and after finishing it, I decided I just had to stalk the actual home where Christina grew up and where the alleged events of her tumultuous childhood took place. I, of course, found the address of Joan’s former mansion in fave book James Dean Died Here: The Locations of America’s Pop Culture Landmarks by Chris Epting and while in the Brentwood area a few weeks ago, ran right out to stalk it. Sadly, the Grim Cheaper was not with me at the time so I was not able to get a photograph of myself out in front. Ah well, I guess that just means I will have to go back sometime soon for a re-stalk.

When Joan first purchased the 9-bedroom, 7-bath, 8,103-square-foot mansion in 1929, while married to first husband Douglas Fairbanks Jr., it was Mediterranean in style, as pictured above.

The couple, who dubbed their new home “El DoJo” – a combination of both of their names – immediately set about gutting the property in order to turn it into a New-England-style dwelling, the result of which is pictured above. And while Joan supposedly again remodeled the residence’s interior after divorcing Fairbanks in 1933, and after each subsequent divorce as well (there were three in total), the exterior was left largely unchanged. It was at the home that Joan not only kept her famous and extensive doll collection, but also accepted her 1946 Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for Mildred Pierce. Apparently, Joan did not want to face the possibility of losing, so she stayed home on the evening of the ceremony, feigning the flu. When it was announced that she had won, the award was immediately delivered to her house and the actress invited the press inside to take photographs of her with it in bed. Joan lived at the Brentwood residence for over 26 years, until 1956 when she married Pepsi Cola CEO Alfred Steele and moved to New York City. When Alfred passed away in 1959, he left the actress with a large accumulation of debt and she was forced to sell the property. You can see some interior photographs of the abode at the time that Joan owned it on the Legendary Joan Crawford website here.

Sadly, Joan Crawford’s former home was extensively remodeled by some new owners beginning in 2003 and is no longer recognizable from the days when the screen legend lived there. Not that it matters much, though, because as you can see above, due to a massive amount of foliage which currently surrounds the property, barely any of it can be seen from the street.

Only a small portion of the garage area and a second-story window are visible.

And it appears from looking at aerial views that even the backyard of the home was given a facelift. As you can see above, the kidney-bean-shaped pool appears to be have been just recently built. You can catch a glimpse of what the backyard looked like in Joan’s day here and you can also check out some great pictures of the property being remodeled on the Find A Death website here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Joan Crawford’s former home, aka the real life Mommie Dearest house, is located at 426 North Bristol Avenue in Brentwood. The Fresh Prince of Bel Air house is located just two blocks south at 251 North Bristol Avenue, also in Brentwood.