Famous houses – Page 24 – IAMNOTASTALKER

April 2, 2010April 2, 2010

The “Sleepless in Seattle” Houseboat

Another Seattle area location that my good friend and fellow stalker Kerry stalked for me a few weeks back was the houseboat where Sam Baldwin (aka Tom Hanks) and his son Jonah (aka Ross Malinger) lived in one of my favorite romantic comedies of all time, 1993’s Sleepless in Seattle. I just re-watched Sleepless last night, actually, in order to write today’s post and was absolutely amazed at how incredibly fabulous the movie still is, almost two decades after it was first released! It’s a classic and I honestly cannot tell you how much I LOVE it. Like LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it! In fact, I can still remember exactly where I was when I first saw it seventeen years ago. It was the summer of 1993, I was sixteen years old, and my parents and I were vacationing in Santa Barbara. While shopping on State Street, we stumbled upon Paseo Nuevo Cinemas, saw Sleepless on the marquee, and decided to buy tickets. I actually still have my ticket from that day, in fact, in a shoebox somewhere in my closet. In the years since, I’ve walked by that same movie theatre countless times while visiting the Santa Barbara area and each time I do the memories from that day never fail to bring a smile to my face. So, when Kerry mentioned that she was going to stalk the Sleepless houseboat, I just about died. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to see that place in person! So, I decided that, even though I have yet to stalk the house myself yet, I just had to blog about it. Thank you, Kerry!

In Sleepless in Seattle, Sam and Jonah Baldwin leave their home in Chicago and move into the Seattle area houseboat pictured above in order to make a fresh start after losing their wife and mother, respectively, a few months prior.

In real life, the Sleepless in Seattle houseboat is located in a gated community of sorts in the Lake Union area of Seattle, Washington (actual gates are pictured above) and is, sadly, not at all visible from the street. Typically, the only way to catch a glimpse of the place is if you travel by it by boat. Thankfully, though, as I’ve mentioned before on my blog, Kerry isn’t one to be easily deterred. As luck would have it, there was an open house in the neighborhood on the day Kerry stalked the place and so she was allowed to wander right in past the main gate! YAY!

As you can in the above screen captures and photographs, the houseboat looks almost EXACTLY the same today as it did when Sleepless was filmed over 17 years ago! In fact, the only differences I noticed were that the front door is currently painted a bright red color and that the fencing around the back patio has been changed from metal to wood.

The four bedroom, two bath houseboat, which was first built in 1978, was apparently for sale in 2008 for a whopping $2.5 million, but I was unable to discern if it was ever actually purchased by someone or if it is still currently up for grabs. If you look at the home’s interior photographs on its real estate website, though, you can see that the inside was not used in the filming of Sleepless. Although the interior of the real life home and its onscreen counterpart bear a striking resemblance to each other, you can tell by the location of both the kitchen and the stairway leading up to the second level that they are not the same place. In real life, the inside of the houseboat, which measures 2,075 square feet, is also much larger than it was made to look onscreen. I am guessing that the entire interior that appeared in the movie was just a set that producers had built on a soundstage somewhere.

If you’ll notice in the above picture, though, the little bench that Sam sits on at night in the movie is there in real life, too. So LOVE it!

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I am happy to report, too, that the mailboxes seen in the flick are in fact the community’s real life mailboxes and that they look very much the same today as they did back in 1993 when Sleepless was filmed. YAY!

Big THANK YOU to Kerry for stalking this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Sleepless in Seattle houseboat is located at 2460 Westlake Avenue North in the Lake Union area of Seattle, Washington, right next to Boatworld Marinas. Please remember that the home is located in a private community and do not trespass.

March 31, 2010March 30, 2010

The “Father of the Bride Part II” Wall, House, and Intersection

As I’ve mentioned quite a few times in the past, fellow stalker Owen and I are just a bit obsessed with both the 1991 movie Father of the Bride and its sequel, 1995’s Father of the Bride Part II. And while we had tracked down most of the locales featured in the flicks, Owen had his sights set on locating the wavy stone wall that George Banks (aka Steve Martin) walked by towards the beginning of Part II. Although the wall only appears for one very brief second in the movie and seems like a rather peculiar spot to want to stalk, Owen was absolutely consumed with finding it. And I must say, I understand. Yes, maybe to some it is just a wall that flashed by once in a movie that is well over a decade and a half old, but to people who love Father of the Bride Part II and have watched it countless times over, that wall is a landmark – a significant piece of cinematic history. Fellow stalker David from Spain made a comment to me the other day that rang so very true. Speaking about our shared and unwavering desire to track down certain filming locations, he said, “I think you and I are infected with the same virus.” 😉 Couldn’t have said it better myself, David, couldn’t have said it better! So, when Owen told me he was dying to stalk that Father of the Bride Part II wall, I completely understood and vowed to help him find it. As it turned out, though, he didn’t need my help after all.

I was able to help him with one thing, though. After Owen asked for my assistance with this particular stalk, I popped in my Father of the Bride Part II DVD and immediately recognized the grey-shingled home that George walks by just prior to the stone wall. In the scene, George is shown walking in his neighborhood after getting into a fight with his wife Nina (aka Dianne Keaton), after just finding out that she is pregnant. While walking he wonders if he still has what it takes to be a good dad at his age and then spots a man much younger than he standing on the front porch of a home kissing his son goodbye before leaving for work.

As fate would have it, Mike from MovieShotsLA, and I had JUST walked by that very same house a few weeks beforehand. While grabbing a Starbucks one day in Pasadena, the two of us decided to take a walk over to the Mr. Deeds house which was fairly close by. As we strolled down Madison Avenue, we randomly stopped to admire the above pictured residence and Mike said, “Wow, what a beautiful home! I bet it’s been used in a movie before!” Because the house was so incredibly picturesque and had “Anywhere, U.S.A.” written all over it, I completely agreed. As the two of us walked on, the residence stuck in my brain and became one of many in Pasadena that I refer to as a “Thanksgiving House”. Every so often in my stalking travels I will come across incredibly charming and idyllic spots that immediately make me think of coming home at Thanksgiving. I started using the phrase “Thanksgiving House” as a child after taking a stroll one holiday morning with my parents and listening to my mom say “Don’t you want to spend Thanksgiving in a house that looks like that?” as she pointed out the many beautiful residences we passed. The term has, for whatever reason, stuck. So, when I popped in my Father of the Bride Part II DVD to help Owen with his search, I, of course, immediately recognized my “Thanksgiving House”! Which proved Mike right – it had been used in a movie! 😉 And, ironically enough, when I returned to the house a few weeks later to snap some pictures, a crew was just getting ready to set up for the filming of a Cialis commercial on the premises!

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Once Owen knew that the grey-shingled house was located in Pasadena, he began searching for the stone wall there, too. What he found first, though, was the intersection where George gets propositioned by a young blond woman in a convertible. How in the heck he managed to recognize a fairly non-descript intersection is beyond me! But he did and my hat is definitely off to him! As fate would have it, while looking at the intersection via Google Street View, Owen fairly quickly noticed that it was located at the top of a very large hill. Also located on that hill? You guessed it – the stone wall Owen had been searching for! YAY!

Sadly, though, Owen’s stone wall looks very different today than it did in 1995 when Father of the Bride Part II was filmed. In fact, the entire thing is now completely covered over with ivy and is almost completely unrecognizable. Such a bummer! Why anyone would cover up such a cool looking stone wall is beyond me.

But as you can see in the above photograph, a few stones can still be seen peeking out from under the ivy in some parts of the wall. So, at least there’s that.

Big THANK YOU to Owen for tracking down these locations! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Father of the Bride Part II house is located at 639 South Madison Avenue in Pasadena. The spot where the blond woman hits on Steve Martin is at the intersection of South Grand Avenue and Arbor Street in Pasadena. The stone wall Steve Martin walks in front of later on in the movie is just west of the intersection, on the 500 block of Arbor Street.

March 24, 2010March 23, 2010

Dionne’s House From “Clueless”

One location that I have been searching for for what seems like forever is the huge castle-like abode where Cher’s (aka Alicia Silverstone’s) best friend Dionne (aka Stacey Dash) lived in one of my all time favorite comedies, 1995’s Clueless. Since I had been trying to track down the home for years and had come up virtually empty handed, I recently decided to call upon fellow stalkers Mike, from MovieShotsLA, Chas, from ItsFilmedThere, and Owen – or, as Mike likes to call us collectively, “The Team” 😉 – for help. Well, I almost fell off my chair when Owen emailed me back less than ten minutes later with an address. Here I had been trying to track down this location for years and Owen managed to find it in a span of ten minutes???? Am I losing my mojo or something? As luck would have it, thanks to a simple Google search, Owen stumbled upon a website called “The Daily Truffle” which recently featured an entire post about Clueless locations in honor of the tragically short life of actress Brittany Murphy who played newcomer Tai in the flick. One of the addresses mentioned on the site? You guessed it, Dionne’s home! YAY! As it turns out, the author of “The Daily Truffle” lives just a few blocks away from the residence, which is how she knew of its location. Thank you, Daily Truffle!

Dionne’s house shows up in one very short scene at the very beginning of Clueless. And I am not kidding when I say the scene was short – it lasted a mere 18 seconds! But even though its appearance onscreen was brief, Dionne’s home was one of the most memorable locations of the entire movie and I was ABSOLUTELY DYING to stalk the place.

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Unlike Cher’s house, which is located in Encino of all places (egads!), Dionne’s house is located exactly where the movie purports it to be – right in the heart of Beverly Hills. Sadly though, as you can see in the above photographs, the residence looks much different today than it did in 1995 when Clueless was filmed. 🙁 As luck would have it, an extremely nice contractor happened to be working at the house when my dad and I showed up to stalk the place earlier today and he explained that the property was sold in late 2008 and that the new owners not only completely gutted the interior, but also added an exterior gate and massive amounts of foliage to the perimeter which completely block the home from view. SO SAD. The contractor also told me that part of Clueless was filmed inside of the residence. But, because no scenes from the movie actually took place in Dionne’s home, I am guessing that the property might been used to stand in for Cher’s house in some way. That is just pure speculation on my part, though, so don’t quote me on that. 😉

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Thankfully, because the home’s newly installed gate was standing wide open while we were there, I was able to snap a few close-up pictures of the front door area which was featured prominently in Clueless – well, as prominently as it could have been in an 18 second scene. 😉

If you look at Dionne’s house via Google Street View, it appears pretty much exactly the same as it did onscreen in Clueless. Oh, how I wish I had stalked the place two years ago before the remodel began! Ugh! In real life, Dionne’s house, which was built in 1930, boasts 7 bedrooms, 10 bathrooms, and a whopping 9,850 square feet!

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Big THANK YOU to both Owen and The Daily Truffle for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Dionne’s house from Clueless is located at 705 North Sierra Drive in Beverly Hills.

March 22, 2010March 21, 2010

Marilyn Monroe’s Former Doheny Drive Apartment Building

Another day, another Marilyn Monroe location. 🙂 Last month, fellow stalker and major Drew Barrymore aficionado Ashley, from The Drewseum website, tipped me off to The Marilyn Monroe Collection Blog which had just published a post about an apartment building where my girl had lived at two separate times during the 1950s and 1960s. Amazingly enough, for whatever reason, I had never heard of that particular apartment building in relation to Marilyn Monroe before and I immediately added the address to my list of must-see locations! So, while were out in Hollywood doing some Oscar Weekend stalking earlier this month, I finally dragged my fiancé right over to Doheny Drive in Beverly Hills to stalk Marilyn’s former residence. YAY!

I was especially excited to stalk this particular former residence of Marilyn’s because The Marilyn Monroe Collection Blog had posted a photograph of the actress which had been taken while she was parked in front of the building! So darn cool! As you can see in the photographs above, while there have definitely been some changes to the property since the picture of MM was taken – including the addition of garage doors and the removal of the vent-like structures above the carport area – the building is still very recognizable from the time when the actress lived there. Love it!

Marilyn first moved into the Doheny Drive apartment building, which had been constructed just one year prior, in 1953 and lived there for about a year before marrying baseball legend Joe DiMaggio on January 14, 1954. The actress, who was already wildly popular at the time thanks to starring roles in both Niagara and Gentleman Prefer Blonds, lived in Unit #3 of the building, a one bedroom, one bathroom dwelling which measured a scant 648 square feet! It is incredibly hard to imagine one of the world’s most popular movie stars living in such tiny digs, but she must have liked the place because in April of 1961, after her divorce from playwright Arthur Miller was finalized, the actress left New York and once again leased the very same unit in the very same building. She stayed there until March of 1962, at which point she moved into the Brentwood area home she had purchased a few months prior, the same home in which she would sadly pass away on the night of August 4th, 1962 (or in the early morning hours of August 5th, 1962, depending on which report you believe). Marilyn’s former apartment building is now a made up of individually owned condominium units.

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According to my buddy E.J. over at The Movieland Directory, Marilyn’s former building, the front entrance of which is pictured above, is no stranger to celebrity. Other stars who have lived on the premises include actor James Coburn, pinup girl Jeanne Carmen, French actress Bella Darvi, and actress Viola Mertz.

Big THANK YOU to Ashley from The Drewseum for tipping me off to this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Marilyn Monroe’s former apartment building is located at 882 North Doheny Drive in Beverly Hills. The actress lived in unit #3.

March 18, 2010March 17, 2010

Mia Wallace’s House from “Pulp Fiction”

A few weeks ago, fellow stalker Chas, from ItsFilmedThere, set his sights on tracking down every single location featured in the 1994 movie Pulp Fiction. Well, as soon as I found out about this bold undertaking, I begged him to find the ultra-modern abode belonging to Mia Wallace (aka Uma Thurman) in the flick, which was, of course, the location I was most interested in stalking (besides the ‘50s inspired Jack Rabbit Slims restaurant, which unfortunately doesn’t exist in real life). And, sure enough, he did! Chas somehow managed to track down a crew member from the film who remembered that Mia’s residence was located somewhere in Beverly Hills a few miles north of Sunset Boulevard. So, Chas immediately got to cyberstalking and I am happy to report found the abode fairly quickly. And once he gave me Mia’s address, I dragged my fiancé right out to stalk the place. Sadly, though, the gate pictured above is pretty much the only part of the property that is visible from the street. 🙁

I was so hoping to see the home’s main entryway, as that is the area of the house that is most recognizable from Pulp Fiction, but alas that was not to be. 🙁

You can catch a slight (very, very slight) glimpse of the residence if you drive a bit north of the property . . .

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. . . . and another slight view of it if you drive a bit south of the main gates. Aside from those two limited views, though, there unfortunately isn’t a whole lot to see at this location. Such a bummer!

But that’s why God created real estate listings! While doing some research on the property earlier today, I not only stumbled upon a real estate website advertising the home (which is currently for sale at a price that is only made known upon request – yikes!), but a YouTube video, as well (see below)! Score! And, as you can see in the above photographs and screen captures, it seems that the real life interior of the residence was also used in the filming of Pulp Fiction. So cool!

Even the home’s real life bathroom was used in the scene in which Vincent Vega (aka John Travolta) tries to talk himself out of wanting to get together with Mia. So cool!

In real life, the home, which was built in 1960, boasts three bedrooms, three and a half bathrooms, measures 4,015 square feet and sits on almost a full acre of land. And while the real estate listing does boast that the “gated celebrity view estate” (and I’m not even really sure what that phrase means!) features an infinity pool and “state of the art electronics and security systems”, for whatever reason it fails to mention its cinematic cameo! If I was the property’s real estate agent, you can bet its appearance on the silver screen would be my main selling point! Hello! I mean, that’s bound to drive the price up at least a few dollars. 😉

Big THANK YOU to Chas, from ItsFilmedThere, for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Mia Wallace’s house from Pulp Fiction is located at 1541 Summitridge Drive in Beverly Hills.

March 11, 2010March 11, 2010

The Omega Beta Zeta House from “Scream 2”

This past Saturday, while I was out stalking the Oscars, fellow stalker Tony spent his day trying to track down the large Victorian mansion which appeared as both the Omega Beta Zeta sorority house in Scream 2 and the Strong residence in Catch Me If You Can. Tony knew that the house was located somewhere in the Altadena area and, since I live in the vicinity, was hoping I could help him find it. We spent quite a bit of time emailing back and forth that day – me on my blackberry while out and about in Hollywood and Tony on his computer at home. I am sad to say that I was unable to provide him with any help whatsoever in this particular hunt, though, as I had long been under the incorrect assumption that the Woodbury Story House on Madison Avenue in Altadena was the residence used as the Strong mansion in Catch Me If You Can. Tony proved me wrong, though, and, as it turns out, didn’t need my help after all. He managed to track down the correct location fairly quickly, first using Google to make a list of all of the large Victorian-style houses in the Altadena area and then viewing each one using aerial maps. YAY! Thank you, Tony! So, once Tony gave me the address, I, of course, had to run right out to immediately stalk the place.

The Scream 2/Catch Me If You Can estate is actually known as both the Crank House and Fair Oaks Ranch and is something of a historical residence. The vacant property was first owned by a wealthy landowner named Dr. John S. Griffin. In 1862, Griffin sold the lot to his sister, Eliza Griffin Johnston, for $1000 after her husband, Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston, passed away during the Civil War. Eliza built a small abode on the property and dubbed her new home “Fair Oaks Ranch”, after the city of Fair Oaks in Virginia where she was born. In 1864, following the death of her son in a steamship accident, Eliza sold the property to Benjamin Eaton, one of Pasadena’s first founders. Eaton ended up splitting the land in half and in 1876 sold one of the halves to a New Yorker named James F. Crank. Crank had Eliza’s original home moved off of the property (it is currently located at 2072 Oakwood Avenue in Altadena) and in 1882 built a much larger, two and a half story, Victorian-style abode, named the Crank House, in its place. In 1910, after investing and subsequently losing his fortune in the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Valley Railroads, Crank was forced to sell the residence. And while his property was further subdivided after the sale, I am happy to report that his former house still stands and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1997. The seven bedroom, four bathroom home measures a whopping 6,450 square feet and currently sits on over one and a half acres of land. Sadly, though, the residence is situated behind a large gate and is not very visible from the street.

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But, as luck would have it, when I showed up to stalk the place yesterday, not only was the property’s back gate standing open . . .

. . . but, the front gate was, as well! So, I just had to stick my arm around the open gate and snap the above pictures! YAY! 🙂

And, being that the house is not visible from the street, I can’t really recommend visiting it in person. But if you are absolutely dying to catch a glimpse of it, I am happy to report that parts of it can actually be seen from the streets surrounding the property. 🙂

In Scream 2, the Crank House stood in for the Omega Beta Zeta sorority house located on the campus of the fictional Windsor College in Ohio.

The house is where sorority girl CiCi Cooper (aka Sarah Michelle Gellar) meets her untimely end thanks to a push off the mansion’s second floor balcony. In the movie, the house is supposedly situated within walking distance of the Delta Lambda Zeta house, where the “Martini Mixer” fraternity party was held, but in actuality it is located a good six miles away from that residence. On a side note – I have to admit that I must have jumped out of my chair at least ten times while making the above screen captures! LOL

In Catch Me If You Can, the Crank House stood in for the New Orleans residence belonging to Roger (aka Martin Sheen) and Carol Strong (aka Nancy Lenehan) and their daughter Brenda (aka Amy Adams). The house showed up in several scenes in the movie, most notably as the location of Frank Abagnale (aka Leonardo DiCaprio) and Brenda’s engagement party.

Both the interior and the exterior of the Crank House were used extensively in the filming of Scream 2 and Catch Me If You Can. As you can in the above screen captures, which were taken from both films, the interiors match almost exactly. Love it!

Big THANK YOU to Tony for finding this location! 🙂 And be sure to check out Tony’s Flickr site, as it features some fabulous photographs of filming locations in and around the L.A. area.

On a very sad side note – I was heartbroken today to learn of the untimely death of actor Corey Haim. Corey was one of my very first movie star crushes. I was eleven years old when I first layed eyes on him in 1988’s License to Drive and I think it’s safe to save I’ve been smitten ever since. My thoughts and prayers go out to his family and loved ones at this difficult time. I hope that in death Corey has finally found the peace that he never seemed to have in life. Rest in peace, sweet Corey.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Crank Estate, aka Fair Oaks Ranch, is located at 2186 East Crary Street in Altadena. The property’s front gate is located around the corner, at the end of Layton Street. Remember, this is a private residence, so please do not trespass. To see the best views of the house, drive on Crary Street just a bit east of the property and look backwards or drive a block south to Garfias Drive and look north. I’ve marked the areas with the best views of the house on the map above.

March 3, 2010March 2, 2010

Shannen Doherty’s Former House

One of the first locations I ever stalked, long before I moved to the L.A. area, was the residence that Shannen Doherty called home during the height of her Beverly Hills, 90210 fame. I was on summer vacation in between my Junior and Senior years of college at the time and had flown down to Southern California for the weekend to visit my then-boyfriend and then-best friend, both of whom lived near Los Angeles. The three of us ended up spending one of the days I was in town stalking the Hollywood area, although this was long before I called my unique hobby “stalking”. Our first stalk that day just happened to be Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, a place which I had only ever visited once previously during my teenage years. I remember being absolutely ecstatic upon seeing the numerous handprints and footprints of the stars, especially those of Tom Cruise who I was in love with at the time. At some point during our Grauman’s stalk, I wandered into the theatre’s little gift shop and stumbled upon The Ultimate Hollywood Tour Book – a stalking tome the likes of which I had never before seen. I was instantly enamored with the book and, despite being a starving college student at the time, immediately forked over the $16.95 to purchase the guide. The rest of our day in Hollywood was spent using the book to tour various filming locations and numerous homes of the rich and famous. And while my then-best friend, whom we’ll call Julie for the purposes of this post, refused to take me to the Walsh House – she said it was WAY TOO FAR for her to drive – she did agree to make a stop at Shannen Doherty’s former West Hollywood abode, which I could NOT have been more excited about. And, as fate would have it, when we pulled up to the residence a man happened to be standing on the front porch. Well, let me tell you, I immediately started screaming and begged Julie to pull over so that we could ask the man some questions about SD, but she had an absolute meltdown and flat out refused to stop! In fact, she didn’t even want me to take a picture of the residence and was screaming at me the entire time to put my camera away. The above photo is the only one I managed to snap during her little tantrum. I’m not sure what it was that Julie was so nervous about, being that Shando had moved out of the home about four years prior and I had only wanted to ask the new resident if he had ever met the star and if the stories about her being a bad girl were true. But, alas, that was not to be. I’m fairly certain it goes without saying that Julie and I are no longer friends. 😉

She did agree to drive a bit north of the house, though, so that I could snap another photograph of the residence from farther away. That’s me and my college boyfriend in the above pic, along with a very tiny, very blurred view of SD’s former house.

Anyway, the other day while doing some stalking in the West Hollywood area, I was reminded of my long past failed stalk of Shannen’s house and mentioned the story to my fiancé. He thought the whole thing was absolutely hilarious, especially when I showed him the photograph I had taken out of Julie’s car window, and it was then that I decided I just had to blog about the place. So, later that day I dragged him up Doheny Drive to re-stalk Shannen’s former residence and was quite to surprised to discover that the property had been altered since my last visit. Apparently, Shannen’s former home, which is currently for sale at the bargain price of $4,695,000, was given a recent facelift, both inside and out.

As you can see in the above photograph, though, the house still has that weird round sculpted adornment above the front door that it had when I first stalked the place back in 1998. The 3 story, 3 bedroom, 3.5 bathroom residence, which was built in 1967 and measures 3,699 square feet, boasts city and ocean views, a gourmet kitchen, a master suite with a fireplace and an infinity bathtub (although I must confess I don’t even know what the heck an “infinity bathtub” is), a pool, a waterfall, a spa, and an outdoor fireplace.

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This is the same house that Shannen not only famously trashed, but was evicted from in March of 1993. Supposedly the actress moved out of the property in the middle of the night after being served with an eviction notice while still owing $14,000 in back rent. Her landlord ended up filing a lawsuit against her claiming she caused $136,300 in damage to the property while living there. Included in that $136,000 was a reported $70,000 in structural damage that was also caused by the actress. How in the heck one tiny person – SD is reportedly 5’2” – can cause that much structural damage to a house I’ll never know, but I digress. Shannen’s former home had actually seen its fair share of notoriety long before the 90210 bad girl moved in, though. In the 70s, famous Hollywood Madame and longtime Heidi Fleiss mentor, Alex Adams, also lived at the property and even operated a brothel out of it for several years.

While doing research for this post, I managed to dig up the above black and white photograph of the interior of the house which was taken just around the time Shannen lived there and was featured in a February 24th, 1997 People Magazine article about the star. The color photograph pictured above was taken off of the home’s real estate website – which you can view here – and as you can see, despite the recent remodel, the beamed roof and fireplace area still look very much the same today as they did when Shannen called the place home. So darn cool!!! 🙂

And, of course, while we were stalking the place a couple of weeks ago, I just had to drag my fiancé up the hill to take a photograph of the house from the same spot where I had taken a picture of it all those years beforehand.

On a side note – Fellow stalker Erika recently met Shannen Doherty while dining at the Marmalade Cafe in the Malibu Lumber Yard. Because Erika is 100% on Team Brenda (YAY), she just had to ask Shannen if she’d be willing to snap a picture with her, to which the star happily obliged! See, I knew SD HAD to be nice! 🙂 Oh, what I wouldn’t give to have my photo taken with Shannen Doherty!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Shannen Doherty’s former house is located at 1654 North Doheny Drive in West Hollywood.

March 1, 2010February 28, 2010

Kristin Cavallari’s Beach House from “The Hills”

Just down the street from Jennifer Aniston’s former beach house, which I blogged about on Friday, is the residence that Kristin Cavallari called home during this past season of fave reality show The Hills. So, since we were already in the area a couple of weeks ago, I just had to drag fellow stalker Mike, from MovieShotsLA – who I am sad to say is not at all a fan of the MTV show – over to stalk the place. I found this location thanks to fellow stalker Virginie who posted Kristin’s former address in the comments section of my site way back in October of last year and it’s been high up on my “To-Stalk” list ever since. Thank you, Virginie! Unfortunately, though, since I so rarely get out to the ‘Bu, I had yet to stalk the residence. And while I realize that The Hills ended its current season over two and a half months ago and that I am just slightly late to the game on this one, as I always say, it’s far better to be late than never. 🙂

The four bedroom, four bath beach house pictured above, which was built in 1969 and measures 2,972 square feet, first showed up when Kristin Cavallari joined the cast of The Hills in the Season Five episode entitled “It’s On Bitch”. But she didn’t stay there long. The Laguna Beach alum moved out of this location just ten episodes later, on the show’s season finale which was entitled “Boys of the Summer”. I am fairly certain that Kristin never actually rented this house, though, and quite possibly never even truly lived there, but that the property was leased by MTV solely for filming purposes.

And quite a bit of filming did actually take place on location at the residence. In fact, the house showed up in all ten episodes which featured Kristin during Season Five. The back side of the property was the area most often featured on the show . . .

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. . . and was the site of Kristin’s many beach parties and get-togethers. Oh, how I wish I had stalked this place back when The Hills was still filming so that I could have seen her little tiki bar and patio furniture in person. Sadly, all of the outdoor decor that appeared on the show has long since been removed.

And, of course, I just had to get a picture of the house’s back stairwell, which appeared numerous times on the show. I so wanted to pose for a picture while standing on the stairs, too, but being that someone was inside the property while we were stalking the place, I didn’t think that would be a very smart move. 😉

The inside of the home was also featured numerous times on the show and while I have to say that the residence’s interior is absolutely GORGEOUS, it doesn’t, in my opinion at least, really match up to the exterior, which seems to be a bit dated and weathered.

For whatever reason, the front entrance to the house was only ever shown once on The Hills, at the very beginning of the “It’s On Bitch” episode, in the scene in which Kristin is shown getting into her car and driving off on Pacific Coast Highway on her way to make an appearance at Spencer and Heidi’s “Welcome Home” party.

Amazingly enough, while doing research for this post I discovered that appearing on The Hills isn’t the home’s only claim to fame. The property actually has a long and storied Hollywood history. According to this article, in the early ‘80s the beach pad belonged to music executive Jerry Goldstein. In the ‘90s, it was purchased by another music man, record promoter and Giant Records president Charlie Minor. Sadly, on March 19, 1995, Minor, who had worked with both Sting and Janet Jackson during the course of his highly successful career, was murdered in the house by a former girlfriend named Suzette McClure who shot him nine times after catching him in bed with another woman. But the house’s notoriety doesn’t end there, for it was also used as one of the locations of the Silver Spoon Beach House – the notorious party pad where throngs of young Hollywood stars would hang out during the summer months. Just a few of the celebs who were seen there include Lindsay Lohan, Ali Landry, The Real Housewives of Orange County’s Slade Smiley (Ugh, gag me!) and Gretchen Rossi, Brody Jenner, and ironically enough, even Kristin Cavallari, who not only partied at the house, but also once did a photo shoot there.

A big THANK YOU to Virginie for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Kristin Cavallari’s beach house from The Hills is located at 22058 Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu. Jennifer Aniston’s former Malibu home is located just a few houses east of Kristin’s at 22164 Pacific Coast Highway.

February 26, 2010June 16, 2011

Jennifer Aniston’s Former Beach House

While out stalking the ‘Bu with Mike, from MovieShotsLA, a couple of weeks ago, I just about had a complete heart attack as the two of us passed by my girl Jen Aniston’s former beach house and I noticed that the door to the front gate was standing WIDE OPEN! Let me tell you, I must have screamed for a good sixty seconds over that one! Once Mike regained his hearing ;), he made an immediate U-turn across Pacific Coast Highway so that the two of us could head over to the house to get a peek behind the gates. I’ve actually stalked Jen’s former Malibu bungalow a few times in the past – and have even blogged about it once before – but being that this was the first time I was catching a glimpse of her front courtyard area, I figured the place was worth a re-post. And let me tell you, I was pretty much dying the whole time I was there. I mean never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I’d get to see past that front gate!

As we walked up to the house we noticed some workers standing out front, so I, of course, struck up a conversation with them. The workers told us that they were doing some landscaping in the front courtyard area of the residence, which is why the gate was open. When I asked one of them if he knew that Jennifer Aniston used to live on the property, he looked at me like he had absolutely no idea who Jennifer Aniston even was. LOL

I didn’t want to overstep my bounds or get the landscapers in any sort of trouble while I was stalking the place, so I stayed on the sidewalk area while taking the above pictures, but believe me I was absolutely dying to venture in for a closer look!

I did manage to catch a glimpse of the glass front door, though, which you can just barely see in the above pictures.

While there, I was so focused on seeing Jen’s former courtyard area that I didn’t even realize the garage door to the house was open. It wasn’t until Mike elbowed me and whispered really loudly in my ear, “GET A PICTURE OF THE GARAGE! GET A PICTURE OF THE GARAGE! That’s where Jen did her laundry!” that I even noticed it. LOL I so wanted Mike to ask the landscaping guys if we could peek inside the house, but he refused as he felt like that would definitely be crossing a line. And I have to admit I agree with him – which is why I didn’t want to ask the workers myself. 😉 But, oh, what I wouldn’t give to see the inside of that house!

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During the time Jen rented the home, the glass walls of the back patio area were actually covered over with some sort of black paneling which shielded the star from the prying eyes of not only the paparazzi, but stalkers such as myself. So, I was beyond floored when Mike and I traveled to the back side of the property and noticed that those panels were no longer there, which meant that Jen’s former “backyard” was visible. YAY! It’s actually very surprising to me that the notoriously press-shy Aniston ever lived in this house – especially during her divorce, when the media frenzy was at an all-time high – being that the public beach access walkway is located just a few feet to the east of the property. Because the area was so easily accessible, the paparazzi used to supposedly camp out night and day on the beach directly behind her house. Ugh!

Jen moved into her wood-shingled Malibu beach bungalow in early 2005, immediately following her separation from now ex-husband Brad Pitt. She leased the property, which is supposedly owned by Oracle C.E.O Larry Ellison, through the end of 2007 for a reported $30,000 a month. Despite the fact that it is located right on the sand, thisclose to the ocean, Jen’s former beach house is fairly modest by celebrity standards. The residence, which was built in 1945, boasts two bedrooms, three bathrooms, and measures a scant 1,531 square feet. And I have to say that I ABSOLUTELY LOVE the place. The house is incredibly charming and so very, for lack of a better word, cute and I would give anything to live in something similar. I am so enamored of the place in fact that I would consider it my dream pad, even if it hadn’t been previously lived in by Jen. 😉 The two-story bungalow is actually the place where the actress conducted her infamous first post-split interview which ran in the September 2005 issue of Vanity Fair magazine. According to several other interviews which also took place at the home, Jen decorated her bachelorette pad with mostly white furnishings adorned with white candles, white flowers, and quite a bit of Asian-inspired decor. She also reportedly kept a little vase filled with loose Merit brand cigarettes on an end table next to the couch for her guests to partake of. Apparently Jen remodeled the home a bit, even though it was a rental, before moving in. Vanity Fair author Leslie Bennetts says, “Although the bungalow was dark and depressing when she first saw it, a quickie makeover has transformed it into a cozy sanctuary that’s far more representative of Aniston’s personal taste than the showplace she and Pitt shared, where the decor seemed all hard edges and unforgiving materials.” Bennetts goes on to ask Jen what she likes best about being separated from Brad, to which the actress responds, “I can have a comfortable couch.” LOL

On a side note – Early last year fave website Big Time Listings reported on another (possible) former rental of Aniston’s in the Laurel Canyon area. And while Big Time Listings can’t actually verify that the actress ever lived in the home, according to the September 2009 issue of Elle Magazine, Jen did rent a house in Laurel Canyon during her pre-Friends days, so it’s a definite possibility.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Jennifer Aniston’s former beach rental is located at 22164 Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu.

February 23, 2010February 22, 2010

“The Hogan Family” House

One Pasadena area filming location that I had long assumed was well-known in the stalking community was the home where the Hogan family lived in the 1986 television sitcom Valerie, aka Valerie’s Family, aka The Hogan Family. So, the other day when I happened to point out the location to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, while the two of us were in the area doing some stalking, I was absolutely shocked to discover that not only had he never been to the house, but prior to me mentioning it, he had no idea that it was even in Pasadena! I had originally found this location upon first moving to Southern California way back in 2000 thanks to an early edition of The Ultimate Hollywood Tour Book which featured a short blurb about the house. I’ve noticed, though, that, for whatever reason, more recent editions of the book do not mention the location. So, I decided to do a little more digging and was shocked to find out that not only was The Hogan Family house information not mentioned anywhere online, but that IMDB had even gone so far as to incongruously claim that the Hogan residence was the very same place where the Cunninghams lived on Happy Days. So, I figured it was high time I blogged about the true location of the residence to put the falsehoods to rest! 🙂

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The Hogan Family house was actually one of the very first places I ever stalked and for that reason it will always hold a very special place in my heart. Shortly after relocating to Pasadena, my mom and I decided to spend an entire day driving around the City of Roses looking at its various movie and television sites. I remember being BEYOND excited that so many locations could be found in the city I was now calling home. Pasadena became my very own treasure trove that day and remains so even now. 🙂 Anyway, one of the locales my mom and I stalked was The Hogan Family house and I still remember how completely floored I was when I saw it as it looked very similar in person to how it appeared on the show. And I am very happy to report that even today – almost two and a half decades after the series premiered – the house still looks EXACTLY the same as it did when it was on TV! Even the same blue and white striped awnings are still flanking the home’s front windows.

The home’s address plaque also still looks much the same as it did in 1986, although it is now situated on a different side of the front porch. Love it! Love it! Love it! Oh, and please excuse the horrible quality of my screen caps. I don’t own The Hogan Family on DVD and had to settle for making them off of YouTube. According to Zillow, in real life the Valerie house has four bathrooms, five bedrooms, measures 3,846 square feet and was built in 1910. And it’s not very hard to see why producers chose to use it in the series, as it looks like the typical all-American home of the typical all-American family.

It is simply amazing to me that the series went through no less than THREE name changes during its five year run. During its first two years on the air, the show was known simply as Valerie, but when star Valerie Harper was fired in the summer following Season Two, the name was changed to Valerie’s Family: The Hogans. The following year, after the much publicized lawsuit that followed Harper’s dismissal, the name was changed once again to The Hogan Family. I was completely fascinated re-reading the many news articles written about the lawsuit while researching today’s post, as I had largely forgotten about the hugely bitter and widely publicized ordeal, which took place in 1987. As this article written about Harper’s firing and the subsequent lawsuit states, the controversy surrounding the show is far more memorable than the show itself. 😉 Even more juicy than the lawsuit, though, at least in my eyes, is the fact that the author of Valerie’s pilot episode would go on to pen Artistic Differencesa novel about a Hollywood writer who is hired to create a sitcom for an egocentric, narcissistic actress. Hmmm wonder what television show his book was based on? 😉 And a little bit of Hogan Family trivia for you – the sitcom starred none other than Josh Taylor (aka Dylan McKay’s father Jack from Beverly Hills, 90210) as Valerie’s pilot husband. 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The house from The Hogan Family, aka Valerie’s Family, aka Valerie is located at 840 Bellefontaine Place in Pasadena.