Famous houses – Page 25 – IAMNOTASTALKER

February 19, 2010February 18, 2010

David Silver’s Grandparents’ House from “Beverly Hills, 90210”

One Beverly Hills, 90210 location that I have been dying to find pretty much ever since the episode it was featured in aired over 18 years ago is the house where David Silver’s grandparents’ lived in the Season One episode entitled “Palm Springs Weekend” (aka “A Fling in Palm Springs”). For those who don’t know 90210 like the back of their hand like I do, in the episode Kelly, Donna, Brenda, and the gang head out to Palm Springs for Presidents’ Day Weekend and, because of an oversight on Steve’s part, wind up having to spend the entire three days at David Silvers’ grandparents’ house. And while I was absolutely certain that the home used in the episode wasn’t located in Palm Springs, unfortunately, I had no idea of where it actually could be found. My gut was telling me that it might be located in or around Encino and I actually spent quite a bit of time searching in that area. It was actually this location that I was looking for when I stumbled upon the mansion where April Rhodes was caught squatting in “The Rhodes Not Taken” episode of fave show Glee, but I digress. Anyway after spending countless hours searching the Valley for David Silver’s grandparents’ house, fellow stalker Chas got some insider information that the residence could actually be found in . . . Malibu of all places! I swear, Malibu would have been the absolute LAST spot on earth I would have looked for this house as, in my opinion at least, it just doesn’t really look like a Malibu-type residence. Anyway, once Chas had me divert my search to the ‘Bu :), I found the home almost immediately. YAY. So, this past Friday, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, took the day off and the two of us headed out to Malibu to do some long overdue “Palm Springs” stalking.

And let me tell you, I literally started screaming the moment we drove up to the house when I realized that – over eighteen years later – the place still looked EXACTLY – and I do mean EXACTLY – the same as it did when it appeared on 90210. The only differences I noticed were that the trees in the front yard have since been changed, as have the front doors which are now made out of glass. Other than those two minor details, though, the place still looks very much like Henry and Adele Silver’s house. 🙂 I cannot tell you how cool it was to finally be seeing this location in person and to be reliving the countless memories that being there brought back – memories of Dylan playing charades with Brenda in the living room, memories of David Silver’s random hookup with a girl named Tuesday whom he met at a gas station, and memories of Donna’s black daisy dress with the matching black daisy headband. LOL God, I miss that show!

As you can see in the above photograph, David Silver’s grandparents’ house is, sadly, gated, so Mike and I couldn’t venture in farther to get a better view. 🙁

But he did manage to snap a few close-up pictures through the fence for me.

Silly as it may sound, Mike and I were most excited to see the little curved brick half-wall located in the middle of the home’s front lawn, as that same brick wall was also visible on 90210. I almost couldn’t believe it was still there after all these years.

I am fairly certain that the real life interior of the home was also featured in the episode. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to see the inside of that place!

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The backyard and pool area appeared quite a few times in the episode, too.

Sadly, though, that area is not at all visible from the street. But that’s why God created aerial images, right? 😉 And, as you can see, the pool still looks very much the same as it did on the show.

Even Henry and Adele’s little hidden hot tub oasis is actually there in real life. LOVE IT! While we were stalking the place, Mike and I were hoping beyond hope that the owner would come outside so we could ask them all sorts of questions about the filming and maybe even get a peek at their backyard, but sadly it was not to be. 🙁

On a side note – My good friend and fellow stalker Chas has finally started up his own filming locations website. The website is called ItsFilmedThere.com and it focuses on locations in both the Los Angeles and the Chicago areas. And, let me tell you, while his L.A. posts are great, it is the Chicago locations that have me absolutely fascinated. Before coming into contact with Chas I had NO idea whatsoever that so many movies were filmed in the Windy City. The first time I learned about Chas’ huge library of Chicago area locations was one night back in December during one of my father’s many hospital visits. My dad had been taken to the emergency room and because only my mom was allowed to stay with him, my fiancé and I were stuck in the waiting room for hours, bored out of our minds. Until I logged onto Facebook via my cell phone, that is, and started looking through all of Chas’ Facebook photos. And, let me tell you, I just about died looking at his Chicago movie pictures. My fiancé and I were literally mesmerized for hours looking at those photos – which is saying a lot being that the Grim Cheaper doesn’t normally care about movie locations – and ever since that night I’ve been absolutely itching to visit the Windy City. Chicago honeymoon, anyone? 🙂 So, when Chas decided to start his own site last month I begged him to publish all of his Chicago photographs for stalkers such as myself – who had no idea the Windy City was such a treasure trove of locations – to enjoy. You can check out his site here – www.itsfilmedthere.com. 🙂

A big THANK YOU to Chas for helping me find this location. 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: David Silver’s Grandparents’ house from Beverly Hills, 90210 is located at 6636 Portshead Road in Malibu.

February 16, 2010February 16, 2010

Paul Rudd’s Parents’ House from “I Love You, Man”

A few weeks ago while doing some stalking in the Valley, I dragged my fiancé out to visit the house where Peter Klaven’s (aka Paul Rudd’s) parents, Oswald and Joyce Klaven, who were played by J.K. Simmons and Jane Curtin respectively, and his brother Robbie (aka Andy Samberg) lived in fave movie I Love You, Man. And even though the Klaven house only appeared in one very brief scene in the movie – a scene which barely lasted over 2 minutes – because fellow stalker Owen had tracked down the location for me a few months back, I just had to go see the place in person. I also wanted to stalk the residence because fellow stalker Gary, from fave website Seeing Stars, recently put together a highly detailed catalog of all of the filming locations featured in I Love You, Man – all of the locations, that is, except for the Klaven house. So, to complete Gary’s collection, I just had to run right out and stalk the place. 🙂

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The Klaven house shows up at the very beginning of I Love You, Man in one of my favorite scenes in the movie – the absolutely hilarious scene in which Peter takes his new fiancé Zooey (aka Rashida Jones) to his parents’ house for dinner and they get into a detailed discussion about his lifelong lack of male friendships. It is at this dinner that Peter learns the shocking fact that, along with a random man named Hank Mardukis, his younger brother, Robbie, is his father’s very best friend. LOL

Besides the exterior of the house and the front door area, I am fairly certain that the real life interior of the home was also used in the filming of the dinner scene, as well.

Because the Klaven’s house from I Love You, Man is extremely long and has that Anywhere, U.S.A.-type look to it, it actually reminds me quite a bit of Matthew Perry’s residence from fave movie 17 Again, a location which I stalked back in September of last year. In person, the Klaven house is very large, much larger than it appeared onscreen in I Love You, Man. The residence, which was built in 1942, boasts three bedrooms, three bathrooms, and measures 3,224 square feet. The home is very cute in person and is located on an absolutely ADORABLE street in an absolutely ADORABLE neighborhood. According to fave website Virtual Globetrotting, actress Jo Anne Worley lives just across the street from the I Love You, Man house and from 1993 to 2000 Denzel Washington lived just around the corner. Love it!

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Paul Rudd’s parents’ house from I Love You, Man is located at 4727 Arcola Avenue in either North Hollywood or Toluca Lake, depending on which map you consult.

February 11, 2010April 20, 2010

Michael Jackson’s Former Condo

A few months back I read a fabulous book named Michael Jackson: The Magic, The Madness, The Whole Story written by author J. Randy Taraborelli about the life and times of the King of Pop. I’ve mentioned the biography once before in a post I wrote back in September about the Jackson Family’s first L.A. area home. I actually stumbled upon the tome while browsing at a Barnes & Noble bookstore with my fiancé this past summer and once I picked it up, I literally could NOT put it down. I was so absorbed in the book, in fact, that hours later the Grim Cheaper practically had to drag me out of the store – only after agreeing to let me purchase a copy of it for myself, of course. 😉 Because Taraborelli and Michael were longtime friends, first meeting in 1970 at the tender ages of 14 and 11 respectively, the 765-page! book is written from a true insider’s point of view. The best part about the biography, though – well, at least in my opinion – is the fact that it doles out several addresses of places that the pop star called home during his far too brief life. One of those places is the three story condominium that MJ purchased in February of 1981 and lived in for a brief time while his family’s Hayvenhurst mansion was being remodeled. So, since my fiancé and I were in the area doing some Valley stalking two weekends ago, I just had to drag him right out to stalk the place.

Michael purchased the 3 bedroom, 3 bathroom condo, which measures 1,890 square feet, upon the suggestion of his long time lawyer John Branca, who thought it was time the 22-year old singer moved out on his own. The condo cost him $210,000 – $175,000 of which he paid in cash. According to Taraborelli, Michael’s mother, Katherine, footed the remainder of the tab, not because MJ didn’t have the extra $35,000, but because he wanted his mother to own a piece of property – or a piece of a piece of property in this case – apart from her husband Joe Jackson in case the two were ever to separate. Shortly after purchasing the condominium, Michael had a change of heart, though, and didn’t end up moving in. Taraborelli’s book quotes him as saying, “I just don’t feel it’s time for me to move away from home yet. If I moved out now, I’d die of loneliness. Most people who move out go to discos every night. They party every night. They invite friends over, and I don’t do any of those things.” Such a heartbreaking sentiment from someone who, at the time, was, professionally speaking, on top of the world. 🙁

A couple of years later, Michael took over ownership of his family’s Hayvenhurst estate and decided to completely raze the dwelling in order to rebuild a new, much more extravagant abode. Construction of the new mansion, which was Tudor in style, took a full two years to complete during which time Michael and a few of his siblings lived in the Encino condo. While there, Michael invited a journalist named Gerri Hirshey into his temporary home to conduct an interview. In the interview, which was published in the February 17, 1983 issue of Rolling Stone Magazine, MJ says to Gerri of his dwelling, “Not what you expected, huh?” And even though Gerri says that he goes on to explain that it is a only a temporary living situation and he “concedes that this is an unlikely spot for a young price of pop”, he would end up owning the place for the rest of his life. And he was right – the complex, which is called the Lindbrook, does not look at all like the kind of place one would expect to find the King of Pop residing in during the height of the “Thriller” years. Which is probably exactly why he chose it. That and the fact that the building is gated. From what I can tell, the complex, which was built in 1973 and is quite large, houses 81 different units. Supposedly Ice Cube even lived there at one time. You can see interior photographs of other units in the building here, here, and here. And here is a photograph taken in 1981 of Michael outside of his condo. Supposedly this absolutely adorable video of Michael dancing with television star Emmanuel Lewis was taken in the living room of the Encino condo, but I have not actually been able to verify that. Either way, the clip is definitely worth a look. 🙂 After Michael and his family moved back into the Hayvenhurst estate, the condo remained vacant with various Jackson family members occupying it intermittently throughout the years. At the time of his death, his sister LaToya’s name was also on the deed.

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Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Michael Jackson’s former condo, the Lindbrook, is located at 5420 Lindley Avenue in Encino. MJ lived in Unit #9. Ice Cube supposedly lived in Unit #4 of the same building.

February 9, 2010February 9, 2010

The “Hangover” House

A few weeks ago, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, called me up to let me know that he was on the hunt for the main house used in fave movie The Hangover. The two of us both had a pretty good inkling that the residence was located somewhere in the Pasadena area, we just weren’t sure exactly where. Randomly enough during that same conversation, I happened to mention that I had just read on OnLocationVacations – my go-to-stalking guide 🙂 – that 90210 had been filming all week at a large gated home located at 465 South Grand Avenue in Pasadena. Well, it wasn’t five minutes after we ended our call that Mike phoned me up a second time, extremely excited, and said “I found The Hangover house and you’ll NEVER guess where it is!” As it turns out, the house was located just two doors down from the residence where 90210 had been filming! Apparently, while looking at aerial images of the 90210 location, Mike noticed a neighboring property that bore a striking resemblance to the Hangover house. Turns out, it was the Hangover house! 🙂 So, I guess it’s true what Walt Disney once said . . . It really is a small world, after all! Well, when it comes to filming locations, at least. 🙂 So, that same weekend, Mike drove out to meet me in Pasadena so the two of us could do a little Hangover stalking.

In The Hangover, the house pictured above belongs to the parents of Doug’s (aka Justin Bartha’s) fiancé, Tracy (aka Sasha Barrese). The residence is featured several times throughout the film. It first shows up at the very beginning of the movie as the spot from which Doug and his soon to be brother-in-law Alan (aka Zach Galifianakis) leave for the infamous Vegas bachelor party.

And, as you can see in the above screen capture and aerial image, the real life backyard, which is absolutely HUGE, was used in several scenes as well, including the scene in which Phil (aka Bradley Cooper) calls Tracy, while she is sunning herself by the pool, to let her know that the guys have been unavoidably detained in Vegas an extra day.

The movie’s final wedding scene also took place in the home’s real life backyard.

As you can see in the above aerial image, the house has a fairly large covered back porch area. That porch is where Stu (aka Ed Helms) finally breaks up with his belligerent girlfriend Melissa (aka Rachel Harris) while Alan and the rest of the wedding party look on. I am also fairly certain that the real life interior of the home was used in the filming of several scenes, as well.

The Hangover house is absolutely beautiful in person. Although, thanks to its size, calling it a “house” is actually a bit of a misnomer. The place is really more of a mansion. It is absolutely HUGE in person, much bigger than I expected it to be. Even though it did appear quite large in The Hangover, trust me when I say that in real life it is far, far larger – gargantuan actually! I can’t even imagine living there. The 7 bedroom, 7 bathroom house, which was built in 1930, measures a whopping 7,892 square feet. And while the property is gated, I am happy to report that quite a bit of it can be seen from the street. 🙂

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for finding this location!

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Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The house from The Hangover is located at 415 South Grand Avenue in Pasadena.

February 8, 2010February 5, 2010

April’s House from “Glee”

As I have mentioned countless times before, I am absolutely, irrevocably, one hundred percent obsessed with the television show Glee. So obsessed that I’ve been watching my “Road to Sectionals” DVDs over and over and over again to bide my time until the series returns from its absurdly long hiatus on April 13th – which still seems like such a far off date. I honestly don’t know how I am supposed to wait another 65 days before getting my Glee fix. Why, oh, why are you holding out on us Fox? But I digress. As you’ve probably ascertained by now, I literally cannot get enough of the show! So, imagine my absolute – pardon the pun – glee when I stumbled upon the house where April Rhodes (aka Kristin Chenowith) was caught squatting in the Season One, Volume 1 episode entitled “The Rhodes Not Taken”. I happened to be doing be some cyberstalking of the Encino area at the time – looking for a Beverly Hills, 90210 location, no less – and randomly happened upon the Glee house. And, let me tell you, I just about died from excitement! And, since my fiancé and I were already in the area last weekend enjoying our little “staycation” at the Westlake Village Inn, I just had to drag him out to stalk the place. YAY!

In “The Rhodes Not Taken” episode, Will Schuester (aka cutie Matthew Morrison) decides to reenlist former Glee club star April Rhodes at William McKinley High School so that she can join his glee team and lead them to glory at the upcoming sectionals competition. He tracks down April, whom he hasn’t spoken with in years, via a Google search and ends up sending her an instant message asking if she remembers him from their high school days. She immediately responds with an address where he should meet her along with an instruction to bring buffalo wings. LOL

That address is 35 Bontempo Road in Lima, Ohio and producers even went so far as to put a fake address placard on the front of the house for the filming. As you can see in the above photograph and screen capture, though, the fake address sign is an exact match to the home’s real one. 🙂 In reality, of course, April’s home is not located on Bontempo Road in Ohio, but about 2,000 miles west on White Oak Avenue in Encino. I swear, it’s a good thing I accidentally stumbled upon this location, otherwise I never would have found it in a million years! When I first watched “The Rhodes Not Taken” episode, actually, I had wrongly assumed the property was located in Pasadena, so my search would have been way off!

While Will is visiting with April inside the home, a real estate agent barges in and informs him that April is a squatter who been residing in foreclosed-upon, bank-owned properties as of late. And, as you can see in these photographs from a 2007 real estate listing, the home’s real life interior and real life furniture were used for the filming of that scene. So cool!

After being booted out of the house, Will and April – and her box of wine LOL – then head outside and have a conversation on the sidewalk, whereupon he convinces her to return to high school to finally graduate – and to join glee, of course.

While stalking the house, I just had to take a picture while sitting in the same spot where Will and April were sitting in that scene. 🙂 I guess my memory was a little off on this one, though, as I wound up taking the picture about four feet too far to the left. Whoopsie!

In reality, April’s house is a 6 bedroom, 7 bathroom dwelling, which was built in 2001 and measures a whopping 7,280 square feet. It boasts maid’s quarters, a central vacuum system, a second family room located upstairs, Viking appliances, and a 400 square foot back patio with a built-in BBQ, fire pit, fireplace, and a large pool and spa. It looks like a pretty plush pad – no wonder April was squatting there. 😉

On a Matthew Morrison side note – I just recently re-watched the Sex and the City episode from Season Two that he guested on back in June of 1999. The episode was entitled “They Shoot Single People, Don’t They?” and Matthew played a very young busboy who waits on Carrie in the final scene. His sole line in the episode is “Waiting for someone?” The spot was Matthew’s first ever television appearance and he was so very young in it and oh so darn cute. 🙂 Sigh!

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Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The house where April Rhodes’ was caught squatting in “The Rhodes Not Taken” episode of Glee is located at 4777 White Oak Avenue in Encino.

February 3, 2010February 3, 2010

The Walsh Family’s Minnesota House from “Beverly Hills, 90210”

One Beverly Hills, 90210 location that both Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I have long wanted to stalk was the Walsh Family’s former Minnesota residence which briefly appeared in the Season Four episode entitled “So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Goodbye”. Sadly, though, because no address number or background information which would point us to the home’s location were visible in the episode, we had no idea where to even begin looking. So, this past week I called upon the usual suspects, fellow stalkers Owen and Chas, to help us track down the residence. And sure enough, they did! Chas ended up getting into contact with a former 90210 crew member who remembered that the home was located somewhere in Altadena, in the very same vicinity as Casa Walsh. So, Owen got to cyberstalking aerial views of the area and, voila, fairly quickly found the home! YAY! As it turns out, the “Minnesota” house is located a mere two blocks away from Casa Walsh, so it looks like when the Walsh’s moved, they didn’t go very far. 😉 And, let me tell you, once Owen gave me the address, I immediately hopped into my car and dragged my fiancé right out to stalk the place! As fate would have it, when we pulled up to the house, the owner – an incredibly nice woman named Judy – just happened to be standing outside, so I of course had to strike up a conversation with her. 🙂

Judy truly could not have been nicer and did not find it at all weird that I was stalking her home. 😉 She even shared some interesting tidbits of behind-the-scenes information with us, the most exciting of which was the fact that not only did her home appear in the “So Long, Farewell” episode of 90210, but also in the opening credits of the Season One episode entitled “The Green Room” – which you can watch here. In the credits, the house is featured in one brief scene in which a mailman is shown picking up the Walsh’s forwarded mail from their snow covered former home in Minnesota. For some reason, though, that particular segment appeared only in “The Green Room” episode’s opening credits and never again. It’s too bad, too, because I think it would have been a really cute way to start off each show. Judy told us that it was about 105 degrees in Altadena on the day that scene was filmed and that the producers were having a hard time keeping the “snow” – which in reality was just a soap suds mixture – from evaporating in the heat.

In the “So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Goodbye” episode, Brenda returns to Minneapolis for the first time since her family’s move to Beverly Hills in order to begin her Freshman Year at the University of Minnesota. Before school starts, Cindy takes Brenda to see their former home and she knocks on the front door, hoping to take a peek at her old bedroom, but unfortunately no one is home. Is it while standing in the front yard of her former home, though, that Brenda first starts to have doubts about attending college in Minnesota. Those doubts soon turn into all out misgivings and in the following episode she leaves Minnesota and heads back to Beverly Hills to attend CU with Brandon, Kelly, and the rest of the gang. 🙂

In the scene, Brenda mentions that as kids she and Brandon used to play on a tire swing that their father had hung from a tree in their former home’s front yard. So, I was absolutely floored when I noticed that the house had a swing hanging from a tree in the front yard in real life, too, as you can see in the above photograph. So cool!

Judy also told us that for the past eight years her family has hosted a huge – and I do mean HUGE – annual Halloween spectacular in their front yard, consisting of a 40 foot maze, creepy clowns, life-size animatronics, monsters with chainsaws, and screenings of horror movies, along with numerous other tricks and treats to both terrorize and delight. Judy’s a woman after my own heart, I swear, as Halloween has always been my very favorite holiday. 🙂 The “Haunted Yard”, as it has come to be known, attracted some 3,500 spectators this past year, including the Los Angeles Clippers Cheerleading Team who led the entire crowd in a spontaneous rendition of Michael Jackson’s zombie dance from Thriller. Which begs the question, HOW IN THE HECK DID I NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS???? I mean, I would have absolutely DIED to have seen that!!!! And it was all happening just a few miles from where I live! Oh, how I wish I had been there. 🙁 Ugh. Maybe I can convince the Clippers to do a repeat performance next Halloween! 😉 You can read more about the annual “Haunted Yard” on fave website AltadenaBlog here.

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A big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, Owen, and Chas for finding this house. This one was definitely a group effort! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Walsh Family’s Minnesota house from Beverly Hills, 90210 is located at 1640 Braeburn Road in Altadena.

February 1, 2010February 1, 2010

The “Fracture” House

A few weeks ago, while doing some cyberstalking, I came across a fabulous filming locations database named Unreel Locations and I just about died when I saw a listing for what the site referred to as “The Fracture House”. I immediately recognized the property as the ultra modern abode where Ted Crawford (aka Anthony Hopkins) lived in the 2007 flick – a location which I had long been wanting to stalk. Unfortunately though, Unreel Locations didn’t specify where the residence was located, so I had to call in the usual suspects – aka Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and fellow stalker Owen – to help me track it down. And as expected, it wasn’t long before Owen was emailing me back with an address! YAY! Owen actually began his search for the home in an unlikely place – on the IMDB Fracture filming locations page – a site which doesn’t always serve up the most accurate of information. But there was a notation on the page stating that Fracture had been filmed in Encino, so Owen decided it was as good a starting point as any. From there he began Googling “Encino” and “Fracture filming location” and fairly quickly stumbled upon this real estate listing which advertised a vacant piece of property located “next to the famous Sherman House featured in the movie Fracture”. From there it was just a matter of searching the area next to the vacant lot. And voila, the Fracture house was found! Thank you, Owen! 🙂

For those who have yet to see Fracture (and I highly recommend that you do – it’s a FABULOUS flick), Ted Crawford’s house is simply breathtaking in it and, in my humble opinion at least, is the real star of the film. Both the inside . . .

. . . and the outside of the Sherman Estate were featured extensively in the movie and several weeks were actually spent shooting on location at the home. Of the property, Fracture director Gregory Hoblit says, “It must be 80% glass, supported by struts, but you can see from one of the house all the way to the other, all the way through it, side to side, end to end, anywhere you go. It would be a little unnerving to live in a house like that, but fortunately it’s pretty well-hidden.” And while Hoblit enjoyed filming at the home and all of the unique camera angles the open, almost transparent-seeming property allowed him, cinematographer Kramer Morgenthau had a different opinion. “It was very film-unfriendly,” he says, “but it was worth every bit of effort and heartbreak and stepping on top of each other. It was a classic, Schindler-influenced building, where the interiors and exteriors flowed from one to the other, but it was not easy.” Openness and glass walls on a movie set are usually big no-nos, as crew members need places to hide themselves and their large camera equipment behind, so I can’t even imagine how difficult it must have been to film at the Sherman Estate. In this case, though, I think it was worth the extra effort as the house is absolutely unforgettable. You can read a great article on the filming of Fracture here.

In reality, the 3 bedroom, 4 bathroom, 5,472 square foot Sherman Estate, which sits on 4 acres of land, was built in 2001 by architect Peter Tolkien and the Scanlon Construction Company for Jerome and Zina Sherman. The “Zen-serenity” aura of the award-winning home was inspired by some Bali and Thailand area hotels where the couple had spent many a vacation. The house, which was built almost entirely out of wood, concrete, and glass and in which every room opens up to the outdoors, was constructed as a one-story dwelling because as Jerome said in the September 2004 issue of Better Homes and Gardens, “The older I get the more forgetful I am. I didn’t was to be constantly going up and down stairs to find my glasses.” The property also includes a 1,500 foot guest house, a tennis court, a pool and hot tub, and a veritable forest of orange, oak, sycamore, and Deodar trees. I honestly can’t say enough about this house. It is truly a work of art!

Sadly, though, not very much of it can be seen from the street. 🙁 It was still very cool to stalk the house nonetheless, but oh, what I wouldn’t give to see the inside of that place in person! You can see some great photographs of the interior of the property here and here.

The Sherman Estate also popped up very briefly as one of the homes that Jim Carrey and Tea Leoni robbed in the 2005 movie Fun With Dick and Jane.

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

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Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Fracture house, aka the Sherman Estate, is located at 4411 Noeline Avenue in Encino. You can see interior pictures of it here.

January 27, 2010January 27, 2010

Dylan’s House from “Beverly Hills, 90210”

Still licking our wounds this past weekend after finding out that the Walsh Family garage had recently been dismantled, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I decided to head over to Dylan McKay’s house to do some more Beverly Hills, 90210 stalking. And, as fate would have it, the real life owner of Dylan’s home, an INCREDIBLY nice woman named Mary, just happened to be outside doing some gardening work when we arrived! So, we got to talking to her and found out quite a bit of behind-the-scenes information, the most fascinating of which was the fact that throughout the show’s entire second season, all of the scenes which took place at Dylan’s residence were actually filmed inside of Mary’s house and not on a soundstage! And, let me tell you, I just about died when I heard that! Interestingly enough, though, Mary’s house was not used for the exterior establishing shots of Dylan’s house until early in the show’s third season!

The house used as the exterior of Dylan’s abode during the show’s second season is pictured above. And, ironically enough, it’s also the very same house that was used as Andrea’s residence in the Season One episode of 90210 entitled “Spring Dance”. LOL The location manager’s wires must have gotten crossed somewhere along the line while dealing with this residence! 😉

The interior of Mary’s house first appeared early on in the series’ second season in an episode entitled “Necessity is a Mother” (pictured above). According to Mary, whenever filming would take place at her home, producers would use her actual furniture in all of the scenes. She said she and her husband owned a pink couch at the time and producers would cover it up with Indian-style blankets during the filming, as you can see in the above screen captures. So, that finally answers the question of how Dylan McKay’s blanket-happy decorating style came to be. 😉

The exterior of Mary’s house (pictured above) didn’t show up until a full year after the “Necessity is a Mother” episode aired. Its first appearance was in the premiere episode of the Third Season, which was entitled “Misery Loves Company”. I guess producers didn’t figure viewers would notice that Dylan’s house changed mysteriously mid-series, but they really should have accounted for all of us stalkers out there. 😉

According to Mary, the interiors of her house were used throughout the filming of the entire second season and into the beginning of third, at which time producers ended up building an exact replica of the structure on a studio soundstage.

They even rebuilt the home’s front porch and side patio area (pictured above), complete with a replica red Webber BBQ, just like the one Mary and her husband owned at the time! So cool! You can watch a clip which features an extensive view of Dylan’s house from the Season 3 episode entitled “A Song of Myself” here.

Mary also told us that a scene from the Season Four episode entitled “Twenty Years Ago Today” was also filmed inside of her house. In the scene, Dylan is shown taking a shower, just as Brandon pulls up to pick up a picture frame he had purchased for his parents’ twentieth wedding anniversary. Because Dylan can’t hear him knocking, Brandon ends up breaking the glass on the back door and entering the house. Dylan hears the glass break, grabs his gun, and almost shoots him. Ah, dontcha just love 90210 drama? Mary said that for the filming of Brandon’s breaking-and-entering scene, a fake back door – complete with break-away glass – was built and that she got to keep the door after the filming was completed! She still has the door in her garage! Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see it, but I think it is so incredibly cool that she still has it after all these years.

She also told us that her real life bathroom was used for the scene in which Dylan is showering in that episode, which means that Luke Perry actually stood in her shower! Sigh! Mary also said that Shannen Doherty was her favorite out of all of the actors on the show. YAY! Go Team Brenda! See, I knew Shannen had to be nice! 🙂

Because Mary’s front door is glass, you can easily see inside of the house when standing on the front porch. And, let me tell you, I was ABSOLUTELY DYING looking at the interior because it looks EXACTLY the same in person as it did on 90210. But while Mary told us that we could take all the pictures we wanted of the house’s exterior and the front porch area, she asked us not to take any photos of the interior through the glass. 🙁 Apparently fans are apt to do that and she’s not too keen on it. And even though it killed me not to, I had to respect her wishes. 🙁 Ugh, such a bummer as I would have LOVED to have posted photographs of the inside here. But you can see some great interior photos of the house from before Mary owned it here and a photograph that someone did actually take through her front door here.

The house’s front porch area, which showed up countless times on 90210, is absolutely HUGE and Mike and I just had to take pictures of every single angle of it! 🙂

The house is absolutely BEAUTIFUL, and extremely unique, in person. It’s appearance from the street is actually quite deceiving, though, as it seems to be rather small and quaint. . .

. . . when in reality it is absolutely huge and stretches the length of an entire block. When you walk by, the place literally seems to just keep going and going and going.

Mary’s house was also used as Jesse Bradford’s residence in the super cute 2002 movie Clockstoppers.

Besides its cinematic significance, the house also has quite a bit of historical significance, as well. The dwelling is known as the “Parsons House” in architectural circles and it was originally built in 1910 by Arthur and Alfred Heineman, former Greene & Greene Brother’s’ apprentices. Amazingly enough, the house wasn’t always located in Altadena, though. It was originally built on East California Boulevard in Pasadena, four miles away from its current location. In 1980, a condominium development company purchased the land where the Parsons House used to stand and slated the area for demolition. The developer ended up giving the home to the Pasadena Heritage Society, who later sold the entire structure for one dollar to a man named Phil Elkins. Elkins hired architect Tim Anderson to restore the Parsons House and then purchased a vacant lot in Altadena, where he would eventually move the structure. In order to do so, though, the home had to be cut into three separate pieces, using a chain saw, no less! But the house survived the cut and the four mile journey to Altadena and two years later the entire property was completely restored. Anderson says, “We probably could have built a reproduction of the house for less than what it cost to restore. Had we all been less enthusiastic and naive about this project, the house would not have been saved.” You can read an entire history of the house on Tim Anderson’s website here.

Only the home’s chimney and front porch area had to be rebuilt from scratch, but they were made in exact replication of the originals. Ironically enough, George McDavitt, the stoneworker who did all of the masonry work on the new porch – and who also did the stone work on Bob Dylan’s Malibu house – actually showed up one day at Mary’s front door with his teenaged daughter. It turns out that his daughter was a huge 90210 fan and she didn’t believe that her father had actually built a part of Dylan McKay’s house, so he wanted to show her his name, which he had engraved in one of the rocks (pictured above). So cool!

I honestly cannot tell you how exciting it was to be able to see Dylan’s house in such an up-close-and-personal way and to talk to Mary about her amazing home and the historic filming that took place there almost two decades ago. It was truly a dream come true! 🙂

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On a side note – My good friend Kristin, who owns my very favorite restaurant POP Champagne and Dessert Bar in Pasadena, will be appearing on KTLA tomorrow morning at around 9:45 in honor of dineLA’s Restaurant Week. If you live in the Los Angeles area be sure to tune in for the segment. 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Dylan’s house from Beverly Hills, 90210 is located at 1605 East Altadena Drive, at the corner of Altadena Drive and Porter Avenue, in Altadena.

January 26, 2010January 26, 2010

The Casa Walsh Garage – A Distant Memory

Like Mike, from MovieShotsLA said yesterday, it’s officially the end of an era. While the two of us were out doing some Pasadena area stalking on Sunday, we made our regular pilgrimage to the Walsh House from Beverly Hills, 90210 and saw a very sad sight, indeed. In fact, Mike was so out of sorts over the whole thing that he almost crashed the car upon viewing it. Not kidding! Apparently, just last week, Jack, the real life owner of Casa Walsh, tore down the Walsh garage – the hallowed spot where Brandon and Jim’s famous basketball hoop used to hang. 🙁 Mike and I actually knew this was coming, as Jack had mentioned he had plans to install a new garage on the property last December during our interior tour of the home, but it was still sad to see nonetheless. I am not a person that handles change very well anyway, and being that my parents just last week decided to sell the house we’ve lived in ever since moving to Southern California a decade ago, I’ve been having to deal with a lot of it lately. Granted I moved out of that house a year and a half ago, but that’s entirely beside the point. 😉 So, when I saw that my beloved 90210 house had also been altered, it was almost too much to bear. And while Jack says that some change can actually be for the better, I’ll take the status quo over something new any day. 🙂

Pictured above is what’s currently left of the Walsh garage. I told Jack he should seriously consider selling pieces of the rubble on eBay, like the pieces of the Berlin Wall that were sold back in the 90s, but I don’t think he took me seriously. 😉

And here is the empty footprint where the Walsh garage – and basketball hoop – used to stand.

Pictured above is the garage area as it appeared in December of 2008.

And what it looks like today. So sad. See what I mean? It truly is the end of an era!

Jack also removed the little patio area that used to be located just outside of the Walsh’s backdoor – an area which the producers of 90210 had built especially for the filming of the show. 🙁

Pictured above is what that patio area used to look like.

Our visit to the Walsh house wasn’t an entirely sad event, though. As always, Jack regaled us with some fabulous tales from the days when the show was filmed on his property. And, let me tell you, I just cannot get enough of those stories! I could literally listen to Jack talk all day long! Which Mike and I pretty much did – we were there for close to two hours! Not kidding! Jack has to be one of THE nicest guys on the planet, I swear! One story he told us had us absolutely cracking up. Apparently, a few months back, a fan from Belgium came to the house and asked to see the inside. Jack’s wife was hesitant about doing so, but the girl was very persistent, so she eventually showed her the area just inside the front door. Well, the girl took one look at the inside and completely burst into tears. Apparently, she thought the show was actually filmed inside of the real life house and expected it to look exactly the same in person as it does on TV and she became terribly upset when that was not the case. If only she had read my blog before stalking the house, she would have been saved some heartache. 😉 One interesting little tidbit of information that Jack shared with us that I found fascinating was that there were actually three houses being considered for the Walsh residence once the series got picked up by Fox. The three residences were Jack’s house, which ended up being chosen, Jack’s neighbor’s house directly to the east (pictured above) . . .

. . . and the house located across the street (pictured above). I think they made the right choice, don’t you think? How different the show would have been – at least to me – if one of the other houses had been chosen. The house across the street from Jack’s was eventually used as both the residence of Melissa, aka 90210’s Baby Mama, in the Season One episode entitled “One Man and a Baby” and the backyard area was used as Tiffany Morgan’s backyard in the Season One episode entitled “Every Dream Has Its Price”, both of which I blogged about here.

Ironically enough, Jack also told us that the very same backyard also stood in for Steve Sander’s backyard in the Season One episode entitled “Higher Education”.

Another little bit of 90210 trivia that Jack clued us into was the fact that the front yard of the house located directly west of Jack’s masqueraded as the backyard of Steve and Janet’s neighbor’s home in the Season 10 episode entitled “The Easter Bunny”.

In the episode, Steve and Janet erroneously believe that her parent’s dog, whom they are pet-sitting at the time, killed their neighbor’s pet rabbit, so the two of them concoct a plan to replace it with a new rabbit. Because Jack’s neighbor’s house doesn’t have a backyard with much open space, producers dressed the front yard area – just to the west of the home’s front door – and added a fence and a gate to make it appear as if it was really the home’s backyard. So interesting!

One thing I noticed while in Jack’s backyard was that the Walsh house actually has two small upstairs balconies, not just one as I had previously believed. I recognized the smaller of the two balconies from the Season One episode entitled “Isn’t It Romantic” the last time I stalked the house. And this time, I immediately recognized the other balcony from the Season One episode entitled “Seventeen Year Itch”, which I had randomly watched the night beforehand. 🙂 In the episode, Cindy Walsh is shown pining over her former fling Glen Evans while standing out on the balcony looking up at the stars. And while the balcony looks a bit different today than it did when it appeared on 90210 – a cement awning has since been added – it was still very cool to see it in person nonetheless. 🙂

And another little bit of trivia – according to Jack, the exterior light located just to the left of the balcony door is the very light that used to be located on his front porch during the 90210 years. It was purchased by producers to match the light located on the front porch set that had been built at the studio.

The highlight of the day, though, had to be when – are you sitting down for this????? – Mike asked Jack if the two of us could each possibly have one of the roof tiles from his former garage. Jack thought we were incredibly silly to want such a thing, but he happily obliged. Thank goodness we stalked the place before all of the rubble had been removed! And, to top it all off, he even signed the tiles for us! Can you believe it????? I was absolutely DYING! I mean now I can actually say that I OWN A PIECE OF THE 90210 HOUSE!! I OWN A PIECE OF THE 90210 HOUSE!!!!!!!! How incredibly cool is that??? I was literally pinching myself the whole drive home and I almost still can’t believe it happened!!!!! 🙂 So, I guess what Jack said is actually true – some change can be for the better, because had he not dismantled his garage, we never would have been given a part of it. And while I, of course, would prefer that the Walsh garage was still standing, being given a real piece of the show isn’t such a bad consolation. 🙂 And I will of course take photographs and report back to my fellow stalkers once the new Walsh garage has been completed – it’s going to look totally different, by the way – but according to Jack, that won’t be for about six months.

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Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Casa Walsh is located at 1675 East Altadena Drive in Altadena. Please keep in mind that this is a private residence and please do not disturb the owners. It was a fluke that Mike and I were lucky enough to have been given a tour of the home, but this is not a regular occurrence. I’d hate to have people bothering Jack for tours due to the fact that I put this information on the internet, so please be respectful of his privacy. 🙂 The two houses which producers also considered using as the Walsh house can be found at 1689 and 1690 East Altadena Drive. 1690 East Altadena was also used as 90210’s Baby Mama’s house and its backyard was used as both Steve Sander’s backyard and Marianne Moore’s backyard during Season One. The house which stood in for Steve and Janet’s neighbor’s house in “The Easter Bunny” episode can be found at 1665 East Altadena Drive.

January 19, 2010January 19, 2010

Julia Child’s Childhood Home

One of the best things about being a member of the Screen Actors Guild is that each and every January all guild members receive, often without notice, DVDs of various movies that have been nominated for an upcoming SAG award. These DVDs are doled out “for your consideration” so that members can watch them before casting their ballots for the upcoming awards. And, let me tell you, I can hardly stand the anticipation as I head to my mailbox each day during awards season, wondering what treasure I will find waiting for me in there. It’s like Christmas in January! This week alone I received five different DVDs, one of which was Julie & Julia. Ironically enough, while at a birthday celebration last Sunday night, some new friends were inquiring about my blog and asked if I had yet to see the Meryl Streep/Amy Adams movie, which I had not. They ordered me to run right out and rent it immediately, as not only was it a fabulous flick, but its plot also centered around the true life story of an intrepid young blogger named Julie Powell who they said reminded them of me. So, you can imagine my surprise when I opened up my mailbox just a few days later and found a copy of Julie & Julia waiting for me! YAY! So, I, of course, watched the movie that very night. I honestly didn’t have high hopes for it, though, despite the glowing recommendation I had just heard, because I am not that interested in the culinary arts. Actually, truth be told, I am not AT ALL interested in anything having to do with the culinary arts. I am an absolutely HORRIBLE cook. I somehow managed to ruin an entire serving of rice the other night – while using a RICE COOKER, no less! I am very lucky, though, because my fiancé actually does all of the cooking in our household. He LOVES to cook – says it calms him after a long day at work – and, really, who am I to argue? 😉 What can I say, he’s the perfect guy – he not only brings home the bacon, but cooks it, too! Anyway, amazingly enough, I ended up absolutely ADORING Julie & Julia. I pretty much loved EVERYTHING about the movie – both Meryl Streep and Amy Adam’s performances, the love both women had for their husbands, the amazing life story of the famous chef and how she inspired a young government worker to spend an entire year cooking out of one of her cookbooks and then writing a blog based on her experiences. But what I loved the most about Julie & Julia is the fact that it is the very first movie ever to be based on a blog. Now I just need someone to create a movie based on my blog and I’d be one happy camper! 🙂 Amazingly enough, the movie also inspired me, rice-ruining Lindsay, to cook! I have never in my life had a desire to cook anything – ever. But after watching Julie & Julia, I immediately ran right out and bought my very first cookbook, written by Julia Child, of course. I opted to purchase The Way To Cook, instead of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, which is the tome Julie Powell conquered in the movie, because the former is geared toward people with “little to no cooking experience”, which, let’s face it, describes me to a T! 🙂 But more on that later. Anyway, while watching Julie & Julia, I was shocked to find out that Julia Child actually grew up in Pasadena – the same city which I now call home! So, after watching the movie, I went on a cyberstalking mission to find her childhood house and almost immediately came across a website called Pasadena Daily Photo, which spelled it all out for me! Thank you, Pasadena Daily Photo! 🙂 So, the next morning, I dragged my dad right out to stalk the place.

As the daughter of John McWilliams, Jr., a successful landowner, and Julia Carolyn Weston, heir to the Weston Paper Company fortune, Julia Child grew up very wealthy. The Colonial-style home pictured above was built for her parents in 1912 by architect Reginald Johnson, who was also responsible for designing Pasadena’s All Saints’ Church and Santa Barbara’s Biltmore Hotel, among numerous other prominent Southern California structures. The home, which boasts five bedrooms, five bathrooms, and a whopping 4,210 square feet of living space, is truly ginormous and beautiful in person and it definitely has that Old Pasadena feel to it! It was so fascinating to be standing there decades later, imaging Julia Child as a little girl playing in the front yard, looking out the blue-shuttered windows, and walking in and out of the front door. While living in this house, Julia attended the prominent Westridge School for Girls, which is also located in Pasadena. While doing a bit of research on the world-famous chef, I found out that while growing up Julia’s family not only employed full-time drivers, gardeners and housekeepers, but chefs, as well. Ironic, dontcha think? 😉 And, her parents also honeymooned at San Diego’s Hotel Del Coronado, an oft-used filming location which I blogged about last summer. 🙂 So cool!!!

Taking a page from Julie Powell, I decided to not only cook a Julia Child meal this past Friday night, but to also blog about my experiences, as well. Like a dolt, though, I completely forgot to take photographs of the finished feast, so you’ll just have to take my word for it that it turned out beautifully. 🙂 For the meal I decided to cook Julia’s Cream of Mushroom Soup, Broccoli-Sauced Broccoli, and Chicken Breasts Meuniere: Sautéed in Butter. And while the chicken and soup turned out simply AMAZING – so amazing that I am still finding it difficult to believe I actually cooked them – the broccoli left a bit to be desired. But I am fairly certain that was due to me either leaving out an ingredient or misreading an instruction somewhere along the way, because the finished product did not look anything like its photograph in the book. When I realized I had messed up the dish, I had visions of Rachel Green after she completed her English Trifle/Mincemeat Pie desert in “The One Where Ross Got High” episode of Friends. 🙂 Anyway, I’d like to share a few things that I learned while cooking on Friday. One – my fiancé and I do not own a set of measuring spoons. How that’s even possible I’m not sure! Two – simmer does not mean low heat, as I had previously believed. It actually refers to a temperature just below boiling. And three – cooking is HARD WORK! It’s enjoyable work, don’t get me wrong, but, wow, it’s WORK! I had no idea how hard it was. I truly felt like I needed a nap afterwards. 🙂 But it was also extremely fun and I am already looking forward to my next go at it. I swear, if you had told me two weeks ago that I’d actually be able to enjoy the act of cooking in the near future, I never would have believed you in a million years.

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Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Julia Child’s childhood home is located at 625 Magnolia Avenue in Pasadena.