Tag: famous places

The “She’s Out of Control” House

Last week I enlisted fellow stalker Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, to help me find locations from the 1989 teen comedy She’s Out of Control. Now I should mention here that while I absolutely LOVED LOVED LOVED She’s Out of Control growing up, according to the movie’s IMDB trivia page film critic Gene Siskel detested it so much that he actually considered quitting his job after viewing it! LOL In truth, the flick is one of my very favorite 80s movies of all time, so how Gene could hate it that much is absolutely beyond me!

I mean, how can you go wrong with a movie that features performances by both a very young Dustin Diamond (aka Screech from Saved by the Bell!) . . .

. . . AND Mr. Chandler Bing himself, Matthew Perry?!? Sheesh! I don’t even want to know what choice words Gene would have for that other favorite 80s movie of mine Girls Just Want To Have Fun!

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Anyway, Chas being the great guy that he is immediately added the DVD to his Netflix queue (even though it is unequivocally a chick flick) and it arrived in his mailbox just a few days later. He watched the movie shortly after receiving it and, amazingly enough, somehow managed to track down the house belonging to the Simpson Family – Doug (aka Tony Danza), Katie (aka Ami Dolenz), and Bonnie (aka Laura Mooney) – that very same night! The abode was, of course, the location that I was most interested in stalking, so I could not have been more excited when he gave me the news and I ran right out to stalk the place the very next morning. Yay!

I had fallen in love with the Simpson house the first time I watched She’s Out of Control over two decades ago and I am very happy to report that it is just as cute and charming in person as it appeared to be onscreen.

And while I had originally thought that the real life interior of the residence was used in the movie, that does not actually seem to be the case. I happened to find these interior photographs of the house online and, as you can see in the above screen captures as compared with this interior image as well as this one, the stairwell which appeared onscreen does not match that of the actual house.

The real life kitchen and living room areas also do not seem to match their onscreen counterparts.

While doing some internet research on the property yesterday morning, I was shocked to discover that the very same dwelling also popped up as the residence where Laurie Strode (aka Scout Taylor-Compton) babysat Tommy Doyle (aka Skyler Gisondo) in the 2007 Rob-Zombie-directed remake of the horror film Halloween.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, for finding this location! You can check out Chas’ detailed She’s Out of Control filming locations page here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Simpson house from She’s Out of Control is located at 1960 La France Avenue in South Pasadena. Here is a map link to that location.

May 20, 2011
The Cravens Estate from “Commander in Chief”

As I mentioned a few weeks back, because of my love for Matt Lanter, the Grim Cheaper and I recently purchased and sat down to watch the first – and only – season of the short-lived television series Commander in Chief, on which the cutie actor portrayed the role of First Son Horace Calloway. I absolutely fell in love with the show and immediately started creating a list of locations to stalk from it, the most important being Pasadena’s former Cravens Estate, now the American Red Cross’ San Gabriel Pomona Valley Headquarters, which was used several times to stand in for the White House on the series. And as soon as the GC and I finished watching the final episode, I dragged my dad right on out to stalk the place. I have actually written about the Cravens Estate once before, back in July of 2008 just a few months after I first started my blog, but it was a very brief post and did not include any photographs of the interior of the property. So, I figured the place was definitely worthy of a re-post.

The Cravens Estate was originally built in 1930 for Mr. John S. Cravens and his wife Mildred and was designed by San Francisco-area architect Lewis P. Hobart, who was also responsible for constructing the City by the Bay’s Grace Episcopal Cathedral and the Crocker Building on Market Street. After migrating to Pasadena in 1900, the Cravens first commissioned an English-style mansion to be built on a 16-acre plot of land on what was then known as “Millionaires’ Row”. Three decades later, after vacationing in France, the couple decided to tear down their existing abode and build a new one based upon the design of the the Chateau Vaux-le-Vicomte, located just south of Paris. That new manse became known as the Cravens Estate and it cost a whopping $310,000 to construct, making it one of Pasadena’s most expensive homes at the time. After the Cravens, who had no children, passed away in the 1940s, the property went through a succession of owners until finally being donated to the American Red Cross in 1962, whereupon it became their San Gabriel Pomona Valley Headquarters. The mansion is both a Pasadena Cultural Landmark and a Landmark of Historical Significance. In 2010, it was chosen to be used as the Pasadena Showcase House of Design, whereupon numerous designers came in and completely restored the property, which had lost a bit of its luster over the years, back to its original grandeur.

When I originally dragged my dad out to stalk the estate, I was hoping that we might be allowed to take a quick peek at the interior of the property and snap a few pictures. Well, imagine my surprise when the SUPER-nice receptionist said that if we were interested we could schedule a full-blown tour of the building. If we were interested? IF WE WERE INTERESTED??? Um, heck yes, we were interested!!! So I immediately scheduled a tour and dragged my dad back out to the estate once again just a few days later. What we ended up being given, though, was not what I had expected at all. Our SUPER-nice tour guide was extremely excited over how much I already knew about the estate and my enthusiasm for its filming history, so she wound up taking us on a TWO-AND-A-HALF-HOUR excursion through the property during which she showed us its every nook and cranny, including the attic area, the servants’ quarters and the basement. I can honestly say that it was one of the best stalking experiences of my life! Even my dad enjoyed it! The estate, which boasts four levels, 50 rooms, and just under 20,000 square feet of living space, is an absolutely remarkable piece of property! Pictured above is the entryway, which features hand-painted murals depicting the grounds of the Chateau Vaux-le-Vicomte.

Our tour included the Cravens Estate’s reception room;

dining room;

Mrs. Cravens’ former sitting room;

a sun room;

the media room;

one of the original bathrooms;

the upstairs balcony;

the bridal room;

Mrs. Cravens’ original closet;

and the back side of the estate.

The area of the home that I was most excited about seeing, though, was the kitchen, which stood in for the White House Residence’s kitchen on the first few episodes of Commander in Chief.

The Cravens Estate kitchen was actually remodeled in 2010 for the Pasadena Showcase House of Design, but thankfully, as you can see above, it still looks very much the same as it did on the series.

We also got to see one of the property’s upstairs rooms . . .

. . . which was featured on Commander in Chief as the office of First Gentleman Rod Calloway (aka Kyle Secor).

And we were shown the central stairwell and glass-plated dome area . . .

. . . which popped up in the series as a White House stairwell in the episode titled “The Price You Pay”.

I just about died when our tour guide said I could pose for a picture on that very same stairwell. LOVE IT!

The exterior of the Cravens Estate also appeared in “The Price You Pay” episode as a supposed Washington, D.C.-area restaurant where President Mackenzie Calloway (aka Geena Davis) and her husband, Rod, take Attorney General nominee Carl Brantley (aka Alan Arkin) and his wife, Sue (aka Elizabeth Dennehy), out for dinner.

The Cravens Estate was also used extensively as Dalton Academy during this past season of Glee – a show which has gotten so bad that I can hardly bear to watch it anymore. Anyway, it first showed up in the Season 2 episode titled “Never Been Kissed” in the scene in which Kurt Hummel (aka Chris Colfer) spies on a rival Glee club known as the Warblers. Kurt later transfers to Dalton and joins the Warblers, after which time the estate was featured regularly on the series. Areas of the estate which appeared on the show include the central staircase;

the entryway;

the reception room;

and the dining room.

The Cravens Estate was also featured weekly as the supposed Falls Church, Virginia-area JAG headquarters on the television series of the same name. According to the official Cravens Estate website, JAG producer Donald P. Bellisario used to regularly receive letters from fans stating that they had searched high and low for the property while on stalking expeditions in Falls Church, Virginia, not realizing that it was actually located right here in Pasadena.

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The Cravens Estate was also used extensively as the Silverberg & Blake law firm where Robert Clayton Dean (aka Will Smith) worked in the 1998 thriller Enemy of the State. Areas which appeared in the movie include the exterior;

the dining room;

the central stairway;

and the same upstairs room that was used as Rod Calloway’s office on Commander in Chief.

In the 2001 movie Swordfish, the estate was where Stanley Jobson’s (aka Hugh Jackman’s) daughter, Holly (aka Camryn Grimes), went to school.

The back of the estate stood in for the French Consulate where a limo was bombed towards the beginning of the 2007 flick Rush Hour 3.

The estate’s reception room also appeared in Rush Hour 3.

According to the book The Worldwide Guide to Movie Locations, the above-pictured scene from the 2001 movie Traffic, in which Robert Wakefield (aka Michael Douglas) is briefed by the White House Chief of Staff (aka Albert Finney), was filmed in a room at the Cravens Estate, although because only a tight shot of it was shown, I am not able to verify this or make a guess as to the exact room where filming took place.

The estate was also where Chauncey Gardiner (aka Peter Sellers) and Eve Rand (aka Shirley MacLaine) attended a cocktail party in the 1979 movie Being There.

The estate also stood in for the University of Minnesota dorm where Brenda Walsh (aka Shannen Doherty) briefly lived in the Season 4 episodes of Beverly Hills, 90210 titled “So Long, Auf Wiedersehen” and “The Girl from New York”.

In the Season 5 episode of Desperate Housewives titled “Look Into Their Eyes and You See What They Know”, the estate stood in for Beecher Academy, where Edie Britt’s (aka Nicolette Sheridan’s) son Travers (aka Stephen Lunsford) attended school. After Edie’s death, the women of Wisteria Lane – Bree Hodge (aka Marcia Cross), Lynette Scavo (aka Felicity Huffman), Gabrielle Solis (aka Eva Longoria), Susan Mayer (aka Teri Hatcher), and Karen McCluskey (aka Kathryn Joosten) – travel to the school in order to bring Edie’s ashes to Travers.

The entryway of the Cravens Estate was transformed into a restaurant in the Season 3 episode of Mad Men titled “The Gypsy and the Hobo” for the scene in which Roger Sterling (aka John Slattery) takes Annabelle Mathis (aka Mary Page Keller, who, ironically enough, also had a recurring role on Commander in Chief) out for dinner.

Fellow stalker/Jennifer Love Hewitt-aficionado Owen also let me know that the estate appeared as Parkdale Academy in the Season 4 episode of Ghost Whisperer titled “Delusions of Grandview”.

Both the exterior . . .

. . . and the interior of the property were used quite extensively in the episode.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The American Red Cross’ San Gabriel Pomona Valley Headquarters, aka the Cravens Estate from Commander in Chief, is located at 430 Madeline Drive in Pasadena. Here is a map link to the location. You can visit the property’s official website here. If you would like a tour of the estate, please call to schedule an appointment first.

May 19, 2011
Meredith’s House from “The Office”

Another location from the Season 7 episode of The Office titled “Michael’s Last Dundies” that fellow stalker Owen tracked down recently was the supposed Scranton, Pennsylvania-area dwelling belonging to the series’ resident alcoholic/hussy/all-around slob Meredith Palmer (aka Kate Flannery), which just so happened to be the locale that I was most interested in stalking! Owen had spotted an address number of “14142” on the roof above Meredith’s porch while watching the episode and figured that the property had to be located in close proximity to Toby’s house, which I blogged about yesterday. And he was right! He ended up finding the place just two and a half blocks west of Toby’s abode. So, I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on over to stalk the place, just a few minutes after visiting Toby’s house, two weekends ago.

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In the “Michael’s Last Dundies” episode of The Office, Michael Scott (aka Steve Carell) and new manager-in-training Deangelo Vickers (aka Will Ferrell) drop by Meredith’s house at six o’clock in the morning while out delivering the Dundie Award nomination certificates. Upon first approaching the dilapidated property, Michael says, “I’ve never seen this place in the daylight!”, to which Deangelo replies, “This reminds me of Katrina!” LOL LOL LOL

When they arrive at Meredith’s front door, they find it not only unlocked, but ajar.

A few seconds later, Meredith comes meandering up the driveway, shoes in hand, and exclaims, “I’m so busted! Walk of shame!” She then invites Michael and Deangelo inside for breakfast, saying, “I have Vienna sausages and I have . . . napkins.” LOL When Deangelo announces, “I’m not going in there!”, Michael shuts the door quietly and the two sneak off the property. It should come as no surprise to regular viewers of the series that Meredith goes on to win the “Best Mom” Dundie award later that night. LOL

Before arriving at Meredith’s house, I had no idea what on earth to expect as I was not sure if the property had been dressed to appear run-down onscreen or if it actually looked that way in real life. Well, as you can see in the above photographs, amazingly enough, the house looks just as bad in person as it did onscreen, if not worse! When I emailed the above-pictured photographs to fellow stalker/Office aficionado Lavonna, she immediately wrote back asking, “So the house just looks like that????? I thought it had been decorated for the filming!!!!” LOL The Office location scouts must have been beyond ELATED upon discovering the residence and realizing that they would not have to change ANYTHING prior to filming. As Chelsea Handler would say, “Nailed it!”

While there, I, of course, just had to reenact Meredith’s walk of shame by posing with my shoes in my hand.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Owen for finding this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Meredith’s house, from the “Michael’s Last Dundies” episode of The Office, is located at 14142 Emelita Street in Van Nuys. Here is a map link to the location. Toby’s house from that same episode of The Office is located just around the corner at 5752 Calhoun Avenue, also in Van Nuys. Here is a map link to that location. Jim and Pam’s house is located just a few blocks northeast at 13831 Calvert Street in Van Nuys. Here is a map link to that location.

May 18, 2011
Toby’s House from “The Office”

The night of April 28th, 2011 was one of the saddest nights I have experienced as of late due to the fact that it marked Steve Carell’s final appearance on fave show The Office. In the days leading up to the airing of his last episode, which was titled “Goodbye, Michael”, I had a fairly large pit in my stomach as I felt like I was gearing up to say goodbye to a good friend, which, in a way, I guess I was. Michael Scott is one of my all-time favorite characters in television history and the fact that he will no longer be visiting my living room each and every Thursday night is seriously depressing. I felt the exact same way when Sex and the City went off the air in February of 2004, but I digress. Anyway, even though I was absolutely dreading it, I was hoping that Michael’s last episode would be a spectacular one, but I have to say that I wound up being sorely disappointed. I felt that both Michael Scott and Steve Carell deserved a much bigger, much more sentimental send-off than what they actually received. I did, however, absolutely LOVE the episode titled “Michael’s Last Dundies”, which aired the week prior to “Goodbye, Michael”, in which the Dunder Mifflin team gathered together to attend the annual Dundie Awards. I thought the episode was a much more appropriate farewell for a man who meant so much to so many people during the past seven years that The Office has been on the air. So when fellow stalker Owen told me that he had tracked down almost all of the locations featured in it – including the house belonging to Michael’s nemesis, Toby Flenderson (aka Paul Lieberstein) – I just about died of excitement and ran right out to stalk them all that very weekend.

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In the “Michael’s Last Dundies” episode of The Office, Michael Scott and Deangelo Vickers (aka Will Ferrell), Dunder Mifflin’s new Scranton Branch manager-in-training, venture out to all of the Dunder Mifflin employees’ houses – at six in the morning, no less! – to deliver the much-coveted Dundie Award Nominations. After waking up Jim Halpert (aka cutie John Krasinski) and Pam Beesly (aka Jenna Fischer), and seriously angering the series’ resident grouch Stanley Hudson (aka Leslie David Baker), Michael and Deangelo head to Toby’s house. When they arrive, instead of ringing the doorbell and presenting the human resources director with a nomination certificate, Michael yells out, “Toby, you suck!” and then proceeds to throw eggs at his front porch, which causes Deangelo to ask, “Is this an employee of ours?” LOL LOL LOL

During the episode, Owen had spotted an address number of “5752” on the wall of Toby’s house and figured the property had to be located somewhere in close proximity to Jim and Pam’s residence in Van Nuys. And, sure enough, he was right! He ended up finding Toby’s house just a few blocks southwest of Jim and Pam’s.

Sadly, the real life owner of Toby’s house recently installed a rather large fence around the perimeter of the property, which not only completely changed the look of the place, but also made it quite difficult to take pictures. So I must say that this was one stalk that ended up being quite disappointing. I did get to talk to the owner of the property while I was there, though, and he truly could NOT have been nicer and answered all of my silly little questions about the filming of the episode. He informed me that it took about two hours to film the segment, which ended up lasting about ten seconds onscreen.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Owen for finding this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Toby Flenderson’s house, from the “Michael’s Last Dundies” episode of The Office, is located at 5752 Calhoun Avenue in Van Nuys. Here is a map link to that location. Jim and Pam’s house is located just a few blocks northeast at 13831 Calvert Street in Van Nuys. Here is a map link to that location.

May 17, 2011
Marco Salazar’s Pretend House from “90210”

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, located directly across the street from the house belonging to Marla Templeton (aka Sally Kellerman) on fave show 90210 is the mansion where Marco Salazar (aka Freddie Smith) pretended to live in the Season 3 episode of the series titled “Women On The Verge”. So after stalking Marla’s home this past Saturday afternoon, the Grim Cheaper and I walked right on over to Marco’s faux abode to snap a few pics of the place. I found this location, yet again, thanks to fellow stalker Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, who somehow managed to track the residence down long before the “Woman On The Verge” episode even aired. How did he do that, you ask? Well, this past March, one of the directors of 90210, whom Geoff follows on Twitter (@90210director), tweeted a photograph of the mansion while he was doing some editing of the show. Geoff took one look at that photograph and immediately set about trying to find the place. And find it, he did – that very day. Being that the picture that @90210director tweeted showed an extremely limited view of the property, I was absolutely SHOCKED when Geoff emailed me to let me know that he had found it. Especially considering that he found it in Bel Air, which is the absolute LAST place on earth that I ever would have thought to look. Due to the mansion’s newer-looking construction, I would have assumed that it was located somewhere in the Encino area, so my hat is DEFINITELY off to Geoff on this one!

Marco’s faux residence is actually not just a filming location, but a former celebrity home as well. According to my good friend E.J. over at The Movieland Directory website, the property was where legendary singer Peggy Lee, of “Fever” and “Why Don’t You Do Right” fame, lived during her later years and was also where the crooner sadly passed away on January 21, 2002 after suffering from a heart attack.

Sadly though, as you can see in the above aerial view, the property has been extensively remodeled in recent years and no longer looks the same as it did when Peggy Lee lived there. In real life, the Tuscan-style mansion, which was originally built in 1969, boasts 4 bedrooms, 5 baths, and a whopping 6,052 square feet of living space.

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The property first popped up towards the beginning of the “Woman On The Verge” episode of 90210, in the scene in which Teddy Montgomery (aka Trevor Donovan) picks up his new boyfriend, Marco, whom he believes lives on the premises, for a date.

Later on in the episode, Teddy returns to the mansion in order to confront Marco after discovering that he has been lying to him about his whereabouts. It is then that Teddy meets the home’s actual owner and learns that Marco does not, in fact, live there at all, but that his mother is employed at the property as a housekeeper. Can you say drama?!?

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Marco Salazar’s pretend house from 90210 is located at 11404 Bellagio Road in Bel Air. Here is a link to the property’s location on Bing Maps. (Special thanks to fellow stalker John, from the Bay Area, who suggested that I include a map link in all of my posts, which I will be doing from this point forward. ) Marla Templeton’s house from 90210 is located just across the street from Marco’s at 542 Bellagio Terrace. Here is a map link to that location.

May 13, 2011
Marla Templeton’s House from “90210”

Last week, fellow stalker Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, emailed me to let me know that he had just tracked down the home where actress Marla Templeton (aka Sally Kellerman, who is best known for playing the role of Major Margaret “Hot Lips” O’Houlihan in the 1970 movie MASH) lived in the Season 3 episodes of fave show 90210 titled “Nerdy Little Secrets” and “Women On The Verge”. Marla’s house had such a fabulous sense of charm and almost seemed to be a character in and of itself in the episodes that I fell in love with the place pretty much upon site and was absolutely dying to know of its real-life location. So you can imagine my excitement when I read Geoff’s email and discovered that he had somehow managed to track it down. Geoff had actually first tracked down the home where Marco Salazar (aka Freddie Smith), the new love interest of Teddy Montgomery (aka Trevor Donovan), had pretended to live in the “Woman on the Verge” episode – a location which I will be blogging about tomorrow – and, as fate would have it, while looking at aerial views of the place, happened to spot Marla’s abode located directly across the street. Yay! So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the place this past weekend.

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Sadly, as you can see in the above photographs, Marla’s house is located at the end of a very long, very secluded driveway and not much of the property is visible from the street. But, as I’ve said before, that is why God created real estate listings! The mid-century-modern-style residence, which was built in 1964 and boasts 3 bedrooms, 5 baths, 3,998 square feet of living space, an elevated dining room, an outdoor bar complete with flat screen TV, wood-beamed ceilings, a large pool, and amazing views of the city of L.A., was recently listed for sale for a cool $5,995,000. You can check out the listing, which has some fabulous close-up and interior photographs of the property, here.

In the Season 3 episode of 90210 titled “Nerdy Little Secrets”, Annie Wilson (aka Shenae Grimes), who is looking for a way to make some money before heading off to college, applies for a job as a personal assistant to a glamorous elderly woman named Marla Templeton. Marla is a bit of a hoarder and she winds up hiring Annie – at $1,000 a week! – to organize and catalog the many items that she has collected over the years. Annie later finds out that Marla was, at one time, an extremely famous actress and the two women end up bonding over their shared love of old Hollywood.

Both the interior and the exterior of Marla’s house were used quite extensively in the episode.

And the property’s A-MA-ZING backyard also made an appearance.

The dwelling then popped up again in the following week’s episode of 90210 titled “Women On The Verge”, in which Annie not only finds out that Marla is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, but that she is also planning on committing suicide in the very near future.

Both the interior and the exterior of the property were featured in “Women On The Verge”, which, while depressing, was one of my favorite episodes of the entire season. In my never-to-be-humble opinion, I thought Shenae Grimes did some of her best acting to date in the episode, especially in the very last scene. Sigh! Love her! But I digress. Anyway 90210 costume designer Kime Buzzelli, whom I follow on Twitter (@kbuzzy), recently tweeted a photograph that she took of the living room area of the home while it was dressed for the filming of the show, which you can check out here. So incredibly cool!

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Marla Templeton’s house, from the “Nerdy Little Secrets” and “Women On The Verge” episodes of 90210, is located at 542 Bellagio Terrace in Bel Air.

May 12, 2011
Double A Cafe from “Charmed”

Another Charmed location that fellow stalker Chas, from the ItsFilmedThere website, told me about prior to the Grim Cheaper’s and my recent stalking trip to the Heritage Valley two weekends ago was the service station/mini-mart where the Charmed Ones – sisters Prue (aka Shannen Doherty), Piper (aka Holly Marie Combs), and Phoebe Halliwell (aka Alyssa Milano) – stopped for gas in the Season 2 episode of the series titled “How to Make a Quilt Out of Americans”. That property is actually no longer a service station, but is, of all things, a full service restaurant named the Double A Café and it is located on the corner of Santa Clara Street and Central Avenue in the tiny city of Fillmore, just off of Highway 126. Chas found this location thanks to a very helpful Charmed crewmember he had managed to track down and, even though at the time I had yet to watch the “How to Make a Quilt Out of Americans” episode, because my girl Shannen Doherty had once been there, I just had to stalk the place.

In the episode, the Charmed Ones stop for gas at the Double A Café while on their way to visit their evil Aunt Gail (aka Anne Haney) in the fictional Northern-California town of Santa Costa. While Piper fills the car with gas, Phoebe asks a couple of older gentleman for directions to her aunt’s mansion. (Filming of the mansion scenes took place at the Newhall Mansion in Piru which I blogged about last week.)

Later on in the episode, the girls return to the gas station while chasing after Cryto, the Demon of Vanity [aka Cameron Bancroft, who also played Donna Martin’s (aka Tori Spelling’s) All-star-quarterback boyfriend Joe Bradley on Beverly Hills, 90210], whereupon they find that the older gentlemen Phoebe had previously asked for directions have since been transformed into young men.

At the time of the filming, the Double A Café was an actual service station/mini-mart named Gasoline Alley. I could not find much information about the history of the place online, but at some point the property was converted from a gas station into a restaurant, as odd as that may sound. Subsequently, in October of 2011, a professional chef and Fillmore native named Dustin Anderson opened up an upscale eatery in the space which he named the Double A Café. And, amazingly enough, even with the vast transformation, the property still looks very much the same today as it did back when Charmed was filmed!

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A few other parts of Fillmore were also featured in the “How to Make a Quilt Out of Americans” episode of Charmed. The establishing shot of the supposed-Santa-Costa-downtown-area which was shown just before the Halliwell sisters pulled into the service station was actually a view of Downtown Fillmore’s Central Avenue. The shot was taken from the intersection of Sespe and Central Avenues and the camera was facing south, looking towards Santa Clara Street.

The spot where the girls hid from Cryto, the Demon of Vanity was the alcove area of the historic Fillmore Town Theatre, which has sadly since closed.

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While scanning through the 2002 movie Enough to make screen captures for last week’s post on the Piru Creek Bridge, I spotted the Double A Café space standing in for the supposed-Northern-Michigan-area roadside diner where Slim Hiller (aka Jennifer Lopez) and her daughter, Gracie (aka Tessa Allen), stopped for a bite to eat while on the run from Slim’s ex-husband, Mitch (aka Bill Campbell).

And while not much of the interior of the café was shown in Enough, I immediately recognized Fillmore City Hall, which is located directly across the street from the restaurant, through the window where Slim and Gracie sat in the scene. As you can see in this photograph, the real life view from the window of the Double A Café perfectly matches the view that was shown in the movie.

Big THANK YOU to Chas, from the ItsFilmedThere website, for finding this location! You can check out Chas’ ultra-detailed Charmed filming locations page, which covers Seasons 1 through 6, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Double A Café, from the “How to Make a Quilt Out of Americans” episode of Charmed, is located at 501 Santa Clara Street in Fillmore. You can visit the restaurant’s Facebook page here. The Fillmore Town Theatre, where the Charmed Ones hid in the episode, is located at 338 Central Avenue in Fillmore. And the shot of the downtown area that appeared at the beginning of the scene was taken at the intersection of Sespe and Central Avenues in Fillmore.

May 6, 2011
The Newhall Mansion from “Charmed”

Another location that the Grim Cheaper and I visited two Saturdays ago while doing some stalking in the Heritage Valley area was the Newhall Mansion, formerly the Piru Mansion, which fellow stalker Chas, from the ItsFilmedThere website, had told me about a few weeks prior. The Newhall Mansion has appeared in countless productions over the years, most notably the Season 2 episode of Charmed titled “How To Make a Quilt Out of Americans” and Chas figured that because my girl Shannen Doherty had once been there, I might be interested in stalking the place. Oh, how right he was!

The Newhall Mansion was originally built in 1889 by David C. Cook, the founder of the town of Piru. Cook, a wealthy religious book publisher who hailed from Elgin, Illinois, first came to Piru in 1887 after becoming afflicted with a debilitating coughing illness. Doctors suggested that he move to a more temperate climate to ease his lungs and he found that climate in Piru. He purchased 12,000 acres of unincorporated land in the Santa Clara River Valley and in 1887 he built the Colonial-Revival-style property pictured above. That residence is now a bed and breakfast known as the Heritage Valley Inn and it made a brief appearance in 1983’s Twilight Zone: The Movie.

In 1889, Cook commissioned a new home to be built, this one in the Queen-Anne-style, on a parcel of land located just a few blocks up the road from his first home. Although it is not known for sure, it is largely believed that the architectural firm of Joseph and Cather Newsom designed the 12,000-square-foot abode. Cook wanted his new home to be a “second Garden of Eden” and had the grounds surrounding the mansion planted with only those fruits and plants mentioned in the Bible, including dates, pomegranates, figs, apricots, olives, and grapes. Although it was considered to be grand for its day, the original mansion had no electricity, running water, or even bathrooms! Occupants had to use a three-hole outhouse located on a walking path a few yards up the road from the home whenever nature called! Yikes! In 1968, the property was purchased by Scott and Ruth Newhall, owners of The Newhall Signal newspaper. Soon after the couple inherited some money and in 1981 decided to use it to renovate their historic home, but sadly tragedy struck. In February of that year, one of the workers who had been hired to paint the property made the unfortunate decision of using a blowtorch to burn off the home’s numerous layers of old paint. The 92-year-old structure immediately caught fire and burned to the ground. Thanks to a solid insurance policy, the Newhalls were able to rebuild the gutted residence and, using old photographs and workers who had maintained the property over the years as guides, they reconstructed the mansion in the exact form in which it was originally built. In 2003, the home was sold to another member of the Newhall family, David Newhall Hill, who spent the next 6 years renovating and updating it, adding state-of-the-art heating and air conditioning, a security system, and a fire safety system consisting of on-site emergency water tanks and built-in rooftop rain birds. Today, the 4-story home, which sits on over 10 acres of land, boasts 6 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms, and – count ‘em! – 8 fireplaces and is currently for sale for a cool $2.7 million. According to the real estate listing, the property generates over $65,000 a year in film and rental income, so it almost pays for itself!

The GC and I randomly caught a great glimpse of the back side of the property while stalking the trailer park from Burlesque, which I blogged about last Thursday.

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In the “How To Make a Quilt Out of Americans” episode of Charmed, the Newhall Mansion stood in for the home of Gail (aka Anne Haney), the evil aunt of the Charmed Ones – Prue (aka Shannen Doherty), Piper (aka Holly Marie Combs), and Phoebe (aka Alyssa Milano).

In the Season 6 episode of The X-Files titled “How the Ghosts Stole Christmas”, the Newhall Mansion was used extensively as the haunted house belonging to Maurice (aka Edward Asner) and Lydia (aka Lily Tomlin) in which Fox Mulder (aka David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (aka Gillian Anderson) get trapped one dark and stormy Christmas Eve night. Scanning through the episode to make screen captures for today’s post I was reminded of what a great show The X-Files was! Man, I used to love it – and its star, Mr. David Duchovny. Until he went to rehab for sex addiction, that is!







In the Season 4 episode of Charlie’s Angels titled “Of Ghosts and Angels”, the Newhall Mansion stood in for the haunted home belonging to Tiffany Welles’ (aka Shelley Hack’s) childhood friend, Erica Burke (aka Robin Mattson).

The mansion also supposedly appeared in two episodes of the original Melrose Place– the Season 7 episodes titled “Lethal Wedding 4” and “When Cheerleaders Attack”. It was apparently used as the wedding location of Dr. Peter Burns (aka Jack Wagner) and Eve Cleary (aka Rena Sofer), but because I have never seen those episodes and because Season 7 is not yet available on DVD, I was not able to verify that. According to the official Newhall Mansion website, the property has also appeared in episodes of Monk, Murder, She Wrote, The Incredible Hulk, Payne, Ping!, and Reno 911.

Big THANK YOU to Chas, from the ItsFilmedThere website, for telling me about this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Newhall Mansion from Charmed is located at 829 North Park Street in Piru. You can visit the mansion’s official website here. Tours of the property are offered the first weekend of each month. You can catch a glimpse of the back side of the mansion from Warring Canyon Road, just north of Center Street, near the trailer park from Burlesque, which I blogged about last Thursday.

May 2, 2011
Villa Blanca Restaurant from “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills”

A couple of weeks ago while out doing some stalking in the Beverly Hills area, the Grim Cheaper and I found ourselves hungry so I suggested grabbing a bite to eat at Villa Blanca, the Italian eatery owned by The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills’ Lisa Vanderpump and her husband Ken Todd. Because Lisa is my favorite Housewife (actually, truth be told, there are only three Housewives that I like on the show – Lisa Vanderpump, Camille Grammer, and Adrienne Maloof-Nassif – the rest of the women I absolutely CANNOT stand), Villa Blanca has long been at the top of my To-Stalk list. Because the restaurant is on the pricier side, though, never in a million years did I ever think the GC would agree to dine there. But the stars must have been seriously aligned that particular evening because, even after looking at the menu and taking a gander at the prices, he happily acquiesced.

Villa Blanca was actually designed by Lisa, who said, “It’s going to be sexy, white, clean, comfortable and inspired . . . gorgeous art, stylish furnishings and creative music selection will bring life and style to the new space. The ambiance will be extremely important to the experience of eating at Villa Blanca – flowers, lighting, chairs, staff – every aspect will look great. If the ambiance isn’t great, you might as well stay home and order take-out.” And she definitely made good on her promise because Villa Blanca is not only beautiful, but it is also extremely unique, comfortable, and intimate. As you can see in the above photograph, there are several tucked-away nooks and crannies featuring small tables and cushy couches covered in pillows, which gives off the sense that you are dining in someone’s living room and not in a public restaurant.

Villa Blanca’s distinctive menu, which was created by executive chef Francis Dimitrius, the former head chef at Koi, features Italian standards made unique thanks to an Asian flair. The GC and I opted for the Lobster Crisp appetizer, which consisted of mini-corn-taco shells stuffed with Maine lobster salad and guacamole, and I have to say that they were absolutely OUTSTANDING. In fact, they were easily my favorite part of the entire meal! YUM! For my entrée I chose the Japanese Mushroom Chicken – a chicken breast covered with marsala wine sauce and accompanied by shimeji, shiitake, and oyster mushrooms – and I just about had a heart attack over it, it was so good! The GC had the Sweet & Spicy Butterflied Shrimp which he also absolutely devoured. The Villa Blanca staff was also incredibly nice and accommodating and answered all of my silly little questions about the filming of The Real Housewives. I honestly cannot say enough good things about this restaurant! I loved, loved, loved the place and cannot recommend stalking it enough!

It did not take long for celebrities to discover Villa Blanca. Just a few of the famous names who have been spotted there recently include Stephanie Pratt, Dancing with the Stars’ Karina Smirnoff, Dakota Fanning, David Hasselhoff, AnnaLynne McCord, Twilight’s Kiowa Gordon, Paris Hilton, Phoebe Price, LaToya Jackson, Paula Abdul, Sophie Monk, Eva Longoria, David Boreanaz, Patrick Dempsey, Chace Crawford, Dustin Hoffman, Sylvester Stallone, Lo Bosworth, Regis Philbin, Kathy Lee Gifford, Gerard Butler, and Kim and Kris Kardashian. Unfortunately, the GC and I did not spot any celebs while we were dining, but a couple of paparazzi did stop by at one point during the evening and poked their noses around to see if anyone famous was on the premises. Love it!

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Villa Blanca was featured regularly on TRHOBH, most notably in the episode titled “Payback’s a Bitch . . . Just Ask Your Husband”, in the scene in which Lisa hosts a fashion show fundraiser for the Children’s Burn Foundation.

On the series, Lisa was regularly shown displaying HUGE arrangements of fresh flowers in various places around the restaurant and I was VERY happy to see that, in real life, there were fresh flowers situated all around the eatery, as well.

Villa Blanca was also featured in the Season 6 episode of The Hills titled “This is Goodbye” in the scene in which Kristin Cavallari, Audrina Patridge, and Heidi Montag grab lunch and discuss Heidi’s bizarre relationship with her husband Spencer Pratt. You can check out some pictures of the scene being filmed on the Zimbio website here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Villa Blanca from The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills is located at 9601 Brighton Way in Beverly Hills. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.

April 29, 2011
The Piru Creek Bridge from “Burlesque”

Another location that the Grim Cheaper and I visited this past weekend while doing some stalking in the Heritage Valley was the Union Pacific Railroad Piru Creek Bridge which stood in for the supposed Iowa-area bridge that Ali (aka Christina Aguilera) walked across during the opening scene of Burlesque. I once again found this locale thanks to Gary, from the Seeing Stars website, who added the bridge to his Burlesque filming locations page just a couple of weeks ago. In an odd twist, though, when we showed up to stalk the structure we discovered that there were, in fact, two very similar-looking bridges located directly next to each other and I was unsure of which one exactly had appeared in the flick. The GC ended up taking photographs of both of them, though, and I am so incredibly grateful that he did because, as it turns out, they have each appeared on the silver screen in various productions!

The two Piru Creek bridges that we stalked are pictured above via an aerial view. Because I, unfortunately, could not find much information about either of the structures online, for the purposes of clarity I will refer to the bridge denoted with the pink arrow above as the Burlesque Bridge and the bridge denoted with the blue arrow above as the Enough bridge (it had a very brief onscreen appearance in the 2002 flick Enough which starred Jennifer Lopez, but more on that later).

The Burlesque bridge was first built in 1902 and measures 320 feet in length. The steel, through-truss structure is a Ventura County historical landmark and formerly serviced the Union Pacific Railroad.

In the opening scene of Burlesque, Ali is shown very briefly walking across the bridge while on her way to the local bus depot to purchase a train ticket to Los Angeles. You can see some photographs of Christina Aguilera filming the scene on the Zimbio website here.

Sadly, the Burlesque bridge is largely inaccessible to the public, which was highly disappointing as I was hoping to walk across it just like Ali had done in the movie.

And while it has been reported that the Burlesque bridge was the site of the train crash in the 1994 rom-com I Love Trouble, as you can see in the above screen capture, that information is incorrect. The train crash scene was actually filmed on the Sespe Creek Bridge, which you can see a photograph of here, in the neighboring town of Fillmore.

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Just south of the Burlesque bridge, on the opposite side of Center Street, is the bridge which appeared in Enough. As you can see in the above photographs, despite a difference in color and despite being wide enough for cars to drive on, it is strikingly similar in appearance to the Burlesque bridge.

And while I could find no historical information whatsoever about the structure online, I am happy to report that it is much more accessible than the Burlesque bridge. While one cannot actually walk across it, it is easily viewable from Center Street.

In the 2002 thriller Enough, the high-speed car chase between Slim Hiller (aka Jennifer Lopez) and Robbie (aka Noah Wylie) ends at the bridge when Robbie crashes his SUV into a steel beam that has fallen across the span.

At the end of the scene, Slim is shown driving off of the bridge and west onto Center Street.



Thanks to fave stalking book Hollywood Escapes: The Moviegoer’s Guide to Exploring Southern California’s Great Outdoors, I learned that the Enough bridge was also featured as the plane crash site in 1992’s Hero. Considering how deathly afraid I am of flying, I CANNOT believe that I actually had to scan through the plane crash scene to make the above screen captures. Shudder!

The Enough bridge was also featured during the opening scene of the 1974 movie The California Kid.



Thanks to the Confederate General Lee Fan Club website, I learned that the Enough bridge was also featured in two episodes of The Dukes of Hazzard. It first appeared in the Season 1 episode of the show titled “Luke’s Love Story” during the Hazzard County Obstacle Derby scene.



It later appeared at the very end of the Season 1 episode titled “Route 7-11” as the spot located just over the Hazzard county line where Luke Duke (aka Tom Wopat) and Cooter (aka Ben Jones) dropped off their friend Dewey Stovall (aka Paul Brinegar).

Big THANK YOU to Gary, from the Seeing Stars website, for finding this location.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Piru Creek Bridges, which are depicted in the above aerial view, are both located on Center Street in Piru, above Piru Creek, about 1,000 feet east of the Downtown area. The Burlesque bridge is located on the northern side of Center Street, while the Enough bridge is located on the southern side. And while the Enough bridge is easily visible from Center Street, you can catch the best glimpses of the Burlesque bridge from Piru Canyon Road about 1000 feet east of Orchard Street.

April 27, 2011