Tag: famous places

Kristin Cavallari’s House from Season 6 of “The Hills”

Literally just around the corner from Philippe Chow, the restaurant that I blogged about on Tuesday where Brenda and Donna ate veal brains on Beverly Hills, 90210, is the home where Kristin Cavallari lived during Season 6 of fave show The Hills. I am embarrassed to say that I spent an exorbitant amount of time looking for this particular location and had absolutely no luck whatsoever in finding it. Thankfully though, fellow stalker Britney embarked on her own hunt to track it down and quickly stumbled upon this Shelterpop article which stated that Kristin’s home was formerly owned by “celebrity” hairstylist Eric Bilardi (apparently Eric has tressed everyone from Daryl Hannah to Jane Seymour). Britney then searched for information on Eric online, wound up finding some public records which listed his former address, and voila, it was the right place! Yay! So, after my father and I finished lunch at Philippe’s last Friday afternoon, we headed right on over to stalk Kristin’s former pad.

Unfortunately though, because the property is surrounded by extremely tall hedges and a very high fence, not a whole lot of it can be seen from the street.

Nor can much be seen from aerial views.

But that’s why God created real estate listings! Kristin’s Spanish-style home, which was originally built in the 1920s, was available for rent earlier this year at a rate of $5,750 per month. The property, which last sold in 2007 for $1.3 million, boasts two bedrooms, two bathrooms, 1,400-square feet of living space, a garden, hardwood flooring throughout, a covered patio, several fountains, and an outdoor fire pit.

The house first showed up in the second episode of The Hills’ sixth season, which was titled “Rumor Has It”, in which Kristin throws a little housewarming shindig for herself. I am fairly certain, though, that, like most of The Hills residences, Kristin never actually lived on the premises, but that it was used for filming purposes only. And from how it appears in the real estate photos, producers seem to have used all of the real life homeowner’s actual furnishings during filming –

– right down to the cups in the kitchen cupboards . . .

. . . and the cushions on the living room couch. You can check out more photos of the house on the Shelterpop website here.

Ironically enough, the finale scene, in which Kristin walks out of her house and says a tearful good-bye to both Los Angeles and Brody Jenner, was not actually filmed in front of the property, as it was made to appear. And unfortunately I have not yet been able to discern exactly where that scene was shot. Ideas, anyone?

Big THANK YOU to Britney for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Kristin Cavallari’s house from Season 6 of The Hills is located at 819 North La Jolla Avenue in West Hollywood. Philippe Chow, the restaurant where Brenda and Donna ate veal brains on Beverly Hills, 90210, is located just a half a mile south at 8284 Melrose Avenue, also in West Hollywood.

September 24, 2010
The Schaffer Residence from “A Single Man”

A couple of weeks ago, I dragged my new husband out to stalk an architecturally and cinematically famous house located in Glendale at the base of the Verdugo Mountains – the John Lautner-designed Schaffer Residence which appeared in fashion designer Tom Ford’s directorial debut, A Single Man. I found this location thanks to fellow stalker Gary from England, who immediately set about cyberstalking the residence after watching the flick back in February of this year. And even though I’ve never actually seen A Single Man – I try to avoid any and all movies that have a depressing subject matter – because I am a HUGE fan of legendary architect John Lautner and because the house is simply gorgeous, I just had to stalk it.

The two bedroom, two bath Schaffer Residence, which was originally built in 1949, measures 1,698 square feet and sits on a heavily wooded quarter acre of land. The home was constructed entirely out of steel, glass, redwood, and concrete and boasts an open floor plan with glass walls, which several websites have described as “transparent”. Apparently being in the home makes one feel as if they are actually outside. The house is so spectacular, that according to the John Lautner Foundation website, both architects Frank Gehry and Frank Escher consider the Schaffer house to be among their most favorite abodes ever created. Sadly, though, as you can see in the above photographs, not much of the house is visible from the street.

Nor is much visible from Bing’s aerial views, either. 🙁

Thankfully though, the Schaffer Residence is currently for sale (for a cool $1,495,000 and as fellow stalker Gary said in his email to me, “I am saving as I type!!!!!”) and there are plenty of pictures of the property on its real estate website. You can also check out some fabulous photographs of the interior of the home on the Big Shed website here. As you can see above, the Schaffer house is a post-modern masterpiece, stunning in its detail, and with its wood, steel, and glass features, is very reminiscent of both the abode belonging to Sebastian Stark (aka James Woods) on the television series Shark and the residence where Ted Crawford (aka Anthony Hopkins) lived in the movie Fracture.

In A Single Man, which premiered last year, the Schaffer Residence stands in for the Santa Monica-area home of Professor George Falconer (aka Colin Firth), and both the exterior . . .

. . . and the interior of the property were used quite extensively in the filming. When I skimmed through A Single Man earlier today to make the above screen captures, I was actually surprised to see how the home was portrayed onscreen. In the movie, George’s house is very dark and dreary, which is ironic being that, in reality, a huge part of what makes the home so special and unique are the large plate-glass windows which bathe the interior of the property in an exorbitant amount of natural light. As depicted in the real estate photographs and in all that I’ve read about the dwelling online, in real life the Schaffer residence is bright and airy – not at all how it appeared in A Single Man. In fact, after seeing how it was depicted onscreen, I’m quite surprised that director Tom Ford chose to use the home at all in the movie. I would have assumed that he’d want to film at a house that, at the very least, had less windows. But what do I know? 😉

The Schaffer Residence also made an appearance in the ultra-strange 2005 dramedy Happy Endings as the residence where Charley (aka Steve Coogan) and Gil (David Sutcliffe) lived.

On a side note – If you want to see photographs of the house where Charley (aka Julianne Moore) lived in A Single Man, you can do so on MovieShotsLA.

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On another side note – A Single Man director Tom Ford also just so happens to be the designer behind my girl Jennifer Aniston’s favorite sunglasses – the “Tom Ford Jennifer sunglasses” (pictured above). Jen loves the glasses so much, in fact, that legend has it that Tom even named them after her. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to own a pair of those! 🙂

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Gary for finding this location! 🙂

Stalk It: The Schaffer Residence from A Single Man is located at 527 Whiting Woods Way in Glendale. You can check out the home’s real estate website here.

September 23, 2010
First Christian Church of North Hollywood – Where Phyllis Got Married on “The Office”

Brace yourselves, my fellow stalkers, ‘cause today’s post is going to be a long one! A few months back, I dragged my then-fiancé and my parents out to re-stalk the First Christian Church of North Hollywood – a location which is most commonly known as “the 7th Heaven church”, thanks to its recurring role as the Camden Family’s local parish throughout the Aaron Spelling series’ ten-year run. Even though I never watched 7th Heaven, I stalked and blogged about the church way back in April of 2008 after receiving a challenge to find it from my Aunt Lea. So, when the very same location popped up on new favorite show The Office as the spot where Phyllis Lapin (aka Phyllis Smith) married Bob Vance (aka Robert R. Shafer) – of Vance Refrigeration – in the Season 3 episode titled “Phyllis’ Wedding”, I decided I just had to re-stalk it and do a more in-depth write-up of its extensive filming history.

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The First Christian Church of North Hollywood was originally built in 1949 on the corner of Moorpark Street and Colfax Avenue in what is, contrary to what the name might suggest, actually Studio City. Construction on the 19,000-square foot, Colonial-style structure took just under a year to complete and the first mass was said there on March 12, 1950. Today the church boasts one of the largest Protestant congregations in the entire San Fernando Valley. Location scouts have long been drawn to the property, which includes a main sanctuary, several offices, a kitchen, a garden, a nursery school, a social hall, and a courtyard, for decades due to its Anytown, U.S.A.-style facade. Countless upon countless productions have been filmed there over the years – far too many for me to properly catalog here, but I’ll do my best to try. I must give major props to whoever runs the First Christian Church of North Hollywood website, by the way, because it boasts a very well-organized Film Shoots” page that chronicles all of the filming that has ever taken place there. Love it!

The “Phyllis’ Wedding” episode of The Office was filmed almost in its entirety on location at First Christian Church of North Hollywood and both the interior and the exterior of the property were used extensively in the production. The areas which appeared in the episode include the front entrance;

the entryway and front stairwell;

the main sanctuary;

the altar;

the social hall (which we unfortunately did not get to see);

the top of the exterior side stairwell, where Pam Beesly (aka Jenna Fischer) and Roy Anderson (aka David Denman) danced;

the north exterior side of the church, where Dwight Schrute (aka Rainn Wilson) danced with Angela Martin (aka Angela Kinsey);

and the side courtyard, where Michael Scott (aka Steve Carell) “found” Phyllis’ Uncle Al (aka George Ives).

And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention here that it is while in the First Christian Church of North Hollywood that Dwight utters fellow stalker Owen’s very favorite television line of all time. While filing into the church with the other wedding guests, Dwight turns to Jim Halpert (aka John Krasinski) and says, “Why are all these people here? There’s too many people on this earth. We need a new plague.” LOL LOL LOL Love it! So, of course I just had to stand in the exact spot where Dwight was standing during that scene and repeat his famous line.

As I mentioned above, the First Christian Church of North Hollywood is most well-known for its countless appearances on 7th Heaven where it popped up almost weekly during the series’ eleven season run.

It is also at First Christian Church that Indiana Jones (aka Harrison Ford) marries Marion Ravenwood (aka Karen Allen) while Mutt Williams (aka Shia LaBeouf) looks on at the end of 2008’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Shia LaBeouf returned to First Christian Church that very same year to film his character’s brother’s funeral scene for the movie Eagle Eye.

The church was also where Barbara Keeley (aka Calista Flockhart) married Val Goldman (aka Dan Futterman) at the end of the 1996 movie The Birdcage.

In What About Bob?, the church was where Bob Wiley (aka Bill Murray) tied the knot with Lily Marvin (aka Fran Brill).

The church was also the wedding location in the music video for Katy Perry’s hit song “Hot & Cold” –

– which you can watch by clicking above.

Most recently, the church appeared in the Season 6 opener of How I Met Your Mother, which was titled “Big Days” and which aired this past Monday evening.

The First Christian Church of North Hollywood was also used in the movies Death Becomes Her, Nothing to Lose, and The Suburbans, and in episodes of United States of Tara, Desperate Housewives, Parks and Recreation, Samantha Who?, Crossing Jordan, Swingtown, Hart to Hart, Ghost Whisperer, Gilmore Girls, and Melrose Place.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The First Christian Church of North Hollywood is located at 4390 Colfax Avenue in Studio City. You can visit the church’s official website here. The areas of the church used in the “Phyllis’ Wedding” episode of The Office are denoted above. Pam and Roy danced at the top of the church’s north-side stairwell, which is located on Moorpark Street and is marked with the blue arrow above. The windows where Dwight and Angela danced are located just below the stairwell and a few feet east, also on Moorpark Street. Michael’s courtyard is located on Colfax Avenue, in between the main church building and the nursery school, and is denoted with the pink arrow in the above aerial view. The social hall, where Bob and Phyllis held their wedding reception, is located on the second floor of the nursery school building.

September 22, 2010
The Restaurant Where Brenda and Donna Ate Veal Brains on “Beverly Hills, 90210”

One location that I have been on the lookout for for over eighteen years now is the Paris restaurant where Donna Martin (aka Tori Spelling) and Brenda Walsh (aka Shannen Doherty) ate veal brains in the Season 3 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 titled “Too Little, Too Late/Paris, 75001”. Because almost two decades have passed since filming took place, though, and because there were virtually no clues visible in the background of the veal-brains-eating scene, this one proved to be a VERY tough find. So, a few weeks back I finally decided to call in the team – Mike, from MovieShotsLA, Chas, from ItsFilmedThere, and fellow stalker Owen – and, amazingly enough, Owen found the restaurant in record time – in less than an hour, in fact! Not joking! I really need to start taking lessons from Owen, as he always comes up with extremely innovative ways of tracking locations down. In this particular case, he decided to contact a few of the guest star actors who appeared in the episode, one of them being a girl named Lindsey Rosin. Now, to someone like Owen who has never in his life watched an episode of 90210, the name Lindsey Rosin doesn’t mean a whole lot, but to all of us diehard fans out there, the girl is a celebrity! For those who are not in the know, Lindsey just happens to be the daughter of 90210’s longtime executive producer Charles Rosin and, as a child, she appeared in several episodes of the series, including the “Too Little, Too Late/Paris, 75001” episode. When Owen told me he had contacted her, let me tell you, I just about died from excitement! Even more exciting, though, was the fact that not only did she write him back almost immediately, but she also knew exactly where the filming of the veal brains scene had taken place. YAY!

As it turns out, Brenda and Donna’s Paris restaurant was named Le Chardonnay and it used to be located on Melrose Avenue in West Hollywood. Sadly, though, the eatery closed its doors for good just about a decade ago. Since that time, the property has undergone several renovations and has re-opened as a few different restaurants, including the now-defunct French bistro Carafe and the Danny Masterson/Wilmer Valderrama/Ashton Kutcher-owned eatery Dolce. Today, the space which once housed Le Chardonnay is an upscale Chinese food restaurant named Philippe Chow and even though it no longer looks anything like it did when it appeared on 90210, I just HAD to stalk the place. So, this past Friday afternoon, since we were in the area running some errands, I dragged my dad there to grab some lunch.

Philippe Chow is a SUPER cute little restaurant that serves up some FABULOUS food! Especially the chicken satay in cream sauce, which the restaurant is famous for. The food is pricey, though – a bottle of sparkling water cost me a whopping $10!!!!!!!! – but, as they say, you get what you pay for, and the grub at Philippe Chow is EXTREMELY good! The service was also fabulous and definitely lacking in the typical hoity-toity attitude one comes to expect from upscale L.A. eateries. I honestly can’t recommend the place enough!

In the “Too Little, Too Late/Paris, 75001” episode of Beverly Hills, 90210, Brenda and Donna go out for dinner on one of their very first nights in Paris, France. Neither one can speak the language very well and they end up ordering the one item on the menu that contains a word they recognize, Cerveaux de Veau – “veau” meaning veal. As it turns out, though, Cerveaux de Veau actually translates to veal brains – something they don’t discover until after they have already sampled the dish. The scene is absolutely hilarious, mostly due to the comedic antics of Tori Spelling, who spits a bite of the brains out onto her plate and then proceeds to gargle with a glass of water. And they say Tori Spelling can’t act! In my never-to-be-humble opinion, I think she was FABULOUS in that particular scene –

– which can watch by clicking above.

And while there is absolutely no trace of Le Chardonnay left on the Philippe Chow premises, there is some good news about this location. After doing some research online, I discovered that Le Chardonnay was actually an almost-exact replica of the famous Restaurant Vagenende in Paris, France, which is still open, and as you can see in the above photographs, looks VERY similar to the restaurant which appeared on 90210. So, while Le Chardonnay is no longer stalk-able, Vagenende thankfully is! And, believe you me, if I ever go back to Paris, I am FOR SURE going to stalk the place!

Beverly Hills, 90210 is not the only production to have filmed on the Le Chardonnay premises. Back when the restaurant had first been purchased by Wilmer Valderrama, Ashton Kutcher, and Danny Masterson, it was used in the Punk’d episode in which Ashton plays a prank on Wilmer by having a jealous boyfriend pretend to destroy his beloved Escalade – which you can watch by clicking above.

At the time Punk’d was filmed, Dolce had yet to open and was undergoing an extensive renovation process, and, as you can see in the above screen capture, the walls had yet to be painted and were still the same color pink that they were on 90210. Love it!

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Philippe Chow also recently appeared in the Season 5 episode of The Hills titled “Can’t Always Get What You Want” as the spot where Kristin Cavallari and Brody Jenner meet up and discuss his wanting to get back together with ex-girlfriend Jayde Nicole.

Philippe Chow is also something of a celebrity magnet. Just a few of the stars who have been spotted there include Charlize Theron, Rihanna, Nick Nolte, Matt Kemp, Stephanie Pratt, Kelly Osbourne, Paris and Nicky Hilton, Lauren Conrad, Lindsay Lohan, Nick Jonas, Sofia Vergara, Selena Gomez, Lamar Odom, Kobe Bryant, and Kim and Khloe Kardashian. Unfortunately, we didn’t spot any celebs while we were there, though.

Big THANK YOU to Owen – and to Lindsey Rosin! – for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Philippe Chow, the former Le Chardonnay restaurant where Brenda and Donna ate veal brains on Beverly Hills, 90210, is located at 8284 Melrose Avenue in West Hollywood. You can visit the Philippe Chow website here. Vagenende, the restaurant that Le Chardonnay was modeled after, is located at 142, boulevard Saint-Germain, in Paris, France. You can visit the Vagenende website here.

September 21, 2010
The “It’s Complicated” House

This past weekend, I dragged my new husband out to Westlake Village to see a home that I’ve been absolutely dying to stalk ever since I tracked down its location a little over two months ago – the adobe-style ranch where Jane Adler (aka Meryl Streep) lived in the 2009 Nancy Meyers-directed romantic comedy It’s Complicated. I have been absolutely obsessed with Jane’s little Spanish-style bungalow ever since first laying eyes upon it while watching the flick back in July. Nancy Meyers has a true gift for choosing only the most beautiful homes to showcase in her films – from Diane Keaton’s beachside abode in Something’s Gotta Give to Kate Winslet’s English cottage in The Holiday to Steve Martin and family’s iconic white colonial residence in the Father of the Bride movies. I don’t think there’s a director out there who is better at scouting movie homes and that talent is nowhere more apparent than in It’s Complicated. The movie’s production designer, Jon Hutman, is quoted in the production notes as saying, “Nancy, perhaps more than any director I’ve worked with, comes to the table with a clear and specific vision of the world in which the story takes place.” She ends up translating that world to the screen and it becomes a place that her audiences want to live in, too. Which is why I think I became so obsessed with the It’s Complicated house – it is exactly the type of place I’d love to own myself someday.

And I am not alone in my desire. Ask anyone if they’ve seen It’s Complicated and the conversation invariably turns to Jane’s wooded, Spanish-style residence. So, it’s no surprise that I began cyber-stalking the place immediately upon finishing the movie. Unfortunately though, I couldn’t find much information about the home anywhere. The only real clues I had to go on were from the movie’s production notes, which stated that in real life the property had been built in the late 1920’s, was located in Thousand Oaks, and had belonged to several celebrities over the years, most notably comedian W.C. Fields.

   I had one other pretty big clue to go on, though – one that wasn’t mentioned in the film’s production notes. Throughout the movie, Jane’s house is shown to be surrounded by a long, white wooden fence. That type of fence pops up quite often in film and television productions and when it does, it is pretty much a dead giveaway that filming took place somewhere on Potrero Road.

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Potrero Road is an extremely long, meandering street that cuts through numerous ranch-style properties in the Thousand Oaks, Hidden Valley, and Westlake Village areas and, as you can see in the above photographs, is bordered on each side by low, white wooden fences just like Jane’s. So, I decided to begin my search there. And sure enough, about ten minutes into the hunt, I located Jane’s house! As it turns out, it is situated less than half a mile east of JMJ Ranch, which was featured in fave movie Win A Date With Tad Hamilton and the more recent Back-Up Plan with Jennifer Lopez.



Before stalking the house, I was convinced that some part of it would be visible from the street. As you can see in the above photographs, though, that was not really the case. Sadly, the residence is set quite a ways back from the road and is surrounded by massive oak trees which hide the home from view. 🙁 UGH!

But that’s why God created aerial images!

And while the aerial views of the home aren’t that great, as you can see in the above screen captures, the shape of the house and the shape of the pool match those of the real residence perfectly!

Only the exterior of the Potrero Road home was featured in the production. Sadly, the beautiful interior of Jane’s house was a set that existed solely on a soundstage at Brooklyn’s Broadway Stages. Nancy Meyers was so meticulously involved in the creation of the interior of Jane’s residence, though, that she even went so far as to hand pick the books that were stored on the character’s bookshelves. She says, “I’m very particular about what’s sitting on a table. I’ll walk around the set, saying, ‘Would she really be reading this book?’” It is that attention to detail that makes the home appear so warm and inviting. Sigh!

UPDATE – The It’s Complicated house is currently for sale. You can check out a YouTube video of it here.

On a side note – fellow stalker David from Spain recently alerted me to the fact that the Gene Autry Museum in Griffith Park is currently hosting an exhibit featuring clothing that once belonged to the King of Pop. The exhibit is entitled “How The West Was Worn, by Michael Jackson” and displays such iconic pieces as the silver-plated shoes he wore to the White House in 1990 and the guitar-clasp belt he wore on the “Beat It” album cover in 1982 (pictured above). You can find out more information about the exhibit here. Special thanks to David for telling me about this event, which I will, of course, be stalking! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The It’s Complicated house is located at 714 West Potrero Road in Westlake Village. JMJ Ranch, from Win A Date With Tad Hamilton and The Back-Up Plan, is located at 930 West Potrero Road in Thousand Oaks, just a half a mile west of the It’s Complicated house.

September 17, 2010
The “E.T.” House

Although I consider myself somewhat of a master stalker (not as good as fellow stalkers Owen, Mike, from MovieshotsLA, or Chas, from ItsFilmedThere, of course), for whatever reason, up until this past weekend I had yet to visit one of the most famous movie locations of them all – the home where Mary (aka Dee Wallace), Elliot (aka Henry Thomas), Michael (aka Robert MacNaughton), and Gertie (aka Drew Barrymore) lived in the 1982 classic film E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial. I am not sure how, or even why, I avoided the location for as long as I did, but my best guess is that it is due to the fact that it is located in Tujunga, which is kind of out in the middle of nowhere, far from the areas I usually drag my husband out to stalk. In fact, up until this past Saturday afternoon, I had never actually set foot in the Crescenta Valley suburb, which is situated just north of Glendale and just east of Sunland. But, this weekend, while on our way home from doing some stalking in the Valley, a light bulb went off in my head and I asked my fiancé to take a little detour on the 210 Freeway so that I could finally, finally stalk the E.T. house.

It is absolutely amazing to me how iconic the E.T. home still is – almost thirty years after the movie was filmed! As the Grim Cheaper and I drove up the hill where the residence is located and the property came into view, we both immediately recognized not only the actual house, but the cul-de-sac and neighboring residences which surround it. Being that I haven’t seen E.T. in almost three decades (I only watched it once, when it first came out, and I became so hysterical when E.T. left Elliot that my parents had to drag me out of the auditorium kicking and screaming and I’ve never been able to re-watch it since), I find that to be absolutely amazing! The long, sloped driveway, the cul-de-sac, the mountains in the background – for better or for worse, those images of the house are indelibly engraved in my memories.

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Thankfully, the residence still looks extremely similar today to how it appeared back in 1982 when E.T. was filmed. The only real difference I noticed was the fact that the property is now dotted with large trees and shrubs, which wasn’t the case thirty years ago. At the time of the filming, the house was newly-built and therefore had very little foliage surrounding it. I cannot tell you how awesome it was for me to stalk a place I haven’t laid eyes on since 1982 and have it still look almost exactly the same now as it did then. Love it!

According to director McG’s DVD commentary, the house was also used in another Drew Barrymore flick – 2000’s Charlie’s Angels, as the residence where the character of Dylan Sanders falls after being shot by Eric Knox (aka Sam Rockwell). I find it incredibly cool that McG decided to shoot a scene at this location! Such a nice nod to the home’s iconic cinematic history.

The sliding glass door that Dylan knocks on in Charlie’s Angels can also be seen in several scenes in E.T.

For those who haven’t seen the above YouTube video, which chronicles most of E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial’s filming locations, you really need to check it out! The video, which was put together by fellow stalker/filmmaker Herve Attia, artfully morphs clips of the movie with footage of how the locations look today. It is simply amazing to watch!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The E.T. house is located at 7121 Lonzo Street in Tujunga.

September 16, 2010
Pickwick’s Pub from “The Office”

This past weekend, I dragged my husband (that is SO weird to say!) out to stalk Pickwick’s Pub – the Woodland Hills watering hole that stands in for the Dunder Mifflin gang’s favorite local hangout, Poor Richard’s Pub, on fave show The Office. And while there is actually a real life Poor Richard’s Pub located in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where the series is based, thankfully, both the interiors and exteriors which appear on the show can be found right here in Los Angeles, just about ten miles away from Chandler Valley Studios where the series is taped. I am ashamed to admit that I spent more than a few hours online trying to track down this locale and came up completely empty-handed. Thankfully though, fellow stalker Lavonna was also in on the hunt and managed to find this Poor Richard’s page on the Dunderpedia website, which led us to the right place. And while Poor Richard’s Pub is referred to almost weekly on The Office, Pickwick’s has actually only been used for filming twice.

Pickwick’s Pub has been a San Fernando Valley staple for over three and a half decades, ever since it first opened way back in 1974. The watering hole suffered a brief set-back in 2004 when it burned to the ground after a disgruntled customer set fire to the place. The rebuilding project took a full year to complete, but in 2005 the bar reopened and has been going strong ever since. And, let me tell you, the place is not your ordinary, everyday pub. The menu is quite extensive and features everything from traditional British fare such as bangers & mash and Irish beef stew to Indian delicacies like chicken curry and pork korma to such American favorites as chicken pot pie and homemade mac and cheese. There is also an extensive breakfast menu, which is available all day. And, let me tell you, the food was excellent! Our waitress was also extremely nice and answered all of my silly little questions about the filming of The Office. Unfortunately, she didn’t work at Pickwick’s at the time either of the episodes was filmed, so she didn’t have much insider information to share with me. 🙁 Pickwick’s is a super cute and cozy little place and seems to be mostly inhabited by regulars. It definitely has a hometown feel to it and is exactly the kind of place I picture Pam and Jim grabbing a drink after work. 🙂 Pickwick’s also features a trivia night every Wednesday starting at 8 p.m. and an 80’s acoustic band which plays live every Saturday night – both of which sound like an absolute blast! 🙂

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As I mentioned above, Pickwick’s Pub has appeared twice on The Office – first in the Season 3 episode titled “Cocktails”, in which Pam Beesly (aka Jenna Fischer), Roy Anderson (aka David Denman), Kelly Kapoor (aka Mindy Kaling), and the rest of the Dunder Mifflin crew cut out of work early in order to grab drinks together at their favorite local hangout. It is at Pickwick’s that Pam admits to Roy that she and Jim once kissed.

The mirror which Roy subsequently breaks in a fit of anger is, of course, not there in real life.

Neither is the Toy Chest game machine where Toby Flenderson (aka Paul Lieberstein) spends the evening trying to win Pam a duck.

The bar showed up again in the Season 4 episode titled “Local Ad”, in which the Dunder Mifflin gang gathers together to watch the airing of their recently-filmed local television commercial.

A picture of Steve Carell during the filming of that episode is even on display on the official Pickwick Pub website. So darn cool!

The exterior that is shown on The Office is actually Pickwick’s back entrance, which looks EXACTLY the same in person as it does on the show, except for the Poor Richard’s signage, of course. Love it!

Fellow stalker and Office aficionado Owen, who I am EXTREMELY jealous of!, recently made a stalking pilgrimage to Scranton, Pennsylvania where he got to visit the real life Poor Richard’s Pub, which in reality is located inside of a bowling alley. As Owen wrote when he emailed me the above pictures, “Does that carpet not scream bowling alley?!?!” LOL

Sadly, the bar was closed when Owen showed up to stalk it, but as you can see in the above photograph, which I got off of the Poor Richard’s website, the place does bear a striking resemblance to Pickwick’s. Both bars have a very British/Tudor-style look to them and both also appear to display Christmas lights year-round.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Lavonna for finding this location and to fellow stalker Owen for loaning me his photographs of the real Poor Richard’s Pub to display in this post! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Pickwick’s Pub from The Office is located at 21010 Ventura Boulevard in Woodland Hills. You can visit the bar’s official website here. The real Poor Richard’s Pub is located in Scranton, Pennsylvania at 125 Beech Street, inside of South Side Bowl. You can visit the official Poor Richard’s website here.

September 15, 2010
Griffith Observatory

A couple of months ago I dragged my parents and my then-fiancé/now husband out to Los Feliz to do some stalking of the Griffith Observatory in Griffith Park – a place which I had never before visited despite having lived in Los Angeles for over a decade. I had actually wanted to stalk the Observatory for close to 18 years – ever since November of 1992, to be exact – thanks to the fact that it was featured in a Season 3 episode of fave show Beverly Hills, 90210. But more on that later.

The land that now encompasses Griffith Park was donated to the City of Los Angeles by Welsh industrialist Colonel Griffith J. Griffith (and no, that was not a typo – the guy’s first name was actually the same as his last!) on December 16, 1896. Griffith stipulated that the donated parcel of land, which measured 3,015 acres, was to be used as a public park. He said, “It must be made a place of rest and relaxation for the masses, a resort for the rank and file, for the plain people. I consider it my obligation to make Los Angeles a happy, cleaner, and finer city. I wish to pay my debt of duty in this way to the community in which I have prospered.” When Griffith passed away 26 years later, in 1919, he bequeathed the majority of his $1.5 million estate to the city for the purposes of building a theatre and an observatory inside of the park. Construction on the observatory, which was designed by architect John C. Austin and engineer Russell W. Porter, began on June 20th, 1933 and the building opened to the public just under two years later, on May 14, 1935.

The Griffith Observatory, which sits high atop Mount Hollywood, features a 300-seat state-of-the-art planetarium, a 2,700-square foot multimedia theatre, a Zeiss refracting telescope, an exhibit hall, and, as you can see above, views which are nothing short of incredible.

Hollywood location scouts took notice of the property right from the very beginning when it was chosen to appear in the 1935 movie The Phantom Empire shortly after its opening. Since that time, the Observatory has been featured in hundreds upon hundreds of productions – far too many for me to be able to properly catalog here, but I’ll do my best to give my fellow stalkers a broad overview.

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As I mentioned above, the Observatory was featured in a Season 3 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210. That episode was titled “Rebel With A Cause” and it was, ironically enough, one of my least favorite episodes in the entire history of the series. The episode centers around the break-up of longtime couple Dylan McKay (aka Luke Perry) and Brenda Walsh (aka my girl Shannen Doherty), immediately after which Dylan puts the moves on Brenda’s best friend Kelly Taylor (aka Jennie Garth). Mind you, Dylan and Kelly had also been seeing each other behind Brenda’s back for an entire summer at that point in the series. Dylan then decides to take Kelly out on a date – just two nights after his break-up with Brenda! – and when Brenda randomly catches the two of them together in a restaurant, she calls Kelly a “bimbo” and Kelly actually has the nerve to be mad at Brenda. I mean, HELLO, Kelly! Not only did you spend an entire summer making out with your BEST FRIEND’S boyfriend, but when said best friend and said boyfriend break-up, it’s not 48 hours later that you are out on a date with him. With friends like that, who needs enemies?? Let me tell you, had that happened to me, I would have been calling Kelly a whole lot worse things than “bimbo”. And yes, I realize Beverly Hills, 90210 is just a television show and that the “Rebel With A Cause” episode aired almost two decades ago, but the whole thing still seriously upsets me! But I digress. Anyway, in the episode, before taking her out to dinner, Dylan brings Kelly to the Griffith Observatory, where they watch a show in the planetarium.

After the show, the two little home-wreckers head outside for a heart-to-heart chat and, even though I was strongly opposed to the whole Kelly/Dylan romance, for whatever reason, it was the location of that chat that I was most interested in stalking.

I had a very difficult time locating the wall where Dylan and Kelly sat, though, as it is not in an easily-visible part of the building. It actually wasn’t until we were heading back to our car that I finally spotted the right place.

As it turns out, Kelly and Dylan’s wall is located in the eastern-most section of the Observatory. It is actually the wall to a ramp which leads to the back of the building and is located on the left-hand side of the Observatory (as you are facing it) and is denoted with a pink arrow in the above aerial view.

The Observatory’s most famous onscreen appearance was, of course, in the 1955 James Dean classic Rebel Without a Cause, which, amazingly enough, I have never actually seen! In the beginning of the flick, Jim (aka James Dean) and Judy (aka Natalie Wood), along with the rest of their high school class, go on a field trip to the Observatory where they watch a show in the planetarium.

And the very same wall from 90210 also appears in that scene.

Rebel’s final scene also takes place at the Observatory, but I do not want to post any screen caps of that scene as they would spoil the ending.

There is a statue of James Dean on display on the Observatory’s front lawn which commemorates the historic filming that took place there in 1955. So darn cool!

Griffith Observatory was also the site of the climatic scene in 1999’s hilarious comedy Bowfinger, in which renegade, wanna-be movie director Bowfinger (aka Steve Martin) and his ragamuffin film crew secretly tape Daisy (aka Heather Graham) and Kit Ramsey (aka Eddie Murphy) fighting off a fictitious band of aliens.

In the first Transformers movie, Mikaela Banes (aka Megan Fox) and Sam Witwicky (aka Shia LaBeouf) are at the Observatory when they witness a group of Transformers crash landing on earth in the form of meteorites.

In The Terminator, the Observatory is the spot where the Terminator (aka Arnold Schwarzenegger) first emerges from a time warp and begins his mission to kill Sarah Conner (aka Linda Hamilton).

In 2008’s Yes Man, the Observatory is the location of Allison’s (aka Zooey Deschanel’s) weekly jogging/photo class, during which Carl (aka Jim Carrey) crashes after drinking waaaaaaay too many Red Bull energy drinks.

It is also where Carl professes his love to Allison at the very end of the movie.

And it is during that ending scene that Carl and Allison run right by the exact spot where Beverly Hills, 90210 was filmed 16 years beforehand. 🙂

The scene in which Natalie Cook (aka Cameron Diaz), Dylan Sanders (aka Drew Barrymore) and Alex Munday (aka Lucy Liu) discover that Madison Lee (aka Demi Moore) is actually a fallen angel in Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle takes place at the Observatory.

The observatory was also featured in the music video for Paula Abdul’s hit single “Rush Rush”, which was an homage to the movie Rebel Without a Cause.

You can watch the full video, which starred Keanu Reeves, by clicking above.

Griffith Observatory has also appeared in the movies Dragnet, Devil in a Blue Dress, The Rocketeer, House on Haunted Hill, Nancy Drew, and Earth Girls are Easy, and in episodes of NCIS: Los Angeles, 24, Star Trek Voyager, Alias, MacGyver, Melrose Place, Angel, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and The Colbys.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Griffith Observatory is located at 2800 East Observatory Road, inside of Griffith Park, in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles. You can visit the observatory’s official website here. Admission is free. The observatory is closed to the public on Mondays and Tuesdays.

September 14, 2010
The “10 Things I Hate About You” House

As I was going through my stalking archives today, I realized that there are countless Seattle-area locations that I stalked during my recent trip up to the Pacific Northwest that I still have yet to blog about. I figure it’s better to be late than never, though, right? One of the locations was the house where the Stratford family – sisters Kat (aka Julia Stiles) and Bianca (aka Larisa Oleynik) and their father, Walter (aka Larry Miller) – lived in the movie 10 Things I Hate About You. I found this location, as usual, thanks to fellow stalker Owen who somehow managed to track down a whole slew of locales from the 1999 romantic comedy, which was billed as a modern adaptation of the William Shakespeare classic Taming of the Shrew. Ironically enough, I didn’t remember liking the movie all that much when I first saw it in theatres a little over a decade ago, but after Owen emailed me the list of the flick’s many filming locales, I decided to give it a re-watch and ended up really enjoying it. And my favorite part about it was, of course, the Stratford’s beautiful Victorian-style home.

The 10 Things I Hate About You house is actually even more gorgeous in person than it appeared in the movie, if that is at all possible. Part of what makes the residence so magnificent is its setting. The home is situated high up on a large, corner lot of a grassy, little knoll overlooking the clear blue waters of Puget Sound.



We were lucky enough to visit the residence during the one very brief moment of sunshine we experienced while in Seattle and the blue skies coupled with the blue of the water made for a striking view. In fact, the setting was so incredibly picturesque it didn’t seem real. I definitely felt as if I was standing right in the middle of a movie set. So, it is not at all hard to see why filmmakers chose the property to be featured in the flick. Ironically enough, though, 10 Things wasn’t the first time Hollywood location scouts came a’knockin’ on the home’s front door. According to an article which appeared in the May 31, 1998 edition of Seattle-Tacoma’s local News Tribune newspaper (which I can’t link to because there is a fee to access it), William and Joan McGovern, the owners of the 10 Things house, were approached by location scouts in 1991 about their residence being used as the main home in The Hand That Rocks The Cradle. The McGoverns ultimately turned down the proposal after finding out that filmmakers wanted to cut holes in several interior walls, paint over some of their interior woodwork, and move out all of their furniture and other personal effects. But when 10 Things producers scouted the house seven years later, in May of 1998, they told the McGoverns that they wanted to use the premises exactly as-is. The couple agreed and filming began a few weeks later on June 9, 1998.   The shoot lasted a mere eight days before moving on to nearby Stadium High School, which I also stalked and will be blogging about in the coming weeks.

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The 10 Things house, which was originally built in 1906 and boasts 5 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and 4,330 square feet of living space, was used quite extensively in 10 Things I Hate About You. The exterior appeared numerous times;

as did the property’s real life interior along with the homeowners’ actual furniture.

The back balcony . . .



. . . and the front porch area were also used in the flick.

The house is absolutely beautiful in person and I honestly can’t recommend stalking it enough. Even if you weren’t a fan of the movie, the residence is worth a drive-by.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The 10 Things I Hate About You house is located at 2715 North Junett Street, at the corner of 28th Street, in Tacoma, Washington.

September 13, 2010
Pueblo Bonito Pacifica Holistic Resort & Spa

During our recent Cabo San Lucas honeymoon, the Grim Cheaper and I stayed at the Pueblo Bonito Pacifica Holistic Resort & Spa. And while I knew from looking at the property’s website that it was a beautiful place, at the time I made our reservation I had absolutely NO idea that it was also a celebrity destination AND a filming location! They say that you attract those things to you that you think about the most, and in this case, that was most definitely true!   But more on that later.

Before arriving in Cabo, I was a little apprehensive that it might be a somewhat dangerous place. As it turns out, though, I don’t think I’ve ever felt more safe. The city is beautiful, the people are some of the friendliest I’ve ever encountered, and the Cabo way of life is extremely laidback. And while people generally refer to the entire area as being called Cabo San Lucas, it is actually known as Los Cabos and is made up of three different sections which span the southern tip of the Baja Peninsula. The sections include San Jose Del Cabo, The Corridor, and Cabo San Lucas. Long before I had planned our honeymoon, I had heard Jennifer Aniston and Jennifer Love Hewitt describe Cabo as a “sleepy, little fishing town”. As it turns out, though, Jen and Love were not speaking about Cabo San Lucas proper, which is a major party city, but rather about San Jose Del Cabo, which is located about fifteen miles north. Most celebrities choose to stay in one of the many five-star resorts located along The Corridor, the most popular of which are the Esperanza, the One&Only Palmilla, and Las Ventanas Al Paraiso. Because The Corridor hotels are exorbitantly expensive, though, the Grim Cheaper and I chose instead to stay at a resort in Cabo San Lucas, but thankfully it was far removed from the whole party scene.

The 154-room Pueblo Bonito Pacifica Holistic Resort & Spa first opened in 2005 and is located inside of a gated community about five miles north of town. Thanks to the hotel’s strict adults-only policy and its remote location, it is an EXTREMELY quiet destination and has been billed as one of Cabo’s most romantic locales. And let me tell you, the GC and I absolutely LOVED the place. The resort is so quiet that we often looked around and asked ourselves if we were the only two people staying there. It was without a doubt the most relaxing, quiet vacation I have ever been on. In fact, outside of wanting to do a little stalking, neither of us found any reason whatsoever to leave the resort during our entire nine day stay. It was the perfect place to spend our honeymoon and, because it is so reasonably priced, we are already making plans for a return visit. 🙂

Upon first arriving at the resort, the Grim Cheaper and I were greeted with cool, wet towels infused with lavender oil with which to wash our hands.

The lobby, which overlooks the ocean, was also infused with a lavender scent, which made the experience of entering the hotel seem like walking into a spa. Love it!

The Pacifica features two pools, both of which overlook the ocean . . .

. . . and one of which features a swim-up bar.

The property is situated on a beautiful, private beach . . .



. . . where outdoor beds can be rented during the day and for overnight stays. The beds can also be rented for an ultra-romantic dinner under the stars, which we unfortunately didn’t find out about until the very last night we were there. Ugh! I so would have loved to have done that!

Our room was absolutely beautiful . . .

. . . and featured a private balcony . . .

. . . with a stunning view of the ocean and pool area.

And at night the view only got more spectacular. Sigh! Oh, how I wish I was still there!

The Pacifica features four different restaurants and bars, all of which serve up SEPCTACULAR food – especially the nachos, which were some of the best I’ve ever had in my entire life. In fact, I’d book a stay at the hotel just for those nachos – that’s how good they were. Best of all, the Pacifica also offers 24-hour room service, which the Grim Cheaper and I partook of virtually every single night.

Because the resort is so remote and so private, numerous celebrities have checked in there over the years, including John Travolta and Kelly Preston, Lindsay Lohan, Cindy Crawford, Dolph Lundgren, and a bunch of sports stars, including a few Olympic gold medal winners, whose names I didn’t recognize. And, let me tell you, I just about died when I found out that my girl Jen had once visited the hotel’s spa! My Spanish isn’t all that great, so when I was speaking to the woman at the spa, I originally thought she said that Jen had stayed at the hotel on one occasion, but after talking with the concierge it turns out that Jen was only on the premises for a spa appointment. It was still very exciting for me, nonetheless.

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Even more exciting, though, was when one of the Pacifica’s bartenders informed me that all three fantasy dates from Brad Womack’s season of The Bachelor had been filmed at the resort. In the fantasy date episode, which aired on November 5, 2007, Brad flew his top three Bachelorettes – DeAnna Pappas, Jenni Croft, and Bettina Bell – down to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. And not only were all three overnight stays filmed at the resort, but according to this press release, the entire cast and crew also stayed on the premises. ABC.com even sponsored a Bachelor contest, where viewers at home could win their own 4-day, 3-night fantasy vacation at the Pacifica. Sadly, Season 11 of The Bachelor does not seem to be available for purchase anywhere and because I didn’t watch the show that year, I am not sure which parts of the resort were featured in the fantasy date episode.   I was able to find the above clip of DeAnna Pappas’ date on YouTube, in which one of the resort’s timeshare villas, named the Montecristo Estates, is briefly shown.



As you can see in the above pictures, which I got off of the Montecristo Estates Website, the entrance, bedroom, and private pool terrace are exact matches to the fantasy suite where DeAnna and Brad spent the night.

Supposedly, the hotel’s main restaurant, Siempre, also appeared on The Bachelor.

I honestly can’t recommend stalking the Pueblo Bonito Pacifica Holistic Resort & Spa enough! My honeymoon was truly one of the best vacations of my life!

On a side note – For those who are planning a trip to the Cabo area, rest assured – the city does have a Starbucks. 🙂

And it looks pretty much like any other Starbucks one might find in America . . .

. . . except that the menu is, of course, in Spanish. So darn cool!

When I asked the baristas to pose for the above photograph, they wrongly assumed that I had never before been to a Starbucks, which prompted them to ask, “Don’t you have a Starbucks where you come from?” LOL LOL LOL Oh, if they only knew!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Pueblo Bonito Pacifica Holistic Resort & Spa is located at Cabo Pacifica S/N, 23450 Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. You can visit the hotel’s official website here. The resort is located inside of a gated community and I believe you have to have a dining reservation at one of the Pacifica’s restaurants or at one of the restaurants located inside of its sister hotel, Pueblo Bonito Sunset Beach Resort & Spa, to be admitted entrance.

September 10, 2010