Tag: famous places

Kurt Cobain’s Former House

While visiting the Pacific Northwest this past May, my good friend and fellow stalker Kerry took me to stalk a location that, at first, I actually wasn’t all that interested in seeing – the Seattle-area home where Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain passed away on April 5, 1994. I’d never really been into Kurt Cobain or Nirvana or the Grunge Movement as a whole – let’s face it, if it’s not sung by Britney Spears, Michael Jackson, or Michael Buble, I probably haven’t heard it 😉 – which is why seeing the Cobain home wasn’t really one of my top priorities while visiting Seattle. But I am so, so thankful that Kerry took me there, as Kurt’s former residence is an ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL place. In fact, I’d even go so far as to say that it is one of my favorite places that I’ve ever stalked . . . ever! And that has nothing to do with the fact that Kurt Cobain once lived there, but is simply because the property is just that spectacular. I can’t even put into words my feelings about the place – it is just extraordinarily serene, quiet, and stunningly beautiful. In fact, the property is so peaceful that it is extremely hard to imagine someone like Courtney Love ever living there.

The Cobains first purchased the three-story, five bedroom, 7,808 square foot Cape Cod-style home, which was built in 1902 and is located in Seattle’s upscale Denny-Blaine neighborhood, in January of 1994 for $1.13 million. At the time, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz lived next door. Less than four months later, on April 8, 1994, Kurt’s lifeless body was discovered by an electrician in the greenhouse located above the property’s garage. The Nirvana singer was dead at the age of 27 from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. The coroner later estimated that Kurt had most likely died three days earlier, on April 5. And while reports continually say that Kurt passed away in a “greenhouse”, I believe the space was actually more of a spare room or a gardener’s shed than it was an actual greenhouse.   Sadly, Courtney had the entire garage and the room above it razed in 1996 after growing annoyed at the many stalkers who came by to take pictures of it. She later said that the garage had become “bigger than the Space Needle”. You can see a picture of what it used to look like here. Courtney ended up selling the home in 1997 to a non-celebrity couple and, along with daughter Frances Bean, relocated to Beverly Hills. According to the Cellar Door Blog, Courtney put a clause in the home’s sale documents stating that she would be allowed to remove a certain willow tree from the property at any future point in time should she so choose. Supposedly, some of Kurt’s ashes were spread at the foot of that tree, but it is unclear whether or not she ever returned to remove it.

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My favorite part about Kurt’s former home, and what I think makes the property so special, is the fact that it borders the absolutely gorgeous Viretta Park. In 1901, the 1.8 acre park was donated to the city by C.L. Denny, son of Seattle founder Arthur Denny, who named the space in honor of his wife, Viretta Jackson Denny. Supposedly, Kurt liked to walk the park grounds during the brief four months he lived next door and it’s not very hard to see why. The park has an incredibly calming affect – and that’s coming from someone who, admittedly, is a major Type A personality! 😉 I honestly can’t say enough about the place. The grounds are small and intimate, the foliage is lush and green, and the deep blue waters of Lake Washington are visible just across the road.   It’s truly breathtaking.

Since Cobain’s death, the park has become a sort of unofficial memorial to the late singer, with messages scrawled to him on benches and trees. And while I normally wouldn’t like that sort of thing at all, in this case, for whatever reason, it seems to fit.

My fiancé was very proud of the above photograph which he took while we were there as he managed to get both the bench and Kurt’s former house in the frame.

When I got home from Seattle, I immediately purchased Ian Halperin’s controversial book Love & Death: The Murder of Kurt Cobain, which I had seen in a bookstore a few years before, but had never had any particular interest in reading. Until I visited his house, that is, at which point I remembered the book and knew that I just had to buy it. And I must say that it was FABULOUS! I literally could NOT put it down. I highly recommend it to everyone, whether you were a fan of Nirvana or not. I recently loaned the book to my friend Nat and she, too, said she could NOT put it down.

In an ironic side note – While Kurt’s former home is located at 171 Lake Washington Boulevard East, we mistakenly first stalked the property located at 171 Lake Washington Boulevard West. Apparently, we weren’t the only ones to ever make this mistake, either, because the owner of the property at 171 West has a sign in his front yard which points stalkers in the direction of the correct location. Love it!

Big THANK YOU to Kerry for taking me to this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Kurt Cobain’s former house is located at 171 Lake Washington Boulevard East in the Denny-Blaine district of Seattle. Howard Schultz’s former home is located next door at 120 39th Avenue East.

July 26, 2010
24/7 Restaurant from Glamour Magazine’s “Glee Gets Glam” Photo Shoot

One location that I have been ABSOLUTELY DYING to stalk for what seems like forever now is the diner-style restaurant where the girls from Glee – Lea Michele, Dianna Agron, Amber Riley, and Jenna Ushkowitz – posed for the May 2010 Glamour Magazine “Glee Gets Glam” photo shoot. After months of searching for it, though, and having absolutely no luck whatsoever, I had become convinced that the shoot had taken place on a studio set somewhere in Hollywood and not at an actual restaurant. And then last Sunday night fate stepped in and, as so often happens with stalking, I ended up stumbling upon images of the Glee diner while searching for another location altogether. Maddeningly enough, as it turns out, the Glee girls were photographed at a locale that I have not only been to several times, but one that I’ve actually blogged about before – the Standard, Downtown L.A. Hotel. I have a pretty valid excuse at to why I didn’t recognize the place immediately when I first read the magazine, though – the girls were actually photographed inside the hotel’s 24/7 Restaurant, a place which I had never before visited. So, I of course, dragged the Grim Cheaper right out to stalk it this past weekend! 🙂

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And the place did not disappoint! I honestly cannot say enough good things about 24/7! The restaurant’s hipster decor is a definite throwback to the 1950s and is unlike anything else I’ve ever seen in L.A. Apparently photo shoots and filming take place on the premises all the time and it’s not very hard to see why – the diner is bright and funky and completely unique. And the food is INCREDIBLE! As I’ve mentioned before, I am an EXTREMELY picky eater, especially when it comes to chicken, but, let me tell you, I ate up every last bite of my 24/7 Cobb salad. It was AMAZING! And the prices are extremely reasonable, as well, which pleased the Grim Cheaper to no end. To top it all off, the staff was also incredibly friendly and let me take all of the photographs of the place that I wanted. Yay! 🙂

Lea Michele and Amber Riley’s “Glee Gets Glam” photograph was taken in the center booth located just to the right of the restaurant’s lobby entrance.

Dianna Agron and Jenna Ushkowitz posed for their photograph in front of the windows which face 24/7’s patio area.

And, as you can see in this picture, the photograph of all four girls playing around in a bathtub was shot in one of the Standard’s hotel rooms.

And, much to the Grim Cheaper’s dismay, I just HAD to recreate Lea Michele’s pose from the issue’s contents page while I was there. I so wish I could have also been wearing her Marchesa dress while doing so, but unfortunately I didn’t have an extra $6,600 lying around! 😉 Sigh.

I honestly cannot recommend stalking the 24/7 Restaurant enough. For lack of a better word, it is just simply a cool, cool place to grab a bite to eat. 🙂 Note – The magazine images which appear in this post do not belong to me, but remain the property of Glamour Magazine and photographer Peggy Sirota (who also shot these fabulous Jen Aniston pictures for GQ Magazine).

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The 24/7 Restaurant can be found inside the Standard, Downtown L.A. Hotel, which is located at 550 South Flower Street. As the name implies, the restaurant is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You can visit the official 24/7 website here.

July 21, 2010
The Very First Starbucks Store

While this probably goes without saying, the location that I was most excited about stalking while vacationing in Seattle this past May was the very first Starbucks store at Pike Place Market. As I’ve mentioned countless times in the past – and as anyone who knows me even slightly well can attest to – I am an absolute Starbucks fiend! I visit my local branch at least twice a day and am on first name basis with all of the baristas who work there. Heck, some of them even read my blog! 🙂 So, when it was decided that the Grim Cheaper and I would be taking a mini-vacay to the Pacific Northwest to do some stalking and visit with our friends Kerry and Jim, I let it be known right away that there was absolutely no way I was leaving town without seeing the very first Starbucks store in person. And, let me tell you, I could NOT have been more excited about it. On the morning we were scheduled to stalk the store, my fiancé woke me and said, “Are you ready to visit your Mecca? Be sure to bring along a prayer rug or something so that you can pay your respects while there.” 😉 All joking aside, though, it really was a very special pilgrimage for me as I had always promised myself that one day I would get to Seattle so that I could stalk the store that started it all.

In the interest of integrity, though, I should mention here that the store which actually started it all is no longer standing and that the Pike Place Starbucks, which is generally touted as being the company’s first location, was actually the chain’s fourth. Confused? I’ll see if I can break it down. A couple of years ago I read a FASCINATING book by Taylor Clark called Starbucked: A Double Tall Tale of Caffeine, Commerce, and Culture. Besides sharing interesting tidbits, like the fact that “coffee is the second-most-traded physical commodity in the world” (oil being the first), the book chronicles the long and storied history of the now-ubiquitous coffee giant. The first Starbucks outlet was actually opened by three men – history teacher Zev Siegl, Boeing programmer Jerry Baldwin, and writer Gordon Bowker – on March 29, 1971 in Downtown Seattle’s Harbor Heights building, which used to be located at 2000 Western Avenue. And while the store did offer free drip coffee samples, the place was not actually a cafe, but a walk-up wholesale coffee bean vendor. There were no espresso machines, no comfy couches on which to linger, no pastries or desserts on offer in glass cases, and no music playing on the stereo. But even without all the extras, Starbucks was a success. By the time the owners of the Harbor Heights building decided to raze the property in 1974 (the building that currently stands on that site is pictured above), Starbucks had already opened two additional sister stores.

With their current location facing demolition, the original Starbucks store moved a few doors down to 1912 Pike Place (pictured above), making the first store the company’s fourth. I know, I know, it’s confusing. “Starbucked” author Clark explains it best: “The rundown building that once housed the first store was knocked down in 1974, so they built a new one a couple of blocks away, right across from the public market. But in the meantime, the three founders had opened new stores near the University of Washington and on Capital Hill in 1972 and 1973 – making what’s now called the “original” the fourth store by chronology.” Ironic, huh? Crazier still is the fact that Starbucks mega-mogul Howard Schultz didn’t come into the picture until 1981. He was working as a housewares salesman in New York at the time and had noticed that one of his customers, a tiny coffee chain in Seattle, was selling more of a certain kind of drip coffeemaker than Macy’s! He flew out to the Pacific Northwest to learn more about the then-unknown coffee company and was immediately taken with it. A year later, he left Manhattan and moved to Seattle in order to go to work for the small chain. The rest, as they say, is history.

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It’s amazing to think that a chain that currently boasts 17,743 different stores in more than 50 countries (there’s even a branch on the Great Wall of China! – not kidding!) started out as one tiny, little storefront in Seattle. Thankfully, that storefront has been left largely unaltered over the past 36 years and looks pretty much exactly like it did back in 1974 when it first opened. As Clark points out in his book, though, with its plank-wood flooring and weathered wooden countertops, the store more closely resembles a Peet’s Coffee shop than it does a Starbucks. There’s a reason for that, though. Dutch coffee roaster Alfred Peet, founder of Peet’s Coffee Company, actually helped Siegl, Baldwin, and Bowker get started in the business, and they modeled their first location after the original Peet’s store in Berkeley, California. I cannot even express how happy I am that the original store has been left untouched and was not remodeled to fit the cookie-cutter Starbucks mold over the years.

The Pike Place Starbucks also continues to use the chain’s original logo – that of a split-tailed mermaid with bared breasts, encircled by the words “Starbucks – Coffee, Tea, Spices” – an image which was deemed too risqué when the company went corporate.

To commemorate the store’s historical significance, there is also a brass post which reads “First Starbucks Store, Established 1971” on display at the front entrance. Love it! I wish they had a post like this on display at movie locations, as well!

And there’s even a map on the wall of all of the Starbucks locations worldwide.

But besides being the most unique-looking of all of the Starbucks stores, the Pike Place location is also the only one in North America which still hand-pulls its espresso shots, making for a more authentic coffee experience. (The other stores switched to automated espresso machines a few years back.) The Grim Cheaper was especially enthralled with watching the baristas craft the espresso by hand and took countless photographs of them. All of the baristas were also extremely friendly and knowledgeable about Starbucks – and coffee in general – which I absolutely LOVED. It was fascinating to speak with them about the history of the store and the company.

I absolutely cannot tell you how cool it was to be standing there ordering an iced latte at the very Starbucks store which started it all – definitely a moment I will never forget! And I have to say that even though the place was jam-packed with people, my drink was made in record time! I honestly cannot recommend stalking the first Starbucks enough! For those who don’t want to wade through the hordes of stalkers there, though, there is – of course – another Starbucks store located just around the corner from this one. 😉

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The first Starbucks store is located at 1912 Pike Place in Seattle. The location of the former Harbor Heights building, which housed the very first Starbucks store but has long since been torn down, can be found at 2000 Western Avenue.

July 20, 2010
The Moonlight Mile Bar from “Beautiful Girls”

While going through my trusty stalking notebook this morning, I realized that I still have quite the backlog of Minnesota filming locations that I have yet to blog about. Not to mention the slew of Seattle locales that I haven’t even yet begun to post! I’m going to mix them all in with L.A. area locations over the next few weeks so that my fellow stalkers don’t get bored reading about the same city over and over again. But for today I thought I’d write about Minneapolis’ Nomad World Pub, the watering hole which stood in for the supposed Knight’s Ridge-area “Moonlight Mile” bar where Paul Kirkwood (aka Michael Rapaport) took Andera Womack (aka Uma Thurman) on a date in fave move Beautiful Girls. At the time, the bar was known as the 5 Corners Saloon, but ownership changed hands back in December of 2004 and so did the name. I found this location, once again, thanks to fellow stalker Owen and his highly-coveted Beautiful Girls master locations list! So, I, of course, just had to drag my parents out to stalk the place while we were in Minnesota this past May.

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In Beautiful Girls, Paul cooks up a ruse to bring “the lovely Andera” out on on a date at the Moonlight Mile bar for the sole purpose of making his ex-girlfriend Jan (aka Martha Plimpton), who hangs out there regularly, jealous. And I am very happy to report that even though ownership of the establishment has changed and over fourteen years have passed since Beautiful Girls was filmed, the interior of the Nomad still looks much the same as it did in the movie. YAY!

And, as it was portrayed in the flick, Nomad World Pub is actually a live-music venue.

Sadly though, the set of booths where Paul and Andera sat in Beautiful Girls, which used to run along the pub’s north side, have long since been removed. 🙁 I was seriously disappointed once I realized that as I had so wanted to sit in the exact spot where Michael Rapaport and Uma Thurman sat in the scene. UGH! Have I mentioned before how much I dislike change?? 😉

Even though little has been altered since Nomad World Pub took over ownership of the property, the former 5 Corners Saloon is apparently well-missed. There is even a Facebook page named “Remember the 5 Corners Saloon” that has been set up in honor of the historic former bar. So darn cool! You can see photographs of how the place used to look here.

For whatever reason, a different location entirely – a place known as Rich’s Health Shop in Stillwater, Minnesota – stood in for the Moonlight Mile’s exterior in Beautiful Girls. Sadly though, that building was torn down several years ago to make room for a new loft development, so I did not get to stalk it. And as you can see in the above photograph and screen capture, it beared little resemblance to the 5 Corners Saloon’s actual exterior.

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Nomad World Pub, aka the Moonlight Mile bar from Beautiful Girls, is located at 501 Cedar Avenue South in Minneapolis, Minnesota. You can visit the pub’s official website here. Rich’s Health Shop, which was used as the exterior of the Moonlight Mile bar and has since been torn down, was located at 304 Main Street North in Stillwater, Minnesota.

July 19, 2010
The Santa Barbara County Courthouse from “It’s Complicated”

Two weekends ago, my fiancé and I headed up to Santa Barbara to spend the Fourth of July holiday with some friends. And just minutes before we left, fellow stalker Kerry texted me to let me know that the 2009 romantic comedy It’s Complicated had been filmed in the area, just in case I wanted to do some stalking while I was there. Well, let me tell you, I just about died upon hearing that and even though I had yet to see the movie, I spent the entire ninety minute drive up to Santa Barbara researching It’s Complicated filming locations on my blackberry so that we could stalk them as soon as we arrived. As it turns out, though, not all is at it seems, for while the movie was set in Santa Barbara, very little of it was actually filmed there. Oddly enough, over ninety percent of the flick was lensed in New York of all places! I was absolutely shocked when I heard that as I honestly can’t think of a place that is more diametrically opposed to Santa Barbara than New York City, aesthetically speaking at least. Anyway, one of the main Santa Barbara locations featured in the movie was the historic county courthouse, so I dragged my fiancé right over there pretty much immediately after we checked into our hotel.

And I have to say that I just about died when I saw the place as it is absolutely GORGEOUS! I’ve actually been to Santa Barbara countless times in the past as it is one of my family’s favorite vacation spots, but for some reason I had yet to ever visit the courthouse. So, I am extremely grateful to It’s Complicated, because otherwise I might never have seen the place and it is definitely a must-see Santa Barbara attraction! 🙂 The Santa Barbara Courthouse was first dedicated on August 14, 1929 and was designed by William Mooser III. It was built after the great 1925 earthquake completely leveled the county’s original courthouse. Apparently, that first courthouse had been designed in the Greek Revival-style, which is mind-boggling to me as pretty much all of Santa Barbara is either Spanish or Moorish in design. According to the National Historic Landmarks Program, the courthouse which now stands was the catalyst for the Spanish architecture that now dominates the area, so it is amazing to think about how architecturally different the city would have been had that first courthouse not been destroyed! I can’t even imagine it!

Inside, the building looks much more like a museum than it does an actual working courthouse. In fact, when we first walked in, I was convinced that the property was no longer in use, but it actually still is! Can you even imagine serving jury duty in a place that looks like that??? Would make for a much more enjoyable experience than serving at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in Downtown L.A., I can tell you that! 😉 The Santa Barbara County Courthouse features vast archways and long sweeping hallways,

intricate tiling with wrought-iron detailing,

elaborately painted ceilings,

and a HUGE sunken garden.

I was most taken with the property’s historic detailing, though, like its old-school “Quiet, court is in session” signs,

wooden telephone booths,

and colorfully-painted court directory signs. LOVE IT!

The courthouse also features an 85-foot tall clock tower which is accessible to the public. The tower formerly housed the solitary confinement chamber of the now-defunct jailhouse which used to be located on the premises. It now offers visitors unsurpassed 360-degree views of the city and Pacific Ocean beyond. My fiancé and I almost neglected to visit the tower as we were feeling a bit lazy due to the heat and let me tell you what a mistake that would have been! Take my advice – no stalk of the courthouse can be considered complete without a climb up to that tower!!! The views are simply breathtaking!

The Santa Barbara County Courthouse is actually only featured very briefly in It’s Complicated, in a scene in which Jane Adler (aka Meryl Streep) is shown shopping at a local farmers’ market while making a phone call to her ex-husband, Jake Adler (aka Alec Baldwin). And when I say very briefly, I mean VERY briefly – the scene only lasted a scant 17 seconds. Not kidding! It is amazing to me that producers not only rented out the entire Santa Barbara County Courthouse, but also set up an elaborate set and hired a few dozen extras to film a scene that took up less than twenty seconds of film! I mean, couldn’t Jane have made that phone call to her ex-husband from anywhere? Did they really need to create the whole farmers’ market scenario? But I digress. Anyway, the It’s Complicated scene was filmed in the sunken garden area of the courthouse which, unfortunately, does not actually host farmers’ markets in real life.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Santa Barbara County Courthouse is located at 1100 Anacapa Street in Santa Barbara. You can visit the Courthouse’s official website here.

July 15, 2010
The Tam O’Shanter Inn from “Glee”

A couple of weeks ago I dragged my fiancé out to stalk the Tam O’Shanter Inn which appeared in the Season 1 episode of Glee titled “Dream On”. I found this location thanks to an eagle-eyed stalker who recognized the restaurant immediately while watching the episode back in May. And even though I no longer consider myself a “Gleek” (gasp!), I just could not resist stalking the place. And yes, you read that right – I am no longer a huge fan of Glee. In fact, I can’t even really say that I like the series at all anymore, let alone love it like I used to. In my never-to-be-humble opinion, the show has gone WAY downhill ever since it returned from its four month hiatus this past April. I don’t know if it’s due to the fact that it became such a humongous hit in such a short period of time or if the writers just simply got lazy, but somewhere along the way the show lost its heart. It’s become more about the music and less about the characters that I grew to love so deeply in the first part of the season. While the series used to be over-the-top and fun, in recent months it’s become ridiculous and largely unbelievable – Kurt and Mercedes joining the cheerios, Olivia Newton-John asking Sue Sylvester to star in a re-make of her “Physical” video, and Shelby Corcoran – the coach of Vocal Adrenaline – adopting Quinn and Puck’s baby???? Like, huh??? I could go on and on and on. Not to mention the fact that Mr. Shue, who was in my eyes the real heart of the show, has become a complete and total jerk – i.e. cheating on Emma, pretending to be in love with Sue Sylvester (I don’t even know what to say about that one!), and hooking up with his arch-enemy and head of the rival Glee club, Shelby Corcoran. Sigh. The whole thing makes my head hurt. Although I did love it when all of the kids were calling him “Man Whore” in the “Bad Reputation” episode. Anyway, despite all of that, because I loved part one of the series’ first season SO much, I still find it fun stalking locations featured on the show. Which is how my fiancé and I ended up at the Tam O’Shanter Inn two weekends ago.



Tam O’Shanter Inn actually has a long and celebrated Hollywood history. It was first opened in June of 1922 by Lawry’s restaurant chain founders Lawrence Frank and Walter Van de Kamp and has the distinction of being Los Angeles’ oldest restaurant that is still operating in the same location and by the same family. Art director/humorist Harry Oliver, designer of the Spadena House in Beverly Hills (aka the Witch’s House from Clueless), was commissioned to design the original building in what is called the “storybook-style” of architecture. In fact, the restaurant’s original interior closely resembled that of a ride at Disneyland. The property was extensively remodeled and expanded in 1968 at which time it was renamed the “Great Scot”. In 1982, in honor of the restaurant’s 60th anniversary, the original name, which refers to a style of hat worn in Scotland, was restored and it has remained to this day.

In the “Dream On” episode of Glee, Will Schuester (aka cutie Matthew Morrison) takes frenemie and former Glee-club-rival Bryan Ryan (aka guest star Neil Patrick Harris) to the Tam O’Shanter Inn for a drink to convince him to not shut down the Glee club. Will finally gets Brian to concede and the two wind up singing a rousing rendition of Billy Joel’s “Piano Man”.



When we first walked into the Tam O’Shanter Inn, I asked the hostess who greeted us at the door where exactly the “Dream On” episode had been filmed. Well, let me tell you, she could NOT HAVE BEEN NICER! She immediately sat us in the bar area in the exact spot where Matthew Morrison and Neil Patrick Harris were sitting in the episode. She also told us the direction the cameras were facing during filming, what areas of the restaurant could be see in the background, and asked if we wanted to reenact the “Piano Man” scene while she took photographs of us. LOVE IT! I was SO down with reenacting the scene, by the way, but the Grim Cheaper was having none of that! 😉

Filming for the yet-to-be-released Larry Crowne movie, which stars Julia Roberts and Tom Hanks, also took place at the Tam O’Shanter Inn earlier this year.   According to the bartender we spoke with, producers had the above-pictured green rug made especially for the filming and then gifted it to the restaurant after shooting wrapped. SO DARN COOL!

Besides being a filming location, the restaurant is also a long time celebrity hangout. Just a few of the luminaries who have been spotted there over the years include Mary Pickford, John Wayne, Fatty Arbuckle, and Tom Mix. Walt Disney loved the place so much that he frequented it on an almost daily basis and on one visit gifted the owners with the above-pictured cartoon, which he personally drew of Lawrence Frank. According to the restaurant’s website, Disney executives dined at Tam O’Shanter’s so often that the place became known as “Disney’s studio commissary”. Apparently Walt’s favorite table was #31, while John Wayne preferred #15.

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I honestly cannot say enough good things about the Tam O’Shanter Inn. I absolutely LOVED the place! Especially their fried calamari appetizer!

On a Glee side note – For those of you who have not yet seen Heather Morris, who plays Brittany on Glee, performing “Single Ladies” live with Beyonce at the 2009 American Music Awards, you can do so now by clicking above. Apparently, Heather was not originally being considered as a cast-member for Glee, but was first called in by series creator Ryan Murphy to teach series regulars Chris Colfer and Jenna Ushkowitz the “Single Ladies” dance for the Season 1 episode titled “Preggers”. Fate stepped in, though, and Murphy ended up liking the actress/professional dancer so much that he immediately cast her in the role of ditzy cheerleader Brittany. And the rest, as they say, is history!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Tam O’Shanter Inn from Glee is located at 2980 Los Feliz Boulevard in the Atwater Village section of Los Angeles. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.

July 14, 2010
On the Set of “Mad Men”

This past Tuesday, I received an email from one of my fellow stalkers alerting me to the fact that the hit AMC television series Mad Men was going to be shooting on location in Pasadena the following day at Don and Betty Draper’s house, which I blogged about last June. And even though I don’t really watch the show, I just had to venture out to stalk the set – with my camera in hand, of course! 🙂 Unfortunately though, not a whole lot was going on while I was there and the filming only lasted a few short hours. The scene being shot was a very short little driving scene involving actor Jon Hamm, who plays advertising executive Don Draper on the show. And sadly, the crew, while nice, made it very clear that they did NOT want photographs being taken of anything – the set, the filming, the actors, etc., etc., etc. And while I was in no way going to let that stop me ;), the only pictures I could take were on the down low, so I didn’t get very many good ones. I did manage to snap the above photograph of Jon as he was leaving the set after shooting had wrapped, though, and let me tell you, I was completely floored about that! 🙂

Jon seemed super friendly and waved to me and another stalker who I was hanging out with from his van as he was being driven away from the set. I so would have LOVED to have gotten a photograph with him, but unfortunately he was shuttled away from the premises rather quickly as he was due in Downtown L.A., where more Mad Men filming was taking place.

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After Jon Hamm was driven away, I stuck around for a bit to watch the crew members strike the set, a process which I find incredibly interesting. I always love to see what aspects of a property are changed for a filming and which are left the same. One altered aspect of the Draper house that I knew about prior to my set visit yesterday was the color of their front door. As you can see in the above photograph, which I took when I stalked the property last June, in real life the home’s front door is painted blue.

But on the show, the Draper’s front door is painted a bright red color, and, let me tell you, when I set out to stalk the set yesterday, I was most excited over the prospect of seeing that red door in person – even more so than I was about the prospect of seeing Jon Hamm. 😉 And I was even more excited when I was able to snap the above photograph of it! YAY! I found out from a crew member that the home’s real life front door is actually painted red each and every time they film at the property! I had mistakenly assumed that set dressers had a special door that they installed during each filming, but in reality, someone is actually brought in the day before shooting to paint the real life door red and then, after shooting wraps, he or she paints it back to its original blue color . . . every single time they film! Isn’t that incredible? I mean, I realize doors are expensive and all, but it seems to me that it would be a whole lot more cost effective and a whole lot more timely to simply switch out the real door for a red one. Not to mention the fact that there now must be over a dozen layers of paint on that door! I swear, I’ll never understand Hollywood sometimes!

Set dressers also install a fake light post (which you can see laying on the ground in the above photograph) each time filming takes place, which was incredible to see. They actually dig up a part of the home’s front lawn in order to bury the base of the light each and every time they film! With all the filming that takes place at the property that poor lawn probably never has time to grow back! They also bring in a slew of potted plants (which you can also see in the above photograph) which are placed on the front porch for each filming.

The coolest thing for me to see, though, was the fake street sign that was put up for the scene. The signs above which read “Shady Lane” and “Bullet Park Road” normally spell out “El Molino Avenue” and “Arden Road”. So darn cool! According to one of the crew members I talked to, the fake sign was so realistic that it caused a bit of confusion for a passerby who was driving around, trying unsuccessfully to find Arden Road. LOL

Set dressers also covered up the above-pictured stop sign with a fake 50’s style stop sign, but unfortunately I didn’t get a photograph of it. In fact, I didn’t even notice it was a fake sign until one of the set dressers removed it after filming had wrapped. I SO wish I had gotten a picture of it! UGH! I am SO blonde sometimes.

Ironically enough, my fiancé and I were watching the 1995 movie Outbreak a couple of weeks ago and I was floored to discover that the house belonging to Robby Keough (aka Rene Russo) in the flick was none other than the Mad Men house! So cool! You can see some great interior photographs of the home here. And, according to one of the crew members I talked to, some Mad Men filming does actually take place inside of the home.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Don and Betty Draper’s house from Mad Men is located at 675 Arden Road in Pasadena.

July 8, 2010
Jim and Pam’s House from “The Office”

One location that I stalked back in April while fellow stalker Lavonna and her daughter Melissa were in town was the house that Jim Halpert (aka John Krasinksi) purchased for his fiancé Pam Beesly (aka Jenna Fischer) in the Season 5 episode of The Office titled “Frame Toby”. At the time I had never actually seen an episode of the series despite the fact that pretty much everyone in my life (from fellow stalker Owen to my best friend Kylee) had been telling me how fabulous it was. But then, a few weeks ago, I finally took the plunge and rented the show’s entire first season on DVD, and, let me tell you, once I sat down to watch it I simply COULD NOT STOP! It practically became an addiction! They say that laughter is the best medicine and from what I’ve experienced watching The Office that sentiment is absolutely true. I started viewing the series during a particularly stressful time in my life and it brought me so many much-needed laughs that I was lifted right out of my funk. In fact, I can honestly say that never IN MY LIFE have I laughed out loud at a show as much as I have these past few weeks while watching The Office. It’s absolutely hilarious! For those of you holdouts who have never watched the show, you simply must start! But I digress. Anyway, last night I finally saw the “Frame Toby” episode in which Jim and Pam’s house is first shown, which meant that I could finally, finally blog about the place!

On The Office, Jim and Pam’s house actually first belonged to Jim’s parents. He buys it from them as a gift for Pam because, as he says, he wants to help his parents out and because he was able to “save on closing costs”. So darn cute! 🙂 I have to give major props to Owen on finding this location as producers actually changed the property’s address number in the episode in order to throw us stalkers off track!

As you can see in the above photograph, in real life the house is numbered 13831.

But, as you can see in the above screen capture, producers had the second “1” digitally removed from the scene. UGH! I SO hate it when they do that! Changing address numbers has to be my biggest stalking pet peeve! Thankfully though, Owen, acting on a tip from a fellow stalker, started searching the neighborhood surrounding the studio where The Office is filmed and found the house a mere two miles away. YAY!

And I am very happy to report that, aside from the address number, the property looks very similar in person as to how it appeared in the “Frame Toby” episode. Producers very obviously roughed the house up a bit for the filming (i.e. the broken roof gutter, the leaves on the front lawn, and the overgrown foliage), but I am guessing that in the episodes to come, Jim will be shown fixing up the place for Pam. I can’t say that for certain, though, as I am currently only halfway through Season 5, so I’ve still got some viewing to do before I catch up with the current episodes. I’ve actually had to considerably slow down my Office-watching habit this past week, though, because I am absolutely DREADING having no more new episodes to watch. I honestly don’t know what I’ll do with myself when that happens!

The home’s garage area, which on the show Jim converted into an art studio for Pam . . .

. . . is sadly not visible from the street.

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Jim and Pam’s house from The Office is located at 13831 Calvert Street in Van Nuys.

July 7, 2010
Will Rogers Memorial Park from “90210”

As I mentioned yesterday, my fiancé and I spent quite a bit of last weekend making up for lost time, so to speak, by catching up on all of the stalking that I had been putting off over the past few months while my dad was ill. The location that I was most excited about seeing in person was Will Rogers Memorial Park in Beverly Hills, which was the spot where Annie Wilson (aka Shenae Grimes) and Liam Court (aka Matt Lanter) took a dip in a fountain in the Season 2 episode of 90210 titled “Multiple Choices”. And while I haven’t exactly been a huge fan of the CW series this past season, I have absolutely loved watching the friendship between Liam and Annie blossom and change in the most recent episodes, especially in the fountain scene (which is vaguely reminiscent of the Carrie/Big fountain scene from Sex and the City). Add to that the fact that I have a massive crush on actor Matt Lanter and I just HAD to stalk the park where filming took place. 🙂 It is at this point that I should confess that I had no idea whatsoever where Annie and Liam’s fountain might be located, despite the fact that I’d actually driven by it more times than I’d care to admit. Thankfully though, the Grim Cheaper pays closer attention to things than I do, because he recognized the park immediately while watching the show. Thank you, G.C.! As it turns out, Will Rogers Memorial Park is located on Sunset Boulevard, directly across the street from the Beverly Hills Hotel, one of my favorite places in all of L.A. How I had never seen the park during one of my many visits to the Pink Palace is absolutely beyond me! Ugh, I am such a blonde sometimes!

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The five-acre parcel of land that currently makes up Will Rogers Memorial Park originally belonged to the Beverly Hills Hotel and served as its front lawn area. In 1915, the hotel decided to donate the land to the City of Beverly Hills and it became known as Sunset Park, the city’s very first municipal park. Thirty-seven years later, in 1952, the City renamed the property in honor of legendary actor/humorist/cowboy Will Rogers, who had been dubbed “Honorary Mayor” of Beverly Hills while at the park in 1926.

Will Rogers Memorial Park is an absolutely GORGEOUS place, with a huge central fountain filled with Koi fish, sweeping lawns, and countless palm trees which dot the property. I honestly can’t recommend stalking it enough.





In the “Multiple Choices” episode of 90210, Liam takes Annie to the park to get her mind off of her parents’ recent marital troubles. While there, Annie announces that she wants “to kick something or scream or just, you know, run away” before impulsively jumping into the park’s large fountain. When Liam later tries to pull her out, he accidentally falls into the water himself. It’s a super cute little scene and was the first time that either Annie or Liam acknowledged to themselves that they might have feelings for each other.

You can watch the Annie/Liam fountain scene by clicking above.

Will Rogers Memorial Park has actually had quite a few brushes with fame. Its cinematic history first began almost nine decades ago, when it was featured in the 1921 Charlie Chaplin movie The Idle Class, which you can see a photograph of here. And according to the Seeing Stars website, in 1990 rocker Rod Stewart proposed to his one-time wife Rachel Hunter while at the park. The property is perhaps most famous, though, for a much less glitzy reason – it was in the park’s restroom that singer George Michael was arrested for performing a lewd act on April 7, 1998. And while my fiancé did use the men’s room while we were there, I felt a little odd about sending him in with a camera to take pictures of it. 😉

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Will Rogers Memorial Park is located at 9650 Sunset Boulevard in Beverly Hills, directly across the street from the Beverly Hills Hotel.

July 6, 2010
The “Spanglish” House

The Michael J. Fox Theatre in Burnaby, British Columbia, which I blogged about yesterday, was actually the very last Vancouver locale that I had logged away in my location library and, while I have a slew of Seattle area spots that I have yet to write about, I thought that for today I’d mix things up a bit by posting about a location that can be found right here in Southern California. So enjoy! A few weeks ago, fellow stalker Nick emailed me to let me know that he was in the process of trying to track down the residence belonging to John and Deborah Clasky (played by Adam Sandler and Tea Leoni, respectively) in the 2004 movie Spanglish. I was extremely excited upon hearing about this endeavor as the Spanglish house is one that I’ve long been wanting to stalk. Unfortunately, though, my father was in the hospital on the day that Nick emailed me, so I wasn’t able to offer him much help in the hunt. As it turns out, though, he didn’t need my assistance, after all, because less than 24 hours later he emailed me back with an address! Nick had read on IMDB’s Spanglish filming locations page that some filming of the movie had taken place on Stone Canyon Road in Bel Air, so he immediately got to searching the area via Google Street View and, lo and behold, found the house! YAY! Thank you, Nick!

So, since things have calmed down considerably regarding my dad’s health in recent weeks (he just had his final surgery to implant the permanent nerve block device last Friday evening and is feeling great!), I was finally able to drag my fiancé out to stalk the Spanglish house this past Saturday afternoon. Sadly, though, due to a large gate and massive amounts of foliage, not a whole lot of it is visible from the street.

I am happy to report, though, that what was visible looks much the same as it did in the movie. 🙂

And from the way the movie was shot, I am fairly certain that the real life interior of the house, which boasts 3 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms, and 4,295 square feet of living space, was used in the filming, as well.

And, as you can see in the above aerial image and screen capture, the home’s real life backyard and pool area were also used in the flick.

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And while not much of the property could be seen from the street, I must say that the Spanglish house was still very exciting for me to stalk because quite a few scenes from the movie were actually filmed out in front of the residence –

– most notably the scene in which Deborah Clasky and her housekeeper Flor Moreno (aka Paz Vega) engage in a spontaneous foot-race after dropping their kids off at the bus stop on the first day of school.

On a side note – I will not be publishing a new blog post tomorrow, Friday, July 2nd, as I have a bunch of wedding appointments scheduled on the day prior that, unfortunately, will leave me with very little time for blogging. I’ll be back Monday, though, and in the meantime I’d like to wish all of my fellow stalkers a very happy Fourth of July! 🙂

Big THANK YOU to Nick for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Clasky house from Spanglish is located at 1130 Stone Canyon Road in Bel Air.

July 1, 2010