Kathy Griffin’s House from “Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List”

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When fellow stalkers Lavonna, Melissa, Beth, Kim, and Sandy came to town from Ohio for a little stalking vacay two weeks ago, they scored four tickets to the November 14th taping of The Ellen DeGeneres Show and invited me to tag along.  A few days before the episode was set to film, though, Lavonna learned that not only would the cast of The Twilight Saga flicks be Ellen’s guests for that particular show, but that the entire audience would be treated to a free screening of the series’ latest installment, Breaking Dawn.  Because I am in no way, shape or form a Twi-Hard, I decided to sit this one out, as did fellow non-Twi-Hard Sandy, and the two of ended up spending the day together stalking from one end of Los Angeles to the other.  One of the places we stopped at was the hilltop abode that belongs to comedienne Kathy Griffin and that is featured regularly on her Bravo reality series Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List.  The only problem was that, as you can see above, I had the incorrect address written down in my trusty “To-Stalk” notebook and Sandy and I wound up stalking the wrong house!  Not kidding!  As Pinky Lovejoy, from the Thinking Pink blog, would say, “FAIL!”

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I was informed of this location by a fellow stalker named Melissa (not the same Melissa visiting from Ohio), who had stalked the dwelling way back in the summer of 2009 and had emailed to tell me about it.  Melissa is a huge fan of Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List and had scoured the internet looking for the comedienne’s home prior to a visit to Los Angeles.  And while she could not find its exact address, she did manage to track down some photos of the house on a blog in which the street name was mentioned.  She searched through the many pictures featured on the blog and, in true stalker fashion, keenly spotted an address number of “2968” on the wall of a neighboring residence.  Love it!  When Melissa emailed me to let me know about the property, she said that it was “across from 2968 Passmore Drive in the Hollywood Hills”.  My blondeness must have been in full effect when I copied the information to my “To-Stalk” list, though, because I somehow failed to take note of the “across from” part, and Sandy and I wound up taking pictures in front of the house numbered “2968”.  Doh!  After realizing my mistake later that same week, I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on back out to the Hollywood Hills so that I could stalk the right place.

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Kathy’s 4-bedroom, 5-bath, 8,098-square-foot home was originally built by a former Los Angeles City fireman/actor named Bernard Subkoski and his wife, Celeste Dickinson.  The couple purchased the half-acre vacant plot of land on which the dwelling now sits sometime during the late 1990s and construction on it took four years to complete.

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Bernard and Celeste dubbed their residence “Wings”, as, according to Bernard, it very closely resembled a bird in flight.  Due to medical issues, though, the couple was forced to put their dream home on the market shortly after it was completed and in April of 2004 it was purchased by Kathy for a cool $2.85 million. Kathy later sued Bernard and Celeste over some structural problems with the dwelling.

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As you can see above, located just outside of the main gate is some sort of statuary that was built to resemble the house.  I originally thought that the structure was a mailbox, but upon closer inspection it did not seem to have any sort of a mail slot, so I am unsure of what it actually is.

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The home, which in this stalker’s never-to-be-humble opinion is strictly A-List, is featured weekly on Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List.

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The interior is also shown regularly.  Kathy temporarily moved out of the property in the Season 6 episode of the show titled “Toddlers and Remodelers” due to a massive remodel she had just commissioned.

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The home was also featured in an April 2009 OK! Magazine photo shoot in which Kathy posed in a bikini.  And it also popped up in the February 2006 issue of W Magazine, in the August 8th, 2005 issue of In Touch Magazine, and in an episode of MTV Cribs.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Kathy Griffin’s house from Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List is located at 2955 Passmore Drive in the Hollywood Hills.

Julia Harris’ House from “Horrible Bosses”

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Another location that the Grim Cheaper and I ventured out in the pouring rain to stalk two weekends ago was the ultra-modern abode where Dr. Julia Harris, D.D.S. (aka my girl Jen Aniston) lived in the (horrible) 2011 comedy Horrible Bosses.  I was informed of this location via a text from fellow stalker Chas, of the It’sFilmedThere website, who prefaced giving me the address with the query, “Did you like Horrible Bosses?”, to which I wrote back, “Not at all!”  When he asked if my dislike stemmed from the fact that the movie was “too crude”, I wrote back, “No!  It stemmed from the fact that it was seriously stupid!”  Winking smile The GC and I had gone to see Horrible Bosses on opening night in a theatre, as I do with pretty much every new Jen Aniston movie, and were both so bored to tears that we almost walked out!  I just did not find the flick funny, like at all, and, for some reason, Charlie Day, who played Dr. Harris’ dental assistant Dale Arbus, seriously grated on my nerves, especially his gravely voice.  It was like fingernails on a chalkboard to this stalker, but I digress.  Anyway, I was extremely excited to receive Chas’ text, regardless of my feelings about the movie, as I am always, always up for stalking a location that has anything whatsoever to do with my girl.

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Julia’s house actually only shows up twice in Horrible Bosses – first in the scene in which Dale’s friend Kurt Buckman (aka Jason Sudeikis) stakes out the property with the intent of murdering Julia and later on in a flashback scene in which he describes what happens while there.  According to the Horrible Bosses production notes, “The deviant doc’s house is stylistically similar to her office — that is, what can be seen of it through its wide street-facing picture windows, which afford her the opportunity to put on the kind of show she couldn’t get away with at work.”

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In real life, the five-bedroom, four-bath, 3,906-square-foot home, which was completely rebuilt in 2008, is pretty darn spectacular!  The property features a double-sided fireplace, a floating staircase, an open floor plan, Cherry wood and poured concrete flooring, exposed steel beams, a six-burner range, and three fireplaces.  The property sold on July 22 of this year for $1.73 million.  You can check out some great interior photographs of the place here.

Big THANK YOU to Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, for finding this location.  You can check out Chas’ extensive Horrible Bosses filming locations page here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Julia Harris’ house from Horrible Bosses is located at 2361 Midvale Avenue in the Westside area of Los Angeles.

The Skyline Residence – Jacob’s House from “Crazy, Stupid, Love.”

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Back in August, I received an email from a fellow stalker named Brandon who wanted to let me know that he had tracked down the ultra-modern abode where Jacob Palmer (aka Ryan Gosling) lived in Crazy, Stupid, Love.  At the time I had yet to see the movie, but added the address to my To-Stalk list anyway and am so glad that I did because, as I have mentioned more than a few times before in recent posts, I have since become just a wee bit obsessed with the flick . . . and its cutie leading man.  So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to the Hollywood Hills to stalk the place this past Saturday afternoon.

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Due to a slight snafu with my GPS, though, I was unable to get to the actual house and could only snap a few pictures of it from afar.  While I always research locations to make sure that they are accessible to the public before leaving to stalk them and while Jacob’s house was visible on Google Street View, for some reason, my navigational system just could not seem to get me there.

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It was not until I returned home that evening that I was able to figure out why.  As you can see in the above aerial view, Skyline Drive, where Jacob’s house is located, dead-ends at a certain point and then picks up again a short distance later.  My GPS, thinking Skyline Drive was a through-street, directed me to the wrong end of it, where the abode was nowhere to be found.

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So the next morning, paper map in hand, I dragged the GC back on out to the Hollywood Hills to re-stalk the property.  As you can see above, it was POURING rain at the time, which I was none too happy about.  You see, there is nothing in this world that this stalker hates more than rain, except for maybe Kyle Richards.  Winking smile But once I remembered that it was also raining in the scene in Crazy, Stupid, Love. that took place at Jacob’s house, me being there during a downpour seemed quite apropos.  The GC could not stop laughing at me posing for the above picture, though, as he said that I looked as if I was dressed for “the tundra”.  Hmph!  I happen to like my rain coat, thankyouverymuch!

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In real life, Jacob’s house is known as the Skyline Residence and it was built in 2007 by Hagy Belzberg, of Belzberg Architects, to be used as his private residence.  According to this fabulous Architectural Record blog post, several previous owners had tried to build a home on the narrow plot of land on which the Skyline Residence now stands, but had not had any luck in securing permits.  Belzberg said, “I decided that instead of trying to fight the topography I would work with it and create a very narrow building that sits lightly on the land with minimal to no grading.”  The architect’s design called for a 20- by 120-foot structure made out of concrete, glass, marble, and wood.

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As you can see above, the finished product is nothing short of magnificent!  As Pinky Lovejoy, from the Thinking Pink blog, would say, it is “amazeballs”!  Love it, love it, love it!  The property is pretty much my dream abode.

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From the view pictured above, which I got off of the home’s former real estate website, the dwelling is extremely reminiscent of the Stahl House, or Case Study House #22, which I blogged about way back in March of 2009.  The Skyline Residence, which according to fave website CurbedLA was sold to new owners for a cool $5.995 million on December 21, 2009, boasts 4 bedrooms, 5 baths, a 1-bedroom, 1-bath detached guest house, a 65-foot long infinity pool, a spa, floor-to-ceiling glass windows, a large, open kitchen and dining area, outdoor terraces, sweeping views, and a whopping 5,200 square feet of living space!

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My favorite aspect of the house, though, has to be the outdoor movie deck, which sits atop the garage and in which films are projected onto a wall of the detached guest house.  How amazing is that????  A girl I was friends with in high school had an actual full-sized movie theatre located inside of her home and at the time I thought it was just about the coolest thing ever, but I can honestly say that this pretty much blows that right out of the water!  I mean have you ever seen anything more incredible???  You can check out some more fabulous interior and exterior photographs of the Skyline Residence on The Contemporist website here.

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Jacob’s house only shows up briefly in Crazy, Stupid, Love. in one of the best scenes of the movie in which Jacob brings Hannah (aka Emma Stone) home and tries to seduce her by showing her his “big move”.  Of the property, the Crazy, Stupid, Love. production notes state, “Jacob’s home also reflected his current lifestyle.  To serve as his stunning, if stark, bachelor pad, the filmmakers chose the renowned Skyline Residence designed by internationally recognized architect Hagy Belzberg.  Located off the Sunset Strip in the Hollywood Hills, the glass-enclosed, ultra-modern home is considered a prime example of world-class contemporary architecture.  As no one was residing in the home at the time, it was easy for [production designer William] Arnold and his team to make the few necessary adjustments.  ‘We just removed what we didn’t need, and put in a few of our own signature furnishings, leaving it somewhat austere,’ he says.  ‘Jacob’s house is a comment on the character’s own emptiness, really.  He rattles around in there; it’s very impersonal, yet very tasteful.’”

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The main area of the property used in the film was the living room and it appears as if the home’s hanging Fireorb fireplace was removed for the shoot, which was a good call as I personally think the space looks much better without it.

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The kitchen area also made a very brief appearance during the montage scene towards the end of the movie.

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A photograph of that kitchen is pictured above.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Brandon for finding this location!  Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The Skyline Residence, aka Jacob’s house from Crazy, Stupid, Love., is located at 8520 Skyline Drive in the Hollywood Hills.  A great view of the property can be seen from Crest View Drive, just south of where it meets Skyline Drive.  As I mentioned previously, Skyline Drive dead-ends at a certain point and then picks up again a short distance later.  Because of that, my GPS took me to the wrong location when I inputted the address “8520 Skyline Drive”.  If you have the same problem, I would suggest inputting the intersection of Skyline Drive and Greenvalley Road into your navigational system and then following Skyline Drive west until it dead-ends.  Jacob’s residence is the last house on the east side of the street.

The Grill on Main from “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills”

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Last month, while watching the Season 2 episode of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills titled “Game Night Gone Wild”, I just about fell over when sisters Kim and Kyle Richards (neither of whom I can actually stand) walked into The Grill on Main – a La-Quinta-area eatery that I had been to just a few weeks prior while visiting my parents for the weekend in the Coachella Valley.  Well, been to and walked out of, I should say.  Winking smile My parents, the Grim Cheaper, and I had headed to The Grill on Main one night to grab cocktails before dinner, but, unfortunately, the only champagne (my mom’s and my drink of choice) that the restaurant served was seriously terrible, so we ended up leaving and going to the nearby Hog’s Breath Inn instead.  But I digress.  Anyway, for my mom’s 60th birthday, which was last Monday, her very best friend, Doina, flew out – from Switzerland – to surprise her and we all spent the week together in the Desert.  One morning during our stay, after grabbing coffee at the Old Town Coffee Company (which has recently replaced Starbucks as my favorite coffee house – I know, gasp!), I dragged my mom and Doina across the street to stalk The Grill on Main.

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The Grill on Main, which first opened in December of 2010 and serves American-style fare, is a super cute little eatery.  And, despite its lacking in the champagne department (which is odd being that the manager is a certified sommelier), my parents, who have dined there several times since, report that the food is quite excellent and reasonably-priced.

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In the “Game Night Gone Wild” episode of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Kim and Kyle head over to the The Grill on Main to grab lunch while they are on vacation in the Coachella Valley.  During their meal, Kyle, as usual, tries to boss Kim around by telling her that she needs to move into a home that is closer to hers.  Little does she know that Kim is actually planning to move in with her secret boyfriend of over a year.  Ah, the drama!

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While stalking the restaurant, I had incorrectly thought that Kim and Kyle had dined just to the left of the restaurant’s bar area and even took a picture in that spot.

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But the sisters had actually dined outside, on The Grill on Main’s patio area, right in front of the fireplace.  Ugh, I can be such a blonde sometimes!  Winking smile

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Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The Grill on Main, from the “Game Night Gone Wild” episode of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, is located at 78065 Main Street in Old Town La Quinta.  You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.

The Weaver House from “Crazy, Stupid, Love.”

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Back in August, on the recommendation of my girl Miss Pinky Lovejoy, from the Thinking Pink blog, I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to see Crazy, Stupid, Love. and I can honestly say that it was one of the best movies I have seen all year.  In fact, I might even go so far as to say that it was one of the best movies I have seen ever!  And while I have long thought that Ryan Gosling is one of the most gifted actors of our generation, he entered a whole new level in Crazy, Stupid, Love. and blew all of his past performances right out of the water!  The guy is simply phenomenal!  And can you say “heartthrob”?!  I also absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE me some Emma Stone and she, too, was nothing short of fabulous.  If you have yet to see the movie, I cannot more highly recommend doing so!  Like now!  Stop reading this post, in fact, and go right out and rent it!  Seriously!  Anyway, because I loved the flick so much, I could absolutely NOT wait for it to come out on DVD  – which it finally did last week – so that I could start tracking down some of its locations.  And one of the first that I found, thanks to a very helpful crew member, was the residence where the Weaver family lived.  So I ran right out to stalk it – Grim Cheaper in tow, of course – just a few days later.

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In Crazy, Stupid, Love., recently-separated Emily Weaver (aka Julianne Moore) and her two children, Robbie (aka Jonah Bobo) and Molly (aka Joey King), live in the two-story Anywhere, U.S.A.-style house pictured above.

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The backyard was the area of the property that actually appeared most often in the flick, most notably during Cal Weaver’s (aka Steve Carell’s) late-night gardening sessions.  According to the Crazy, Stupid, Love. production notes, of the residence, production designer William Arnold said, “We were really lucky to find that house, which had this beautiful back sun porch. The owners graciously let us tear down their old glass doors and put in windows and doors that opened the house up to the backyard, lending itself to Cal’s late-night ‘visits’ to his garden. He could see almost all the way through the house, but was, tellingly, on the outside looking in.”

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The backyard also appeared in my very favorite scene from the movie, in which Cal’s surprise for Emily goes a bit haywire.  I will not say anymore than that, as I do not want to spoil the scene for those who have yet to see the movie – and if that is the case, then you really should not be reading this post!  You should be out renting Crazy, Stupid, Love. like I told you to before!  Winking smile

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The real life interior of the house was also used in the flick.  Amazingly, according to the production notes, almost all of Crazy, Stupid, Love. was filmed on location at actual sites.  Only two sets were constructed for use in the movie – Cal’s post-separation apartment and Plus, the bar where Jacob Palmer (aka Ryan Gosling) taught Cal the finer points of seducing women – which I found shocking!

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In real life, the 3-bedroom, 3-bath, 2,270-square-foot home, which was originally built in 1949 and sits on over half an acre of land, looks much the same in person as it did onscreen, except for the cement front walkway, which appears to have been swapped out for a stone one during the filming.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The Weaver residence from Crazy, Stupid, Love. is located at 2002 Minoru Drive in Altadena.

Dolly Green’s House from “Eye for an Eye”

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Taking a break today from my many Gossip Girl posts, I thought I would write about a residence that I stalked with fellow stalker Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, way back in mid-July.  While he was in town for a little Southern California stalking vacay, the two of us, along with his super-sweet mother, Cynthia, headed out to the Los Feliz area to visit the tiny Tudor-style bungalow where Dolly Green (aka Beverly D’Angelo, who will always be “Ellen Griswold” to me) and her husband, Peter (aka Darrell Larson), lived in the 1996 revenge thriller Eye for an Eye.  Chas had somehow managed to track down the property – despite only a small portion of it ever being shown – as well as all of the other locations featured in the movie, a little over a year ago.  And while I actually could not even remember what Dolly Green’s abode looked like before we arrived there, let me tell you, I absolutely fell in love with the place on site!

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Dolly Green’s little fairy-tale-like dwelling, which was built over the side of a cascading cliff on the winding Glendower Avenue high up in the hills of Los Feliz, is absolutely ADORABLE in person.  The abode is so quaint and charming that it looks as if it jumped right out of a Disney cartoon.  I half expected the Seven Dwarfs to come walking out the front door, marching along to “Whistle While You Work”, while we were there.

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Although calling the home “little” is a bit misleading.  While it does appear to be small from the street, the residence is actually quite large.  According to fave website Zillow, the dwelling, which was originally built in 1926, boasts 3 bedrooms, 3 baths, and measures 2,972 square feet.  As you can see above, though, most of that square footage is located on the back side of the hill, below street level and out of view.

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And speaking of views, the home boasts some incredible ones!  We happened to stalk the residence on a smog-free day and were able to see all the way to Downtown Los Angeles!  Amazing!

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Dolly Green’s residence only appears in one brief scene in Eye for an Eye, in which Karen McCann (aka Sally Field) and her husband, Mack (aka Ed Harris), spend the night at their friends’ house immediately following the murder of their teenage daughter, Julie (aka Olivia Burnette).  Now that I have seen the property in person, I am shocked that only a small portion of it was shown in the movie.  I mean, talk about curb appeal!  This place has got it in spades!  Why more of it was not featured is beyond me.  But then again, I am not a filmmaker, so what do I know?  Winking smile

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Sadly, I was not able to find any photographs of the actual interior of the residence, so I am not able to say whether or not it was used in Eye for an Eye, but I would guess that it was.

Big THANK YOU to Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, for finding this location!  Smile You can check out Chas’ extensive Eye for an Eye filming locations page here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Dolly Green’s house from Eye for an Eye is located at 2757 Glendower Avenue in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles.  Quite a few other filming locations can be found nearby – the Doppelganger mansion is at 2421 Glendower Avenue; Donna Martin’s house from the B.Y.O.B. episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 is at 2405 Glendower Avenue; the so-called “Los Feliz Murder House” is at 2475 Glendower Place, and the legendary Ennis-Brown house, which I have yet to stalk, is at 2607 Glendower Avenue.

Eveleigh Restaurant from “Gossip Girl”

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Fellow stalker Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, emailed me a few weeks back to let me know that he had tracked down the open-air-patio-ed restaurant where Serena van der Woodsen (aka Blake Lively) and Charlie Rhodes (aka Kaylee DeFer) ate lunch in the Season 4 episode of Gossip Girl titled “Beauty and the Feast”.  And while that lunch was supposed to have taken place in Los Angeles and some scenes from that episode were actually filmed in the SoCal area, I had been absolutely convinced that Serena and Charlie’s restaurant was located in New York.  Not only did the place just look like a Manhattan-style eatery to me, but in the previous episode, which was titled “Yes, Then Zero”, Colonie, a restaurant in Brooklyn Heights, had been made to appear as if it was located in L.A.  So when I received Geoff’s email alerting me to the fact that Eveleigh Restaurant in West Hollywood had been used in the “Beauty and the Feast” episode, I practically jumped for joy and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk it.  Because I was in the thick of my Haunted Hollywood postings at the time, though, I had not been able to blog about the place until today.  So here goes!

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I can honestly say that Eveleigh, which opened on November 1st, 2010 in a space that used to house a Kenneth Cole shoe store, is easily one of the coolest places I have ever been!  From the outside, the restaurant does not look like anything out of the ordinary.  In fact, with its large hedges, unmarked doorway, and sidewalk street sign that screams “Sunset Blvd”, the eatery could not seem any more “Hollywood”.  But when you step inside, it is a different story entirely.

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From Eveleigh’s airy front patio . . .

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. . . to its cozy fireplace, complete with armchairs . . .

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. . . to its central bar and wood-beamed ceilings . . .

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. . . to its couch-like and antique school-chair seating . . .

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. . . to its exposed wood tables and chalkboard menus . . .

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. . . to its sweeping views . . .

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. . . to its large, tented back patio – all I can say is, we are certainly not in Los Angeles anymore, Toto!  As you can see in the twenty-some-odd pictures I took while there, Eveleigh, named for a suburb in Australia, is entirely unique.  It is a little bit country, a whole lotta New York, with a dash of California thrown in for good measure.  And I absolutely fell in love with the place on site.  The GC and I ended up only having cocktails while there, though, as the menu was a bit too extravagant for my low-brow tastes.  The offerings are definitely geared toward “foodies” and not this stalker, who much prefers hot dogs, mac & cheese, and chicken strips to the upscale culinary feasts served at Eveleigh, which include duck rillettes, jidori chicken liver pate, roasted natural bone marrow salad, and crisp sonoma pork belly.  We will definitely be stalking the place again, though, and if I am feeling more epicurean-ly brave, I will surely branch out and sample some of the fare.

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In the “Beauty and the Feast” episode of Gossip Girl, Serena and Charlie, a fraud who is posing as Serena’s cousin, meet up at Eveleigh and discuss life in California and possibly living together.

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In the scene, the two sit on the restaurant’s tented patio, near the back bar.

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After their meal, they walk past Eveleigh’s main bar, through the front patio area, and out onto Sunset Boulevard.

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And our super-nice bartender informed us that the cover shoot for the Fall 2011 issue of Viva Magazine, which featured Paula Abdul, also took place at Eveleigh.

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Besides being a filming location, Eveleigh is also something of a celebrity hot-spot.  Just a few of the stars who have been spotted there over the past year include Ashley Greene, Paula Patton, Nicky Hilton, Nicole Richie, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Dakota Fanning, Kimora Lee Simmons, Lisa Edelstein, Marcia Cross, Rebecca Romijn, Jerry O’Connell, Robin Tunney, Ashley Simpson, Ali Fedotowsky, Sasha Alexander, Jordana Brewster, Pete Wentz, Samantha Ronson, Amy Smart, Rachel Leigh Cook, Dianna Agron, Jamie King, Jessica Capshaw, Busy Phillips, Elisha Cuthbert, Mindy Kaling, Nia Vardalos, Idris Elba, Pierce Brosnan, and Armie Hammer.  And the restaurant also has one more celebrity connection.  While researching this post, I discovered that back when the place was a Kenneth Cole shoe store, the front patio area was the site of the Kenneth Cole Walk of Fame – a take-off of the iconic Grauman’s Chinese Theatre forecourt in Hollywood.  At the KC Walk of Fame, such stars as Elizabeth Taylor (and her dog Sugar), Richard Gere, Matthew Modine, Patricia Arquette, Elizabeth Glaser, Rosie O’Donnell, Julianne Phillips, and Leeza Gibbons all placed their bare feet into blocks of cement outside of the store, with Kenneth Cole promising to donate a portion of sales on the day of each participating star’s birthday to AIDS research.  Sadly, when the store closed, the footprints were removed and I can find no information whatsoever about where they are now located.  I cannot tell you how said I am that I never got to see them!

On a side-note, I would like to wish my mom a VERY happy 60th birthday today!  I love you, Mom!  Smile

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Eveleigh Restaurant, from the “Beauty and the Feast” episode of Gossip Girl, is located at 8752 West Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood.  You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.

Halloween at Dick Van Dyke’s House

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While doing research on the Strode House from Halloween a couple of weeks back, I came across a blog post about the extravagant yard haunt that actor Dick Van Dyke hosts every Halloween at his home in Malibu.  And while you wouldn’t think it would be possible, being that I have lived in Southern California for well over a decade, have spent countless hours stalking, and am obsessed with all things Halloween and all things celebrity, until reading that post I had never before heard anything about it!  And, let me tell you, I just about had a heart attack a few minutes later when I discovered that Dick Van Dyke lives inside of the gated Serra Retreat community because some of our good friends just (like literally weeks ago!) moved into that very same community!  I immediately texted said friend to ask if she lived near Dick Van Dyke or knew him at all and started hyperventilating when she wrote back that not only are they next-door neighbors, but that the Grim Cheaper and I were welcome to come to his Halloween party!  Talk about fate!  I mean, do these things actually happen???  Days later, as I sit here typing this, I am still in a bit of shock and can’t quite believe that I was actually at Dick Van Dyke’s house for Halloween!  And that right there is why I LOVE L.A. – one simply never knows what unthinkable adventure is waiting just around the corner!  (The GC refused to dress up as Dylan again after already dressing up on Saturday night, which is why I am dressed like a flapper above.  I am now thinking of changing his nickname to the “Grim Grumper”, by the way.  Winking smile)

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About two seconds after we arrived at our friends’ house on Halloween night, some trick-or-treaters knocked on the door and I just about died when I realized it was none other than James Cameron, dressed as a pirate, and his family!  I kid you not!  I was absolutely DYING inside as he introduced himself to our friends and welcomed them to the neighborhood.  Like really?  As I said above, does this stuff actually happen???  Oh, what I would not give to live in the ‘Bu and have James Cameron trick-or-treat at my door!  HOW INCREDIBLY COOL!  I did not ask James for a photograph as I figured it would have been a bit awkward, but I am kind of kicking myself about it now.  As my girl Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog, constantly admonishes me, when an opportunity presents itself, always, always ask for a picture!  Ah well, maybe next Halloween!  Anyway, shortly after James left, we all headed over to Dick Van Dyke’s house and, let me tell you, it was nothing short of AMAZING!  For this Halloween-obsessed stalker, being there was the ultimate experience!

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Dick had decorated the entire front of his property – like every single square inch of it – with a myriad of Halloween displays and contraptions and, let me tell you, it was like nothing I had ever seen!  The whole thing was like being in the middle of a horror movie set!  We were there for well over an hour and I still do not think I saw everything.  The spooktacular was comprised of animatronic mannequins, some of which would jump out at people from hidden corners;

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a talking statue, a la the talking statues in the graveyard at Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion;

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a Pee-Wee Herman lookalike who was controlling an animatronic wolf that would jump out to “attack” each passerby;

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and a video-rigged front door that had both a picture of Dick Van Dyke that would change from normal to scary depending on where you were standing and a “window” to an insane asylum in which an inmate with an ax tries to break her way out.

You can watch a video of the door by clicking above.  Notice the marks that show up on the door when the inmate hits it with the ax!  Simply incredible!

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My favorite part of the whole thing, though, had to be the graveyard, which consisted of a myriad of tombstones, some of which moved and had animatronic corpses coming out of them.  There was also an invisible screen set up at the back of the graveyard on which was projected a video of cartoon skeletons doing the “Thriller” dance!  SO INCREDIBLY COOL!  Sadly, the GC could not get a good picture of the video, nor could he get a photograph of the glow-in-the-dark monster footprints that had been painted in the street out in front of Dick’s house.  AMAZING, AMAZING, AMAZING!

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Because so many celebrities live in Serra Retreat, I was keeping my eyes peeled the entire time we were there and was beyond excited when I spotted Camille Grammer from The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.  As I have mentioned several times before on this blog, I absolutely LOATHE RHOBH star Kyle Richards (“hot, heaping hunks of hate!” as Jerry Stiller would say), and I don’t much like her sister Kim or their friend Taylor Armstrong, either.  And while I used to like Lisa Vanderpump, after her high-school-like mean-girl behavior in the recently-aired “The Opposite of Relaxation!” episode,  I don’t really care for her either.   The only two on the show that I like are Adrienne Maloof-Nassif and Camille Grammer.  So seeing Camille was especially exciting!

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So I, of course, just had to ask her for a pic.  I am very happy to report that Camille was a total sweetheart and even told me that I was beautiful!!!  How nice is that?  And she is absolutely gorgeous in person, far prettier even than she appears to be on TV.  Love her!!  Ironically enough, fellow stalker Chas later told me that Camille had been featured in an interview on TMZ TV on Halloween night in which she was asked what Halloween party she would be attending.  Her response?  “Dick Van Dyke’s and his is the best.”  LOVE IT!

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Shortly after I took the pic with Camille, Dick Van Dyke walked outside and I just about died.  I, of course, also asked him for a photo and he happily obliged.  Unfortunately, I did not get to talk to him at all, though, as he was extremely busy and had hoards of neighbors coming up to him, all wanting to say hi.  All in all it was a magical evening and I still cannot quite believe it all happened!  As I said yesterday, between meeting Matthew Lillard on Friday, dressing up as Brenda and Dylan on Saturday, and then spending Halloween night at Dick Van Dyke’s house, this was quite simply the Best. Halloween. Ever.

During the party, I also just had to run around the corner to get my picture taken in front of Britney Spears and Kevin Federline’s former house.  🙂

You can read a great blog post about decorating Dick Van Dyke’s house written by one of his Halloween crew members on the Disney Travel Babble website here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Unfortunately, because Dick Van Dyke lives inside of Serra Retreat, a gated community that is not open to the public, there is no stalking location for this one.

Joan Crawford’s Former Home

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As I mentioned in yesterday’s post about the house where Joan Crawford (aka Faye Dunaway) lived in Mommie Dearest, I have become just a wee-bit obsessed with the 1981 film as well as the 1978 autobiography of Joan’s daughter, Christina Crawford, on which it was based.  The book is a fabulous, fabulous read, by the way – whether you believe the abuse allegations or not, and apparently many people do not – and after finishing it, I decided I just had to stalk the actual home where Christina grew up and where the alleged events of her tumultuous childhood took place.  I, of course, found the address of Joan’s former mansion in fave book James Dean Died Here: The Locations of America’s Pop Culture Landmarks by Chris Epting and while in the Brentwood area a few weeks ago, ran right out to stalk it.  Sadly, the Grim Cheaper was not with me at the time so I was not able to get a photograph of myself out in front.  Ah well, I guess that just means I will have to go back sometime soon for a re-stalk.

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When Joan first purchased the 9-bedroom, 7-bath, 8,103-square-foot mansion in 1929, while married to first husband Douglas Fairbanks Jr., it was Mediterranean in style, as pictured above.

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The couple, who dubbed their new home “El DoJo” – a combination of both of their names – immediately set about gutting the property in order to turn it into a New-England-style dwelling, the result of which is pictured above.  And while Joan supposedly again remodeled the residence’s interior after divorcing Fairbanks in 1933, and after each subsequent divorce as well (there were three in total), the exterior was left largely unchanged.  It was at the home that Joan not only kept her famous and extensive doll collection, but also accepted her 1946 Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for Mildred Pierce.  Apparently, Joan did not want to face the possibility of losing, so she stayed home on the evening of the ceremony, feigning the flu.  When it was announced that she had won, the award was immediately delivered to her house and the actress invited the press inside to take photographs of her with it in bed.  Joan lived at the Brentwood residence for over 26 years, until 1956 when she married Pepsi Cola CEO Alfred Steele and moved to New York City.  When Alfred passed away in 1959, he left the actress with a large accumulation of debt and she was forced to sell the property.  You can see some interior photographs of the abode at the time that Joan owned it on the Legendary Joan Crawford website here.

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Sadly, Joan Crawford’s former home was extensively remodeled by some new owners beginning in 2003 and is no longer recognizable from the days when the screen legend lived there.  Not that it matters much, though, because as you can see above, due to a massive amount of foliage which currently surrounds the property, barely any of it can be seen from the street.

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Only a small portion of the garage area and a second-story window are visible.

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And it appears from looking at aerial views that even the backyard of the home was given a facelift.  As you can see above, the kidney-bean-shaped pool appears to be have been just recently built.  You can catch a glimpse of what the backyard looked like in Joan’s day here and you can also check out some great pictures of the property being remodeled on the Find A Death website here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Joan Crawford’s former home, aka the real life Mommie Dearest house, is located at 426 North Bristol Avenue in Brentwood.  The Fresh Prince of Bel Air house is located just two blocks south at 251 North Bristol Avenue, also in Brentwood.

The So-Called Houdini Ruins

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One location that I have wanted to stalk for just about forever now is the so-called Harry Houdini Estate, or Houdini Ruins, located at the corner of Laurel Canyon Boulevard and Lookout Mountain Avenue in Laurel Canyon.  I first read about the site five years ago in fave stalking tome Hollywood: The Movie Lover’s Guide, but, for whatever reason, had never made the trip out there to stalk it.  Then, a couple of weeks ago, the Grim Cheaper and I found ourselves in the Laurel Canyon area and decided that, because the locale had long been rumored to be haunted by the ghost of the famous magician, the timing could not have been more perfect to finally stop by.  It was not until after I got home and did some research that I discovered that Houdini had most likely never even set foot on the property, let alone lived there, and therefore had pretty much no reason whatsoever to haunt it.

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It is not exactly clear how or why the rumor about the Houdini Estate got started.  According to an October 1989 Los Angeles Times article written by Michael Szymanski, the first printed mention of it was in Kenneth Schessler’s 1972 book This is Hollywood.  When Szymanski told Schessler that his information about the Estate had largely been panned, Schessler responded, “I heard about the controversy, but I proved it by finding it in a directory of some sort.  I just can’t remember where.”  Um, OK, I believe you, then!  Winking smile What is known as fact is this: Harry Houdini did reside in the Los Angeles area for a brief period around 1919 while filming two movies for the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation/Paramount Pictures.  Where he stayed during that time, though, is anybody’s guess.  Journalist Maurice Zolotow once researched the magician for a Los Angeles Magazine article and said, “Houdini resided in Hollywood for about two years, yet I’ve never been able to discover where he lived.”  Further adding to the mystery and allure of the Laurel Canyon site is the fact that the 40-room Italianate-style mansion which once stood there burned entirely to the ground in 1959.  All that remained after the blaze were some ornate stone staircases, cement walls, and the former servant’s quarters.  The main home was never rebuilt and the ruins of the fire, which came to be known as the “Houdini Ruins” and which you can take a look at here and here, were visible from Laurel Canyon Boulevard for years to come.  As you can see in the above photographs, though, that is, unfortunately, no longer the case.

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However it began, the Houdini Estate rumor spread even further after the fire and countless websites and books still to this day state that the Laurel Canyon ruins were once a part of the magician’s property, despite many claims to the contrary.  Houdini historian Manny Weltman even went so far as to say, “Houdini never set foot on those grounds, and anyone who says so is lying. If anyone comes up with proof I’ll eat my magic hat.”  When the site went up for sale in 1989, Merrill Lynch hired two different title search companies to research the title, but neither could find any link to Houdini.  Today, the location, which mainly serves as an event venue and is known as “Houdini House”, consists of a 3.9-acre plot of land with landscaped terraces, waterfalls, ponds, hiking trails, meandering pathways, and an Old-Hollywood-style home that sleeps twelve.  One of my friends actually attended a wedding at the estate and said it was an absolutely magical experience.  So, whether Houdini ever set foot on the property or not seems to be entirely irrelevant, as it has somehow managed to generate a mystique all on its own.  Oh, what I would not give to throw a Halloween party there!  Can you imagine how incredibly cool that would be?!?!  And while the Houdini House rental rates are actually quite reasonable, somehow I still don’t think the GC would ever go for it.

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Someone who did go for it, though, was The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills’ Taylor Armstrong, who in the Season 1 episode titled “It’s My Party and I’ll Spend If I Want To”, famously threw her 4-year-old daughter, Kennedy, a $60,000 Mad-Hatter-themed birthday party at the Houdini Estate.  And no, that was not a typo – the party, which was for a FOUR-YEAR-OLD, actually cost $60,000!!!!!  The spectacle caused fellow Housewife Lisa Vanderpump to ask, “What ever happened to Pin the Tail on the Donkey?”  Love it!

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The bust of Houdini which was shown in the Housewives episode can just barely be viewed from Laurel Canyon Boulevard and is pictured above, albeit quite blurrily.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The so-called Houdini Ruins are located at 2400 Laurel Canyon Boulevard in Laurel Canyon.  Unfortunately, as I mentioned above, no part of the property is visible from the street, so I cannot really recommend stalking it.  You can visit the Houdini House’s official website here.