Tag: Feud

The Petitfils-Boos Residence from “Hollywood”

My stalking backlog is ridiculously large, so much so that I often forget places I’ve been. Case in point? The Petitfils-Boos Residence. (With a name like that, you’d think I would have remembered it, right?) I stalked the historic Windsor Square mansion way back in November 2012 (which is crazy to me – looking at the photos, I feel as if it was just yesterday!) after it made a brief appearance on Dexter and then it promptly slipped my mind. Though I was reminded of the place when I saw it pop up on Feud: Bette and Joan in 2017, I somehow quickly forgot about it again. It was not until I spotted the pad in an episode of the new Netflix miniseries Hollywood recently that I decided it was finally time for a post! So here goes!

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The Italian Renaissance Revival-style mansion was designed in 1922 by architect Charles F. Plummer for Walter M. Petitfils, one of the confectioners behind the gorgeous Dutch Chocolate Shop in downtown L.A. Walter didn’t stay on the premises long – in 1927 he sold the pad to his friends Henry and Cassie Boos, hence its hyphenated, hard-to-pronounce name.

Not only is the property absolutely HUGE – between the main house and the guest house, it measures a total of 10,120 square feet! – but it looks even bigger than it actually is thanks to its V-shape and diagonal placement on a corner lot.

The 2-story estate boasts an 8,594-square-foot main house with 4 bedrooms, 5 baths, walnut paneling, stained glass windows, archways, murals hand-painted by Dutch artist Anthony Heinsbergen, and a Gladding, McBean terra cotta tile façade. There’s also a 1,526-square-foot guest house, a 0.74-acre lot, a pool, a hot tub, a BBQ, multiple gardens, a loggia, a courtyard, and a detached 2-car garage. You can check out some interior images of it here.

Every square inch of the place is stunning – even the front gate! With those dripping topiaries, the residence looks straight out of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.

Not only is the property listed on the National Register of Historic Places, but the Los Angeles Conservancy procured an easement on the entire frontage, assuring no alterations can ever be made to the exterior.

Considering the manse’s Old Hollywood feel, its appearance on the 1940s-set Hollywood must have been a no-brainer for producers. The residence pops up in the episode titled “Hooray for Hollywood: Part 2” as the supposed former Beverly Hills home of Bugsy Siegel – “Might even be the house he got shot in!” according to Ernie West (Dylan McDermott) – where Jack Castello (David Corenswet) escorts Avis Amberg (Patti LuPone) to an estate sale of the slain gangster’s belongings.

While there Avis bids on – and wins – a soup tureen that she says Bugsy borrowed from her and never returned.

Hollywood is hardly the Petitfils-Boos Residence’s first rodeo.

As I mentioned, the estate was featured on Dexter in 2012. In the Season 7 episode titled “Are You . . . ?”, it masks as the Ukrainian mansion of Isaak Sirko (Ray Stevenson).

In 2014, it portrayed the home of Governor Paul Lane (Joel Gretsch) and his family in the Season 1 episode of Scorpion titled ‘”Single Point of Failure.”

Jennifer Aniston posed there for People magazine’s 2016 World’s Most Beautiful issue. You can see some video clips of the shoot here.

Jennifer Garner also posed at the mansion in 2016 for the March issue of Vanity Fair. You can watch a behind-the-scenes video of the shoot here.

The Petitfils-Boos Residence played Hedda Hopper’s (Judy Davis) home – or as she calls it, “the house that fear built” – in the pilot episode of Feud: Bette and Joan, which aired in 2017.

And it popped up several times as the dwelling of Police Commission President Bradley Walker (John Getz) during the fourth season of Bosch, which aired in 2018.

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Petitfils-Boos Residence, aka Bugsy Siegel’s house from the “Hooray for Hollywood: Part 2” episode of Hollywood, is located at 545 South Plymouth Boulevard in Windsor Square.

May 18, 2020
Bette Davis’ House from “Feud”

My favorite Big Little Lies quote belongs to Madeline Martha Mackenzie (Reese Witherspoon), who, in response to Celeste Wright (Nicole Kidman) advising her to let something go, quips, “I love my grudges. I tend to them like little pets.” A woman after my own heart, I swear! Oh yes, I am a definite grudge-holder. So I really should have loved Ryan Murphy’s 2017 anthology series Feud, the first season of which detailed the longtime rivalry between actresses Bette Davis and Joan Crawford (played by Susan Sarandon and Jessica Lange, respectively). The show just didn’t grab me, though. Not in the way that American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson, Murphy’s other recent anthology series, did. Don’t get me wrong – it’s not that I didn’t like Feud. I avidly watched all eight episodes and thoroughly enjoyed their historical nature, as well as the period costumes and elaborate (and extremely accurate) sets. But more often than not, the storyline seemed lacking and I kept finding myself feeling bored. I did have a massive fondness for the series’ locations, though, namely the grand Tudor that Bette called home. So when a fellow stalker named AB emailed me the pad’s address a few months back, I immediately jotted it down and couldn’t have been more excited when I finally made it out to Cheviot Hills to see it in person it last week.

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Bette’s sprawling mansion was featured repeatedly throughout Feud.

The stately property was utilized in both on location filming and establishing shots.

The Feud production team went to great lengths to keep the locations featured on the series true to life. The Cheviot Hills residence most closely resembles Ms. Davis’ Laguna Beach mansion located at 1991 Ocean Way, though that pad is situated on top of a cliff overlooking the Pacific. The front of it is much less grand than the manse that appeared on Feud, but the rear and side are pretty darn dramatic.

In real life, the massive 1926 estate boasts 7 bedrooms, 7 baths, 5,436 square feet of living space, 21 rooms, a wet bar, a pool, a barbeque area, a 3-car garage, a jetted tub, a fireplace, a 0.63-acre lot, a garden, a deck, and an in-law unit.

You can check out some amazing photographs of the home taken in 1928, shortly after it was built, here.

Only the exterior of the dwelling was utilized on Feud. Interior scenes taking place at Bette’s house were shot on a soundstage at 20th Century Fox Studios in Culver City, where much of the series was lensed.

In a February 2017 Variety article, Feud production designer Judy Becker describes Bette as a traditionalist when it came to her décor. She says, “Bette was from outside of Boston. She was a Yankee. We did a brown and green and earthy palette for her. She had a lot of American Colonial furniture, and she had a braided rug. You would think you were in New England, but this was in L.A.” In her research of the actresses’ homes, Becker found that despite moving several times throughout her life, Bette’s furnishings and design schematic always remained the same.

Unfortunately, I could not find any images of the interior of the Cheviot Hills residence, but man, oh man, would I love to see what it actually looks like. I can only imagine how gorgeous it must be!

I did learn, though, thanks to the Just Call Me Aggie website, that the pad was owned by actress Agnes Moorhead from 1946 to 1953. Upon moving in, Moorhead hired famed interior decorator Tony Duquette (whom you may remember from this post) to design the place.

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Bette Davis’ house from Feud is located at 2720 Monte Mar Terrace in Cheviot Hills.

September 29, 2017
Studio Gate 3 from the “Feud” “Hollywood Drive” Promo

It will probably come as a shock to most readers that I don’t know a lot about Old Hollywood. Sure, I am well-versed in all things Marilyn Monroe and have stalked my fair share of noir locations, but on the whole, I’d say I’m pretty lacking in knowledge about the Tinseltown of yesteryear. I am always itching to learn more, though. So I was thrilled when it was announced that the inaugural season of Ryan Murphy’s new anthology series Feud was tackling the decades-long discord between screen legends Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, a rivalry dating back to the 1930s of which I knew virtually nothing. (The second season is set to center around Prince Charles and Lady Di. Um, count me in!) I avidly watched the show (which ended its eight-episode run last night), eating up details of the actresses’ mutual animosity for one another with a spoon, as well as obsessively researching its locations. I even went so far as to stalk a spot that only appeared in a brief 31-second promo – a first for me.

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In the promo, titled “Hollywood Drive,” Davis and Crawford are shown simultaneously arriving at Gate 3 of an unnamed Hollywood studio and then playing chicken with each other to get in. (Though Jessica Lange and Susan Sarandon portrayed Joan and Bette, respectively, on Feud, the promo made use of unnamed actresses for the roles.)

You can watch the trailer by clicking below.

I recognized the “studio” gate immediately thanks to its appearance in a Season 3 episode of Scandal in which it masked as the front gate of the White House. (More on that in a bit.) I logged a ridiculous amount of man-hours looking for the site after seeing it in Scandal (so much so that visions of it are now burned into my brain!) and finally pinpointed it as the entrance to Beth Olam Cemetery-Hollywood, which is part of Hollywood Forever Cemetery. (More on that in a bit, as well.) So when the gate popped up in the Feud promo, identifying it was a no-brainer.

Not much of the locale was changed for “Hollywood Drive,” aside from the addition of a few boxed plants and signage reading “Studio Gate 3.” The structure’s central blue dome was also kept out of frame.

Hollywood Forever was originally established in 1899 as Hollywood Memorial Park Cemetery. In the late 1920s, the southwest portion of the then 102-acre property was appropriated for Jewish burials and became known as Beth Olam Cemetery-Hollywood. Though it has its own gate, it still very much a part of Hollywood Forever. (Today, Hollywood Forever boasts 62 acres due to the fact that in 1920, 40 acres were sold off to 2 different movie studios to develop what is now collectively Paramount Pictures.)

In 1939, the cemetery was purchased by convicted felon Jack Roth, who had just finished serving 5 years of a suggested 11- to 95-year prison sentence for grand theft and securities fraud. Jail did not change Roth’s criminal tendencies. He immediately set about spending the burial ground’s funds on himself, installing a wet bar in his office and purchasing a yacht that he claimed was used to scatter clients’ ashes and was therefore tax deductible. Not surprisingly, the state of the cemetery began to severely decline under Roth’s tutelage. As this fabulous 2011 Tablet article states, “In one year, Hollywood Memorial made more money disinterring bodies than interring them—relatives wanted their loved ones moved to better-kept environs.” When Jack passed away in 1998 (for those wondering, yes, he is buried at Hollywood Forever), the site was sold to brothers Tyler and Brent Cassity, who revitalized and cleaned up the neglected graveyard, renamed it “Hollywood Forever Cemetery,” and began offering tours, as well as hosting the insanely popular Cinespia movie nights. (I saw Pee-wee’s Big Adventure there back in 2008 and had an absolute blast.) The duo also eventually wound up facing their own complicated tangles with the law, which are detailed in the Tablet post.

While Hollywood Forever is used in filming all.the.time., for this post, I thought it would be best to focus solely on the Beth Olam gate.

Though a gate at The Huntington Library, Art Collection, and Botanical Gardens masked as the White House’s front gate in previous seasons of Scandal, for reasons likely having to do with convenience, the production utilized the Beth Olam gate in Season 3’s “Mama Said Knock You Out.” The structure appeared twice in the episode. It first popped up in the scene in which Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) received an ominous phone call from her mother upon arriving at the White House.

Later in the episode, Cyrus Beene (Jeff Perry) tried to convince Olivia not to abandon her post as presidential fixer while at the gate. A makeshift guard shack and wall of hedges were installed for the Scandal shoot and the White House later digitally added into the background of the segments.

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Studio Gate 3, from the Feud “Hollywood Drive” promo, is actually the gate to Beth Olam Cemetery-Hollywood (which is part of Hollywood Forever Cemetery) located at 900 North Gower Street in Hollywood.

April 24, 2017