Tag: filming locations

Abbey San Encino from “Dexter”

As I have mentioned several times before on this blog, I absolutely cannot watch an episode of fave show Dexter without having my iPad next to me and a web-browser open to the Seeing Stars website’s extensive Dexter filming locations page. And this season has been no different. While watching the episode titled “Once Upon a Time . . . “ two Sundays ago, I became just a wee bit obsessed with the amazing abandoned church where serial killer Professor Gellar (aka Edward James Olmos) and his young protégé, Travis Marshall (aka Colin Hanks), conduct their various crimes. Gary, who runs Seeing Stars, of course, had the location listed on his site. As it turns out, it is a historic building named Abbey San Encino and it is located in the Highland Park area of Los Angeles, just west of South Pasadena. So, figuring it fit in perfectly with my Haunted Hollywood theme, I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out there to stalk the place this past weekend.

Abbey San Encino, a private home which took over a decade to construct, was designed and built by a wealthy printer/typographer named Clyde Browne. Clyde, who originally hailed from Ohio, had moved onto the property, into what was then just a frame building, with his wife Grace Wassum in 1904. In the summer of 1915, he began construction on his dream home which, according to a fabulous Big Orange Landmarks article, he modeled after several different historic properties including the chapel at Holyrod Palace in Scotland, Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo in Carmel-by-the-Sea, and Mission San Francisco de Solano in Sonoma. For his building materials, Clyde used a myriad of artifacts, such as bells, crucifixes, hinges, and lanterns, that colleagues picked up for him from various abandoned edifices across Europe. Browne also salvaged numerous materials from several defunct buildings in the Los Angeles area, most notably the Van Nuys Hotel, which had closed shortly following Prohibition. The 2,627-square-foot Abbey San Encino was finally completed in 1921 and boasted a chapel, a massive cellar, with what looks to be an actual jail cell, a bell tower, and a central courtyard. For whatever reason, Browne and his family did not move into their new home until 1924, three full years after it was completed. When Clyde passed away in 1942, his son moved into the Abbey where he raised Clyde’s two grandsons, songwriter Edward Severin Browne and singer Jackson Browne – yes, that Jackson Browne.

In fact, Jackson actually used a photograph of the Abbey’s inner courtyard on the cover of his second album, “For Everyman”. And, amazingly enough, his brother Edward still lives on the property, along with his wife, to this day.

Abbey San Encino is a true architectural wonder and was declared Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument #106 on November 15, 1972.

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Abbey San Encino first showed up in the Season 6 episode of Dexter titled “Once Upon a Time . . .”, in the scene in which Travis dropped off several bags of mannequins at Professor Gellar’s lair.

The door through which Travis tossed the bags of mannequins is pictured above.

The interior of Professor Gellar’s hideout appears later in that same episode, in the scene in which the Professor reprimands Travis for visiting his sister. And while the interior shown on Dexter does resemble the real life inside of the Abbey, which you can see photographs of here, filming did not actually take place there. I believe that for all of the interior scenes, producers most likely built a set based on the actual inside of the Abbey at Sunset-Gower Studios in Hollywood where the series is lensed.

The interior of the hideout showed up once again at the very end of the “Once Upon a Time . . . “ episode, in the scene in which Travis brought the Professor a jogger named Nathan (aka David Monahan) whom he had kidnapped.

The exterior of the Abbey was also featured in this past Sunday night’s episode of Dexter, which was titled “Smokey and the Bandit”, and I am guessing that it will also be appearing in all of the future episodes of Season 6, as well. And, according to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, the property is going to be used as the new home of Russell Edgington (aka Denis O’Hare) in the upcoming season of True Blood.

Abbey San Encino–Dexter Filming Location

You can check out a video which shows interior photographs of Abbey San Encino by clicking above.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Abbey San Encino, aka Professor Gellar and Travis Marshall’s hideout from Season 6 of Dexter, is located at 6211 Arroyo Glen Street in Highland Park. You can visit the property’s official website here.

October 21, 2011
Laurie Strode’s House from “Halloween”

A couple of months ago, fellow stalker Mikey, from the Mike the Fanboy website, clued me into an INCREDIBLY cool little bit of Haunted Hollywood stalking information that I had not been previously aware of. Apparently, the real life owners of the home that stood in for the Strode residence in the 1978 classic horror film Halloween are so extremely stalker-friendly that they provide a supply of plastic pumpkins on their front porch all year long for fans of the movie to pose with in photographs. Well, as you can imagine, I was absolutely bowled over with excitement upon hearing this news and decided that, even though I had previously stalked the Strode house and blogged about it briefly way back in October of 2008, that it was most-definitely worthy of a re-visit. So I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to South Pasadena to do just that this past weekend.

And, sure enough, as soon as we arrived at the home, I spotted an assortment of plastic foam pumpkins sitting on a chair on the property’s front porch, along with a framed sign.

That sign reads, “Yes this is the scene with Jamie Lee Curtis from the 1978 Halloween. You may borrow the pumpkin. Have a good time.”

The sign also includes a still from the movie so that fans can refer to it while posing on the front walkway. How incredibly cool are these homeowners??? Big, huge, Andre-the-Giant-sized props go out to them for embracing the cinematic history of their residence and allowing stalkers to share in some of the fun. If I owned a famous movie home, you can bet your bottom dollar that I would be doing this same, exact thing. LOVE IT! LOVE IT! LOVE IT!

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The supposed-Haddonfield, Illinois Strode residence was featured several times in Halloween. It first appeared in the beginning of the movie in the scene in which Laurie Strode (aka Jamie Lee Curtis) is reminded by her father, Morgan Strode (aka Peter Griffith), to drop a key off at the “Meyer’s place”. According to the fabulous website The Cabinet, that particular scene was the very first of the entire movie to be shot. And according to IMDB’s Halloween trivia page, director John Carpenter hired Jamie Lee Curtis, in what was her very first movie role, as a sort-of nod to Alfred Hitchcock who had cast Jamie’s mother, Janet Leigh, in the iconic role of Marion Crane in Psycho. In another homage to the legendary Hitchcock classic, Carpenter also named the character of Michael Meyer’s psychiatrist “Sam Loomis” after Marion’s lover in Psycho.

The Strode residence next shows up in the scene in which Laurie returns home from school, after having been accidentally scared by Sherriff Leigh Bracken (aka Charles Cyphers).

And finally, it appears in the scene in which Laurie waits, pumpkin in hand, to be picked up by her friend Annie Brackett (aka Nancy Kyes) to go baby-sitting.

It is that scene that the homeowners allow you to recreate with their fake pumpkins. SO INCREDIBLY COOL!

Amazingly, the Strode residence looks pretty much exactly the same today as it did in 1978 when Halloween was filmed. The north-facing side of the house is the area that appeared in the movie.

For whatever reason, the east-facing side, which is pictured above, was not seen in Halloween. According to fave website Zillow, in real life the property is not a single-family home, but a multi-occupancy dwelling which features three separate units.

And while I cannot say for certain that the home’s actual interior was used in the filming, I am guessing that it was.

On a very random side-note – while doing some research on Halloween earlier today, I almost fell off my chair upon discovering that Kyle Richards (star of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, whom I loathe more than there are words in the English language to express – I honestly do not think there has ever been a bigger b*tch in the history of reality television, but I digress) had played Lindsey Wallace, the little girl whom Annie babysat, in the 1978 flick.

And on a Halloween side-note – as the GC and I were driving away from the Strode residence, we spotted a house that was decorated beyond belief for the upcoming holiday!

As you can see above, the amount of detail that went into the embellishment of the home is utterly incredible!

I was shocked to discover that the fence which runs along the perimeter of the property and reads “cemetery” above the gate was actually just a prop! I mean, I, of course, realized the “cemetery” part was decoration, but the entire fence? WOW!

And it was not until I was about to leave that I realized the home’s brick façade was also just a decoration! As you can see in the above photograph, the entire front of the residence has been wrapped in some sort of plastic covering. Talk about going all out!!! If I ever have a house, you better believe that this is what it is going to look like every year come Halloween!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Laurie Strode’s house from the original Halloween movie is located at 1115 Oxley Street in South Pasadena. The massively-decorated-for-Halloween home that we stumbled upon is located right around the corner at 1130 Diamond Avenue in South Pasadena.

October 19, 2011
The “Psycho” Car Dealership

While putting together a list of spooky-type locales to stalk during my Haunted Hollywood month a couple of weeks ago, I decided to peruse through fave book James Dean Died Here: The Locations of America’s Pop Culture Landmarks by Chris Epting for a little inspiration. And, let me tell you, I just about died of excitement when I saw a blurb about the North-Hollywood-area car dealership that appeared in the 1960 Alfred Hitchcock classic Psycho. In the blurb, Epting mentioned that not only was the place still standing, but that it was also still a car dealership – over fifty years later! How incredibly cool is that?!? So because Psycho is arguably one of the most well-known and best-loved horror movies of all time, I decided that I just had to include the location in my Haunted Hollywood postings and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to the Valley to stalk it a few days later.

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In Psycho, Marion Crane (aka Jamie Lee Curtis’ mother, Janet Leigh), who is on the run from the police after having stolen $40,000 in cash from her boss in Arizona, stops by the supposed-Bakersfield-area “California Charlie’s Used Car Lot” in order to trade her car in for one with California plates. While there, her brusque, hurried attitude causes California Charlie (aka John Anderson) to say his famous line, “Well, it’s the first time the customer ever high-pressured the salesman.” At the time of the filming, the dealership was known as Harry Maher’s Used Car Lot and, because the Ford Motor Company was a sponsor of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Maher was required to swap out his real life inventory with a supply of Fords for the one-day shoot. Hitchcock was apparently such a perfectionist that, according to a fabulous article written on The Cabinet website, he sent assistant director Hilton A. Green all the way to Bakersfield to photograph real-life used car salesmen in order to see their clothing so that California Charlie’s costume would be realistic. He also commissioned Psycho screenwriter Joseph Stefano to observe car salesmen while writing the script so that Charlie’s dialogue would be legitimate. Talk about attention to detail!

Also according to The Cabinet article, the bathroom scene, in which Marion takes $700 out of her purse in order to pay for her new car, was not filmed on location at Harry Maher’s Used Car Lot, as the restroom there was too small to fit an entire camera crew. Hitch instead decided to shoot that brief scene at Universal Studios, on what I am assuming was just a set that was built on a soundstage.

Today, Harry Maher’s Used Car Lot is home to MINI of Universal City and it, sadly, does not look much like it did in 1960 when Psycho was filmed.

Because the lot has changed so considerably over the years, it was hard to discern the exact spot where filming took place. But if I had to venture a guess, I would say that the California Charlie’s scene was shot in the area denoted with a pink rectangle in the above aerial view. And I am fairly certain that the building denoted with a blue arrow was not in existence at the time that Psycho was filmed.

It is my guess that the screen capture and photograph pictured above show the same exact area of the lot. I believe that the California Charlie’s sales office is now the MINI dealership’s service office . . .

. . . and that the door shown in the screen capture above is in pretty much the same location as the door denoted with a pink arrow in the photograph.

I am also fairly certain that the MINI showroom was built in the portion of the lot that Marion walked through in Psycho . . .

. . . and that the above images show the exact same view, albeit 50 years apart. Even though the property has changed so drastically in the five-plus decades since the filming of Psycho took place, I was still absolutely elated to be standing on such hallowed ground. The thought that Alfred Hitchcock had once been in the same spot I was now stalking was literally mind-blowing. So incredibly cool!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: MINI of Universal City, aka the Psycho car dealership, is located at 4270 Lankershim Boulevard in North Hollywood. You can visit the dealership’s official website here.

October 18, 2011
Palace Costume – The Halloween Costume Shop from “Beverly Hills, 90210”

One location that I have been wanting to stalk for close to two decades now is the costume shop that was featured in the Season 2 episode of fave show Beverly Hills, 90210 titled “Halloween”. Not only was that episode one of my most beloved of the entire series, but, as has been made blatantly apparent by now, Halloween is my absolute favorite holiday and I was positively DYING to wander through the very same clothing racks that the 90210 gang had wandered through. So when fellow stalker Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, tracked the place down a while back, I just about died of excitement and immediately added it to my Haunted-Hollywood-To-Stalk list. Being that the store’s actual name – Palace Costume Company – had been visibly displayed in the episode, I am highly embarrassed that I was not able to find the place myself. I mean honestly, what kind of a stalker am I? Anyway, I finally dragged the Grim Cheaper out to the store two weekends ago and, as you can imagine, I could NOT have been more excited!

Palace Costume, which was originally a vintage clothing retailer, was founded in the 1960s by a woman named Melody Barnett in a storefront on Melrose Avenue in West Hollywood. The shop was the very first vintage clothing store to be located on Melrose, a street that is now rife with thrift emporiums and vintage boutiques. In 1970, Palace Costume moved to a 2,000-square-foot space on Fairfax Avenue and began exclusively renting out authentic vintage clothing to film and production crews. According to this October 1998 Los Angeles Business Journal article, Barnett has become so successful in the entertainment industry that she has had to add about 1,000 square feet of space to her store every single year due to her rapidly growing collection. Today, her 36,000-square-foot emporium houses over half a million different pieces, making it one of the largest vintage clothing collections in the entire country. Melody’s costumes have appeared in thousands upon thousands of productions, including Titanic, Chinatown, A Beautiful Mind, Blow, Frida, Pleasantville, Boogie Nights, Evita, Forrest Gump, What’s Love Got to Do with It, and all three Austin Powers movies. In 1998, Barnett had a wooden and stucco façade constructed around her store for security reasons, so the place looks quite a bit different today than it did onscreen on 90210.

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In the “Halloween” episode of Beverly Hills, 90210, Brenda Walsh (aka my girl Shannen Doherty), Kelly Taylor (aka Jennie Garth), Dylan McKay (aka Luke Perry), and the rest of the 90210 gang head out to what they call “Hollywood Costume” to pick out some costumes for a Halloween party they are attending that night. As I mentioned above, the name “Palace Costume Co.” is blatantly visible on the storefront in the scene. Yes, I am a blonde!

It is while there that Brenda and Dylan find their amazeballs Bonnie and Clyde costumes. It has ALWAYS been my dream to dress up as Brenda and Dylan dressed up as Bonnie and Clyde for Halloween, but somehow I do not think the GC would go for that. Although this year we are dressing up 90210-style, but I am saving that information for a future post!

Sadly, Palace Costume is not open to the public, but is only open to industry professionals. Words cannot express how heartbroken I was when we arrived and saw the “not open to the public” sign on the front door. I was literally almost in tears (OK, not really, but I was pretty bummed) as I had so badly wanted to peruse through the countless racks of period clothing like Brenda and Donna had done on 90210. And I had also wanted to verify if the episode had actually been filmed inside of the store or at a different location.

Because I hate making phone calls (I know, I know – I am weird!), I enlisted the help of Mike, from MovieShotsLA (who is doing his own Halloween locations theme this month), to call Palace Costume and ask Melody if any 90210 filming had been done inside of the store. She confirmed that indeed it had. And if you look at the above screen capture from the episode and compare it to the photograph of the inside of Palace Costume, which I got off of the company’s website, you can see that the light fixtures and ceiling do, in fact, match. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to go inside of that place! I am a member of SAG, doesn’t that count for anything??

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Palace Costume, from the “Halloween” episode of Beverly Hills, 90210, is located at 835 North Fairfax Avenue in Los Angeles. You can visit the store’s official website here. Palace Costume is sadly not open to the public, but is only open to members of the entertainment industry.

October 13, 2011
The “American Horror Story” House

Last week, fellow stalker Owen sent me an email with a tip, as well as this Curbed LA article, about a Haunted-Hollywood-type location that he thought I might be interested in stalking – the imposing brick and marble abode which figures as the focal point of the new television series American Horror Story. And right he was! I had just TiVo-ed the premiere episode of the show the previous night and could hardly wait to sit down and watch it. And I was not disappointed – American Horror Story is absolutely riveting! The fact that Owen had already tracked down the main location used in it was like icing on the cake! Randomly enough, another fellow stalker named August sent me an email this past Thursday evening in which he also tipped me off to the location of the American Horror Story house, along with a link to the exact same Curbed LA article that Owen had also sent! I figured the universe was most definitely trying to tell me something, so I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the place this past weekend.

The American Horror Story house was originally built sometime during the early 1900s (the home’s official website says it was built in 1902, but Curbed LA and various other sites state that it was most likely constructed in 1908) by Alfred F. Rosenheim as his personal residence. The prominent Los Angeles architect also designed the Majestic Theatre on Broadway, the Herman W. Hellman Building in Downtown Los Angeles (L.A.’s very first first ten-story building), the Doheny Mansion’s glass conservancy and palm house in West Adams, and the Second Church of Christ Scientist, also in West Adams. The Rosenheim residence, which in 1999 was declared Los Angeles’ Historic-Cultural Monument Number 660, features a 9,660-square-foot, three-story main house, 7 bedrooms, 7 baths, Tiffany stained-glass windows, as well as Tiffany glass doors and light fixtures, maid’s quarters, a library, a hand-painted Japanese gold- and silver-leafed ceiling, a formal dining room, six different Batchelder fireplaces, a solarium, and a 1,600-square-foot basement. According to the Paradise Leased blog, upon its unveiling, the Los Angeles Times stated that the mansion was “magnificently appointed” and featured “almost every conceivable modern convenience and luxury” – including an intercom system that is still in working condition to this day!

In 1918, Rosenheim sold his self-designed abode to a mining tycoon named A.J. McQuatters, who used the mansion as his winter home. The property went through a succession of different residents in the following years, including character actor Edward Everett Horton, who leased the home for a short while, and the Sisters of Social Service, who converted the dwelling into a convent. In 1954, the Sisters also built a 50-foot-long, 4,500-square-foot detached chapel on the premises. That chapel has since been transformed into a recording studio. According to Curbed LA, the Rosenheim house has been on and off the market since 1999 and is currently for sale for a cool $4.5 million.

As you can see above, the residence, which sits on a 3/4-acre, corner plot of land and is truly magnificent in person, is actually much larger than its façade would lead you to believe. The place is absolutely GINORMOUS!

American Horror Story House–For Sale

You can watch the home’s real estate video by clicking above.

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The pilot episode of American Horror Story opens up in the year 1978 and shows two twin boys wreaking havoc on a dilapidated old mansion.

The real life interior of the property, which you can see pictures of here, was used in the filming of those scenes, although it was dressed considerably to appear neglected and run-down.

The episode then switches to the present day where it begins to follow the story of the Harmon family – mother Vivien (aka Connie Britton), father Ben (aka Dylan McDermott), and daughter Violet (aka Taissa Farmiga, who, in real life, is the younger sister of Up in the Air’s Vera Farmiga) – who has moved from Boston to Los Angeles in order to start a new life after suffering a considerable series of misfortunes. The family purchases the old mansion, which has since been fixed-up, despite being told about the previous owners’ murder-suicide, which took place shortly beforehand.

The real life interior of the house, in its actual state, is used extensively as the interior of the Harmon residence. You can see more interior photographs of the property here.

Oddly enough, though, the series does not make use of the property’s kitchen, which you can take a look at here. As you can see, it looks nothing like the kitchen that is shown on TV.

Thanks to fellow stalker Robert, from the Movie Locations and More website, I learned that the Rosenheim home was also used in the Halloween-themed Season 4 episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer titled “Fear, Itself”, as the Alpha Delta fraternity house where Buffy Summers (aka Sarah Michelle Gellar) and her friends attended a Halloween party.

The interior scenes look to have been shot at a different location, though.

Except for the scene in which Oz (aka Seth Green) turned into a werewolf, which was filmed inside of one of the property’s real life bathrooms.

There seems to be quite a bit of erroneous information about the home’s filming history floating around online. According to the property’s official website, it appeared in a 1950’s movie named Old Blue Eyes which starred Frank Sinatra, although I can find no such production listed on Frank’s IMDB page. And according to this website, the house was also used in 2002’s Spiderman and 2007’s Because I Said So, but I scanned through both of those movies earlier today and did not spot the place anywhere. That same website also states that the residence appeared in Seabiscuit, but because I do not own the film and could not find it to rent or stream anywhere, I was not able to verify that.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalkers Owen and August for telling me about this location!

Stalk It: The American Horror Story house is located at 1120 Westchester Place in the Country Club Park section of Los Angeles.

October 12, 2011
The “Double Indemnity” House

A couple of weekends ago I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to the Beachwood Canyon area of the Hollywood Hills to stalk one of the most famous macabre movie locations of all time – the Spanish-Colonial-Revival-style abode that was featured in Double Indemnity. Incredibly, up until a few weeks ago I had yet to see the 1944 film noir classic, which was directed by Billy Wilder, even though it is largely considered to be one of the greatest movies of all time. And I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised when I finally did sit down to watch it. Not only did the film not seem dated, but I was absolutely riveted to my chair for the entire 107 minute run time. Sure, some scenes were a bit cheesy – especially the love scenes between Pacific All Risk Insurance Company salesman Walter Neff (aka Fred MacMurray) and disgruntled housewife Phyllis Dietrichson (aka Barbara Stanwyck), not to mention Walter’s silly pronunciation of the word “baby” – but overall the film was incredibly well-done and thoroughly suspenseful, which is shocking being that it was made almost a full seven decades ago. If you have yet to see it, I cannot more highly recommend doing so!

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In Double Indemnity, the supposed-Glendale-area hillside abode pictured above is where Phyllis lives with her abusive oilman husband, Mr. Dietrichson (aka Tom Powers), and his daughter, Lola Dietrichson (aka Jean Heather). It is while walking up to the home at the very beginning of the film that Walter Neff utters what is arguably its most famous line. Of the residence, he says, “It was one of those California Spanish houses everyone was nuts about ten or fifteen years ago. This one must have cost somebody about thirty thousand bucks – that is if he ever finished paying for it.” It is at the house that Phyllis and Walter first meet and fall in love. The two later cook up a scheme to purchase an accident insurance policy for Phyllis’ unknowing husband and then murder him to collect on the claim. The “double indemnity” of the title refers to a clause in the policy which stipulates that in the case of certain more unlikely accidents, i.e. a death on a train, the amount of the insurance payout would double.

Amazingly enough, as you can see above, the house has remained virtually unchanged since 1944 when Double Indemnity was filmed. I simply cannot express how cool I think that is!

The only real difference is the garage door, which has since been modernized. Otherwise though, the home looks pretty much exactly the same in person as it did onscreen in all of its black-and-white glory.

The view has obviously changed a bit in the ensuing years, though.

The screenplay for the movie, which was co-written by Raymond Chandler and Billy Wilder, was based on an 8-part serial written by James M. Cain that was first published in Liberty Magazine in 1936. Cain based his story on the real life 1927 murder of Albert Snyder by his wife Ruth Snyder and her lover Henry Judd Gray, the trial of which Cain had covered while working as a journalist in New York. And amazingly enough, it seems as if the house that wound up being used in the movie was the very same house that Cain had written about in his story. In the book he calls the abode the “House of Death” and, of it, he says, “I drove out to Glendale to put three new truck drivers on a brewery company bond, and then I remembered this renewal over in Hollywoodland. I decided to run over there. That was how I came to this House of Death, that you’ve been reading about in the papers. It didn’t look like a House of Death when I saw it. It was just a Spanish house, like all the rest of them in California, with white walls, red tile roof, and a patio out to one side. It was built cock-eyed. The garage was under the house, the first floor was over that and the rest of it was spilled up the hill any way they could get it in. You climbed some stone steps to the front door, so I parked the car and went up there.” Cain’s words could not be a more perfect description of the residence that appeared in the movie, which leads me to believe that the abode must have served as the inspiration for the home in the story and that Cain then later suggested the place to producers to use for the filming. So incredibly cool!

According to an October 17, 2009 Los Angeles Times article, an almost exact replica of the interior of the house was recreated on a soundstage at Paramount Studios in Hollywood for the filming.

As you can see above, in real life the home’s front door is much closer to the bottom of the central staircase than it was onscreen. The actual residence, which was built in 1927 and boasts 4 bedrooms, 3 baths, and 3,077 square feet of living space, currently belongs to interior designer/set decorator Mae Brunken. You can check out some fabulous photographs of the actual interior of the property here. (The photograph of the home pictured above does not belong to me, but remains the sole property of the Los Angeles Times and photographer Ricardo DeAratanha).

In an interesting twist, as you can see above, producers had the address number of the Double Indemnity house changed from “6301” to “4760” for the filming. I would not have thought that sort of thing happened back in the days before DVD players, pause buttons, and the internet, but all evidence to the contrary.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Double Indemnity house is located at 6301 Quebec Drive in the Beachwood Canyon area of the Hollywood Hills.

October 10, 2011
The “Doppelganger” Mansion

Another location from the 1993 thriller Doppelganger that I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to stalk this past weekend was the mansion where Holly Gooding (aka Drew Barrymore) grew up in the flick. I found this locale, once again, thanks to Tony, my friend and fellow stalker who has the amazing Flickr photostream which I mentioned yesterday. Incredibly enough, Tony has somehow managed to track down almost every single location featured in Doppelganger and he was kind enough to share them all with me so that I could blog about them during my Haunted Hollywood month – well, every location that is except for the supposed-Arcadia-area Our Lady of Mercy Psychiatric Institute which I have now become just a wee bit obsessed with finding. But I digress. Anyway, last weekend, after stopping by the apartment building featured in the movie, the GC and I headed a short two miles north to Los Feliz to do some stalking of the mansion.

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The Doppelganger mansion is featured twice in the flick. It first pops up in the scene in which Holly and her new roommate, struggling mystery writer Patrick Highsmith (aka George Newbern), meet with Holly’s family lawyer, Mike Wallace (aka George Maharis), in order to get the keys to her former home which has been locked up and sealed since her father’s murder four years prior. While there, Patrick says that the abode is “right out of a Bette Davis movie” – a line which I, of course, loved.

The large, English-country-style abode later pops up in the movie’s climactic, rather odd, and definitely spooky final scene in which Holly returns to her childhood home in the middle of the night to confront her evil doppelganger and finally end the nightmare in which she has been living.

Patrick, of course, follows Holly and, carrying a baseball bat, climbs up the side of the house and through a second story window in the hopes that he can save her.

I believe that the interior of the mansion that was shown in the movie was just a set and not the home’s real life interior.

According to fave website Zillow, the Doppelganger mansion, which was originally built in 1923, boasts 5 bedrooms, 2 baths, and 3,500 square feet of living space, although I would have guessed it to be much, much larger. And amazingly, the property still looks almost exactly the same today as it did 18 years ago when Doppelganger was filmed. Even the three large circular trees which flank the home’s front door and front window still look exactly the same. Love it!

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Tony for finding this location! You can check out Tony’s FANTASTIC Flickr photostream, which features countless filming locations, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Doppelganger mansion is located at 2421 Glendower Avenue in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles. Donna Martin’s house from the B.Y.O.B. episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 is located just two doors south of the Doppelganger mansion at 2405 Glendower Avenue. And the so-called “Los Feliz Murder House”, which I blogged about back in January, is located just around the corner at 2475 Glendower Place.

October 7, 2011
The “Doppelganger” Apartment Building

Last week, while perusing through my friend and fellow stalker Tony’s Flickr photostream – which is comprised of an absolutely AMAZING collection of pictures of hundreds upon hundreds of filming locations – I came across his photographs of the apartment building that was used in the thriller Doppelganger. And while I had absolutely loved me some Doppelganger when it first came out way back in 1993, I had not seen the movie in such a long time that I had somehow forgotten Drew Barrymore was even in it! So I decided it was most definitely time for a re-watch and ran right out to rent the flick that very night. Unfortunately, it was not nearly as good as I had remembered it to be, especially the ending which I did not understand at all. But I, nevertheless, still had to drag the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the apartment building that very same weekend – especially since it fit in so perfectly with my Haunted Hollywood theme!

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In Doppelganger, Holly Gooding (aka Drew Barrymore) migrates from New York to Los Angeles after being cleared of a murder charge, whereupon she moves into an apartment building with a struggling mystery writer named Patrick Highsmith (aka Father of the Bride’s George Newbern).

In the movie, the idyllic little building, which has a central courtyard, a two-tiered fountain, and a communal birdcage, is named “Angel’s Court” and it is supposedly located at 1167 North Orange Grove Avenue in the Hollywood area.

In reality, the building is located just east of Hollywood and south of Thai Town and is, sadly, not nearly as inviting or picturesque in person as it appeared to be in Doppelganger. Don’t get me wrong, the building is by no means unattractive, but the neighborhood where it is located is, unfortunately, a bit on the iffy side and the courtyard that seemed so charming onscreen is rather bare in real life. I am guessing that the fountain and birdcage that appeared in the movie, along with the archway that was situated over the front gate, were just props that were brought in solely for the filming as they are no longer there.

In Doppelganger, Patrick and Holly lived in Apartment #2 and I am guessing that the real life interior of that particular unit was also used in the filming.

And, according to my buddy E.J. over at The Movieland Directory website, the building, which was originally constructed in 1922, was once also home to a few celebrities – cinematographer Harry Zech lived there during the 1920s and silent film actress Frances Deamer lived there in the 30s.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Tony for finding this location! You can check out Tony’s FANTASTIC Flickr photostream, which features countless filming locations, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Doppelganger apartment building is located at 1165 North Hobart Boulevard in Los Angeles. In the movie, Patrick and Holly lived in Apartment 2 and FBI Agent Stanley White (aka Dan Shor) lived in Apartment 6.

October 6, 2011
The Macy’s at Burbank Town Center Mall from “The Mentalist”

One spooky-type location that I have had on my To-Stalk list for just about forever now is the Macy’s department store located inside of the Burbank Town Center Mall, which was featured as a murder site in the Season 2 episode of fave show The Mentalist titled “Redemption”. And while I had recognized the location immediately while watching the episode way back in September of 2009 and had even stalked the Burbank Town Center Mall recently due to its appearance in another episode of The Mentalist, for whatever reason I had completely forgotten about Macy’s. So I promptly dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the place this past weekend after doing some shopping at a nearby Ikea.

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In the “Redemption” episode of The Mentalist, CBI Agent Teresa Lisbon (aka Robin Tunney) and her ne’er-do-well consultant Patrick Jane (aka Simon Baker) are called in to investigate the murder of a man in a supposed-Sacramento-area department store. The scene in which the two arrive at the store was filmed at the bottom of the escalators on Macy’s Second Floor, next to the MAC Cosmetics counter.

Lisbon and Jane are immediately escorted by Police Captain Bocanegra (aka Geoffrey Rivas) to the murder site in the store’s Men’s Department. It was due to this particular segment of the scene, in which Patrick and Jane walk over some unique green tile and wood flooring, that I recognized the episode had been shot at the Macy’s in Burbank. The GC and I once did some shopping in the Burbank Macy’s Men’s Department quite a few years back and while we were there I had commented on how pretty I thought the floors were. They did not look like typical department store floors and made me think of the upscale Herald Square Macy’s on 34th Street in New York in which the Men’s Department is composed of dark woods. Anyway, the image of those floors stuck with me, for whatever reason, so when I saw Lisbon and Jane walk over them in “Redemption”, I recognized them immediately.

Lisbon and Jane are then shown the bludgeoned body of Ivar Rasmussen, which was found in a little waiting area outside of the men’s dressing rooms. It is there that Patrick proceeds to smell the body in order to gather clues, infuriating Captain Bocanegra in the process.

Sadly, the area used for the filming of that scene was being redressed when we showed up to the stalk the place and was not very accessible.

But I did manage to snap a picture of a similar alcove located in a different section of the store.

After properly “sniffing out” the body, Jane proceeds downstairs to the Ground Level Furniture Department in order to interview the patrons who were in the store at the time of the bludgeoning.

It is there that he performs a ritual using the hands of one of the witnesses to lead him to the murder weapon, which turns out to be the base of a crystal wineglass.

After the murder weapon is found, a huge fight breaks out among the killer and the security guards, which ends up causing $250,000 worth of damage to the store. When Lisbon admonishes him for creating the ruckus, Jane says, “What? The case is closed isn’t it?” Ah, I so love Patrick Jane!

That portion of the scene was filmed in Macy’s furniture/bedding/cookware department, which, amazingly enough, looks pretty much exactly the same in person as it did onscreen. I thought for sure the production crew had dressed the area for the filming, but that does not actually appear to have been the case.

On a Mentalist side note – A couple of weeks ago, my good friend Miss Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog, called me up for some help after she discovered that she had locked her keys inside of her car while doing some shopping at the Burbank Town Center Mall. I headed over there and after calling Roadside Assistance and having them jimmy open the lock, we discovered that her keys were not, in fact, inside of the car after all. So I ventured inside the mall to see if anyone had turned them in to the security office. No one had and Pinky’s poor dad ended up having to drive all the way from Ventura to bring her a spare set – and, sadly, her originals have still yet to be found. FAIL! But every cloud does indeed have a silver lining, as they say, because a few days later I was watching the Season Premiere of The Mentalist, which was titled “Scarlet Ribbons”, and just about died when I noticed that a scene was filmed at the Burbank Town Center Mall security office! As I mentioned in the post I wrote about the show’s Season 3 Finale back in June, Patrick Jane finally killed Red John (aka Bradley Whitford) in the middle of the Burbank Town Center Mall at the very end of the episode. Well, when Agents Kimball Cho (aka Tim Kang) and Wayne Rigsby (aka Owain Yeoman) set out to investigate the killing in the Season 4 opener, one of their first stops was the mall’s real life security office, looking exactly as it had when I visited it only days before. SO incredibly cool!

That security office is pictured above. I had to take the photograph a bit on the down-low as I was afraid that one of the security guards might get upset if he saw me snapping any pictures of the place.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Macy’s at Burbank Town Center Mall, from the “Redemption” episode of The Mentalist, is located at 200 East Cypress Avenue in Burbank.

October 5, 2011
The Stimson House from “House II: The Second Story”

After stalking Mills View, the Monrovia-area residence that appeared in the 1986 movie House, I started doing some online research on the flick’s 1987 sequel, House II: The Second Story, and came across information about the Stimson House, an incredibly unique, castle-like property located in Los Angeles’ West Adams District. I was immediately intrigued by the home and, because it has been featured in several spooky productions over the years, figured it would fit right in with my Haunted Hollywood theme and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the place a short time later. Incredibly though, thanks to the abode’s unusual beauty and prominent history, this was one location that he actually did not mind being dragged to!

The 3 1/2-story Stimson House was originally built in 1891 as a retirement home for Chicago lumberman/financier Thomas Douglas Stimson. The 12,800-square-foot, 30-room property was designed in the Richardsonian Romanesque style by architect Carroll H. Brown and featured an Arizona red sandstone façade, a 4-story octagonal corner tower, stained glass windows, gabled Gothic arches, Palladian windows, and brick chimneys. The interior, which was dubbed “a shrine to lumber” by Jake Doherty in a January 1994 Los Angeles Times article, consisted of oak flooring, hand-carved wood-paneled walls, beamed ceilings, custom-built china cabinets, and made use of over 8 different kinds of wood, including ash, sycamore, walnut, gumwood, birch, mahogany, oak, and monkeypod. Construction on the residence was completed in 1893 and cost approximately $130,000, making it, at the time, the most expensive home in all of Los Angeles. After Stimson passed away in February 1898, his widow, Achsah, continued to live at the residence until her death in 1904. The property was then sold and underwent several ownership changes until 1940, at which time it was purchased by the USC chapter of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity for $20,000. For the next 8 years, the Stimson House became the site of boisterous parties, elaborate pranks, and late-night frolicking.

At the time, Carrie Estelle Doheny, the widow of oil tycoon Edward L. Doheny, lived in the mansion located directly behind the Stimson House and was not at all happy with her rowdy neighbors. After filing countless complaints with the USC president, she decided to take matters into her own hands and offered the Pi Kappa Alphas $70,000 for the residence. They agreed, moved out, and Carrie promptly deeded the home to a much quieter set of neighbors, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet. The Sisters transformed the abode into a convent where they lived until 1969, at which point they allowed the neighboring Mount St. Mary’s College to use the property as student housing. In 1993, the Sisters returned to the house and set about an extensive $1 million restoration of the property. They continue to live there to this day and often rent the place out for filming in order to offset the mansion’s expensive upkeep and to finance their retirement fund. The Stimson House was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on March 30, 1978 and became Los Angeles’ 212th Historic-Cultural Monument on May 16, 1979.

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In House II: The Second Story, the Stimson house was the haunted residence inherited by Jesse (aka Arye Gross) and his girlfriend, Kate (aka Lar Park-Lincoln).

The Aztec-inspired interior appears to have been a set, though, as it does not match up with these interior photographs of the actual home.

In the Season 2 episode of The Bionic Woman titled “Black Magic”, the Stimson mansion was used as the island home of wealthy inventor Cyrus Carstairs (aka Vincent Price). Both the exterior . . .

. . . and the interior of the property were featured in the episode. And, according to the aforementioned Los Angeles Times article, Vincent Price became so enamored of the house’s echo-y acoustics during filming that he returned there later to tape a few productions of his own.

In the 1989 horror movie After Midnight, the Stimson house appeared in the segment titled “The Old Dark House” as the spot where Joan (aka Nadine Van der Velde) and Kevin (aka Marc McClure) sought help after getting two flat tires while driving late at night. Ironically enough, though, only the front porch and the interior of the Stimson house appeared in the flick.

As you can see above, for the wide angle shots of the mansion’s exterior another location altogether was used.

In the Season 1 episode of Pushing Daisies titled “The Fun in Funeral”, the Stimson House stood in for the Schatz Brothers Funeral Home in Couer d’Couers, where grave-robbing twins Lawrence and Louis Schatz (who were both played by Brad Grunberg) worked and also died.

The home’s real life interior was also used in the episode.

Two television mini-series, 1976’s Captains and the Kings, and 1977’s Testimony of Two Men, were also filmed at the mansion, but unfortunately I could not find copies of either of them to make screen captures for this post.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Stimson house, from House II, is located at 2421 South Figueroa Street in the West Adams District of Los Angeles.

October 4, 2011