Tag: filming locations

Our Lady of Solitude Church from “Behind the Candelabra”

Another Palm Springs’ Behind the Candelabra location that the Grim Cheaper and I stalked recently was Our Lady of Solitude Church, where the funeral for Liberace (Michael Douglas) was held in the recently-aired HBO biopic. This locale was especially interesting because in a case of art imitating life, it was where the flamboyant pianist’s actual 1987 memorial service took place. But more on that later.

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In February 1926, Banning resident Father Philip LaVies began working on plans to found and build a Roman Catholic church in the Palm Springs area. The land for the parish was purchased from the Southern Pacific Railroad and temporary services were held there beginning in 1928. LaVies commissioned Albert Martin, the prolific architect who gave us St. Vincent de Paul Church (which I blogged about here), St. Monica Catholic Church (which I blogged about here), Los Angeles City Hall, and the Million Dollar Theatre, to design the site. The Spanish Revival-style structure was completed in 1930. A rectory was added to the property in 1964 and a parish center in 1974. Our Lady of Solitude, which was designated a Class One Historic Site on May 15, 1985, is currently one of the oldest churches still standing in Palm Springs

Our Lady of Solitude has had a few brushes with celebrity in its past. Apparently, President John F. Kennedy attended mass there whenever he was in town. And Jackie Coogan (who just so happens to be the grandfather of Keith Coogan, my girl Pinky Lovejoy’s fiancé) must have as well, because the GC spotted the placard pictured below posted on one of the church’s pews. So incredibly cool! It is also rumored that Liberace was an Our Lady of Solitude parishioner, although I am unsure if there is any validity to that.

Our Lady of Solitude church popped up only once in Behind the Candelabra, in the movie’s closing scene in which Scott Thorson (Matt Damon) attended the funeral of his estranged lover, Liberace (Michael Douglas).

In the scene, Scott parked in the lot located directly across the street from the church.

The actual interior of Our Lady of Solitude was also used in the filming.

As Scott watches the rather colorless ceremony, he starts to envision a funeral service that would be fitting of his flamboyant former lover. In his imagination, the church altar lifts away to reveal a lit stage . . .

. . . complete with Mr. Showmanship himself wearing a pink bedazzled suit and flying off into the great beyond.

Behind the Candelabra took a few liberties with the scene, though. The real story is as follows: Liberace passed away at The Cloisters, his Palm Springs home (which I blogged about here), at 2:05 p.m. on February 4th, 1987. According to a Daily News Wire Services article published a few days later, his body was removed from the house within hours and taken directly to Forest Lawn Memorial Park in the Hollywood Hills. A memorial service was held the following day, Friday, February 6th, at Our Lady of Solitude church. It was not an actual funeral, as was portrayed in Behind the Candelabra, though, as the pianist’s body was not present.

There seems to be quite a bit of confusion online about the Our Lady of Solitude service and which celebrities attended it. According to Scott Thorson’s 1988 book, Behind the Candelabra, on which the movie was based, only two stars were present – actress Charlene Tilton, from the television series Dallas (who was one of Liberace’s Palm Springs neighbors), and, ironically enough, Michael Douglas’ father, Kirk. And while the fabulous Findadeath website states that Debbie Reynolds, Donald O’Connor, and Robert Goulet were also in attendance, the truth of the matter is that two different public services were held to honor the pianist. The first was the February 6th service at Our Lady of Solitude. A second memorial was then held (after Liberace had already been entombed at Forest Lawn Memorial Park on February 7th) at St. Anne’s Catholic Church in Las Vegas on February 12th. That service was the one attended by Goulet, Reynolds, and O’Connor, as well as Rip Taylor and Sonny King.

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Our Lady of Solitude Church, from Behind the Candelabra, is located at 151 West Alejo Road in Palm Springs. You can visit the parish’s official website here.

June 11, 2013
The Ojai Valley Inn & Spa from “The Bachelorette”

I know I said yesterday that today’s post would be about a Behind the Candelabra location, but I wound up getting a bit distracted by a spot that I stalked well over two years ago – the Ojai Valley Inn & Spa which appeared on this week’s episode of The Bachelorette. So y’all will have to wait until Monday for more Liberace-related locales. In the meantime . . . in April 2011, the Grim Cheaper and I embarked upon a little stalking road trip up State Route 126. One of our stops along the way was the Ojai Valley Inn, which I had been absolutely itching to stalk as it was where guests had stayed the weekend of Jim Toth and Reese Witherspoon’s wedding just a few weeks prior.

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And I am very happy to report that the hotel did not disappoint! The Ojai Valley Inn & Spa is often referred to as “majestic” and I honestly can’t think of a better word to describe the place.

Originally opened in 1923 as a private country club, the Inn was founded by a wealthy Ohio glass manufacturer named Edward Drummond Libbey who wanted to built a winter retreat/golf course for himself and his friends. He commissioned gold course architect (I hadn’t been aware there was such a thing) George C. Thomas to design the course and legendary architect Wallace Neff -who was also responsible for the house where Amanda Woods (Cameron Diaz) lived in The Holiday, the estate belonging to Viola Fields (Jane Fonda) in Monster-in-Law, Brad and Jen’s former manse, and The Biggest Loser Ranch – to design the clubhouse. That clubhouse still exists to this day and is known as the Neff Lounge. Sadly, Libbey passed away in 1925, only two years after his Spanish Colonial-style retreat had been completed.

In 1942, during the midst of World War II, the property was transformed into Camp Oak, a training center for the U.S. military that hosted over one thousand army troops. Just a couple of years later, in 1944, the site was converted to a rest and recuperation facility for the Navy. In 1946, shortly after the war ended, the 100-room hotel was purchased by a group of investors that included film star Loretta Young and her then husband Tom Lewis and an industrialist named Henry Crown. It was reopened as the Ojai Valley Inn and Country Club and quickly became a retreat for wealthy vacationers and show business elite. In 1983, the Crown family took over full ownership of the property and three years later began an extensive $35-million renovation that added more rooms, eight new tennis courts, a second pool, a gym, and a 4,800-square-foot, 550-seat conference center.

The Inn underwent another restoration in 2004, this one costing $90 million. Today, the 220-acre hotel, which is still owned by the Crown family, boasts 308 guest rooms, a kids’ camp, five restaurants, two pools (a family pool and an adults-only pool), an herb garden, countless meandering pathways, an aviary, and an 18-hole championship golf course. The 31,000-square-foot on-site spa, Spa Ojai, features two additional pools, a 50-foot bell tower, numerous treatment rooms, a gym, a café, a Mind & Body studio for yoga and meditation, an Artist’s Cottage where art classes are offered, and an Apothecary where guests can create their own perfume. As you can see below, the place could not be any more charming or idyllic.

The hotel also boasts a huge, centuries-old tree known as the Friendship Oak Tree . . .

. . . from which hang countless iron lanterns. I couldn’t help but think how gorgeous it must look at night, all lit up.

The other trees on the property are just as unique and stunning.

The area of the hotel that I was most excited to see was Jimmy’s Pub, where Scarlett Johansson and Sean Penn very publicly canoodled the weekend of Jim and Reese’s wedding. Sadly, we could not grab a cocktail while we were there as we had a long drive home ahead of us.

Besides ScarJo and Sean Penn, a few of the other stars who have vacationed at the AAA Five Diamond Ojai Valley Inn over the years include Walt Disney, Judy Garland, Clark Gable, Anthony Quinn, Joan Crawford, George Gobel, Jane Wyman, Rita Hayworth, Lana Turner, Joe DiMaggio, President Ronald Reagan and wife Nancy, President Gerald Ford, President Jimmy Carter, Jack Benny, Audrey Hepburn, Kate Walsh (who hosted her 2007 wedding reception at the hotel), Anthony Hopkins, Renee Zellweger, Kenny Loggins, Rebecca Romijn, Jessica Simpson, Drew Barrymore, Robert Pattinson, and Kristen Stewart.

In the second episode of Season 9 of The Bachelorette, Desiree Hartsock took contestant Bryden Vukasin on a road trip up the coast of California, during which they visited the Ojai Valley Inn & Spa. John DiScala of the Johnny Jet website happened to be staying at the hotel during the filming and it was not a pretty experience. You can read his article about it, which I could NOT get enough of, here.

Quite a few areas of the hotel were utilized during the filming, including the main entrance;

the spa’s Herb Garden Pool, where the two shared a rather awkward first kiss;

and the Friendship Oak Tree, under which the couple ate a romantic meal. (As you can see, I was right – the tree is absolutely gorgeous all lit up at night.). It was during the meal that Bryden told Des about the car accident that he was in during his Freshman year of college in which he was badly injured. The accident, of course, made him the person that he is today and . . . “I actually just happen to have a couple of pictures of it that I can show you.” Um, OK. The episode was full of “tragic” backstories like this one, to the point that it became laughable and the GC and I could not stop making up our own stories that we dubbed in over the contestant’s dialogue while watching.

The Ojai Valley Inn & Spa has actually been a filming location since way back in 1952 when it was featured in Pat and Mike, in the scene in which Patricia ‘Pat” Pemberton (Katharine Hepburn) played golf with her fiancé, Mike Conovan (Spencer Tracy) in the beginning of the movie.

In the 1990 flick The Two Jakes, the Ojai Valley Inn was where J.J. ‘Jake’ Gittes (Jack Nicholson) played a very bad round of golf against Julius ‘Jake’ Berman (Harvey Keitel) for “twenty bucks a hole.”

The hotel’s front entrance was also shown briefly in the scene, although it has changed considerably since the movie was filmed. The Two Jakes did not mark Jack Nicholson’s first visit to the resort, though. Ironically enough, in November 1967, when he was a fledgling actor/up-and-coming screenwriter, Jack headed to the Inn for a drug-fueled scriptwriting session with director Bob Rafelson, producer Bert Schneider and The Monkees for what would become the 1968 flop Head.

The Ojai Valley Inn & Spa was featured in two Season 3 episodes of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. It first popped up in “Uh Oh, Somebody’s Crying!”, in which Kim Richards decided to take the women to the resort for a peaceful, relaxing weekend getaway during which there would hopefully be no fighting and no drama. Ha! Fat chance of that, Kim! During their visit, the girls stayed at the resort’s private residence, Casa Elar. The gated, 10,407-square-foot, five-bedroom manse, which was built in 2005, boasts a pool, a spa, a separate entrance, four en-suite bathrooms, a golf cart, a private massage room, dry cleaning services, a library/entertainment room, an elevator (!), a fully-stocked pantry, and its own staff, including a Personal Estate Manager.

As you can see below, the pad is simply uh-ma-zing!

Especially the kitchen, which reminded me a lot of the kitchen belonging to chef Jane Adler (Meryl Streep) in the 2009 flick It’s Complicated.

In the episode, the group dined at Maravilla, the Inn’s signature restaurant, during which they drank complimentary Schramsberg rosé sparkling wine. Um, yes please! Some serious drama also went down during the meal, pretty much ruining Kim’s hopes for a peaceful weekend. Housewife Yolanda Foster’s commentary on the evening: “Where are these women from? What planet are they from? I mean, one doesn’t seem to wish the other one well on a book deal, one tells the other one “Shut the f*ck up!” I mean, it’s like the Wild Wild West on that dinner table, you know?” LOL

The resort was also featured in the following episode titled “Girls Gone Ojai ’ld”, by which time all of the drama had subsided – until the limo ride home, at least.

In the episode, the women were shown racing around the resort in golf carts (made by Bentley and Escalade, natch!);

playing badminton;

and partaking of some spa treatments.

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Ojai Valley Inn & Spa, from Season 9, Episode 2 of The Bachelorette, is located at 905 Country Club Road in Ojai. You can visit the resort’s official website here.

June 7, 2013
Palm Springs City Hall from “Behind the Candelabra”

The Behind the Candelabra location that I was most excited to stalk was Palm Springs City Hall, which appeared very briefly towards the end of the recently-aired HBO biopic. When I first saw the locale pop up onscreen, in all of its retro glory, I was convinced that it was a set that had been fabricated for the shoot. While I figured that set was most likely based upon what the actual Palm Springs City Hall looked like during Liberace’s era, never in my wildest dreams did I think the place would still bear the same façade today. So imagine my surprise when I pulled up pictures of the structure on my iPhone via Google Images and discovered that it looks exactly like it did onscreen – 1950’s signage and all! I, of course, immediately added the site to my To-Stalk List and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on over there this past Saturday morning. And I am very happy to report that the building is just as fabulous in person!

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Palm Springs City Hall was originally constructed beginning in 1952 and was designed by architects E. Stewart Williams [the mid-century modern marvel who designed the Kenaston residence from Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s infamous July 2005 W Magazine photo shoot, the Koerner House from Alpha Dog, and the 1951 remodel of Howard Manor (now the Colony Palms Hotel)], Albert Frey (the father of the desert modernism-style of architecture who designed a portion of the Burgess House from Alpha Dog), and Frey’s partners, John Porter Clark and Robson Chambers.

The one-story, concrete block building took five years to complete.

The eastern portion of the building houses the entrance to the City Council chamber and features a poured-concrete disc overhang with the words “The People Are the City.”

The building’s main entrance boasts a corrugated metal canopy with a large circular cutout.

That cutout is of the exact same diameter as the disc overhang in front of the City Council chamber, which brings a sense of symmetry to the building’s two entrances.

The three palm trees that grow through the cutout remind me of the “twin palms” that are the focal point of Frank Sinatra’s former desert home, which was also designed by E. Stewart Williams.

My favorite element of the building, though, has to be the bris-soliel (a term I just learned today) made of diagonally-cut aluminum piping, which not only provides an unusual design aesthetic, but morning shade to the structure’s interior.

Palm Springs City Hall only showed up once in Behind the Candelabra, in the scene in which a Riverside County Health Department spokesman announced to the press that Liberace (Michael Douglas) had died from complications of the AIDS virus and not from heart failure due to an anemia caused by a watermelon diet (I don’t even understand that diagnosis!) as had originally been reported by his manager, Seymour Heller (Dan Aykroyd).

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Palm Springs City Hall, from Behind the Candelabra, is located at 3200 East Tahquitz Canyon Way in Palm Springs.

June 5, 2013
Liberace’s House from “Behind the Candelabra”

Two Sunday nights ago, I (along with the rest of the world) was glued to my television set watching Behind the Candelabra, the HBO biopic about legendary pianist Liberace (Michael Douglas) and his teenaged lover, Scott Thorson (Matt Damon). I have to say that I was a bit disappointed when all was said and done, though. As Melissa Maerz said in her review of the flick for Issue #1261/1262 of Entertainment Weekly magazine, “Liberace’s fans were actually mostly straight women, the older, blue-haired types. And for better or worse, that seems like the target audience for this movie, a glossy story of love gone wrong and then (slightly) redeemed at the end, without a whole lot of deep pathos in between.” While entertaining, I had expected more. I did, of course, become a wee-bit obsessed with tracking down the film’s many locations, though, especially being that quite a bit of it was lensed right here in Palm Springs. Mike, from MovieShotsLA, also got in on the hunt and managed to find Liberace’s desert home from the movie, so I ran right out to stalk it – braving 107-degree heat, mind you! – this past Saturday afternoon.

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Mike was able to locate the residence thanks to the fact that a massive brown manse was visible in the background of the scene in which Scott went to visit Liberace on his deathbed. Using aerial views and Google Street View, he matched up the angle of the manse shown in the movie to an address that was identified as 696 North Via Monte Vista in the Old Las Palmas neighborhood of Palm Springs. Sure enough, it was the right spot. Ironically enough, and unbeknownst to Mike, the hilltop mansion that he had spotted was none other than the house where Tom Rose (James Handy) lived in the Season 5 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 titled “P.S. I Love You” (which I blogged about here).

In real life, the 5-bedroom, 4.5-bath, 2,772-square-foot dwelling, which was originally built in 1930, is known as Casa de Monte Vista. The site boasts a 0.77-acre plot of gated land, vaulted wood-beamed ceilings, a rotunda entrance, a formal dining room, a library, a clay tile roof, a covered patio, a saltwater pool, lush landscaping including an organic herb and vegetable garden, mountain views, and four (!) guest casitas. According to Zillow, the space last sold in May 1996 for $408,000. It appears to have been put on the market once again in 2008 at a price of $1,695,000, but was later taken off. The abode currently serves as a private residence/special events venue/vacation rental. You can check out the home’s website here.

As you can see below, the property is absolutely gigantic! According to the Casa de Monte Vista website, in the 1950s, the pad was owned by actor Robert Stack and then later, in the 1960s, became a frequent stomping ground of members of The Rat Pack. And while the short-lived Casa de Monte Vista blog states that the home also once belonged to Lucille Ball (as well as the creator of the margarita), I am not sure if that information is correct. The residence’s most recent brush with celebrity, besides the filming of Behind the Candelabra, took place on Sunday, May 26th when Debbie Reynolds, who played Liberace’s mom, Francis, in the flick, hosted a special viewing party on the premises.

Casa de Monte Vista was featured twice towards the end of Behind the Candelabra. The exterior of the house first popped up in the scene in which Scott went to say goodbye to Liberace at his Palm Springs residence after learning that he was gravely ill.

The real life interior of the residence, which you can see photographs of here, was also shown in that scene.

The exterior of the home showed up once again in the scene in which it was announced to the press that Liberace had passed away.

What was shown of the property in Behind the Candelabra looked so much like The Cloisters (Liberace’s real life former desert home) that I originally thought filming had taken place there. When Mike informed me that was not actually the case, I couldn’t help but wonder why on earth The Cloisters hadn’t been used. Then I passed by the place this past weekend and was shocked (and saddened) to discover that the exterior had been completely remodeled since I stalked it last and currently looks nothing like it did in Liberace’s day. (I think the actual residence might have been left unaltered, but the fencing, front gate, foliage, and driveway area have, unfortunately, been rendered unrecognizable.)

The photograph below is one I took of The Cloisters, from virtually the same angle as the above picture, back in April 2008 when I originally stalked the place. You can read that blog post here and I will be writing another post on the location in the near future.

While not technically used as a location in Behind the Candelabra, The Cloisters, in its altered state, did pop very briefly up in the background of Liberace’s funeral scene.

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for finding this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Casa de Monte Vista, aka Liberace’s house from Behind the Candelabra, is located at 696 North Via Monte Vista in the Old Las Palmas neighborhood of Palm Springs. You can visit the home’s vacation rental/special events venue website here.

June 4, 2013
Liberace’s Third Palm Springs House

Shortly after moving to the desert back in January, I took my dad to a doctor appointment and, while in the waiting room, happened to pick up the November 2012 issue of Palm Springs Life magazine. It turned out to be a fortuitous choice because in it was an article titled “Living With Liberace” about a recently-remodeled Old Las Palmas-area residence that had once been owned by the legendary pianist. The article, of course, piqued my interest, but, let me tell you, I just about fell out of my chair when I read that the property’s new owners, accountant Garth Gilpin and his wife, doctor Elizabeth Smalley, originally hailed from Pasadena, the city that I had just migrated from! I decided I had to stalk the home as soon as possible – especially considering all of the hoopla that was then (and is still now) surrounding the recently filmed HBO biopic Behind the Candelabra (which finally aired this past Sunday) – and I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to do just that a few days later.

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Liberace, who was born Wladziu Valentino Liberace and who was at one time the world’s highest-paid pianist, purchased the one-story desert dwelling on North Kaweah Road in 1968. It was his third Palm Springs home. Lee, as he was known to his friends, actually owned six Coachella Valley-area properties throughout his lifetime (including one that he purchased for his mother and another that he purchased for his brother). Of his penchant for buying residences, he said, “Some people collect stamps, I like to collect real estate. I am a firm believer in the good earth.”

During Liberace’s years there, the four-bedroom, five-bath, 3,101-square-foot abode, which was originally constructed in 1952 and sits on a 0.33-acre plot of land, was decorated in a French Provincial style and boasted a Louis XIV room and a large fountain. According to the Palm Springs Life article, Mr. Showmanship would play his piano nightly, much to the joy of his neighbors, and each Halloween, would pass out silver dollars, much to the joy of local trick-or-treaters. Garth told the magazine that the man who formerly lived next door (he has since passed away), would share anecdotes of Lee’s time on North Kaweah, saying “He told us how Liberace would come over in the mornings, in his bathrobe, and go into his icebox and chow down on his fried chicken leftovers. Then at night he’d hear him playing the piano. It’s such a great Palm Springs story, isn’t it? ‘I lived next door and got to hear Liberace playing the piano for free.’”

Liberace purchased his final desert residence, which was named The Cloisters (you can read my blog post on it here), in 1967. It was in disarray at the time and the pianist immediately began a long restoration process, to the tune of $136,000, while still living on North Kaweah Road. He finally moved into The Cloisters in 1972, at which point he offloaded the Kaweah property.

When the Kaweah house was put on the market in 2009, it boasted a price tag of $995,000 and was in quite a state, as you can see below. There are quite simply no words for the monstrosity that the interior had become. Wait, I take that back. There are words. Two of them, in fact. Hot mess!

Shockingly, the extravagant décor was not a leftover from Liberace’s days, but was the brainchild of the home’s then owner who was apparently a huge fan of both Mr. Showmanship and Elvis. You can check out additional photographs of the residence’s unique interior on its real estate listing here.

Garth and Elizabeth wound up buying the property in May 2010 for $625,000. Of their first tour of the dwelling – a viewing which rendered the couple “speechless” – Elizabeth says, “There were painted cherubs on the ceiling, a room that was Dalmatian and cow print, fake flowers, red velvet, gold, with Elvis and Liberace everywhere. It was the most dysfunctional house we’ve ever seen. Nonetheless, we thought, how can we not do this?” Shortly after purchasing the residence, they hired designer Christopher Kennedy to help them “honor and respect Liberace’s original vision without, you know, recreating it” and “to make it feel Liberace without looking Liberace.” You can see the result – which is fabulous – on the Palm Springs Life website here. Hard to believe it’s the same house as the one shown in the photos above!

Thankfully, subtle reminders of the pad’s famous former owner were left on the exterior of the property, as well, including music notes on the front gates.

And a piano-shaped mailbox, which I fell in love with!

The house is even named “Piazza di Liberace” and bears a sign informing visitors of that fact. Love it!

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Liberace’s third desert home is located at 1441 North Kaweah Road in the Old Las Palmas section of Palm Springs.

May 31, 2013
Rent-A-Swag from “Parks and Recreation”

Back in early May, fellow stalker Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, emailed me to let me know that he had just tracked down Rent-A-Swag – the supposed Pawnee, Indiana-area high-fashion rental store for teenagers owned by Tom Haverford (Aziz Ansari) on fave show Parks and Recreation. So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk it – Starbucks in hand (but to be fair when do I not have a Starbucks in hand? ) – while visiting Los Angeles this past Memorial Day weekend.

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While watching the Parks and Rec Season 5 finale, which was titled “Are You Better Off?”, Owen had spotted an address number placard with a missing digit (120-9) on the exterior of the Rent-A-Swag storefront. His eye was immediately caught by that missing digit and his interest piqued, so he decided to begin searching for the locale. Thankfully, the hunt was an easy one and he wound up finding the shop at 12059 Ventura Place in Studio City.

And while Owen and I had both assumed that the 5 had been removed during the Parks and Rec shoot in order to thwart the efforts of us stalkers, that does not appear to have been the case. As you can see below, the digit is missing in real life, too, which I was shocked to discover!

In real life, the Rent-A-Swag storefront is vacant and looks to have been so for some time, which is probably how it came to be used on Parks and Recreation. The 4,000-square-foot space, which is currently divided into two separate units, most recently housed a branch of the US Postal Service. In January, EaterLA reported that the property was rumored to be the site of the future Valley outpost of the popular mid-city restaurant Joan’s on Third. And while Joan’s founder Joan McNamara did talk about opening a cafe in a former post office on Ventura Place in this April 2012 Los Angeles Times article, as you can see below, the site is still presently available for lease, so that venture appears to have fallen through.

Unfortunately, the GC and I showed up to stalk the site on Sunday morning, smack-dab in the middle of the highly-popular Studio City Farmers Market which takes place directly in front of Rent-A-Swag, so I was not able to get the greatest of photographs.

Rent-A-Swag first showed up in the Season 5 episode of Parks and Recreation titled “Pawnee Commons” and has been featured fairly regularly ever since.

In “Pawnee Commons”, Tom rents out a space, which he states in a later episode is located on Durham Avenue, to house his latest brainchild – a store in which he will lease his expensive threads to tweens. Of the new venture, he says, “I started a business where I rent my fancy clothes to teens so their parents don’t have to buy them nice things they’ll just grow out of. So if you see a 14-year-old kid wearing a Louis Vuitton cravat, you know who to thank – me . . . and Louis Vuitton, for making some dope-a*s cravats.” LOL In “Pawnee Commons”, Tom enlists his Parks and Recreation Department co-workers to help him get the space, which is in pretty dire straits, ready for the grand opening. The real life interior of the store, which you can see pictures of here, was also used in the episode, as well as in several episodes since.

The group’s first go at the renovation turns out rather dire, as well, so they wind up remodeling it twice in the episode.

The final result is pictured below.

In an odd twist, while scanning through Season 5 episodes of Parks and Recreation to make screen captures for this post, I discovered that the other side of the Rent-A-Swag storefront (as I mentioned earlier, the space is currently divided into two separate units) was used as the Pawnee VideoDome/XXX Adult DVD Emporium in the episode titled “Bailout”.

In “Bailout”, Councilwoman Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) petitions the city council to declare Pawnee’s local video store, Pawnee VideoDome, a historical landmark to prevent its impending closure. Leslie succeeds, but the site winds up re-opening as a pornographic video shop – owned in part by the government. LOL

The real life interior of the space was also used in the episode.

I was shocked to learn, while doing research for this post, that the very same location was used in another of Owen’s favorite shows – Seinfeld. The Rent-A-Swag storefront popped up briefly in the Season 4 episode titled “The Trip (2)”, which aired in 1992, as the spot where Jerry Seinfeld (Jerry Seinfeld) and George Costanza (Jason Alexander) watched as two policemen arrested a man for attempted robbery. At the time, the space housed the Bicycle Shack bike store and looked quite a bit different than it does today. Although, structurally still the same, since the time that Seinfeld was filmed, a large awning has been added, significantly altering the look of the place.

The location also appeared in 1994’s Beverly Hills Cop III, in the background of the scene in which Det. Axel Foley (Eddie Murphy) jumps out of a car to escape from Jon Flint (Hector Elizondo).

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Big THANK YOU to Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, for finding this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Rent-A-Swag from Parks and Recreation is located at 12059 Ventura Place in Studio City.

May 29, 2013
The Darkroom from “The Big Picture”

Sometimes I think Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I are one brain living in two different bodies. Case in point – one of my most beloved movies of all time is the little-known 1989 sleeper The Big Picture, which I saw with my mom shortly after it originally came out almost two-and-a-half decades ago. In the years since, I had never met anyone who had ever even heard of the flick, let alone loved it as much as I did. So imagine my surprise when, during one of our first stalks together in 2008, Mike and I drove by the historic Vista Theatre in Los Feliz and he mentioned that it had been featured in one of his favorite films of all time . . . The Big Picture. Yep – one brain, two bodies. It was not until last year, though, that the two of us decided to track down the many locales used in the movie, the most important of which (for me, at least) was the extremely unique Indian restaurant that appeared in one of the opening scenes. The trek was far easier said than done, though.

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The Indian restaurant in The Big Picture boasted a very unusual, camera-shaped façade. Figuring that an eatery matching that description would be an easy find, I did a quick Google search for every permutation of “Indian restaurant shaped like a camera” that I could possibly think of, but none yielded any sort of result. I then ordered I Killed Charles Bronson’s Cat, a book written by The Big Picture’s location manager, Barry Gremillion, hoping it would provide a lead. And while the tome did prove to be a fascinating read and proffered information about several of the movie’s locales, maddeningly not a word was mentioned about the Indian eatery. My next step was to track down Barry himself, which I managed to do via Facebook. I sent him a message asking about the restaurant location and, amazingly enough, he wrote back less than ninety minutes later! Barry informed me that while the eatery was no longer in operation, the camera façade could still be found on Wilshire Boulevard. From there, tracking it down was a snap. And ironically enough, it was a place I had actually been to before!

The programmatic/Streamline Moderne-style camera-shaped storefront was originally designed by architect Marcus P. Miller sometime during the late 1930s. (There seem to be differing reports about the exact year of construction everywhere you look online, varying from 1935 to 1936 to 1937 to 1938). The site, not surprisingly, originally housed a photography supply store named The Darkroom. Miller assembled the whimsical façade, which consists of a nine-foot-tall replica of a 35-millimeter Argus camera, complete with a shutter speed indicator, winder and dual rangefinders, out of black Vitrolite glass.

A porthole window comprises the camera’s lens, on which, according to the book Images of America: Los Angeles Art Deco, newsreels were at one time projected to passersby. (I absolutely love the photograph below in which a reflection of Mike taking my picture is visible in the porthole.) The Darkroom, the façade of a which is a Los Angeles Cultural-Historic Monument, became so iconic and synonymous with the Miracle Mile area of L.A. that it inspired replicas at Disney-MGM Studios in Florida, Disney Studios Paris, and Universal Studios Orlando, all of which you can see photos of on the Yesterland website here. And you can check out a historic picture of The Darkroom when it was still in operation here.

Sometime during the mid-80s, an Indian restaurant named Sher-e Punjab opened at the site. It was during that time that The Big Picture was filmed. In late 1999, the fine dining establishment La Boca del Conga, which was owned in part by Jimmy Smits, Jennifer Lopez, Paul Rodriguez, and Sheila E., moved into the space. It was there that I attended a party back in 2000. Today, the property houses a Tex-Mex restaurant named El Toro Cantina and it looks pretty much exactly the same as it did during the La Boca del Conga days, which explains why I did not recognize it. Most of the façade has, unfortunately, been hidden behind foliage and a large awning and, as you can see below, has been rendered inconspicuous. You can read an interesting story about what became of The Darkroom signage here.

In The Big Picture, budding filmmaker Nick Chapman (Kevin Bacon) dines at Sher-e Punjab with his girlfriend, Susan Rawlings (Emily Longstreth), and friends, Emmet and Jenny Sumner (Michael McKean and Kim Miyori, respectively), after winning a prestigious student film award.

The interior of the restaurant was also used in the filming.

That interior looks quite a bit different today.

And for some odd reason, there is currently a fish tank covering the inside of The Darkroom’s iconic porthole window.

Sher-e Punjab also made a very brief appearance in 1993’s Falling Down. In the movie, William ‘D-Fens’ Foster (Michael Douglas) walks past the eatery before heading to the “Swap Meet” next door to purchase his daughter a snow globe.

Be sure to check out more Big Picture locations on Mike’s website, MovieShotsLA.

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: El Toro Cantina, aka The Darkroom, aka Sher-e Punjab from The Big Picture, is located at 5370 Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile area of Los Angeles. You can visit the Cantina’s official website here.

May 24, 2013
The Ladies’ Villa from Season 1 of “The Bachelor”

Another location that I became obsessed with tracking down thanks to the Best of The Bachelor DVD that my girl Miss Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog, recently gifted me was the so-called “Ladies’ Villa” – the Mediterranean-style manse where the female contestants lived during the filming of the popular reality series’ inaugural season. And fortunately, it was quite the easy find.

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In the second episode of the series, which was titled “Week Two”, not only did The Bachelor host Chris Harrison mention that the Ladies’ Villa was a “beachfront Malibu mansion”, but aerial views of the property were also shown.

In one of the faraway aerial views, I happened to notice two fairly large landmarks – a red-roofed condominium complex (denoted with a blue arrow below) and a beachside road (denoted with a pink arrow below). So I began searching Bing Maps for those two landmarks and found them fairly quickly in the Point Dume Riviera section of Malibu. From there, tracking down the huge oceanside estate, which is located at 7107 Birdview Avenue, was a snap and I ran right out to stalk it while in L.A. just a few days later.

Sadly though, as you can see below, virtually none of the property is visible from the street. But you can check out some fabulous interior photographs of the home on the Malibu Rents website here. According to the website, the six-bedroom, six-bath, 5,032-square-foot mansion, which was originally built in 1996, boasts a 1.04-acre plot of land, a pool with several waterfalls, a ten-person spa, two guest houses, a tennis court, a wine cellar, and a private staircase leading down to both Westward and Zuma beaches. The estate rents for (a measly ) $4,000 per night or $28,000 per month.

The Ladies’ Villa appeared regularly throughout the first season of The Bachelor. Areas of the property that were utilized during the filming include the front exterior;

the rear of the residence;

the backyard and pool and spa;

the living room;

the kitchen;

a bedroom;

a bathroom;

and a massive custom closet that the girls went gaga over (and yeah, I would have, too!).

Ironically enough, for over a decade Bachelor producer Mike Fleiss lived just a few doors down from the Ladies’ Villa at 7163 Birdview Ave. He purchased the home in April 2002, shortly after the first installment of the series started airing, so while he did not live there during the filming, I am guessing that he might have discovered the place thanks to his time spent at the Villa.

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Ladies’ Villa from Season 1 of The Bachelor is located at 7107 Birdview Avenue in Malibu.

May 21, 2013
The Mansion from Season 1 of “The Bachelor”

My girl Miss Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog, recently gifted me with Best of The Bachelor, a DVD compilation of condensed episodes from the popular reality series’ first season as well as a slew of special features and not-shown-on-TV bonus footage. Well, because this stalker absolutely loves herself some The Bachelor, I just about died from excitement upon receiving it, especially since I had not seen any of Season 1 since it originally aired in early 2002, over a decade ago! (How in the heck has it been that long??) I, of course, watched the DVD the very same night that I received it and immediately became obsessed with tracking down the Mediterranean-style mansion – or “The Bachelor’s Villa” as it was called on the series – where the inaugural Bachelor, 31-year-old management consultant Alex Michel, lived. The good news is that the mansion was quite the easy find. The bad news is that it is no longer standing. But more on that later.

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Thanks to the spectacular ocean views that were visible in the episodes, I knew that The Bachelor’s Villa had to be located somewhere near the coast in Malibu.

So I began scanning through Bing Map’s aerial views of the ‘Bu coastline looking for the property’s uniquely-shaped pool, which I figured would be easily recognizable.

Thankfully, it was.

When I zoomed in for a closer look, though, I was saddened to discover that the mansion had been torn down and a new dwelling was being built in its place.

And while Bing aerial views only show the new residence mid-construction, you can catch a glimpse of what it looks like in a mostly completed state below, thanks to Google Maps.

Even though the mansion is no longer, I figured it was still worth a stalk and a blog post being that there are most likely other stalkers out there who are curious as to its location.

According to Zillow, the now-defunct mansion, which was originally built in 1987, boasted four bedrooms, four baths, 6,967 square feet of living space, a 1.7-acre plot of ocean-front land, a lighted tennis court, an infinity pool with his-and-her cabanas, a 2,200-square-foot guest house, several stone fireplaces, a motor court, 22-foot-high beamed ceilings, hand-carved wooden doors, a sauna, and panoramic ocean views. Unfortunately though, aside from the top floor of the massive guest house (seriously, that thing is bigger than most homes!), no part of the property is visible from the street.

The manse was used extensively throughout Season 1 of The Bachelor. The dwelling was not only where Alex lived during the duration of the seven-week filming, but it was also where all of the rose ceremonies and cocktail parties took place. Areas of the property that appeared in the series include the front entrance . . .

. . . where Alex was first introduced to the 25 women;

the driveway;

the huge living room, where the rose ceremonies were held;

and the backyard, where the final rose ceremony – in which Alex rejected future Bachelorette Trista Rehn and offered his final rose (but not a ring!) to Amanda Marsh – took place. Not surprisingly, Amanda and Alex broke up less than a year later and rumor has it that he pulled the ol’ switcheroo by then (unsuccessfully) attempting to rekindle the flame with Trista. It appears, though, that Alex, who for the most part has stayed out of the spotlight since the series ended, finally found marital bliss with a woman named Carly in June 2010.

I am unsure of how many seasons of The Bachelor were shot at the mansion, but I am guessing that it was only Alex Michel’s season. At some point after the year 2005, filming moved to an Agoura estate (which I blogged about here), where it has remained ever since.

You can watch a great interview with Alex, thanks to the Obsessed with Samantha Ettus website, by clicking below.

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The former site of the mansion from the first season of The Bachelor, which has since been torn down, is located at 24834 Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu.

May 17, 2013
My Day on the Set of “90210”

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago in my post about the Hideaway Saloon (which you can read here), I was devastated to learn of the cancellation of fave show 90210 – especially being that the cast and crew were informed of said cancellation while in the midst of shooting what was to be the (most-likely cliffhanger-ish) Season 5 finale. Thankfully though, the script was rewritten mid-shoot and the series given the proper sendoff that it deserved, with (spoiler alert!) Liam Court (my man Matt Lanter) finally proposing to longtime love Annie Wilson (Shenae Grimes). Hallelujah! I literally had anxiety all day Monday while waiting for the show to air because I was afraid that Liam and Annie would remain star-crossed for all eternity and I just could not have handled that. I needed closure and am so thankful that I (as well as the rest of the fans) got it. Anyway, I thought it would only be fitting to write today’s post about a memorable time that I spent on the set of 90210 a few years back.

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Thanks to fave website OnLocationVacations, I learned, about a week ahead of time, that 90210 would be filming on August 31st, 2011 at the Langham Huntington hotel in Pasadena. I immediately called up my mom, who was already living in Palm Springs by that time, and asked if she and my dad would be willing to drive out to help me stalk the filming, since 90210 was my favorite show and all. My mom said that she would talk to my dad about it and call me back. Well, let me tell you, I just about passed out from excitement when she called just a few minutes later and informed me that not only were they coming out for the filming, but that they had booked a room at the Langham for that day! Yes, my parents are that cool! Flash forward to the morning of the 31st. When I arrived at the hotel, I was floored to see the yellow sign pictured below. “The Code” – get it? LOVE!

When I first told my mom about the filming, I mentioned that the one 90210 star whom I was absolutely dying to meet was Shenae Grimes. (I had already met Matt Lanter a few months prior.) So imagine my surprise when I got to the Langham and, after striking up a conversation with a crew member, found out that Shenae was the only series regular on set that day. Talk about fate! I told the crew member what a huge fan of Shenae’s I was and that I would love to get a photograph with her, to which he said, “Oh, sure. One second.” He then got on his walkie-talkie and informed someone on the other end, “There’s a fan here who wants a picture with Shenae.” The person spoke back to him and the crew member told me to wait right where I was and that Shenae would be out in a minute. Well, let me tell you, I just about fell over at that! It was as if it was just expected that if there was a fan on the premises wanting a pic, that the actors would be happy to pose. Not all sets are like that, I can assure you. In fact, very few are that accommodating. True to the crew member’s word, Shenae came out just a minute later and walked right up to me and introduced herself. She was so sweet and we even got to chat for a minute about what a huge “Lannie” fan I am.

A few minutes later, a different crew member came up to me and invited me to watch the next scene that was being filmed (they had already finished up with the first scene of the day by the time I arrived). The crew member, who turned out to be the show’s location manager (yeah, I talked his ear off once I found that out!), parked me in the “Video Village” area behind where the directors and writers sit during a shoot and even took the below photograph to commemorate the event. And yes, I was definitely pinching myself! I’m surprised I didn’t have black and blue marks all up and down my arm, in fact!

The scene I got to watch being filmed was the scene in which Annie first met her future boyfriend/john, Patrick Westhill (Chris McKenna). In the episode, which turned out to be Season 4’s “Benefit of the Doubt”, the Langham Huntington was the hotel where Patrick stayed while visiting L.A. Amazingly enough, it took less than an hour, and only about three or four takes, to shoot the sequence. Those of you who have ever witnessed any filming know what a feat that is, being that most shows require umpteen takes of each and every scene.

The scene was shot in the hotel’s Lobby Lounge, which is located right next door to The Tap Room bar.

I, of course, just had to go back to the Lobby Lounge later that day to pose for a (rather blurry) picture in the spot where Annie sat in the scene.

After that scene was completed, the cast and crew moved out to the hotel’s Horseshoe Garden, which you can see some photographs of here, to set up another sequence. (The Bachelorette’s Ashley Hebert and J.P. Rosenbaum got married in the Horseshoe Garden last December, but that’s a different post for a different day.) By this point, my parents had arrived at the Langham and the three of us set up camp on the patio of The Tap Room, which overlooks the Garden, so that we could watch the filming – and drink champagne at the same time.

My dad acted as my paparazzi the whole day and got some great shots of the crew setting up the scene.

As you can see below, it was quite an undertaking.

He also got some great shots of Shenae during a break (notice she’s carrying a Starbucks – we could so be besties! );

getting her make-up put on;

rehearsing with Chris;

and actually acting out the scene.

The scene being filmed in the Horseshoe Garden area involved Patrick taking Annie to lunch . . . on a helicopter!

And while the location manager informed me that they had originally planned on landing an actual helicopter on the Horseshoe Garden lawn, the city of Pasadena objected (ya think?), so they ended up adding the chopper in digitally during post production.

In reality, the lawn was completely empty during the filming, although at one point they did bring in a tiny toy helicopter that I think may have been used in the screen capture below.

After that scene wrapped, the cast and crew moved into the hotel’s Huntington Ballroom (you can check out a photograph of it here) which had been dressed to look like an art museum for the shoot. By that point, my parents were rather tired, so we opted to head out to dinner rather than watch more of the filming. All in all, it was a FABULOUS day and a FABULOUS memory – one that I will never forget.

The scene that was filmed early in the day, before I arrived at the hotel, involved Annie showing up to Patrick’s room to tell him that she likes him. Patrick’s room was actually the Langham’s Ford Cottage Room 1550, which you can check out some photographs of here.

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Langham Huntington, aka Patrick’s hotel from “The Benefit of the Doubt” episode of 90210, is located at 1401 South Oak Knoll Avenue in Pasadena. You can visit the Langham’s official website here.

May 16, 2013