IAMNOTASTALKER

Tag: filming locations

  • Ray’s Pumpkins

    Last week, thanks to Mike over at MovieShotsLA, I was able to stalk the pumpkin patch that was owned by Ray Pruit’s family on the original Beverly Hills, 90210. I was shocked when Mike told me that the property where filming took place is the location of an actual pumpkin patch in real life. I had been convinced that producers just dressed an empty lot for the filming of 90210, but in reality they rented out a real pumpkin patch that has occupied the same corner in Sherman Oaks for over fifteen years.

    When I drove up to the patch I just about keeled over with excitement as there was a large sign out front which read “Ray’s Pumpkins”. I naively thought the owner named the patch after Ray Pruit because of the filming that took place there, but it turns out that the actual owner’s name is Ray! How cool is that!

    Ray really could not have been nicer and spoke to me about the filming of 90210 for a good 15 minutes. He said that everyone on the cast and crew was very nice and very professional. Even though the pumpkin patch scene lasted only about four minutes and was shown in only one episode (the Season 5 episode entitled “Homecoming”), the filming took a full two days to complete. Ray told me that during the filming, some construction was being done on an apartment building located across the street from the patch. At one point the construction noise got too loud, so the producers of 90210 actually paid to have all construction shut down for the remainder of the shoot! LOL The cast and crew of 90210 returned to Ray’s later that same year and the real Ray’s Christmas tree lot stood in for the one owned by the Pruit Family in a Christmas episode of the show. Ray said there is always some sort of filming taking place at the patch. He couldn’t remember all of the productions that had filmed there, but he did say that Dancing With The Stars featured the patch in a brief segment last year.

    Ray’s Pumpkin’s is a very cool pumpkin patch and I highly recommend stalking it. There are hundreds upon hundreds of pumpkins to choose from and tons of cute Halloween merchandise and decorations for sale. Ray told me that he also gets quite a few Valley celebs visiting his patch each year, so you just might get to rub elbows with the stars while pumpkin shopping. 🙂 Unfortunately I visited Ray’s after it was already dark outside, so my pics didn’t turn out very well and don’t really do the patch justice. But a BIG THANK YOU to Mike for providing the top pic. 🙂

    Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

    Stalk It: Ray’s Pumpkins is located at the corner of Hazeltine Avenue and Moorpark Street in Sherman Oaks. Ray also owns the Peterson Ranch Fruit Stand located at 3402 Los Angeles Avenue in Somis, CA. The fruit stand is also a frequent filming location. It is most often used in commercials and was featured recently in a car ad.

  • The Witch’s House from “Clueless”

    One of my favorite sites to stalk in all of Beverly Hills is known simply as “The Witch’s House” and it just so happens to fit in perfectly with this month’s Halloween theme. Although not really a filming location, the house is a Beverly Hills landmark of sorts. Known formally as “The Spadena House”, after the Spadena family who lived there in the 1930s, the house did show up very briefly in fave movie Clueless, during the scene when Alicia Silverstone is “totally buggin’” about Ty’s crush on Josh (pictured in above screen capture).

    The home was originally built on a silent film studio lot in Culver City known as Irvin C. Willat Productions and was used as an office/dressing room. It was designed by the very first art direction Oscar Winner, Henry C. Oliver, in 1921. Willat Productions was sold in 1926 and the house was purchased and later moved to its current location in the heart of Beverly Hills, where it was turned into a private home for the Spadena family. No one can say for sure how the house came to be called “The Witch’s House”, but mention the words to any Beverly Hills native and they will know exactly what you are talking about. Personally, I believe the house got its nickname due to its resemblance to the witch’s home in the fairy tale “Hansel and Gretel”.

    In 1998, a real estate agent named Michael Libow was hired to sell the house. Apparently he became frustrated that all prospective buyers planned to demolish the property, so he took matters into his own hands and purchased the home himself for $1.3 million. He is currently restoring the property to its original state, along with the help of art director Nelson Coates. For the past few years the two have painstakingly rennovated the home, even re-creating the original moat which once surrounded the property. The Witch’s House is still currently under rennovation, so unfortunately a large chain link construction fence blocks some of the view from the street. But hopefully in a few years the rennovations will be complete and the house will be even more spectacular for us stalkers to view.

    Because it is so truly unique, I am actually very surprised that the house hasn’t appeared in more Hollywood productions. Besides Clueless, the Witch’s House was also featured in the 1965 movie The Loved One, as the home of Sir John Gielgud’s character, and in the 1957 horror film The Undead. Supposedly, during its time on the Willat lot, the home also appeared in a quite a few 1920s silent films, as well.

    The Witch’s House is simply a must see for all Beverly Hills tourists, especially during the Halloween season, and it is a beautiful example of Storybook style architecture.

    You can read more about the history of the Witch’s House and see some fabulous photos of it here.

    Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

    Stalk It: The Witch’s House is located at 516 N. Waldren Drive, at the corner of Walden Drive and Carmelita Avenue, in Beverly Hills.

  • Halloween

    Hi, my name is Lindsay Blake and I have never seen the movie Halloween. I know, I know – it’s like sacrilege or something, especially since Halloween is my favorite holiday. I’ve also never seen any of the Friday, the 13th movies. But I’ve always been kind of a scaredy cat, so as a teenager I was way too afraid to watch any sort of horror flick. I fully intend to rent and finally watch them this Halloween season, though. In the meantime, even though I have yet to see the movie, I did some Halloween stalking this past weekend. Halloween supposedly takes place in Haddonfield, Illinois, but in reality all of the filming was done in the L.A. area.

    This weekend I set out to stalk Jamie Lee Curtis’ house from the movie, which is actually located in South Pasadena, not far from Michael Meyer’s childhood home and the Pretty In Pink house. In the movie, pretty much only a side view of the house is shown, so when we first drove up I didn’t recognize it at all. I actually thought we were in the wrong place, until I rounded the corner and saw the side of the house, which I am happy to report looks exactly the same as it did thirty years ago when filming took place.

    The front of the home actually looks completely different than the side. The front of the house is a very cute, very typical South Pasadena style Craftsman home. The side of the house does not have any Craftsman features at all. It has more of a traditional American feel to it, so it was odd to see.

    The next Halloween location I set out to stalk – the street where Jamie Lee Curtis and her friends walk home from school and Michael Meyes drives by in his station wagon – is also located in South Pasadena. The most recognizable part of the street where the girls walk is a large stone pillared half-wall located on a corner, which amazingly also looks EXACTLY the same thirty years later. Very cool!!! 🙂

    Big THANKS to Mike from MovieShotsLA for the above screen captures! 🙂

    Until next time, Happy Stalking!

    Stalk It: Jamie Lee Curtis’ house is located at 1115 Oxley Street, at the corner of Oxley Street and Fairview Avenue, in South Pasadena. The stone wall the girls walk by is located on the corner of Fairview Avenue and Highland Street, also in South Pasadena, just around the corner from Lady Heather’s house on CSI .

  • Celebrity Jury Duty

    Last September I was called to report for jury duty at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in Downtown Los Angeles. As you can probably guess, I was not too excited for this venture. I perked up, though, when on my first day of service, I arrived at the courthouse to see a whole slew of paparazzi standing out front. Hoping BritBrit was there for a custody hearing, I asked one of the paps what news story he was covering and it turns out he was awaiting the verdict in the Phil Spector murder trial. Later that day I ended up being selected to serve on a jury for a brief four day trial and was floored to find out that the Phil Spector trial was actually taking place in the courtroom directly next door to mine! Due to jury deliberations, though, Phil was not actually at the courthouse. But a few days later, on September 26th to be exact, I returned from lunch to see Phil and his wife waiting outside the courtroom for his verdict to be read. Phil was definitely an oddball and didn’t seem as if he was entirely all there. And boy is he tiny!!!! He is probably about 5′ tall – while wearing platforms, no less! Seeing Phil during jury duty was definitely an “Only-in-L.A.” moment for me and really made the whole thing worthwhile. 🙂 Other “Only-in-L.A.” moments: looking at the hundreds of celebrity headshots on the jury waiting room walls detailing which stars have served their public duty at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center and our jury orientation including directions to the nearest Starbucks! I am not kidding!

    So in keeping with my October theme of all things haunted in Hollywood, I had to drag my boyfriend out to stalk Phil’s mansion this past weekend. It was at this home on February 3, 2003, that actress Lana Clarkson was shot to death – whether by her own hand or by Phil’s has yet to be determined. I got the address of Phil’s house from my very favorite star map – “The Movie Star Homes and Crime Scenes Map”. But, map or no map, I don’t think the home would have been hard to locate, as there is a large sign at the front gate which reads “Phil Spector’s Pyrenees Castle”.  Apparently before Lana’s death the sign read simply “Pyrenees Castle, 1700 Grand View Drive”, but during his murder trial he had it changed to its current wording. I swear, this guy couldn’t be more of a douchbag.

    From the front gate of the home there is not a whole lot to see, other than signs warning against trespassing and alerting stalkers that the property is under 24 hour camera surveillance. There was no way I was getting out of the car for a photo op at this location as I imagine Phil doesn’t take too kindly to people posing for pics outside of his house. Then again, maybe he doesn’t mind too much – I mean he did put that sign out front!

    After seeing the front gate area, we drove around to Alta Vista Drive where there is a much better view of the home from the street.

    After hitting up Alta Vista Drive, we headed over to Parkview Drive for yet another view of the house.

    Sadly none of the streets offered an outstanding view of the home, but you can cyberstalk it on Zillow to see some better photos. Phil’s castle/mansion is actually located in a very modest, middle class neighborhood far from the lavish streets of Beverly Hills. Until reading this article, I was under the impression that Phil had actually built the home, but it turns out it was constructed in 1926 long before the “Wall of Sound” had been created. A very successful Frenchman by the name of Sylvester Dupuy spent about $250,000 to have the home built and he modeled it after a real chateau in France that he had admired as a child. The house was built on a three acre lot in the middle of a large expanse of vacant land. In 1936, ten years after the home’s construction, Dupuy died and left the property to his children. At the time of Dupuy’s death most of the fortune he had amassed from his successful agriculture business was gone. In 1946, Dupuy’s children sold the castle and it was converted into an eight room apartment building where Dupuy’s widow lived until her death. After a string of different owners, Phil Spector purchased the home in 1998 and had this to say about it, “I’ve bought myself a beautiful and enchanting castle in a hick town where there is no place to go that you shouldn’t.” I wouldn’t exactly call Alhambra a “hick town”, but I guess to a famous record producer and in comparison to Beverly Hills, the city might seem a bit “hickish”.

    I couldn’t figure out where the name “Pyrenees Castle” came from until looking at the above map. I believe at one time the castle’s land butted up to nearby Pyrenees Road, hence the name. In the years since its construction, much of the land must have been sold off and the property’s boundary line scaled back to Grand View Drive.

    Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

    Stalk It: Phil Spector’s Pyrenees Castle is located at 1700 Grand View Drive in Alhambra. The main gate and sign reading “Phil Spector’s Pyrenees Castle” can be seen at the Grand View Drive entrance. But for the best views of the home, head over to Alta Vista Drive and follow it to where it ends at Phil’s back gate. After that, follow Parkview Drive to where it curves for a side view of the home.

  • Lady Heather’s House

    On the second season of CSI: Las Vegas we were introduced to a character whom Grissom later became very fond of named Lady Heather. On the show Lady Heather, who was played by The O.C.’s Melinda Clarke, owns an S&M fetish club in Sin City which she runs out of her extraordinary home. Lady Heather first appeared as a guest star in an episode entitled “Slaves of Las Vegas” and has since reappeared on four separate occasions, becoming something of a cult favorite for CSI fans. Her unique home also appeared in all five of the “Lady Heather” episodes and, being that it is a pretty spooky house and fits in with my Haunted Hollywood theme for this month, I dragged my dad right out to stalk it.

    Lady Heather’s house is an absolutely ginormous mansion (13,393 square feet according to Zillow!!) located on a large corner lot in South Pasadena. I found the home thanks to Scott’s LA Audio Driving Tour of Pasadena, which lists many great Pasadena filming locations. It is easy to see why producers chose to use this house for the filming of CSI, as it has a very looming and dark presence, most likely due to its sheer size. For the filming of CSI, producers brought in many Gothic decorations, like large candelabras, to create a more dark and spooky atmosphere. But when you see the home in person, it becomes obvious that not much had to be done in preparation for filming due to its naturally ominous look. In person, the home looks like it could be a real life haunted house. And it actually looks like it belongs on a bayou in New Orleans rather than in the middle of Suburban Pasadena. Unfortunately I don’t own CSI on DVD, so I couldn’t get very good screen captures of the home.

    In the various Lady Heather episodes, the exterior of the home is shown numerous times, especially the front door and front porch area (which unfortunately I do not have any screen captures of).

    A back porch area is also shown in a special 90 minute episode from Season 3 entitled “Lady Heather’s Box”. It is the location where Grissom and the dominatrix sit down for a cup of tea.

    Lady Heather’s house is a very cool place to see in person. I highly recommend stalking it if you are at all a fan of CSI or if you want to conduct your own Haunted Halloween tour. 🙂

    UPDATE – This very same house was also used as the haunted mansion in the recently aired Season 3 episode of The Mentalist entitled “Red Scare”.

    Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

    Stalk It: Lady’s Heather’s house is located at 929 Buena Vista St., at the corner of Buena Vista and Meridian Avenue, in South Pasadena.

  • Mr. Bones Pumpkin Patch

    I cannot tell you how excited I am that October is finally here! Halloween has always been my very favorite holiday, most probably because I love nothing more than to dress up in costume. For the past three years during the month of October and in honor of Halloween, I have dragged my boyfriend out on my very own “Haunted Hollywood Tour”. Our tour consists of visiting houses from famous scary movies, sites of famous Hollywood deaths, and rumored haunted hot spots in the L.A. area. Since I have accumulated a fairly large list of scary spots from these yearly tours, last night I decided that, in honor of my favorite holiday, I would blog about all things spooky in Hollywood from now until October 31st.

    But I can’t very well do that without first writing about my fave Halloween location – Mr. Bones Pumpkin Patch. I dragged my boyfriend out to Mr. Bones last October after seeing the West Hollywood patch appear countless times in US Magazine. For those of you who don’t read US, during the month of October Mr. Bones is THE place to be seen in L.A. and literally anyone who’s anyone makes an appearance at the famous patch. Last year Courteney Cox, David Arquette, Marky Mark, Tobey McGuire and his jewelry designer wife Jennifer Meyer, Sarah Gilbert, Harrison Ford and Calista Flockhart, Lisa Rinna, Corey Feldman, and Lindsay Lohan all got their pumpkin on at Mr. Bones. It is literally the Les Deux of pumpkin patches. So, of course, I had to stalk it!

    Last year, as my boyfriend and I walked up to Mr. Bones, I was floored to see at least forty paparazzi standing around the perimeter of the fenced in patch, long lense cameras in hand. The paps were going absolutely agro – some standing on top of cars or on ladders trying to see over the patch’s high fences for the perfect photo op.

    Due to the sheer amount of photogs stationed around the patch, I was absolutely convinced that TomKat and Suri or BritBrit and her kids were inside. But it turns out the paps were actually snapping photographs of Heidi Klum and Seal and their three children. This was actually Heidi and Seal’s second trip to Mr. Bones in less than a week and the two hung out at the patch with their kids and nanny for over an hour. They definitely seemed to be enjoying all of the attention, too, and were most certainly hamming it up for the cameras – kissing and hugging and what not. I could not have been more excited! 🙂

    Mr. Bones Pumpkin Patch, which has been a family-owned and operated business for over 15 years, is the perfect place to get you in the mood for Halloween. I highly recommend stalking the patch as much for the celeb sightings as for the Halloween festivities. There are pony rides, face painting, great food, a Halloween store, and, of course, lots and lots of pumpkins. It is pricey, though. The pumpkins cost far more than they would at other local pumpkin patches – and there’s a cover charge! Yes, you read that right. Only in L.A., I swear! You will have to cough up $2 per person just to gain entry to the legendary pumpkin patch. But the entry fee can be applied to any pumpkin or Halloween merchandise purchase while there, so it’s not all bad. What you’re mostly paying for, though, are the Halloween spirit and atmosphere – which Mr. Bones definitely has in droves. You’ll love it! It’s the perfect place to get into the Halloween spirit. 🙂

    And, of course, I just had to take a pic of me in front of all the paps. 🙂

    Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

    Stalk It: Mr. Bones Pumpkin Patch is located at 702 N. Doheny Drive in West Hollywood. This year Mr. Bones opens for business this upcoming Friday, October 10th, and they will remain open through Halloween day. Their hours are from 9am to 8pm daily. You can visit their website here. Another great place to get into the Halloween spirit is Lombardi’s Ranch. They are located at 29527 Bouquet Canyon Road in Saugus, near Santa Clarita. Their pumpkin patch is currently open for business. You can visit their website here. Lombardi’s has live music, a petting zoo, awesome pumpkin pie, a sunflower patch, and acres upon acres of pumpkins. It is a great place to spend a day with kids, though you probably won’t spot any celebs.

  • Cher’s House from “Clueless”

    For a few years now I have been looking for Cher’s house from one of my fave movies of all time, Clueless. In trying to locate the house, though, I had read several articles and interviews about the filming of Clueless, which all stated that the neighborhood scenes were actually filmed in Scottsdale, Arizona, not in California, so I had pretty much called off my hunt. I had also always believed that Cher’s house was merely a set, not a real home. Something about the house just looked fake to me, so I had a feeling the house was just a facade that was built at a movie studio strictly for the filming of Clueless.

    But all of that changed last week, when I got a challenge from a guy named John who informed me that Cher’s house was actually also used as Gaby’s boyfriend Victor Lang’s house in a Season 3 episode of Desperate Housewives entitled “Dress Big” (pictured above). After hearing that, I knew that the house could not be located in Scottsdale. And, being that the Desperate Housewives episode aired twelve years after Clueless was filmed, I also knew the house had to be real, not just a set. So I enlisted Mike, over at MovieShotsLA, to help me locate the house and, sure enough, after just a few days we found it!!

    After reading a few articles on the filming of Clueless and searching through online images of colonial style mansions in the LA area, I decided to check my fave locations website, Malibu Locations, to see if Cher’s home was listed with them. Sure enough, after about ten seconds of searching, I found it! Mailbu Locations listed the home as being in Encino, so I got Mike on the phone and the two of us got to searching aerial views of Encino. About ten minutes later I located the house, right on Louise Avenue in the heart of Encino. OMG – If Cher only knew that her home was actually located in the “Valley”! LOL So, of course, yesterday I ran right out to do some Clueless stalking! 🙂

    I am sad to say that not much of the home is visible from the street, which I pretty knew before I stalked it, as I remembered from the movie that the house had an extremely long driveway. But Zillow has some good aerial views of the home and you can definitely recognize it as Cher’s mansion. This is one location I wouldn’t really recommend stalking as there just isn’t really anything to see. 🙁

    But I was absolutely floored to discover from looking at the Malibu Locations photos of the house that the interior of the home was also used extensively for the filming of Clueless!! If you look at the interior photos of the home, all Clueless fans will recognize the entryway staircase which was shown several times in the movie, most memorably as the location where Cher and Josh first kiss.

    Also used in the movie were the Encino house’s real life kitchen, wood-paneled office, dining room, fireplace (where Ty tries to burn her “Rollin’ With The Homies” tape), master bedroom (where Cher and Christian was Spartacus and Some Like It Hot), and backyard and pool area (where Mr. Hall and Miss Geist get married). I must admit I was absolutely floored to see the pics of the interior of the house. 🙂

    Mike also just discovered that the interiors of the Clueless home were also used as Toni Marchette’s house on 90210. For the exterior, however, a different home was used.

    Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

    Stalk It: The Clueless house is located at 5148 Louise Avenue in Encino – yes, that’s the “Valley”! 🙂 While there is not much of the house to see from the street, you can cyber-stalk it on Zillow here.

  • We’ll Always Have Paris

    Once again I am indebted to Mike over at MovieShotsLA for finding yet another location that had eluded me – a location I had been searching for for close to 16 years! During Season 3 of the original 90210, Brenda and Donna spend their summer in Paris. In the episode entitled “Shooting Star/An American In Paris” Brenda meets a tall, dark and handsome college student named Rick in a beautiful French garden. Later on in the episode the two walk underneath a curved rose-covered trellis and it is that trellis that I have been searching for ever since that episode aired way back in August of 1992. A few years after that episode aired, my parents took me on a trip to Europe as a present for my high school graduation. Our first stop was France and I remember walking around the streets of Paris carrying a small picture of Brenda and Rick under that trellis, stopping every native French person I could find to ask if they knew where it was located. Yes, I really am that blonde! 🙂 My naive 18 year old self truly believed that Shannen Doherty and Tori Spelling had actually flown to France to film their Paris scenes. That reality was shattered this past summer when I took the Universal Studios tour and discovered that most of “Paris” was actually filmed at the Universal backlot. Not filmed at Universal, though, were the garden scenes. So I still had no idea where Brenda and Rick’s trellis was located. Knowing how obsessed I was with finding Brenda’s garden, Mike stayed up very late one night this week and located it for me and I was able to actually stalk it yesterday!! Let me tell you, I could not have been more excited!!

    Mike and I were fairly certain that Brenda’s garden was located in one of the three main botanical gardens in LA, and since I had stalked the Arcadia Arboretum on Sunday without finding it, Mike set his sights on the Huntington Library and Botanical Gardens in San Marino. He stayed up late one night searching Google images until he finally located Brenda’s trellis in the Rose Garden area of the Huntington, a good 5,000 miles from Paris, France. THANKS MIKE!!!! So yesterday, I dragged my dad out to the Huntington, in 103 degree heat no less, to do some 90210 stalking.

    The Huntington shows up three times in the “Shooting Star/An American in Paris” episode. We first see it in the scene when Brenda and Rick first meet. In that scene, Brenda is sitting on a circular bench underneath a large oak tree. Sadly, that circular bench was removed long ago and the tree Brenda sat under is now surrounded by foliage, so the area looks very different. But there was a similar bench located just a few yards away, so I had to take a picture sitting on that. 🙂

    The area where Brenda actually sat sixteen years ago is located on the very Southeast corner of the North Vista lawn, pictured above. The path Rick walks through when he first comes upon Brenda is now gone and filled in with foliage. Such a bummer!!!!

    This same tree and bench area also show up in the episode following “Shooting Star/An American in Paris”, which is entitled “Castles In The Sand”. It is shown in the scene when Brenda dreams about Rick on her plane flight home to LA.

    The next location I dragged my dad to stalk was the white flowered trellis Brenda and Rick walk under on their last night in Paris together. This is the location where “Reek” tells Brenda that if she were truly in love with Dylan she wouldn’t be standing there with him and then the two share their final Paris kiss. This particular trellis is located in the Rose Garden area of the Huntington, just off of the Tea Room.

    This same location also shows up in the Hil D. movie A Cinderella Story. In the movie Hilary attends a masquerade ball at the Huntington. The exteriors of the ball location were filmed outside of the Huntington Gallery building (the interiors were actually filmed at a theatre in Downtown LA). During the ball, Chad Michael Murray takes Hil on a walk under the same trellises Rick and Brenda walked under 12 years before. After walking under the trellises, Chad leads Hilary to a gazebo where the two share a moonlit dance. That gazebo was brought in by producers and put in the Brown Garden especially for the filming and was removed when the three day shoot was complete.

    Next up was the site I was most excited about seeing in person, the location I had wandered the streets of Paris trying to find – the curved rose-covered trellis Brenda and Rick walk beneath during their tour of Paris. Even sixteen years later, I could not have been more excited to see this location in person. 🙂 I truly felt like a high school girl all over again! The trellis appeared in the scene where Brenda takes Rick on a walking tour of Paris and I am happy to report that it looks EXACTLY the same as it did when it appeared on 90210, except that due to the time of year, the flowers usually covering it were not in full bloom yesterday. This trellis is also located in the Huntington’s Rose Garden; it covers the path which leads to the Japanese Garden area.

    Interestingly enough, this very same location showed up on 90210 some years later as the location where Steve and Janet tie the knot. Producers added some black street lights to the site which are not normally there. Otherwise it looks much the same as it did when it first appeared on 90210.

    The Huntington Library and Botanical Gardens was originally the private home of Central Pacific Railroad owner Henry E. Huntington and his wife Arabella. Originally called the San Marino Ranch, Henry and his wife purchased the property in 1902 and began creating a truly incredible botanical garden in their backyard. Throughout his lifetime, Henry also collected fine art and books and today it is his art, library and gardens that make up the Huntington. The 207 acre property is an absolutely beautiful place to spend an afternoon. I am usually not big on museums, but the Huntington is simply breathtaking. The gardens alone cover over 120 acres and consist of painstakingly maintained landscapes from different areas of the world. It really takes more than one visit to discover all of this amazing place. The grounds are serene and peaceful and when visiting, you will feel a million miles away from Los Angeles. The Rose Garden is exquisite, the Bonzai Court and Zen Garden are truly unique, the Japanese Garden is incredible with its winding koi ponds and bamboo forests, and the newly built Chinese Garden with its enormous lake is absolutely gorgeous. This is one location that is a must-see, not just for stalkers, but for anyone visiting the Los Angeles area.

    Besides 90210 and A Cinderella Story, The Huntington Library and Botanical Gardens has appeared in countless movie and television productions, including First Daughter, Be Cool, Legally Blonde 2, The Bachelor reality show, The Wedding Planner, Beverly Hills Ninja, The West Wing, American Wedding, Monster in Law, Charlie’s Angels, as well as hundreds of others. It was also the location of Robert and Anna’s wedding on the soap opera General Hospital. Anytime you see a garden popping up on one of your favorite television shows or movies, chances are it was filmed at the Huntington.

    Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

    Stalk It: Huntington Library and Botanical Gardens is located at 1151 Oxford Road in San Marino. You can visit their website here. You can also visit their filming website here.

  • Stalk Me If You Can

    I have been head over heels for Leonardo DiCaprio for what feels like pretty much my whole life – since long before Titanic, and even before the Growing Pains days. Yes, I actually sat through his first flick Critters 3. I do love me some Leo! One of my fave Leo movies (besides Titanic, of course!) is Catch Me If You Can, so a few years ago, when I found out that scenes from that movie were filmed at a house on California Boulevard in Pasadena, I ran right out to stalk it. The Pasadena house shows up towards the second half of the movie, as the home where Leo’s mom lives after she divorces Christopher Walken’s character.

    The first scene where the house is featured is the scene when Tom Hanks and two other FBI agents pay a visit to Frank Abagnale Jr’s (Leo’s character) mom to dig up some information on the con man. In the scene, Frank’s mom naively offers to “write a check” for the money Frank has stolen until Tom Hank informs her the amount owed is about $1.3 million. 🙂

    Towards the end of the movie, the house is featured yet again in the scene when Leo arrives at his mother’s home on Christmas Eve only to discover that she now has a whole new family. A few minutes later, Tom Hanks shows up with a calvary of police cars to arrest him. Not a very Merry Christmas for Leo! You can watch the (ultra depressing) Christmas scene here.

    The Catch Me If You Can house looks pretty much exactly the same in person as it does in the movie. It is interesting to note, though, that there are hundreds of homes in Pasadena that look almost exactly like this one. There is truly nothing different or spectacular about it to distinguish it from the countless other white clapboard homes in the area. So it absolutely fascinates to contemplate what it was about this home that made producers choose it over the others. The only reason I can come up with is that this home has a very large front yard area, which was necessary for the scene when Leo is arrested, as there needed to be enough room for six police cars to drive up onto the front lawn. These location decisions always fascinate me, though, and I would love to sit down and talk with a location scout someday to find out what exactly their thought processes are in determining locations.

    Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

    Stalk It: The Catch Me If You Can house is located at 3077 E. California Boulevard in Pasadena. I also just found out that Martin Sheen’s New Orleans house in the movie is actually located in Altadena, so it looks like I have some more Catch Me If You Can stalking to do! 🙂

  • Sex In My City

    To promote her new book, One Fifth Avenue, Sex and the City author and creator Candace Bushnell made an appearance at my fave bookstore, Vroman’s, in Pasadena last night. I could not have been more excited for this event!!! I was absolutely dying to see the real life Carrie Bradshaw in person. For those not in the know, much like her on-screen alter-ego, in real life Candace Bushnell authored a column entitled Sex and the City which appeared weekly in the New York Observer newspaper during the early 90s. In 1996, she published a book of her greatest columns and due to that book’s popularity, a television show based upon her life was created. The rest, as they say, is history. 🙂

    Last night before the event began, I was literally on the edge of my seat waiting to see Candace in person. I was dying to know how alike she was to the character portrayed by SJP. I couldn’t help but wonder . . . Does she talk like SJP, dress like SJP, and most of all, what kind of shoes would she be wearing????

    The reading turned out to be fabulous and I had a blast being there!!! Candace is SUPER tiny in person (much like SJP) and not at all as flashy as I expected her to be. Although her feet were clad in super high Manolo’s, her outfit was pretty tame compared with Carrie Bradshaw’s avant garde wardrobe. (Unfortunately, Candace wouldn’t allow any photographs to be taken during the reading, so I had to wait until she was finished to snaps pics.) Candace read a bit of the first chapter of her new book (where I discovered that she doesn’t talk like SJP) and then there was a short question and answer session, where we learned little tidbits like Candace’s favorite book out of all the novels she has written is One Fifth Avenue, she thinks SJP is an “absolute doll”, and she was floored to meet Mary Tyler Moore recently when the actress guest starred on the television show Lipstick Jungle, which is also based on one of Candace’s books. I think the audience was slightly intimidated by the real CB, because barely anyone asked questions, which led Candace to say “Doesn’t anyone want to know if there is a real Mr. Big or what brand of shoes I am wearing?” LOL Love it!!! 🙂 She told us that there was in fact a real Mr. Big, whom she dated for a year and a half and who did dump her for another woman after a trip to Europe, just like on the series. The real Mr. Big ended up marrying the woman he met in Europe after only four months of dating and, like Carrie, Candace was absolutely devastated. Unlike on the series, however, the real Mr. Big is still happily married to this day. He now lives in Vermont with his wife and kids and several horses. Candace is also now happily married, as well, and I must say her wedding band is absolutely gorgeous – but surprisingly simple. It is a very understated, very modest eternity band with pave diamonds that sparkle like no other. I LOVED it. 🙂 Anyway, Candace also told us that she did just sign a contract to pen a series of young adult novels about the early life of Miss Carrie Bradshaw. YAY! She has not begun writing these novels as of yet, but she is very excited to start. I asked her how closely she worked on the Sex and the City series and she said that was very involved as a consultant during the first two seasons, but not at all after that and not at all on the movie. She said that after the first two seasons she entrusted her story to Michael Patrick King, who she thinks is an absolute genius. She also said that she felt that being a part of the series was like “magic”.

    After the question and answer session, Candace signed books (but no DVDs or SATC memorabilia) for the audience. She would not, however, pose for any photographs with the fans, so I didn’t get a pic with her. 🙁 She was very nice in person, though, and I could not have been more excited to meet her! It was a truly fabulous evening!!!! 🙂

    Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

    Stalk It: You can purchase Candace Bushnell’s new book here. Vroman’s Bookstore is located at 695 E. Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena. You can view their upcoming author events here.