Hancock Park houses – IAMNOTASTALKER

December 7, 2011December 11, 2011

Judge Crawford’s House from “Fracture”

After tracking down the hilltop abode Willy Beachum (aka cutie Ryan Gosling) called home in fave movie Fracture, which I blogged about last Tuesday, I became just a wee bit obsessed with finding the large brick mansion where Judge Gardner (aka Bob Gunton) lived in the flick. Even though the dwelling showed up only briefly in the movie, because it was pretty much the only location I had yet to track down, I was absolutely itching to find it. The fabulously extensive Fracture production notes stated that some filming had taken place “at a private residence in Hancock Park” and I assumed that the private residence that was referred to had to be Judge Crawford’s. So I started searching aerial views of the area and after about 45 minutes stumbled upon the right property. YAY! And while out and about running some errands in Santa Monica yesterday, I took a little detour through Hancock Park so that I could stalk the place.

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In Fracture, Willy’s love interest, Nikki Gardner (aka Rosamund Pike), invites him to her parent’s home on Thanksgiving to eat dinner with her family.

Later on in the flick, Willie returns to the house to ask Nikki’s father, who is a judge, to sign a court order prohibiting Ted Crawford (aka Anthony Hopkins) from pulling the plug on his comatose wife, Jennifer Crawford (aka Embeth Davidtz).

In real life, the Georgian-Revival-style mansion, which was originally built in 1914, boasts 6 bedrooms, 5 baths, 6,175 square feet of living space, and almost half an acre of land. The house was designed by Meyer & Holler, the noted Los-Angeles-based architecture firm that was responsible for the Alex Theatre in Glendale, Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, Culver Studios in Culver City, and the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood. Thanks to the fabulous The Houses of Hancock Park and JCB blogs, I discovered that the property is currently owned by famed Los Angeles interior designer Suzanne Rheinstein and her husband, Fred. The Rheinsteins purchased the dwelling over thirty years ago and immediately began an extensive redesign of the interior, a lengthy process that was reported on by several home magazines. The residence is nothing short of GORGEOUS in person and is, ironically enough, exactly the type of spot that my mom and I refer to as a “Thanksgiving House” – an idyllic and picturesque dwelling that makes one think of coming home for the holidays. I mean, the place could not look any more like it came out of a Folgers Coffee Christmas commercial if it tried! Winking smile

The interior of the abode, which is BEAUTIFUL, was featured prominently in Suzanne’s 2010 book At Home: A Style for Today with Things from the Past. (The pictures featured above remain the sole and private property of Suzanne Rheinstein and photographer Pieter Estersohn.)

As you can see above, the photographs featured in Suzanne’s book match up to what appeared onscreen, which means that the real life interior of the home, along with some of the furniture, was also used in the filming.

On a side-note that falls into the obscenely-cool category – yesterday I dropped by my very favorite store, Lula Mae in Old Town Pasadena, and just about died when Marci, the adorable owner who has come to be my good friend, informed me that she had just named me the shop’s very first “Customer of the Month”. Um, LOVE IT! For those who have never been there, LA Weekly recently awarded Lula “Best One-Stop Gift Shopping 2011” and in their write-up said, “You know that friend of yours who always upstages the $10 bottle of wine you pull out of your purse when she shows up at parties with the most adorable, clever little trinket wrapped perfectly in a colorful vintage bag? Well that smug b*tch probably has been shopping at Lula Mae for years now.” LOL Couldn’t have said it better myself! The store is so insanely cute, colorful, and fun that I find myself dropping in at least five times a week. It has become an addiction! Lula Mae is the first place I head whenever I am depressed, have writer’s block, or just need a good giggle! So to be named their Customer of the Month was just about the best honor I could have received! Thank you, Marci, Julia, Alison, and Lula Mae! <3

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Judge Crawford’s house from Fracture is located at 435 South Windsor Boulevard in the Windsor Square section of Hancock Park. Lula Mae is located at 100 North Fair Oaks Avenue in Old Town Pasadena.

August 11, 2011August 10, 2011

The “Eye for an Eye” House

A couple of months ago, my good friend and fellow stalker Lavonna asked me to track down the supposed Pacific-Palisades-area residence where the McCann family – Karen (aka Sally Field), Mack (aka Ed Harris), Julie (aka Olivia Burnette, who also played Dorothy Jane Torkelson on The Torkelsons, one of my very favorite television series ever, but I digress), and Megan (aka Alexandra Kyle) – lived in the 1996 revenge thriller Eye for an Eye. Amazingly enough, even though I absolutely LOVE me some revenge thrillers, I had never before even heard of Eye for an Eye, so the Grim Cheaper and I promptly headed out to rent it that very evening. And I have to say that we both thoroughly enjoyed it. Not as much as Taken or Man on Fire (which in this stalker’s never-to-be-humble opinion are the ultimate vigilante flicks ever made), mind you, but it was a good watch nonetheless.

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Like Lavonna, I, too, was immediately taken with the stately home belonging to the McCann family while watching the flick and was absolutely convinced that it was located somewhere in the Pasadena area. After a few hours of looking for the residence via aerial views, though, I came up completely empty-handed. So I did what any good stalker does in a situation like this – I called in the troops – i.e. fellow stalkers Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, and Owen. And, amazingly enough, Owen immediately sent me back a text informing me that he had tracked down the residence about four years beforehand! Duh! Note to self – always ask my fellow stalkers if they have found a location prior to looking for it myself!

In real life, the Eye for an Eye house is located at 456 South Arden Boulevard in the Hancock Park area of Los Angeles. As you can see above, though, the property was given a fake address number of “244” for the filming, so I have no idea how in the heck Owen managed to find the place! My hat is definitely off to you, buddy!

I finally made it out to stalk the residence a couple of weeks ago, along with Chas, who happened to be in town for a little Southern California stalking vacay. And while the Eye for an Eye house is very pretty in person, I must say that I much prefer the way it looked onscreen – painted grey and white and sans shutters on the upstairs windows.

I am fairly certain that the real life interior of the home was also used in the filming, but I was unfortunately not able to find any photographs of the property on any locations websites to verify that hunch.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Owen for finding this location! Smile And you can check out fellow stalker Chas’ in-depth Eye for an Eye filming locations page on the It’sFilmedThere website here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Eye for an Eye house is located at 456 South Arden Boulevard in the Hancock Park area of Los Angeles.

April 4, 2011April 3, 2011

Liam Court’s House from “90210”

This past Thursday afternoon, while out running some errands in the Hancock Park area, I decided to do a little stalking of the residence where Liam Court (aka cutie Matt Lanter – sigh!) lives on fave show 90210. I found this location thanks to Geoff at the 90210 Locations website who posted the information way back in October of 2009. And even though I do seriously love me some Matt Lanter, for whatever reason it took me almost a year and half to get out to stalk the place.

Geoff actually first found this location shortly after it appeared in the Season 1 episode of the new Melrose Place titled “Windsor” in which it was used as the spot where Lauren Yung (aka Stephanie Jacobsen) caught David Breck (aka Shaun Sipos) stealing jewelry. Geoff had an inkling that the manse was located in the Hancock Park area as he had just tracked down the house belonging to Michael Mancini (aka Thomas Calabro) on the series in that same vicinity. Because the estate is so incredibly large and distinct-looking, it did not take him long to find it using aerial views. Then, as fate would have it, someone emailed him a screen cap of Liam’s house just a few days later and asked if he might be able to track it down. He, of course, recognized the place immediately. It is so funny to me that two such closely-related CW shows would use the very same house in episodes that aired within a month of each other. But that’s Hollywood for you. Winking smile

In real life, the estate is known as the Ahmanson Mansion as, during the years 1958 through 1968, it belonged to Howard F. Ahmanson Sr., the prominent Los Angeles philanthropist who founded Home Savings and Loan, which for a time was the largest savings and loan association in America. You can see a photograph of Mr. Ahmanson standing inside the mansion on the Find A Grave website here. The impressive property, which was originally built in 1929, boasts 7 bedrooms, 12 bathrooms, a large pool, a tennis/basketball court, a four-car garage, a carriage house, 14,071 square feet of living space, and a 1.5 acre plot of land. It is an absolutely magnificent home and it is not very hard to see why it ended up being used on 90210.

Liam’s house first showed up in the Season 2 episode of 90210 titled “To Sext or Not to Sext”.

For whatever reason, though, producers chose not to use the front view of the house for the establishing shot shown on the series, but instead chose to use a view of the side of the property.

The real life interior of the house, which you can see photographs of here, was used in the episode, as well.

And the home’s tennis/basketball court, which you can see a photograph of here, was also used in the “To Sext or Not to Sext” episode as the spot where Ryan Matthews (aka Ryan Eggold) and Harry Wilson (aka Rob Estes) played basketball and discussed Ryan’s relationship with Jen Clark (aka Sara Foster).

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The Ahmanson Mansion was also used as the residence belonging to Francis Buxton (aka Mark Holton) in 1985’s Pee-wee’s Big Adventure.

The real life interior of the house also appeared in the movie, as well.

Although I am fairly certain that Francis’ humongous bathtub was most likely just a set.

The Ahmanson Mansion was also featured in several Season 4 episodes of the television series Falcon Crest and in the 1990 Jackie Collins’ mini-series Lucky Chances.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Ahmanson Mansion, aka Liam Court’s house from 90210, is located at 401 South Hudson Avenue in Hancock Park. The view of the house shown on 90210 can be seen from West 4th Street.