Los Feliz – Page 3 – IAMNOTASTALKER

April 11, 2011June 16, 2011

Fred 62 from “Commander in Chief”

Me on Ellen! 🙂

Before I begin today’s blog, I thought I would post a clip of the game I played on The Ellen DeGeneres Show last week. I just have to say here, too, that going to see the show was a FABULOUS experience and I highly recommend doing so if you are in the area. I would also like to thank my friend and fellow stalker, Beth, for inviting me to tag along with her to watched Ellen being filmed. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, Beth! Smile And now, on with the post!

The Grim Cheaper and I recently sat down to watch the 2005 series Commander in Chief in its entirety. The short-lived show about a female president, Mackenzie Allen (aka Geena Davis), sadly only lasted one season with a scant 18 episodes ever being broadcast. I had originally been interested in watching the series because it starred cutie Matt Lanter (aka Liam Court on 90210) as the First Son, Horace Calloway, but, as it turned out, both the GC and I absolutely LOVED it! I am beyond shocked that the show was cancelled after such a short time period. There’s no accounting for taste, I guess. Anyway, while watching one of the episodes, I recognized a location that I had actually stalked almost a decade prior – Fred 62 restaurant in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles. The GC’s best friend, Chris, had taken us there for a late lunch one afternoon back in 2001 and at the time I had no idea the place was a filming location. So once I saw it pop up on Commander in Chief, I immediately dragged the GC right on out to re-stalk it. And thankfully Fred 62 was just as great as I remembered it.

Fred 62 was originally founded in 1997 by two men named Fred who were both born in the year 1962, hence the name. Nightclub designer Fred Sutherland, who fashioned everything from The Palladium in New York City to Deep in Hollywood, created the look of the diner, while his friend, chef Fred Eric, of Olive, Vida, and Airstream fame, was responsible for the fare. The restaurant became a hit right of the bat and, due to its distinct retro-look, also became an instant favorite with area location scouts. Besides being a filming location, though, Fred’s is also something of a celebrity hot-spot and such stars as Drew Barrymore, Britney Spears, Cameron Diaz, Heather Graham, Shane West, Dax Shepard, Johnny Knoxville, Kristen Bell, Kirstie Alley, Samantha Ronson, Lindsay Lohan, Katy Perry, Russell Brand, Mandy Moore, Kate Bosworth, Naomi Watts, Cam Gigandet, and Ben Stiller have all been spotted there. Ironically enough, as we were leaving Fred 62 we saw Archie Panjabi, who plays investigator Kalinda Sharma on The Good Wife, which is another show the GC and I just recently started watching. She was dining a few doors down from Fred’s at Figaro Bistro and I just about had a heart attack upon spotting her as Kalinda is my favorite character on the series. Smile

The Fred 62 menu is quite extensive and offers a selection of everything from typical diner fare like burgers and hot dogs (with homemade potato chips, no less!) to Japanese entrees like udon and soba noodle soup to Mexican favorites such as tacos and burritos. I opted for the S.W.S. Southwestern Pacific Railroad Salad with chicken fingers (pictured above) and it was OUT OF THIS WORLD! There was literally not one scrap of lettuce or droplet of ranch dressing left on my plate when I got done with it! The GC had a roast beef sandwich which he also devoured. I honestly cannot say enough good things about Fred 62 – great food, fab atmosphere! I loved, loved, loved the place and cannot wait for a re-stalk!

Fred 62 popped up in the Season 1 episode of Commander in Chief titled First Disaster as the supposed Washington, D.C.-area diner where First Daughter Rebecca Calloway (aka Caitlin Wachs) goes on a date with schoolmate Mike Fleming (aka Matt Barr).

As fate would have it, the GC and I ended up sitting in pretty much the exact same spot where Rebecca and Mike sat in the scene.

After finishing their meal, the two get mobbed by a crowd of people while standing on the street just outside of Fred’s and wind up having to be rescued by the Secret Service.

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Fred 62 was also featured in the 2006 flick Friends With Money as the spot where Mike (aka Scott Caan) and Olivia (aka my girl Jen Aniston) go out on a blind date.

Mike and Olivia sat in the second booth in from Fred’s front door while on their date.

The restaurant also popped up a few times in 2009’s Spread, which has honestly got to be one of the WORST movies I have ever seen in my entire life!! I should say “half-seen”, as I turned it off about halfway through. Anyway, it first pops up as the spot where Nikki (aka Ashton Kutcher) grabs breakfast and while doing so meets and becomes obsessed with his waitress, Heather (aka Margarita Levieva).

Nikki later takes his friend Harry (aka Sebastian Stan) to the diner and has him pretend to be his assistant in the hopes that it will make him more attractive to Heather, but he only ends up making a fool of himself and getting a parking ticket, to boot.

Fellow stalker Chas, of the ItsFilmedThere website, let me know that Fred62 also appeared in the Season 1 episode of Charmed titled “That ‘70s Episode” in the scene in which the Charmed Ones – Prue (aka Shannen Doherty), Phoebe (aka Alyssa Milano), and Piper Halliwell (aka Holly Marie Combs) – travel back in time to March 24th, 1975 to visit their deceased mother, Patty (aka Finola Hughes), at the restaurant where she then worked.

In the episode, Prue and Piper sat in the booth closest to Fred’s front door.

And Phoebe got into a fist fight with Nicolas (aka Andrew Jackson) on the sidewalk out in front of Fred’s.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Fred 62 is located at 1850 North Vermont Avenue in Los Feliz. The restaurant is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. You can visit Fred’s official website here.

January 26, 2011June 9, 2021

The Los Feliz “Murder House”

I can honestly say that out of all of the locations that I have ever stalked in my entire life, the subject of today’s post is hands down the most perplexing and mind-boggling! Last week, when I called up Mike, from MovieShotsLA, to tell him that Geoff, from the 90210locations website, had tracked down the residence belonging to Donna Martin (aka Tori Spelling) during Season One of Beverly Hills, 90210, he fell silent with shock. As it turns out there is another very famous, or perhaps very infamous, property located just up the road from Donna’s house and it is a property that Mike has actually been to countless times in the past. He then proceeded to tell me about the Los Feliz “Murder House”, or “Murder Mansion” as it is also sometimes called, which I had never before heard of. And, let me tell you, once Mike filled me in on the story of the home I was literally up ALL NIGHT reading articles on the subject and I also immediately ran right out to see the place in person the very next day.

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The story – and it is absolutely fascinating – is as follows . . . On the night of December 6, 1959, Dr. Harold Perelson, a wealthy Inglewood heart specialist, bludgeoned his wife, Lillian, to death with a ball-peen hammer and severely beat his 18-year-old daughter, Judye, while his other two children slept soundly in their bedrooms. Judye survived the beating and ran down the hillside to a neighbor’s home at 2471 Glendower Place to call for help. In the meantime, the two younger children awoke and asked their father about the screaming. Harold told them that they had been having a nightmare and to go back to sleep. He then took a cocktail of pills, killing himself instantly. The police arrived shortly thereafter and took all three Perelson children into custody. The mansion was locked up and the children were sent to live with relatives back east. The motive behind the brutal murder/suicide was never completely known, although some speculate that the Perelsons were in financial trouble. But here’s where the story gets weird.

About a year after the murder/suicide, the Perelson’s 5,050-square-foot, Spanish Revival-style mansion was purchased by Emily and Julian Enriquez via a probate auction. And while the couple, who lived in Lincoln Heights at the time, visited the mansion on occasion and even stored some of their possessions there, for reasons that remain unclear they never inhabited the property, nor did they ever move the Perelson’s belongings out! To this day, over five decades later, the mansion remains in almost the exact same state it was in on the night of December 6, 1959! According to a February 6, 2009 Los Angeles Times article written about the case, not only is the Perelson’s furniture still as it was on that evening, but their Christmas gifts remain sitting on the kitchen table, as if someone was interrupted mid-wrap, and their Christmas tree still stands in the living room!! I’m not making this up! Even stranger still is the fact that even though Emily and Julian have since passed away and their son has owned the property since 1994, it still remains in its December 1959 state. The Los Angeles Times article reports that numerous buyers have contacted Rudy wanting to purchase the home, but that, for whatever reason, he refuses to sell.

The mansion, which was built in 1925 and was quite beautiful in its day, boasts four master bedrooms, three bathrooms, a conservatory, maid’s quarters, a 20-foot by 36-foot ballroom, sweeping views of Los Angeles, and sits on over half an acre of land. Sadly though, the house has fallen into severe disrepair during the past fifty-plus years that it has remained vacant. As you can see in the above photographs, the driveway is severely cracked and the mailbox is almost completely toppled over. Neighbors do what they can to keep the grounds in order and a burglar alarm has recently been installed to keep trespassers out, but other than that the house remains frozen in time and most believe that it will eventually have to be torn down. Ron Shinkman, of The Irony Supplement Blog, wrote a very interesting post on the Perelson mansion back in early 2009 and actually managed to snap a few photographs of the interior of the property, in which some of the Perelson’s former furniture and even one of the children’s former board games are visible. Personally I think there has to be something more to the story and that perhaps the Enriquez family knew the Perelsons and had a personal reason for leaving the house in its 1959 state, but the truth of the matter is that we will most likely never know the whole story.

Another famous property, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Ennis house, is located directly behind the Perelson mansion and is denoted with the pink arrow in the above photograph. The house, which I have yet to blog about, is one of the most famous properties in the entire world, architecturally speaking, and has appeared in such films as 1959’s House on Haunted Hill, The Day of the Locust, Blade Runner, and Rush Hour.

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for telling me about this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The former Perelson mansion, aka the “Los Feliz Murder House”, is located at 2475 Glendower Place, just off of Glendower Avenue, in Los Feliz. Donna Martin’s house from the first season of Beverly Hills, 90210 is located at 2405 Glendower Avenue and the Ennis house is located at 2607 Glendower Avenue.

January 25, 2011January 24, 2011

Donna Martin’s House from the B.Y.O.B. Episode of “Beverly Hills, 90210”

One location that I have been wanting to stalk for just about as long as I can remember now is the mansion where Donna Martin (aka Tori Spelling) lived in the Season 1 episode of fave show Beverly Hills, 90210 titled “B.Y.O.B”. For whatever reason, though, I could just NOT seem to track the place down. Over the past few months I had managed to contact a few of the crew members who had worked on the episode and even a few of the actors who had appeared in it, all of whom told me that they did not recognize the screen capture of the house that I had sent them and that the property where filming took place was located somewhere in the Valley. One of the crew members also told me that he was 99.9% certain that the establishing shot of the mansion which appeared in the episode had been a stock photograph and that no actual filming had taken place there. This news pained me to hear as, because stock photographs are most often purchased from stock location libraries, it meant that the chances of tracking the place down were slim to none. So, imagine my surprise last Friday when I received a tweet from Geoff, from the 90210locations website, informing me that he had somehow managed to find the mansion! Let me tell you, I just about died of excitement and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the place the very next day! Thank you, Geoff!!

Sadly, while I am VERY happy to report that the mansion still looks almost EXACTLY the same today as it did when it appeared on Beverly Hills, 90210 over two decades ago, the property is gated and is not very visible from the street. Sad smile The house, which was originally built in 1926, is definitely beautiful, though, and absolutely GINORMOUS! In real life, it boasts 5 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, and 8,260 square feet of living space.

As fate would have it, when Mike, from MovieShotsLA, went to stalk the home later that very same day, the gate happened to be open and he was able to take the above photograph which matches the screen capture from the “B.Y.O.B.” episode perfectly! So incredibly cool!

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The mansion pictured above was actually only used as Donna’s residence in the “B.Y.O.B.” episode of Beverly Hills, 90210. In later episodes, two different properties stood in for her home – one located at 18515 Wells Drive in Encino, which I blogged about back in November of 2008, and another located at 1060 Brooklawn Drive in Bel Air, which in real life is owned by Barron Hilton, Paris’ grandfather, and which was also used as the Colby mansion on the television series The Colbys. In the “B.Y.O.B” episode, Donna throws a massive party at the mansion while her parents are out of town, during which Steve Sanders (aka Ian Ziering) spikes Brandon Walsh’s (aka Jason Priestley’s) drink – aka his “mucho ‘mahvelous’ mango margarita”.

As I mentioned above though, all of the actual filming of “B.Y.O.B.” took place at a different residence (pictured above), which, according to all of the crew members and actors that I spoke with, is located somewhere in the Valley, most likely Encino.

While I was scanning through the “B.Y.O.B” episode to make screen captures for today’s post, I noticed something a bit coincidental. In the scene in which Brenda Walsh (aka my girl Shannen Doherty) spots her brother Brandon standing in Donna’s backyard, a green awning-type structure is visible in the background.

Well, as it just so happens, there is a very similar looking – and very similarly situated – green awning-type structure in the backyard of the home located at 18515 Wells Drive in Encino, the very same dwelling which stood in for the Martin residence during the later years of the show. The brick patio flooring of the Wells Drive home also matches that of the home from “B.Y.O.B”. Wouldn’t it be ironic if the property used as Donna’s house in the “B.Y.O.B.” episode from Season 1 was the very same property which ended up being used as her home nine years later during Seasons 9 and 10? Without more close-up images of the backyard, it is impossible to tell either way, but nevertheless I found the whole thing very interesting!

Big THANK YOU to Geoff, from 90210Locations, for finding this location and to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for snapping the incredible photograph of it which appears in this post! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Donna Martin’s house from the first season of Beverly Hills, 90210 is located at 2405 Glendower Avenue in Los Feliz.

January 19, 2011January 24, 2011

The “Swingers” Apartment Building

One location that I stalked quite a few months back, but for whatever reason have yet to blog about is the Los Feliz apartment building where Mike (aka Jon Favreau) lived in the 1996 comedy Swingers. I had actually been wanting to stalk this location for quite some time, ever since reading on the IMDB trivia page for Swingers that Jon Favreau had lived there while writing the screenplay for the movie and during the actual filming. IMDB even had the address of the building – 5874 Franklin Avenue in Los Feliz – listed on its Swingers filming locations page, but when my husband and I showed up to stalk the place we discovered that such an address did not actually exist. At first I thought that the Swingers building had quite possibly been torn down, but, as it turns out, the information posted on IMDB was actually incorrect. While looking for the apartment numbered 5874, I noticed the building located at 5870 Franklin Avenue and thought it looked very similar to where Mike had lived in Swingers, so my husband and I ventured over there for a closer look. And amazingly enough we found our answer in a very cool way while doing so!

As it turns out, and as you can see in the above photograph, there is a Swingers poster hanging on the wall of the building’s lobby, which we spotted while peeking in through the front windows. Once I saw that poster, I knew we had to be in the right place! So incredibly cool! I am not sure why there is also a Batman poster displayed in the lobby, being that Batman was filmed in its entirety in England, but I am guessing that maybe someone involved in the production had lived in the building at one time or another.

In real life, the Swingers apartment building is named Chateau Marcella and it was originally built in 1928. Due to the building’s detailing and character, I assumed it was mostly likely a historic structure of some sort, but sadly I could find absolutely no information about it online. Like nothing, nada, zip. Not even a single Yelp report stating whether or not it was a nice place to live!

But I am happy to report that the building looks very much the same today as it did back in 1996 when Swingers was filmed.

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Not only did Jon Favreau live at the Chateau Marcella while Swingers was being filmed, but his real life apartment even stood in for Mike’s apartment in the flick! Which makes sense because according to some of the behind-the-scenes information that I have found about the movie online, the Swingers’ shoot was a very low budget one. So, I am guessing that to cut down on costs, Jon decided to use his own apartment for the filming instead of paying to rent out a location for days on end.

I believe that the filming of Swingers took place inside of apartment 382, as in the scene in which Mike comes home after first meeting Lorraine (aka Heather Graham), he opens his front door and a number is just barely visible. I believe that number is 382, but don’t quote me on that as it is very hard to make out. According to IMDB’s trivia page for Swingers, actor Adam Scott also lived at Chateau Marcella during the time that Swingers was being filmed.

The apartment also boasts a fabulous view of the Hollywood sign.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Chateau Marcella, aka the Swingers apartment building and actor Jon Favreau’s former home, is located at 5870 Franklin Avenue in Los Feliz. The 101 Coffee Shop, where Mike and his friends hung out in the movie, is located just a few blocks west of the apartment building at 6145 Franklin Avenue.

December 20, 2010December 20, 2010

Adrianna’s New Rental from “90210”

Back in July of 2009, fellow stalker Jennie wrote to me asking for some help in tracking down a location that appeared in both the 1996 Aaron Spelling television series Kindred: The Embraced and the current reality show Celebrity Fit Club. Because I had never seen either of the shows, though, for this particular stalking venture I had to call in the team – aka Chas, from ItsFilmedThere, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and fellow stalker Owen – and, magically, Chas came through in record time. He somehow managed to track down a Celebrity Fit Club crew member who told him that the show was primarily filmed at a convent in Los Feliz that belonged to the Los Angeles Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. I immediately added the place to my ever-growing “To Stalk” list, but, for whatever reason, never made it out to actually see it in person. So, you can imagine my surprise when I recognized the property as the mansion Adriana Tate-Duncan (aka Jessica Lowndes) rented on the recently-aired Season 3 episode of 90210 titled “Holiday Madness”. I literally just about fell out of my chair and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the place that very weekend.

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From what I’ve been able to gather online, it appears that the property no longer belongs to the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, but is now owned by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and is known as the Cardinal Timothy Manning House of Prayer for Priests. (Although there is a Facebook page which claims that the property is now the International Institute of Theological and Tribunal Studies and is owned by the Graduate Theological Foundation of Indiana, so I’m not really sure what the story is.) Regardless of who currently owns it, though, the structure was originally built in 1928 as a private home for Los Angeles broadcasting/automobile tycoon Earl C. Anthony, a man who not only brought major league baseball to Southern California for the first time, but who was also part of the team that invented gas stations and the car radio. The Anthony House, as it later came to be known, was designed by architect Bernard Maybeck, the same man who gave us the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco. Anthony had commissioned his previous abode to be built by the legendary Greene & Greene architecture firm, but once Anthony, who owned several Packard automobile dealerships at the time, caught wind of the fact that one of the Greene brothers had purchased a car made by a competing brand, he refused to work with the architects on any subsequent projects and hired Maybeck to build his Los Feliz home. LOL! Maybeck incorporated Italian Villa, French Chateau, Spanish Mediterranean, and Tudor elements into the design of the mansion and it wound up costing a whopping $500,000 to construct. At the time it was the most expensive house in Hollywood. After Anthony’s widow passed away in the early 1950s, the mansion was purchased by Sir Daniel J. Donohue and his wife, who, in 1971, bequeathed the entire property to the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, who continued to own it until earlier this year.

Sadly, the 8.5-acre property is closed to the public and not much of it is visible from the street, but, as I’ve said many times before, that’s why God created aerial views! And you can see some fabulous close-up pictures of the former convent on the I.I.T.T.S. Facebook page here.

In the “Holiday Madness” episode of 90210, the former convent was used as Adrianna’s new, massively huge, $20,000-per-month rental.

Both the interior and the exterior of the property were used extensively in the episode . . .

. . . especially during Adrianna’s Christmas party scenes.

As I mentioned above, the property is also used extensively each season on the hit reality television show Celebrity Fit Club.

The Anthony House was also the site of the wine festival in the Season 4 episode of Brothers and Sisters titled “The Wine Festival”.

The property has also appeared in episodes of The A-Team, Dirty Sexy Money, Knight Rider, Dynasty, Airwolf, Falcon Crest, The Greatest American Hero, and Hart to Hart.

Big THANK YOU to Chas, from ItsFilmedThere, for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Adrianna’s new house from 90210, aka the former Los Angeles Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary convent, is located at 3431 Waverly Drive in Los Feliz.

November 16, 2010November 16, 2010

Little Dom’s Restaurant from “90210”

This past Saturday night, I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to Los Feliz to stalk Little Dom’s – an Italian eatery owned by Warner Ebbink and Brandon Boudet of the Eat Heavy Restaurant Group, the very same team that was responsible for founding the 101 Coffee Shop that I blogged about yesterday. The GC and I had actually breakfasted at the Los Feliz-area establishment once before a couple of years ago, but at the time I had no idea the place was a filming location or a celebrity hotspot, so I, unfortunately, did not take any photographs while there. Well, imagine my surprise when just a few months later the restaurant was featured in a Season 2 episode of fave show 90210. I recognized the place immediately, and, let me tell you, just about fell out of my chair. And then this past September, I just about had a heart attack when the eatery appeared on 90210 yet again. And then, last week, when I came across these November 4th paparazzi photos of the cast of Glee – including Lea Michele, Dianna Agron, Cory Monteith, Amber Riley, Harry Shum Jr., Kevin McHale, Jenna Ushkowitz, Naya Rivera, and Chord Overstreet – dining at the restaurant, I just about died and immediately informed the GC that Little Dom’s was where the two of us would be spending our upcoming Saturday night.

Little Dom’s first opened in January of 2008 on the corner of Hillhurst Avenue and Avocado Street in the heart of Downtown Los Feliz in the space that previously housed the French bistro La Belle Epoque. Warner Ebbink, who so ingeniously designed the 101 Coffee Shop interior, completely gutted the former Epoque property and created the Manhattan-esque decor of his new Italian eatery from scratch. The interior designer/restaurateur searched far and wide, and I mean that literally, for the items that now make up his eclectic establishment. He purchased and then transported the wooden bar, which dates back to the 1930’s, from a former saloon in Eaton, Pennsylvania; he found the authentic leaded-glass windows, which now make up some of the restaurant’s interior walls, at an about-to-be-demolished building in New York City, and the picture of Yosemite National Park which hangs above the bar area was requisitioned from none other than Warner Brothers Studios. As the Eater website so aptly stated in their January 2008 review of the restaurant, “Warner Ebbink is an ace at making an entirely new space feel like it’s been there forever.” I couldn’t agree more! Sitting at the antique bar and looking around at the dimly-lit, tin-ceilinged space, I found it very hard to believe that the place had not been around during the heyday of Hollywood catering to members of the Rat Pack.

Besides the spectacular ambiance, Little Dom’s also serves up some fabulous food! I absolutely gorged myself on the Brussels Sprouts with Shaved Parmesan side dish and the Truffled Chicken Salad with Arugula Sandwich entrée – both of which were divine! And I just about died from excitement when I saw that they featured my very favorite dessert, Affogato – vanilla gelato with a shot of espresso (pictured above) – on the menu! I never actually knew that my favorite dessert had a name, nor had I ever actually seen it featured on a restaurant menu before, but I have been ordering a scoop of vanilla ice cream with a shot of espresso on the side as dessert for just about as long as I can remember. So, the fact that Little Dom’s had it named on their menu was simply amazing to me! The restaurant also breaks down their wine list into three sections – ”Tried and True”, “Your New Best Friend”, and “Go Out on a Limb” – which I thought was just about the cutest thing ever. The eatery’s prices were also extremely, extremely reasonable, which, needless to say, the Grim Cheaper was thrilled about. We both absolutely LOVED the place and cannot wait to go back there for another stalking/culinary adventure.

It should come as no surprise that, in the three short years that it has been in operation, Little Dom’s has become a big time celebrity hot spot. Just a few of the stars who have been spotted there recently include Drew Barrymore, Jason Segel, Katherine Heigl, Josh Kelly, Rachel Bilson, Joe Jonas, Pixie Lott, Conan O’Brien, Ryan Reynolds, Megan Fox, Kate Walsh, Zachary Quinto, Michelle Williams, Spike Jonze, Vince Vaughn, Gisele Bundchen, Ron Livingston and, as I mentioned above, most of the cast of Glee. And while the GC and I, unfortunately, did not spot anyone famous on this most recent trip to the restaurant, we did see actor Michael Cera, who played Paulie Bleeker in the 2007 movie Juno, during our first visit there.

And the place is also a filming location! Little Dom’s appeared in the Season 2 episode of 90210 titled “Women’s Intuition”, in the scene in which Debbie Wilson (aka Lori Loughlin) confronts Sasha (aka Mekia Cox) about what she suspects is her fake pregnancy. That scene was filmed in the booth located closest to the restaurant’s front door.

Little Dom’s was also used in the Season 3 episode of 90210 titled “2021 Vision”, in the scene in which Mr. Cannon (aka Hal Ozsan) “accidentally” bumps into Erin Silver (aka Jessica Stroup).

In the scene, Silver sat in the booth located third in from the restaurant’s front door. That particular booth was, sadly, occupied while I was stalking the place, so I had to settle for taking a photograph in the one directly next to it.

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Silver’s Vespa was parked just outside of the restaurant, on Avocado Street, in the scene. And I just have to say here that I am absolutely hooked on 90210 this year. The series started getting pretty good last season, but I think it is just now finally beginning to hit its stride and I absolutely love it, love it, love it. Especially the brewing romance between Liam Court (aka my latest celebrity crush Matt Lanter) and Annie Wilson (aka Shenae Grimes). Those two are SO darn cute together!!!

Little Dom’s also appeared in the 2010 movie The Kids Are All Right, in the scene in which Nic (aka Annette Bening) and Jules (aka Julianne Moore) discuss the fact that their children’s biological father Paul (aka Mark Ruffalo) is now a part of their lives.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Little Dom’s restaurant from 90210 is located at 2128 Hillhurst Avenue in Los Feliz. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.

October 8, 2010October 7, 2010

The “Poison Ivy” Mansion

Back in early August, Drew Barrymore aficionado Ashley, from the Drewseum website, challenged me to find the large pink mansion belonging to the Cooper family – Sylvie (aka Sara Gilbert), Darryl (aka Tom Skerritt), and Georgie (aka Cheryl Ladd) – in the 1992 thriller Poison Ivy. But because I was just a few weeks away from my upcoming wedding at the time, I didn’t get a chance to do any research on it. Thankfully though, fellow stalker Terri stepped in and managed to track down the location for us! Terri had discovered a message board thread on the IMDB Poison Ivy page on which a commenter had stated that the Cooper mansion was located in a “section of Los Feliz called the Oaks”. She then used Google Street View and managed to track down the massively large residence, which amazingly enough looks very much the same today as it did back in 1992 when the movie was filmed! Thank you, Terri!

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In real life, the 13,000-square foot, 5 bedroom, 9 bathroom home, which sits on over a half acre of land, was first built in 1926 and, according to my buddy E.J. over at The MovielandDirectory, belonged to Geena Davis in the early 90s, although that is a claim that the Thelma & Louise actress denies. The Geena Davis rumor was actually featured in a small blurb in the September 1997 issue of Los Angeles Magazine, which states that the extensive property was purchased for $1.3 million in 1992 by the “Sav-On Trust” (believed to be created by Geena) and that an extensive remodel of the residence was subsequently begun. After the roof, windows, and doors had been removed from the estate, though, the remodel was abruptly stopped and the property left in ruins. At one point, squatters even moved into the residence, which is located in a very affluent neighborhood. Sav-On Trust sold the decrepit property to a new owner in 1995 for $1,050,000, with the trust actually carrying the majority of the loan. When the new buyer defaulted on his payments, the home went into foreclosure, with Geena still denying that she had anything to do with the property. Why she didn’t want to be associated with the home, I don’t know, but she doesn’t have much of a leg to stand on being that the trustee of the Sav-On Trust is none other than Greg Kress – Geena Davis’ business manager. Hmmmm. Anyway, the remodel on the property was finally completed in the late 1990s and the mansion is absolutely beautiful today. The home, which you can see some fabulous interior photographs of here, currently boasts a 1,000-bottle wine cellar, a private gym, a game room, an infinity pool, a movie theatre, TWO elevators, a cigar room, a grotto, a spa, a library, and striking views of Los Angeles. Talk about living the high life!

The Cooper mansion figured quite prominently in Poison Ivy and both the interior and the exterior of the property appeared in the flick.

The mansion’s garage area . . .

. . . and main balcony were also used repeatedly in the movie, although both look quite a bit different now. An addition to the house has since been added on to the garage area and a turret has been added next to the balcony.

The exterior stairwell that was formerly located next to the garage has also since been removed.

And the stairs that led to the front of the property in the movie have now been replaced by a sloping driveway. Even with all of those changes, though, the home still looks almost exactly the same today as it did in Poison Ivy. And I so love that it is still almost the same color pink!

Randomly enough, just a few days after stalking it, I spotted this very same location while watching the pilot episode of the new series Law & Order: Los Angeles. The residence showed up in the very beginning of the episode, which was titled “Hollywood”, as the burgled home of teenaged actor Colin Blakely (aka Travis Van Winkle) . Being that I had just stalked the place a few days beforehand, I literally just about fell over when I saw it.

Especially when I noticed the home’s real life address plaque pass by in the background of one of the scenes. So darn cool!

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

Big THANK YOU to Ashley, from the Drewseum website, for challenging me to find this location and to Terri for actually tracking it down! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Poison Ivy mansion is located at 2208 West Live Oak Drive in Los Feliz.

January 11, 2010January 11, 2010

Katherine Heigl’s Apartment Building from “The Ugly Truth”

A few months back I received an email from a woman named Marilyn (love it!) who wanted to know if I could track down the apartment building where Katherine Heigl lived in the 2009 romantic comedy The Ugly Truth. But because I am not a big Katherine Heigl fan – I just think the girl has entirely too much to say about . . . well, everything – I had yet to see the movie and didn’t really plan on doing so. So, I enlisted the help of fellow stalker Owen in tracking this location down and, even though he had yet to see the movie either, he found the place in record time! Thank you, Owen! 🙂 But then a funny thing happened. Once Owen gave me the address and I started looking at aerial views of the building via Google maps, I became more and more intrigued by it until I finally broke down and rented The Ugly Truth. And you know what? I absolutely LOVED it! In fact, I watched it twice!! 🙂 The Ugly Truth is cute and funny and both Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler are fabulous in it! Although, truth be told, I’m not sure if I liked the flick because it was actually a good movie or because my expectations were so incredibly low that I couldn’t help but be pleasantly surprised while watching. Either way, I truly enjoyed The Ugly Truth and my opinion of its leading lady couldn’t help but be improved after watching it. 🙂 So, once I had seen the movie, I, of course, just had to drag my fiancé out to stalk the building where Katherine Heigl’s character lived.

In The Ugly Truth, Katherine Heigl’s character “Abby” supposedly lives in the Sacramento area. But in real life, her Mediterranean-style complex, which is named “El Mirador”, is located a good 380 miles south of the state capital in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles. El Mirador, which is not to be confused with the famous El Mirador apartment building in West Hollywood, was built in 1936 and consists of several privately owned townhomes. The complex is truly charming in person and I absolutely fell in love with the place. Although I must say I am rather surprised that it was chosen to masquerade as a Sacramento area residence in The Ugly Truth, as, to me, the place just screams Southern California. The Ugly Truth complex is actually very reminiscent of both Le Borghese Apartments from the movie Mulholland Drive and the El Cabrillo Apartments from ‘Til There Was You and the television series Chuck. In fact, El Mirador is such a typical L.A. area courtyard building that I can’t imagine it existing anywhere else. But, then again, being that I haven’t spent all that much time in Sacramento, maybe there are similar style buildings located there, as well.

Sadly, not much of El Mirador can be seen from the street thanks to a large grove of trees planted along the perimeter of the property. But thankfully there is a little window in the complex’s front gate, through which I was able to take the pictures you see in the this post. 🙂

After I sent Marilyn the address of The Ugly Truth building, she sent me back the images pictured above from a Craig’s List posting she had stumbled upon advertising the rental of one of the El Mirador Townhomes. As you can see in the photos, while the interior of Katherine’s apartment in the flick was actually just a set built on a studio soundstage, it was, in fact, modeled after the real life interiors of the El Mirador. 🙂 So darn cool!

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Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location and to Marilyn for sending me the Craig’s List images! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Katherine Heigl’s apartment building from The Ugly Truth is located at 1930 Rodney Drive in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles.

August 5, 2009August 4, 2009

Paul Rudd’s House From “I Love You, Man”

One location I have been trying to find for quite some time now is the Mid-Century Modern style abode where Paul Rudd and Rashida Jones lived in fave romantic comedy I Love You, Man. I was dying to stalk the house not only because of its incredibly unique architecture, but also because I was such a big fan of the movie. It’s hilarious! Well, I happened to mention my quest in an email to fellow stalker Owen last week and it wasn’t ten minutes later that he had emailed me back with an address! Sure enough, it was the right house! YAY! So, of course, I ran right out to stalk it! 🙂

Ironically enough, the I Love You, Man house is exactly where the movie purports it to be – in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles. Not only that, but the scenes where Paul Rudd drives to and from his home in the movie were really filmed along the actual streets one would take to get there in real life. On my way to stalk the house yesterday, I was amazed to realize that I was actually passing by some of the very same buildings that Paul drove by in the movie, which was shocking to me as most driving scenes in movies are not filmed anywhere near the places where the characters are supposedly leaving from or heading to. LOL

I am very happy to report that the I Love You, Man house looks exactly the same in person as it did in the movie. And I absolutely loved seeing it! The house is extremely unique in its appearance and even though, as I have mentioned many times before on this blog, the modernist style isn’t really my thing, I truly love this house! I am not at all surprised that producers chose to use it as the home of a young, fairly successful Los Angeles real estate agent and his fiance.

My favorite part of the house has to be the dual staircases leading up to the front door. I just love the juxtaposition of the rounded and straight stairway, which you can sort of see in the above photograph. So cool and, as I said before, just so unique!

Ironically enough, the man who lives across the street from the I Love You, Man house pulled up while I was stalking the place. I was really hoping I’d get the chance to talk to him and ask him all sorts of questions about the filming, but instead he gave me a look like I was absolutely out of mind for taking photographs of a random house in L.A. and immediately went inside his home. LOL I so should have left a note on his door saying “You obviously don’t realize this, so I really feel it is my duty to tell you – you live right ACROSS THE STREET from the I Love You, Man house!” LOL Sheesh, some people!

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Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The I Love You, Man house is located at 3959 Franklin Avenue in Los Feliz, just around the corner from John Marshall High School, aka the Girls Just Want To Have Fun high school.

August 25, 2008February 13, 2009

John Marshall High School

Last week, Mike (from MovieShotsLA) and I hit up John Marshall High School in Los Feliz for a little stalking of one of Los Angeles’ most oft filmed high schools. Mike had made an appointment to tour the school with Marshall’s resident historian, Joanna, who has been teaching at Marshall for over 30 years. Not only is Joanna a seasoned Marshall High teacher, but she also attended the school as a teenager and has a vast wealth of information about the school and its prestigious filming history.

Upon our arrival, Joanna provided us with a spreadsheet of productions filmed on campus detailing what specific areas of the school were used for each film and what each particular scene entailed. She rocks! I was most excited to find out that Marshall stood in for the Chicago Catholic all girls high school from one of my FAVE movies of all time- Girls Just Wanna Have Fun ! According to Joanna, three large white crosses were added to the roof of the high school during the filming of Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, causing parents and local residents (who didn’t realize a movie was being filmed on campus) to call in and inquire about the religious symbols. The screen capture above, taken from GJWHF, didn’t come out very well as the only scene that shows the crosses on top of the school is actually a very brief scene which fades in from another causing the picture to be a bit transparent.

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun filmed extensively at the school and if you watch the movie you will see it popping up quite a few times – including the scene where one of the nuns (donning a full robe and habit) performs a gymnastics routine on an outdoor vault. LOL According to Joanna, the front of the school is a very popular place for filming due to it’s gorgeous “collegiate gothic” architecture. Even though the school is actually located in Los Angeles, it has the look and feel of a Midwest or East Coast school, leading to its popularity with location scouts and producers. The school’s unique doors (pictured above in GJWHF) are usually a dead giveaway that a movie was filmed at John Marshall.

The school has been featured in literally countless movies, TV shows, and music videos. Just to name a few – Tom Hanks drove a bus for John Marshall students in Bachelor Party, Luke Perry and Kristie Swanson attended school there in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie, it stood in for Dewey High on Growing Pains and John Adams High on Boy Meets World, Garth Brooks filmed a music video in the school’s auditorium, it was John Cusak’s alma mater in Grosse Pointe Blank, and the site of the therapy session between Dr. Evil and his son in Austin Powers 2. John Marshall was also featured as the high school in Can’t Hardly Wait, Pretty in Pink, Zapped!, Like Father, Like Son, True Crime, Splendor in the Grass, Rebel Without a Cause, Boston Public, Uncle Buck, Mr. Novak, and Nightmare on Elm Street. Van Halen’s music video Hot for a Teacher was filmed in the school’s former library. And the final scene from Grease – the famous carnival scene – was filmed on the school’s football field (pictured above). According to Joanna, in one of the carnival scenes you can actually see a large “M” (for Marshall) in the background on one of the school buildings. 🙂 Whew – that’s a lot of filming! I would kill for that resume! 🙂

John Marshall, named for the former Chief Justice of the United States, opened up on January 26, 1931. The school currently has 4000 students and a faculty of 200. Famous alumni include Julie Newmar aka Catwoman, Judge Lance Ito, Heidi Fleiss, countless sports heroes and my personal fave, Leonardo DiCaprio. Leo attended the school for only one semester before landing his role on Growing Pains, which ironically filmed at John Marshall High. 🙂 Joanna said that she has been interviewed dozens of times about Mr. DiCaprio, even though his stint at Marshall was so brief. She said that most interviews were quite ridiculous as Leo only attended Marshall for a few months and therefore there just wasn’t that much to talk about. She did tell me that Leo’s counselor really liked him though. 🙂 She also said most interviewers wanted to see the auditorium where Leo would have performed had he ever acted in any Marshall High plays (which he never did). She said countless interviewers walked around the high school’s main stage saying “So he would have stood right here!” LOL

Marshall is a truly beautiful and unique school and I highly recommend stalking it. After all, chances are it has appeared in one of your favorite movies or TV shows. 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: John Marshall High School is located at 3939 Tracey Avenue in Los Feliz.