Tag: movie filming locations

The “Christmas Vacation” Pool

Another Christmas-themed locale that I had long wanted to track down and stalk was Clark W. Griswold’s (Chevy Chase’s) dream pool from the 1989 classic Christmas Vacation. (Is it odd, by the way, that I can still remember exactly where I was and who I was with the first time I saw the flick back in middle school? But I digress.) Being that the pool had only popped up once in the movie and that a very small portion of it was ever shown, I had no clue whatsoever where it might be located or how to even begin searching for it. Then, back in February, while Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I were visiting Warner Bros. Ranch, where the majority of Christmas Vacation was lensed, our lovely tour guide took us by the lot’s pool and I got an inkling that it might have been the one used in the movie. Our guide was unsure if that was the case, though, and when I re-watched the flick to make comparisons later that day, I noticed some differences in the two pools which led me to believe that they were not one and the same.

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Then, in October, I returned to the Ranch for another tour, this time with fellow stalkers Kim and Lavonna, and our guide informed us that Old Navy had just shot a series of Christmas Vacation-themed commercials (one of which you can watch by clicking below) on the premises and that, during the filming, Chevy Chase had mentioned that the lot’s pool had been used as Clark’s dream pool in the original movie. YAY! As someone who is always seeking further verification, though, I popped in my dad’s Christmas Vacation DVD while visiting my parents during Thanksgiving to see if any mention of the pool’s location was made in the commentary and, sure enough, director Jeremiah S. Chechik stated that the pool scene was filmed at Warner Bros. Ranch, just across from the house used as the Griswold residence in the film.

Clark’s dream pool, which, according to the fabulous Columbia Ranch website, was originally built in 1948, is located in the Park section of Warner Bros. Ranch, right next to the fountain used in the Friends opening credits and the Alan House from Pushing Daisies and Small Soldiers.

Mike took the photographs below during our February visit and, as you can see, a backdrop was installed around the southern portion of the pool at the time for a production that did not want it to be visible.

For the filming of Christmas Vacation, a significant amount of foliage was added to the premises to make it appear more like a residential backyard. And, as you can see below, while the lip of the pool was plain cement at the time of the shoot, it is now brick, and the metal ladder that was once affixed to the side of the structure has also since been removed.

But, thankfully, the legs of the diving board still look EXACTLY the same today as they did in 1989 when Christmas Vacation was filmed! LOVE IT!

You can check out a close-up photograph of those legs below.

And I, of course, just had to pose on the diving board like Cousin Eddie (Randy Quaid) while I was there. If only I had brought my skivvies that day!

The Warner Bros. Ranch pool also appeared very briefly in the Season 1 episode of The Monkees titled “The Chaperone” during their “You Just May Be the One” performance.

The pool also popped up several times in various The Partridge Family episodes, including the Season 1 episode titled “Danny and the Mob” . . .

. . . and the Season 2 episode titled “Home Is Where the Heart Was”.

And while the pool was used in the Season 1 episode of Bewitched titled “And Something Makes Three”, it was never actually shown. In the episode, Samantha Stephens (Elizabeth Montgomery) conjures up a pool in her backyard on a hot summer day, absolutely perplexing nosy neighbor Gladys Kravitz (Alice Pearce), who can only see small glimpses of Samantha, jumping up and down on a diving board and splashing water, over their shared fence.

The Warner Bros. Ranch pool was also used significantly in the 2012 high school comedy Project X.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Christmas Vacation pool is located on the Warner Bros. Ranch lot at 411 North Hollywood Way in Burbank. Unfortunately, the Ranch is gated and not accessible to the public.

December 21, 2012
The Former Site of the “Home Alone 2” Motel

One Christmas location that I had been absolutely obsessed with finding for years was the supposed Miami, Florida-area motel where the McCallister family – minus Kevin (Macaulay Culkin), of course – stayed in the 1992 flick Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. I had always assumed that the place was located in Miami, until I noticed a mention on the movie’s IMDB filming locations page that stated that it was actually in Malibu. Well, believe you me, once I found out that the motel was located in the L.A. region, I became bound and determined to find it and immediately enlisted the help of fellow stalker Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website. Chas wound up contacting one of the HA2 crew members about a year and a half ago, who had this to say, “That was the last scene we shot in the movie and I was driving the van. I just looked it up. We shot it at Rochelle’s Motel, 3333 Lakewood Boulevard @ Donald Douglas Drive, Long Beach, CA. I’m honestly not sure it exists anymore, but that would be (I think) the correct name and address. I just found the call sheet.” (I LOVE hearing insider info like the fact that it was the last scene shot and that the crew-member was driving the van. SO COOL!) Sadly, said crew member was right – Rochelle’s had been leveled shortly after Home Alone 2 was lensed. Even though the locale was no longer in existence, though, I was absolutely dying to stalk its former site and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on over there to do just that on our way to Newport Beach this past weekend.

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Fellow stalker Gary, from Seeing Stars, did a TON of research on this locale and I honestly cannot thank him enough. Because he lives in the South Bay, Chas had contacted Gary to ask if he had ever seen Rochelle’s when it was still in operation. He hadn’t, but decided to do some Googling on the subject and came up with quite a bit of information. From his queries, which yielded several Los Angeles Times mentions of various events held at the site, Gary was able to ascertain that the location, which is a stone’s throw away from the Long Beach Airport, was originally a motel named the Landmark that opened around 1962. You can check out a photograph of an old Landmark matchbook here and a vintage postcard from the place on Ron-Kane’s Flickr photostream here. According to the postcard, the Landmark featured a heated swimming pool and fully-carpeted, air-conditioned rooms with tubs, showers and 21-inch television sets. Sometime around 1967, the Landmark was razed (or completely altered) to make way for a new, larger hotel/convention center named Rochelle’s. You can see an old Rochelle’s matchbook here, which states that the place boasted 163 “luxurious units” with separate kitchenettes, a heated pool, a restaurant, a coffee shop, sauna baths for both men and women, and a private conference room. From what Gary ascertained, Rochelle’s seems to have been in operation until at least 1988 and, if I had to guess, I would say that the place was closed and vacant at the time that Home Alone 2 was filmed in 1992, which is most likely why producers chose to use it. Sometime thereafter, the motel was demolished and a parking structure for the Long Beach Airport currently stands in its place. Boo!

Rochelle’s Motel, which was re-named Villa de Dolphine for the filming, only showed up twice in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York – first in the scene in which the McCallister family arrived in Miami, only to discover that the motel that Uncle Frank (Gerry Bamman) recommended was a total dump. Of the place, he says, “It didn’t look this bad on our honeymoon.” LOL I absolutely LOVE the docked boat that was parked in front of the pool area in the scene. Fabulous touch!

Rochelle’s later appeared in the scene in which Kate McCallister (Catherine O-Hara) received a phone call from the Miami Police informing her that Kevin had tried to check in to The Plaza Hotel in New York (which I blogged about here).

Amazingly enough, I could not find a single photograph of the former Rochelle’s Motel anywhere online. Not one! Thankfully though, fave website Historic Aerials did come through with a view of the locale from 1972, which you can compare to the current aerial view below.

As you can see in a more close-up version of that 1972 view, the C-shape of the motel, as well as the pool with parking spaces set around it, match up perfectly to what appeared onscreen in Home Alone 2.

The pink-hued interior of the McCallister family’s motel room was, I believe, just a set and not an actual room at Rochelle’s.

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

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalkers Chas, from It’sFilmedThere, and Gary, from Seeing Stars, for their help in finding and researching this location.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Rochelle’s Motel, aka Villa de Dolphine from Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, was formerly located at 3333 Lakewood Boulevard in Long Beach. Today, the site is a parking structure for the Long Beach Airport.

December 20, 2012
The “Four Christmases” House

Today’s location is a big one, my fellow stalkers! Well, it is for me, at least, being that it took me years to find it, as I mentioned in last Friday’s post. Yes, I am talking about the ultra-modern and gorgeous hilltop home where Brad (Vince Vaughn) and Kate (Reese Witherspoon) lived in the 2008 romantic comedy Four Christmases. Despite the fact that the abode only showed up once in the flick – and very briefly at that – its contemporary façade and bamboo accents made quite an impression on me and I fell in love the place pretty much on sight. Try as I might, though, I just could NOT seem to track it down. So when I finally did this past Thursday morning, I was pretty much doing cartwheels across my apartment for the next hour and a half. And while the residence is actually located in San Francisco and I was therefore not able to stalk it myself, I recruited my good friend Nat, who lives in the Bay Area, to stalk it on my behalf, which she did the very next day. Thank you, Nat!

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Because Four Christmases was lensed in both Los Angeles and San Francisco, I had no idea where to even begin my search on this one. When I first embarked on the hunt, fellow stalker Chas, of the It’sFilmedThere website, had contacted one of the movie’s crew members for me, who informed him that the residence was indeed located in San Francisco, but that it had been changed significantly for the filming and would be virtually unrecognizable in person. He refused to divulge the property’s exact location, though, so I did not put much credit into his information as I thought that he might be fabricating things in order to throw us off the scent. As it turns out, the guy was telling the truth. Brad and Kate’s house was changed drastically for the shoot, which is another reason that it was so hard to find. It was not until I came across production designer Shepherd Frankel’s amazing website last week and saw this artistic rendering of the Four Christmases house that I was able to finally find the place.

What threw me off considerably during the search was the fact that, for the filming, the home’s real life front doors (which face the street) were covered over and a fake door added to the eastern side of the structure (in the area denoted with a red arrow in the photograph below), making it impossible for me to figure out how the place was situated in relation to the street. Once I saw the drawing of the house on Frankel’s website, though, it all came together in my head and I was able to find the pad within minutes. WHOO HOO!

The home’s actual front doors are pictured below. I much prefer the set-up of the house that appeared in the movie to its real life exterior. Absolutely LOVE that bamboo-covered accent wall.

Also love that the residence’s stuccoed front half-wall was covered over with wood for the shoot. It gives the place a much more modern feel and adds quite a bit of texture and color to the exterior.

One aspect of the house that was not altered for the filming was its view, which, as you can see below, is absolutely STUNNING.

Can you imagine waking up to this image every morning? Sigh!

In real life, Brad and Kate’s dwelling is absolutely gargantuan – much larger than it appears to be from its front exterior and much larger than it appeared to be in Four Christmases. The four-story pad, which was originally built in 1987, boasts five bedrooms, four baths and a whopping 3,990 square feet of living space – all on a 0.09-acre plot of land.

Absolutely LOVE the Christmas tree in the window. Can you imagine how spectacular it looks at night, all lit up and against the backdrop of that amazing San Francisco view?

All of the interior scenes that took place at Brad and Kate’s house were filmed in Venice Beach at the same residence that was used in Rihanna’s “Take a Bow” music video, which I blogged about last week.

Oddly enough, though, it seems that a different interior was used as Brad and Kate’s house at some point during the filming because in the trailer for Four Christmases, the couple is shown making phone calls to their respective parents while sitting in a brick-walled loft-style residence with arched windows.

Even odder still is the fact that that particular interior (which in reality is located at 1161 Vine Street in Hollywood and which you can check out some photographs of here) did wind up in the film – as the studio where Brad and Kate took dance lessons. As you can see below, the brick walls, exposed duct work and arched windows match Kate and Brad’s house from the trailer perfectly. Heck, even the Christmas decorations are the same! Very, very strange! UPDATE – Shepherd was nice enough to send me an email explaining that this scene was supposed to have taken place in a break area at the dance studio and not at the couple’s home, so the seeming anomaly now makes sense.

You can watch the Four Christmases trailer by clicking below.

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

Big THANK YOU to my good friend Nat for all of her help in finding this location and for going out and stalking it for me.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Brad and Kate’s house from Four Christmases is located at 85 Burnett Avenue in the Twin Peaks area of San Francisco.

December 19, 2012
Justine’s House from “The Good Girl”

Today’s post is going to be a rather short one as I spent most of the day yesterday with my girl Miss Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog, attending the annual craft fair at her work – which was loads of fun, but, unfortunately, did not leave much time for blogging. So please pardon my brevity. Anyway, last Tuesday morning, when I texted Mike, from MovieShotsLA, to let him know that I was heading back out to Santa Clarita to stalk Bill Cozbi’s Auto Body Shop from Bridesmaids, he suggested that I also make a stalking stop at the house where Justine Last (Jennifer Aniston) and her pothead husband, Phil Last (John C. Reilly), lived in The Good Girl. And even though I was not a huge of the ultra-depressing 2002 film, because Justine and Phil’s residence was only a short two miles away from the auto body shop, I figured why not. Then, when I found out there was a Starbucks in between the two locations, that pretty much sealed the deal.

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Mike, who does not live too far from Santa Clarita, first learned about this location way back in 2001 when The Good Girl was being filmed. I never had occasion to stalk the place, though, as I do not get out to Canyon Country very often and, for some reason, whenever I did happen to be in the area, I completely forgot to drive by.

Justine and Phil’s house was one of the main locations used in The Good Girl and the pad showed up repeatedly throughout the movie. As you can see below, though, the residence looks quite a bit different in person than it did onscreen. The front door that appeared in the film has since been swapped out with a new, glass-paned one, a stone façade has been added to the home’s exterior, the garage door has been replaced, and the wood paneling removed from the side of the garage. Boo! Thankfully though, the abode is still, for the most part, recognizable as The Good Girl house.

Of the locale, The Good Girl production notes state, “Although the design concept was naturalistic, finding locations in sunny California to pass for small town Texas was difficult, specifically the search for Justine and Phil’s house, which is painstakingly defined in the script. ‘Our principal character lived physically and emotionally in the very last house on the street, out from which stretched miles of dry, barren nothingness,’ clarifies [production designer Daniel] Bradford. ‘And of course, everywhere, everywhere, everywhere there are palm trees which are not appropriate for West Texas.’” I really have to give kudos to The Good Girl location managers for finding the property because when I pulled up and saw the large telephone poles, flat streets and general ruralness of the area, my first thought was, ‘This neighborhood does not look AT ALL like an L.A. neighborhood.’

In real life, Justine’s house, which was originally built in 1961, boasts three bedrooms, two baths, 1,125 square feet of living space, and a 0.16-acre plot of land.

And while I would have bet money on the real life interior of the home being used in The Good Girl, that does not appear to have been the case. As you can see in the photographs below, which I got off of an old real estate listing for the property, while the living room very closely resembles what appeared onscreen . . .

. . . the kitchen area does not. And while the real estate listing does mention that the kitchen was “recently remodeled”, it differs far too much from the Last kitchen for me to believe it was used in the flick.

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

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Justine’s house from The Good Girl is located at 25103 Fourl Road in Santa Clarita. Ricardo’s Auto Upholstery, aka Bill Cozbi’s Auto Body Shop from Bridesmaids, is located nearby at 24347 Main Street. Judy’s home from Bridesmaids is located right around the corner from Ricardo’s at 23418 8th Street. And Officer Rhodes’ residence is located directly across the street from Judy’s at 23425 8th Street. Note – the Bridesmaids houses cannot be reached via Calgrove Boulevard, as that street is blocked just east of Creekside Drive. To gain access to the sites, you can take either Apple or Valley Street south off of Lyons Avenue to 8th Street.

December 7, 2012
Bill Cozbi’s Auto Body Shop from “Bridesmaids”

As I mentioned in my post about the apartment building where Lillian (Maya Rudolph) lived in Bridesmaids, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I finally managed to track down all of the L.A.-area locations from the 2011 flick last week. Or so I thought. While scanning through the movie on Monday afternoon, making screen captures for my post about Officer Rhodes’ (Chris O’Dowd’s) house, I came across the scene that took place at Bill Cozbi’s (Richard Riehle’s) Auto Body Shop and realized that Mike and I had both somehow completely forgotten about the locale and failed to do any sort of search for it. I immediately shot him an email asking for some help in tracking the place down and five minutes later I received a text that said, “Oh no! You were just there!” As it turns out, the auto body shop that stood in for Bill Cozbi’s in the flick is located in Santa Clarita, right around the corner from Officer Rhodes’ and Judy’s (Jill Clayburgh’s) houses. UGH! So – after smacking myself in the forehead for being such a ditz – I drove all the way back out to the SC yesterday to stalk the place.

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Fortunately, finding this location was a snap. When Mike first received my email, he had to the foresight to do a Google search for Bill Cozbi’s Auto Body Shop. Because that name was obviously a fake, it did not even occur to me to search for it – I had instead been Googling Bridesmaids and auto body shop. Thankfully though, Mike’s query led him to a page on the Ricardo’s Auto Upholstery website which identified the shop as a Bridesmaids filming location and also featured the photograph below. Whoo hoo – I so LOVE it when location owners embrace their property’s filming history!

Bill Cozbi’s Auto Body Shop is first mentioned by Officer Rhodes towards the beginning of Bridesmaids, in the scene in which he pulls Annie (Kristen Wiig) over for having broken taillights. Rhodes tells Annie that she should go see his friend who has a body shop, “Bill Cozbi, with a z – different guy. And don’t mention the whole Bill Cosby thing to him. It drives him nuts. I mean it!” LOL Annie ends up going to the shop at the very end of the movie, after finally deciding to start getting her life back on track. Thankfully, as you can see below, Ricardo’s Auto Upholstery looks pretty much exactly the same in person as it did onscreen – aside from the name (and, therefore signage) change, of course.

I so love that a variation of one of the shop’s real life signs was used in the movie, though.

While I was stalking the shop, I happened to meet the super-nice owner, who is aptly named Ricardo. He was in absolute SHOCK that I had driven all the way from Pasadena just to see the location. Ricardo spent quite a few minutes filling me in on the filming of Bridesmaids, showing me photographs from the shoot, and he was even nice enough to take the picture of me that appears at the top of this post. He also informed me that producers had taken down a chain link fence that had originally surrounded his property during the shoot and that, after filming wrapped, he decided to replace the old fence with a nicer, more permanent metal one, as you can see below. Personally, I like the look of the place sans fence, but that’s probably because that is how it appeared in Bridesmaids.

Mike has most of the remaining Bridesmaids filming locations posted on his site. You can check out Annie’s Cake Baby shop here, the Brazilian restaurant here, the house where Annie went on a blind date here, and Joni’s Restaurant here.

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

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Ricardo’s Auto Upholstery, aka Bill Cozbi’s Auto Body Shop from Bridesmaids, is located at 24347 Main Street in Santa Clarita. You can visit the shop’s official website here. Judy’s home from the movie is located right around the corner at 23418 8th Street. And Officer Rhodes’ residence is located directly across the street from Judy’s at 23425 8th Street. Note – the Bridesmaids houses cannot be reached via Calgrove Boulevard, as that street is blocked just east of Creekside Drive. To gain access to the sites, you can take either Apple or Valley Street south off of Lyons Avenue to 8th Street.

December 6, 2012
Judy’s House from “Bridesmaids”

The one location from Bridesmaids that I was most determined to track down – the one that I would not stop bugging poor Mike, from MovieShotsLA, about – was the yellow ranch-style dwelling where Annie’s (Kristen Wigg’s) mom, Judy (Jill Clayburgh, who was ABSOLUTELY ADORABLE in the role, which was, sadly, her last), lived in the 2011 flick. Thankfully, once Mike managed to find Officer Rhodes’ (Chris O’Dowd’s) house, which I blogged about yesterday, tracking down Judy’s was a snap because, in an odd twist, the two properties are located right across the street from one another. While I had told Mike when we first began the search that I had a hunch that the residences would most likely be found in the same vicinity, perhaps even the same town, never in a million years did I think that they would be directly across the street from each other!

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Mike had an inkling that they would be, though. While scanning through Bridesmaids, he noticed that the fake address numbers that producers had given the properties for the filming – 8409 and 8410 – were sequential, which would, in fact, put the two structures across the street from one another. He figured that the residence’s actual addresses had most likely just been shortened – from 28409 to 8409 and from 28410 to 8410, perhaps – for the shoot. So, when he ended up finding the locations, we were both absolutely flabbergasted to learn that the real life numbers – 23418 and 23425 – are not actually in any sort of sequence. Why on earth producers would give two homes that are not supposed to be located anywhere near each other random, but sequential address numbers is absolutely beyond me!

Judy’s house shows up numerous times throughout Bridesmaids, especially towards the end of the movie when Annie moves in with her mother.

As you can see below, the abode looked quite a bit different onscreen than it does in real life. While I figured that the pad had most likely been remodeled in recent months, a super-nice neighbor informed us that the enclosed front porch area that appeared in Bridesmaids was actually a fake that had been built specifically for the filming. I actually think the front porch makes the house much more appealing, which is most likely why it was added.

You can see the home’s real life front door behind Judy, inside of the fake enclosed front porch, in the screen capture below.

The exterior of the home is actually quite deceiving as it looks to be fairly moderate in size. In reality, though, the property, which was originally built in 1948, boasts two bedrooms, one bath, a scant 882 square feet of living space, and a 0.21-acre plot of land. It’s teensy!

And while I originally thought that the residence’s actual interior was used in the filming, that does not seem to be the case. You can check out some photographs of the home’s real life interior here. As you can see, it looks nothing at all like Judy’s wood-paneled, 70s-style abode.

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

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Judy’s house from Bridesmaids is located at 23418 8th Street in Santa Clarita. Officer Rhodes’ house is located directly across the street at 23425 8th Street. Note – these properties cannot be reached via Calgrove Boulevard, as that street is blocked just east of Creekside Drive. To gain access to the sites, you can take either Apple or Valley Street south off of Lyons Avenue to 8th Street.

December 5, 2012
Runyon Ranch from “Scream 3”

Another Scream 3 filming location that I had long wanted to stalk was Runyon Ranch – the large hilltop home where actress Jennifer Jolie (Parker Posey) lived in the 2000 thriller. I first found out about the locale from fave stalking book Hollywood Escapes: The Moviegoer’s Guide to Exploring Southern California’s Great Outdoors, but I was not sure how much, if any, of the residence was visible from the street. So, while I added the address to my To-Stalk list, I never ventured out there. Then, a couple of weeks back, I was reminded of Runyon Ranch while stalking the Canfield-Moreno Estate (which also appeared in Scream 3 and which I blogged about yesterday), and decided that, being that it was almost Halloween, it was about time I stalked the place. So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on over there.

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As we discovered when we arrived (and contrary to what my GPS was reporting), Runyon Ranch is actually located on a private road inside of Runyon Canyon Park (which I blogged about here) and it cannot be reached by car. Despite this, though, the house is still, thankfully, completely accessible to the public. To catch a glimpse of it, you will have to throw on some tennies and take a brief hike up Runyon Canyon Road. The abode is located about 800 feet east of the gate pictured below. (I was a bit unprepared for a hike, as you can see above, hence the flip-flops.)

I just about had a heart attack as we neared the front of Runyon Ranch as it still looks EXACTLY the same today as it did when Scream 3 was filmed over twelve years ago! LOVE IT!

Runyon Ranch, which was originally built in 1951, boasts 2 bedrooms, 3 baths, 3,493 square feet of living space, and a 0.66-acre plot of hilltop land.

The residence also features a large horse corral (as you can see below, several adorable animals – including a horse and a goat – were wandering the grounds while we were there) . . .

. . . and some pretty stellar views!

I was floored to discover that a fabulous glimpse of the ranch is visible if you venture up the trail that runs just west of it.

As you can see below, the place is pretty darn ginormous – and so incredibly recognizable from Scream 3!

Runyon Ranch was featured several times in Scream 3, most notably in the scene in which several Stab 3 actors gather together to discuss the recent killings of their fellow cast members.

Pretty much every section of the property was used in the filming, including the interior (which you can see pictures of here) . . .

. . . and the backyard and pool area (which you can also see pictures of here).

Dwight ‘Dewey’ Riley (David Arquette) lived in the ranch’s real life converted Silverstream trailer (which I somehow did not take any photographs of) in the flick, which angered his ex-girlfriend, Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox), to no end.

The trailer’s actual interior was also used in the filming. You can check out some photos of it here.

Runyon Ranch was actually blown up in Scream 3 and for that scene an incredibly realistic miniature of the residence was built. You can see a photograph of that miniature on the official Runyon Ranch website here.

Scream 3 was hardly the first production to make use of Runyon Ranch. In the 1986 movie Ruthless People, Dewey’s Silverstream was used as the trailer where Earl Mott (Bill Pullman) lived, although it was moved to the Mountain View Mobile Inn trailer park, located at 1930 Stewart Street in Santa Monica, for the shoot.

As you can see below, virtually none of the trailer’s interior was changed between the filming of Ruthless People and Scream 3. Love it!

In the Season 7 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 titled “Mate for Life”, which aired in 1996, David Silver (Brian Austin Green) moved in with his friend Mark Reese (Dalton James), who lived at Runyon Ranch.

During the season, the ranch’s backyard and pool area were used several times.

I am fairly certain that the interior that was shown was just a set, though, and not the actual house.

In the 1996 drama It’s My Party, Runyon Ranch was where Nick Stark (Eric Roberts) and Brandon Theis (Gregory Harrison) lived.

The real life interior of the house was used throughout the flick.

As was the backyard area.

In the 1999 flick Crazy in Alabama, Lucille Vinson (Melanie Griffith) and Harry Hall (Robert Wagner) attended a Hollywood party at Runyon Ranch.

The interior of the residence, dressed to appear like a 1960’s abode, was also used in the filming.

As was the backyard and pool.

Runyon Ranch was also featured in the closing scene of the 2003 comedy Hollywood Homicide, in which Sgt. Joe Gavilan (Harrison Ford) and Det. K.C. Calden (John Hartnett) investigate a murder scene consisting of “a body and a half with some pieces missing”.

According to the official Runyon Ranch website, the property was also used in the 2001 movie Circuit, but, unfortunately, I could not find a copy of the flick anywhere with which to make screen captures for this post.

Several photoshoots have been held on the premises, as well, including a Tobey Maguire shoot for the July 25th, 2003 issue of Entertainment Weekly, a Jim Carrey shoot for the November 2000 issue of Details Magazine, an Oliver Martinez shoot for the May 2002 issue of Interview Magazine, and a James Houston shoot with actor Stephen Dorff.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Runyon Ranch from Scream 3 is located at 3050 Runyon Canyon Road, inside of Runyon Canyon Park, in the Hollywood Hills. To access the property, you will have to park your car outside of Runyon Canyon Park and then walk about 800 feet east on Runyon Canyon Road. You can visit the official Runyon Ranch website here.

October 18, 2012
The Canfield-Moreno Estate from “Scream 3”

One location that I have wanted to stalk for what seems like ages now is the Canfield-Moreno Estate – an absolutely humongous Italianate-style villa that was featured extensively in the 2000 thriller Scream 3. I first found out about the locale thanks to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, who had stalked it a few years back and, as fate would have it, had been invited onto the property and INSIDE OF THE MANSION by a caretaker to snap some pictures. For whatever reason, though, I had just never made it out there. Then, a few weeks ago, Mike reminded me of the site and suggested that I blog about it during my Haunted Hollywood month. Because it is not at all visible from the street, he also kindly agreed to provide the photographs for the post. “All you need is a pic of yourself in front of the gate,” he said, “and I’ll take care of the rest!” So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out there just a few days later.

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A production of some sort was actually being filmed when the GC and I showed up to stalk the estate and the main gates were standing wide open. Unfortunately though, as you can see below, even with the gates open, not much was visible. So I honestly cannot thank Mike enough! Without his pictures, this would have made for a very boring blog post. (I ended up having to pose for a photograph in front of the mansion’s back gate as too many cars were driving in and out of the front one, making it impossible for me to stand by it.)

The 22,000-square-foot Canfield-Moreno Estate, which is also known as The Paramour Mansion and The Crestmont, was originally constructed in 1923. It was designed in the Mediterranean Revival-style by Robert D. Farquhar, the same architect who also designed the California Club in downtown Los Angeles, Beverly Hills High School in Beverly Hills, and the William Andrews Clark Jr. Mausoleum at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. The 22-room villa was commissioned by silent film star Antonio Moreno and his wife, oil heiress Daisy Canfield Danziger, after whom the residence is now known.

During the time that Antonio and Daisy lived there, the mansion was the site of regular Sunday night soirees with many of Hollywood’s elite in attendance.

When the couple decided to separate in 1928, they deeded the estate to the Chloe P. Canfield Memorial Home, a finishing school for girls that was founded according to Daisy’s father’s will. Sadly, a few years later, on February 23rd, 1933, Daisy lost control of her car while on Mulholland Drive and plunged off a 300-foot cliff. She died instantly. Since that time, it has been rumored that her ghost haunts the mansion.

In the 1950s, the Chloe P. Canfield Memorial Home Foundation was dissolved and the estate sold to Franciscan nuns, who turned the site into a boarding house for troubled girls. After the residence was damaged during the Whittier Narrows earthquake in 1987, the nuns vacated the property and put it up for sale. Sadly, the once-grand mansion was left to deteriorate over the decade that followed.

The Canfield-Moreno estate was finally purchased in 1998 by a developer named Dana Hollister for $2.25 million. Hollister, who has an affinity for historic sites, set about restoring the mansion to its original grandeur. She also added a recording studio to the premises and countless musicians have since recorded there, including Gwen Stefani, Papa Roach, Fiona Apple, and Sarah McLachlan. And while Hollister’s original intention was to turn the four-and-a-half-acre site into a luxury hotel, opposition from neighbors halted that plan and it is currently being used as her primary residence.

The ginormous Canfield-Moreno estate is comprised of a 15,388-square foot, U-shaped main house, which boasts 8 bedrooms and 8 baths, as well as several detached cottages and stables that dot the sprawling hilltop land.

As you can see in the aerial views pictured below, the estate is absolutely gargantuan and more of a compound than a residence.

And, as you can also see below, the place also exhibits some pretty amazing views.

The estate’s interior boasts a Moroccan flair and, though remodeled recently, looks like it came straight out of Old Hollywood.

Thanks to the unique look and gargantuan size of the estate, which is a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument, it has appeared in more than a few productions over the years.

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In Scream 3, the Canfield-Moreno Estate stood in for the home of Stab 3 producer John Milton (Lance Henriksen). Both the exterior . . .

. . . and the interior appeared in the flick.

In 1998’s Halloween H20: 20 Years Later, the estate stood in for Hillcrest Academy High School, where Keri Tate (Jamie Lee Curtis) worked. Both the interior . . .

. . . and the exterior were used in the filming. The estate’s pool was covered over for the shoot, as you can see below.

A different location – one that I have yet to find – was used for Hillcrest Academy High School’s front gate.

Also in 1998, the interior of the estate appeared in the music video for the R.E.M. song “At My Most Beautiful”.

You can watch that video by clicking below.

R.E.M.’s “At My Most Beautiful” Video–Filmed at the Canfield-Moreno Estate

In the Season 2 episode of Alias titled “Truth Takes Time”, which aired in 2003, the Canfield-Moreno Estate stood in for the Tuscan villa where Arvin Sloane (Ron Rifkin) hid out with his wife, Emily Sloane (Amy Irving).

The interior of the property was also used in the episode.

Oddly enough, though, at one point during “Truth Takes Time”, the exterior of a different home was shown as an establishing shot of Arvin’s villa.

In the season 3 episode of Monk titled “Mr. Monk and the Panic Room”, which aired in 2004, the Canfield-Moreno estate was the mansion where record producer Ian Blackburn (Stewart Finlay-McLennan) lived and was murdered – presumably by his pet chimpanzee.

The interior of the house also appeared in the episode.

The estate also appeared in Britney Spears’ 2004 “My Prerogative” music video, in which she crashed her Porsche into the residence’s pool.

You can watch that video by clicking below.

Britney Spears “My Prerogative” Music Video–Filmed at the Canfield-Moreno Estate

In 2009, the mansion appeared in the Season 4 episode of Brothers & Sisters titled “From France with Love” as a prospective wedding venue for Rebecca Harper (Emily VanCamp) and Justin Walker (Dave Annable). While Rebecca is scouting the location with her mom, Holly Harper (Patricia Wettig), and Justin’s mom, Nora Walker (Sally Field), she realizes that a pornographic film is being shot on the premises and therefore decides to go with another venue. LOL

The villa was also used in the music video for Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds’ 2011 song “If I Had a Gun”.

You can watch that video by clicking below.

Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds’ “If I Had a Gun” Video–Shot at the Canfield-Moreno Estate

According to Wikipedia, the estate was also used in Rock Star: INXS, Rock Star: Supernova, Scream Queens, From G’s to Gents, Rock of Love: Charm School, Charm School with Ricki Lake, Mad Mad House, and MTV’s The X Effect, but I was, unfortunately, not able to find copies of any of the productions with which to verify that information.

On a side-note – The photograph of the Canfield-Moreno Estate that is pictured below, which Mike took, was actually chosen to be featured in the 2012 issue of Locations Magazine!! How incredibly cool is that?

The magazine . . .

. . . and printed photograph are pictured below. Um, LOVE IT!

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

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for telling me about this location and for allowing me to post his FABULOUS pictures of it here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Canfield -Moreno Estate from Scream 3 is located at 1923 Micheltorena Street in Silver Lake.

October 17, 2012
Tom Bergin’s Tavern from “Duplex”

Two weeks ago, while doing research on Molly Malone’s (which I blogged about here), I came across a website for another historic Irish pub also located on South Fairfax Avenue in L.A.’s Fairfax District. The bar is named Tom Bergin’s Old Horseshoe and Thoroughbred Club (or just simply Tom Bergin’s Tavern) and not only was it originally founded over seven decades ago (y’all know how much this stalker absolutely loves herself some historic restaurants), but the place is also a filming location AND a big-time celebrity hangout! So I, of course, immediately added the address to my To-Stalk list and could hardly wait to drag the Grim Cheaper right on over there, which I finally did last Saturday evening. And, amazingly enough, this was one location that he did not mind being dragged to.

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Tom Bergin’s Tavern was first founded on February 12th, 1936 by a 46-year-old lawyer named – you guessed it – Tom Bergin. The bar was originally named the Old Horseshoe Tavern and Thoroughbred Club in honor of a Boston-area watering hole owned by Bergin’s uncle. And while the establishment first stood at 6110 Wilshire Boulevard, when the lease on that location expired in 1949, Bergin built a new eatery, named Tom Bergin’s Horseshoe Tavern, just down the street at 840 South Fairfax Avenue. Employees and customers alike carried the pub’s legendary horseshoe-shaped bar three blocks south to its new home. And amazingly enough, not only is Tom Bergin’s still located in that very same spot on Fairfax – over six decades later! – but that very same horseshoe-shaped bar is still in use to this day!

In 1973, Bergin sold the tavern to T.K. Vodrey and Mike Mandekic. And while Mandekic ended up leaving to pursue other endeavors in 1998, Vodrey stayed on for more than another decade. In 1999, Vodrey changed the pub’s name once again, this time to Tom Bergin’s Tavern, as it is still known to this day. When Vodrey retired in 2011, Warner Ebbink thankfully stepped in, purchased the site and set about restoring it. Ebbink, who owns Little Dom’s (one of my favorite L.A. restaurants, which I blogged about here) is no stranger to historic eateries, having also purchased and restored both the 101 Coffee Shop (another fave that I blogged about here) and Dominick’s (a 1940s-era establishment where Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack used to hang out, which I have sadly yet to stalk). Ebbink immediately set about giving Tom Bergin’s a much-needed 7-month face-lift, of which he said in a May 2012 The Hollywood Reporter article, “It’s more restoration than renovation, keeping with what was true of Bergin’s. We just replaced and repaired what needed to be replaced and repaired, then distressed them so people won’t even know.” Um, LOVE IT!

Ebbink truly is a man after my own heart. In an April 2012 Los Angeles Times article about Tom Bergin’s, he is quoted as saying, “L.A. doesn’t respect its history. Back when this was built, you could build places with themes. The architecture alone was worth saving, and it has this super-rich history. We knew it was a special place.”

And I am very happy to report that Tom Bergin’s Tavern did indeed look old and weathered, but I mean that in the best way possible. The place just oozes history and walking through its front door is like stepping back in time.

Tom Bergin’s even serves champagne in old-school, Marilyn Monroe-style coupes! Love it, love it, love it!

The pub’s now legendary tradition of honoring regular customers by displaying a green shamrock with their name on the ceiling was started in 1950 by longtime manager Jake Ohlsen. It was not long before the bar’s entire ceiling was covered in the shamrocks and today there are over 7,000 on display.

During the renovation, each shamrock was removed, cleaned and then re-hung. Love it!

Tom Bergin’s Tavern has countless ties to Hollywood. Just a few of the celebrities who have been spotted there over the years include Kiefer Sutherland, Tommy Lasorda, Julia Roberts, Ronald Reagan, Cary Grant, George Wendt, John Ratzenberger, Lee Majors, Glenn Ford, Bing Crosby, Pat O’Brien (the actor, not the The Insider host), and, my personal favorite, Luke Perry. Cary Grant’s favorite booth is pictured below and his shamrock is currently in the process of being framed to hang nearby.

Longtime regular Kiefer Sutherland’s shamrock is pictured below. When the two were a couple, Julia Roberts’ shamrock hung right next to Kiefer’s, but he had it removed shortly following their break-up.

Legend has it that producers Glen and Les Charles got the inspiration for their long-running hit television series Cheers while at Tom Bergin’s and that the character of “Coach” was based on Bergin’s longtime head bartender Chris Doyle.

In 2003’s Duplex, Tom Bergin’s Tavern stood in for the supposed Brooklyn-area bar where Alex Rose (Ben Stiller) holed up during a rainy day in order to finish writing his book, and where his wife, Nancy Kendricks (Drew Barrymore), later met him for a drink. In the movie, both the exterior . . .

. . . and the interior were used.

In the Season 2 episode of Top Chef Masters titled “Pub Food”, contestants were challenged to create an upscale version of a traditional pub dish at Tom Bergin’s. In the episode, both the exterior . . .

. . . and the interior of Tom’s were used.

A photo shoot for House of Pain’s eponymous first album was also held at Tom Bergin’s in 1992 (pictured below). And while episodes of 24 and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia were also supposedly lensed at the bar, I was unable to verify that or figure out which episodes specifically.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Tom Bergin’s Tavern is located at 840 South Fairfax Avenue in the Fairfax District of Los Angeles. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.

September 10, 2012
The LAPD/FBI Headquarters from “The Fast and the Furious”

One location that I am asked about constantly is the mid-century modern-style, circular-shaped home that served as the LAPD/FBI undercover headquarters in the 2001 flick The Fast and the Furious. And while fellow stalker Gary, of the Seeing Stars website, had briefly written about the Beverly Hills property a couple of years ago after learning that it had, sadly, been torn down (despite the best efforts of the Los Angeles Conservancy Modern Committee), since I get asked about it frequently and since it was such an incredibly unique residence, I figured the place was most-definitely worthy of a blog post.

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In The Fast and the Furious, the circular home, which was said to have been confiscated by the LAPD, popped up quite frequently. The areas shown include the central courtyard and pool;

the front entrance . . .

. . . and the interior. As you can see, the place was pretty darn spectacular and extraordinary. My mind is absolutely boggled over the fact that someone would want to tear it down!

The same house was also featured in 2000’s Hanging Up as the residence where Lou Mozell (Walter Matthau) lived. In the movie, the property is referred to as being on Angelo Drive, which was its actual former location. Quite a lot of the house appeared in the flick, including the front exterior;

the interior;

and the pool and courtyard, which were shown in both a dilapidated . . .

. . . and normal state.

I absolutely love Meg Ryan’s hair cut in Hanging Up, by the way. So adorable! I might just have to get mine cut that way, too! But I digress.

In The Fast and the Furious, Sgt. Tanner (Ted Levine) says of the circular abode, “You know, Eddie Fisher built this house for Elizabeth Taylor in the ‘50s.” That anecdote is actually untrue, though. According to the Estately website, in real life, the home, which was designed by architect David Fowler for his mother, was built in 1963 and boasted 4 bedrooms, 6 baths, 5,444 square feet, and over six acres of land with unparalleled 180-degree views of the city. After the residence was sold in 2000 for $2.8 million, the entire thing was bulldozed to the ground in order to make room for a new – and absolutely gargantuan – mansion (which you can see below in an aerial view that I got from a 2012 Wall Street Journal video).

According to fave website Curbed LA, the new mansion, which belongs to Anthony Pritzker (heir to the Hyatt hotel fortune), boasts 53,000 total square feet (although the main house measures “only” 49,300 square feet), a two-level basement, a media library, a “hairdressing area” (whatever that is), a gym complete with changing rooms, an arts and crafts room, his-and-her offices, a floating pool, a game room, a two-lane bowling alley, an entertainment foyer with a bar, a detached guest house, and a rec room. The residence is, according to Property Shark, the second-largest house in all of Los Angeles. The only residence bigger? The Manor – aka the former Mapleton Drive home of Aaron and Candy Spelling.

Sadly though, as you can see below, other than the exterior gates, no part of the property is visible from the road.

I was able to track down the below historic aerial images of the house, though, on the Historic Aerials website. As you can see, the home was originally built in the shape of a perfect circle. So incredibly cool!

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The house that was used as the LAPD/FBI headquarters in The Fast and the Furious was formerly located at 1261 Angelo Drive in Beverly Hills. A very different residence stands on that site today.

September 5, 2012