movie houses – Page 5 – IAMNOTASTALKER

September 8, 2011September 7, 2011

Wattles Mansion from “Troop Beverly Hills”

After re-watching Troop Beverly Hills a couple of weeks back and subsequently stalking the mansion where the Nefler family lived, I became just a wee bit obsessed with tracking down some of the other locales featured in the 1989 flick. Thankfully IMDB had quite a few sites listed on its Troop Beverly Hills filming locations page, one of which was Wattles Mansion – a historic and oft-filmed at Hollywood estate that, amazingly enough, I had never before heard of. So I immediately dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the place the following weekend.

Wattles Mansion was originally built in 1907 by Myron Hunt and Elmer Grey, the legendary Los Angeles-area architects who were also responsible for designing the Ambassador Hotel, the Huntington Art Gallery, Pasadena’s Wentworth Hotel (now the Langham), Occidental College (aka California University from fave show Beverly Hills, 90210), the California Institute of Technology, and the Beverly Hills Hotel. The large Mission Revival-style dwelling was commissioned by a wealthy Omaha, Nebraska native named Gurdon Wallace Wattles to be used as his family’s winter residence. The estate, which sat on 49 acres and was called“Jualita”, featured 6,167 square feet of living space, seven bedrooms, seven bathrooms, a wood-paneled library with a hand-painted ceiling, black-and-white checkerboard marble flooring, a terracotta tile terrace, wood-beamed ceilings, and a full basement. The home’s extensive 5-acre formal garden area consisted of a Japanese Garden, an Italian Rose garden, a Spanish garden, an American garden, a palm court, sparkling ponds, and several fruit orchards. In an amazing show of generosity, Gurdon opened his beloved gardens to the public upon moving into his new home and it was not long before they became a wildly popular tourist attraction.

After Gurdon passed away in 1932, his widow, Julia Vance, and their son, Gurdon Wallace Wattles Jr., continued to live at the mansion. In 1968, they sold the property to the City of Los Angeles and the Department of Parks and Recreation subsequently took over. Sadly, the city lacked the money necessary to maintain the large estate and it quickly fell into a serious state of disrepair. Gurdon’s formerly glorious gardens were taken over by drug dealers, squatters, and vandals, and what they didn’t destroy, a series of mudslides in the 1980s did. Thankfully, in 1983 the Hollywood Heritage preservation group leased the property and began a massive restoration project before moving in and using the historic mansion as their headquarters. It was at that time that the abode, which is a City of Los Angeles Cultural Monument, became a popular filming location. For reasons that are not entirely clear, Hollywood Heritage was served with an eviction notice in 2008 and finally vacated the property in May of 2009. The mansion is currently being maintained by the Los Angeles Department of Parks and Recreation once again. (I snapped the interior pictures through one of the estate’s front windows.)

The piece of property, which you can see in the above aerial view, is now made up of three separate areas.

The section denoted with a pink square above, which measures 4.2 acres, was turned into a community garden in 1975 and has been continuously maintained by local residents. It is private and not open to the public. The middle section, which is denoted with a blue square, is a park known as Wattles Garden Park. It is open to the public daily from dusk until dawn. The mansion and formal garden area, which is denoted with a purple square above, is not open to the public, but is available for use as a special event and wedding venue.

And although the formal gardens are not accessible to the public, from what was visible from the park, that area once again appears to be in a sad state of disrepair. According to sign a posted on the premises, a restoration is currently in progress, so hopefully they will not look that way for long.

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Wattles Mansion actually stood in for two different locations in Troop Beverly Hills. It first appeared as the Beverly Hills Rest Haven where Phyllis Nefler (aka Shelley Long) and her group of Wilderness Girls performed their community service requirement.

While there, Phyllis and her daughter, Hannah (aka Jenny Lewis), taught a group of senior citizens how to do the “Freddy” dance, so I, of course, just had to do a little recreation of that scene while I was stalking the place. Winking smile

In a later scene, the northern-facing side of Wattles Mansion and the formal garden area were used as the location of the “khaki” fashion show that was hosted by Robin Leach and featured cameos by Pia Zadora and Dr. Joyce Brothers.

Wattles Mansion was also used extensively as the demon-haunted home inherited by Jonathan Graves (aka Peter Liapis) in the 1985 horror-comedy Ghoulies.

The real life interior of the mansion, including the kitchen area and the formal library, appeared in Ghoulies, as well. You can check out some great interior photographs of the place here.

Randomly enough, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit’s Mariska Hargitay made her feature film debut in Ghoulies. She is pictured in the grey sweater above. The actress was just 21 at the time that the movie was filmed.

Wattles Mansion also appeared in Diana Ross’ ultra-weird 1985 music video for her single “Eaten Alive”, which was co-written by none other than the King of Pop himself, Michael Jackson.

Eaten Alive Music Video–Filmed at Wattles Mansion

You can watch that video by clicking above.

In the 1989 movie Rain Man, Wattles Mansion stood in for the institution where the psychiatric evaluation of Raymond Babbitt (aka Dustin Hoffman) took place.

Wattles was where Jose (aka Jacob Vargas) first met Maria (aka Jennifer Lopez) in the 1995 flick My Family.

And finally, the mansion popped up in the Season 3 episode of The O.C. titled “The Man of the Year” as the supposed Montecito-area boarding school attended by Marissa Cooper’s (aka Mischa Barton’s) sister, Kaitlin (aka Willa Holland).

Until next time, Happy Stalking – and Happy Voting! Don’t forget to vote for me today to be the new face of About Me! Smile

Stalk It: Wattles Mansion, from Troop Beverly Hills, is located at 1824 North Curson Avenue in Hollywood. The interior of the mansion and formal garden areas are not accessible to the public, but Wattles Park is open daily from dawn until dusk. You can visit the official Wattles Mansion website here.

September 2, 2011September 2, 2011

Aunt Mitsy’s House from “Rumor Has It”

One location that I have been on the lookout for for what seems like ages now is the home where Aunt Mitsy (aka Kathy Bates) lived in the 2005 movie Rumor Has It. Even though I was never a particularly big fan of the flick, I pretty much fell in love with Aunt Mitsy’s adorable little bungalow – and her huge front porch – at first sight and have wanted to stalk it ever since. Especially being that my girl Jen Aniston had filmed a scene on the premises. Because no apartment number, street sign, or even a full view of the exterior of the property was visible at any point during the movie, though, I figured this was one locale that would be virtually impossible to track down.

Enter fellow stalker Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, who emailed me last week to ask for some help in locating the home where Grandma Bunny (aka Betty White) lived in the 2010 romantic comedy You Again. Well, I took one look at the screencap he sent me (pictured above) and realized that, while it was not the same house featured in Rumor Has It, the two properties looked amazingly similar – which got me to thinking that they might just be located in close proximity to each other, quite possibly even on the same street. So I immediately began searching for the You Again house and also got fellow stalkers Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and Owen on the case.

As fate would have it, Mike happened to recognize the yellow Victorian-style home located in the background of the Rumor Has It scene and when he looked at that property on Google Street View, sure enough, there was Mitsy’s house right across the street. Yay!

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Aunt Mitsy’s house was only featured in one very brief scene in Rumor Has It, in which Sarah Huttinger (aka Jennifer Aniston) asks Mitsy for information about her deceased mother. It is there that Mitsy first tells Sarah about her mother’s affair with Beau Burroughs (aka Kevin Costner), at which point Sarah realizes that her family served as the inspiration for the movie The Graduate. (Yeah, yeah – lame plot for a movie, I know.) From its appearance in Rumor Has It, I had assumed that the home was an extremely small, one-story dwelling and searched for it as such. As it turns out, I could not have been more wrong.

In real life the house looks nothing at all like how I had envisioned it to look in my mind. Not only is the place two levels, but it is also pretty darn huge!

And furthermore, the property is actually an apartment building – not a private residence as I had originally thought! As you can see above, the dwelling has several front doors and consists of at least three separate units. This is one location that I can honestly say I NEVER would have found on my own. Not in a million years.

Thankfully, the front porch area looks pretty much the same today as it did back in 2005 when Rumor Has It was filmed. There is currently much less foliage in place and the house is now painted blue instead of yellow, but otherwise little else has changed in that section of the property over the years and it still looks just as cute in person as it did onscreen. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to sit on that porch in the same spot that Jen sat to pose for a pic! Smile

The other houses on the street that appeared in the background of the scene look exactly the same as they did in the movie, as well. And, yes, we did also end up finding Grandma Bunny’s house from You Again – well, fellow stalker Chas found it – and I will be blogging about it soon.

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for finding this location and to fellow stalkers Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, and Owen for all of the time and effort they put into this search.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Aunt Mitsy’s house from Rumor Has It is located at 485 Ellis Street in Pasadena.

August 19, 2011August 18, 2011

Lucille’s House from “Bye Bye Love”

Another location that fellow stalker Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, had on his extensively detailed list of places to stalk during our day together in L.A. this past July (and there were over 30 locales on that list, by the way; as I said it was quite extensive!) was the residence where Lucille (aka Janeane Garofalo) lived in the 1995 film Bye Bye Love. And while I had never actually seen Bye Bye Love at that point in time, I absolutely fell in love with the house as soon as we drove up to it. So much so that I immediately added the flick to my list of movies to rent and finally did so this past week – which I think may have actually been a first for me. I do not believe that I have ever before watched a movie solely based on the fact that I liked a location featured in it. Ladies and gentlemen, I have reached a new level of stalking! Winking smile I have to say, though, that I was not too crazy about Bye Bye Love. While it was heartwarming, it was also extremely sad and, as I have mentioned before, I am not too keen on depressing flicks. Never in my life have I been more thankful that my parents never divorced than I was while watching that movie. And, surprisingly enough, while I typically cannot stand Janeane Garofalo – actually, to be completely honest, I absolutely abhor the woman; she’s right up there with Jessica Simpson on my list of least favorite celebrities – I LOVED her in Bye Bye Love. She had me laughing out loud on several occasions, especially when she continually tried to utilize the passenger controls in Vic Damico’s (aka Randy Quaid’s) Driver’s Education car. But I digress.

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Lucille’s house was only featured briefly in Bye Bye Love and, surprisingly, very little of the property was ever shown. You would think producers would have utilized more of the place being that it is so completely adorable. The residence first showed up in the scene in which Vic picks Lucille up for their blind date. Immediately after opening the door and meeting for the first time, Vic says to Lucille, “Nice place!”, to which she responds, “Yes, thank you. Buying this place was the only smart thing that son-of-a-b*tch ex-husband of mine ever did!” LOL

It later shows up when Vic drives Lucille home after suffering through a horrible dinner with her, only to discover that she has locked her keys inside the property and cannot get in.

And even though the house is absolutely ADORABLE in person, I actually prefer the blue color it was painted in Bye Bye Love to the yellow/red combination that it is painted now. The home, which was originally built in 1920, is not actually as small as its façade would lead you to believe. According to fave website Zillow, the residence boasts 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, and 1,596 square feet of living space.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, for finding this location. You can check out Chas’ extensive Bye Bye Love filming locations page here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Lucille’s house from Bye Bye Love is located at 1612 Courtney Avenue in Los Angeles.

August 17, 2011April 14, 2013

Lance’s House from “Pulp Fiction”

Last month, fellow stalker Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, came to town, along with his super-sweet mom, for a little filming locations vacation, and the three of us spent a whole day together, stalking pretty much all of Los Angeles, from one end of the city to the other. For this adventure, Chas had compiled an extensively detailed list of various movie locales, along with maps to each and a driving timeline. I know – it was all so Monica Gellar of him. LOVE it! Smile Anyway, one of the locations on Chas’ list was the Craftsman-style residence where drug-dealer Lance (aka Eric Stoltz) and his wife, Jody (aka Rosanna Arquette), lived – and where Vincent Vega (aka John Travolta) saved Mia Wallace’s (aka Uma Thurman’s) life – in the 1994 black comedy Pulp Fiction. Chas found the house, thanks to a very helpful crew member, in early 2010 while attempting to track down all of the locations from the movie – an endeavor at which, I am very happy to report, he succeeded. You can check out Chas’ extensive Pulp Fiction filming locations page here.

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Because the Grim Cheaper and I had once dressed up as Vincent Vega and Mia Wallace for Halloween many, many moons ago, I was extremely excited to stalk Lance’s house. (Sorry for the poor quality of the above photograph – it was taken on actual film so I had to scan it in order to post it here.)

Lance’s house was featured in a very brief, but very memorable scene, during the “Vincent Vega & Marsellus Wallace’s Wife” portion of Pulp Fiction, in which after visiting Jack Rabbit Slims restaurant, which I blogged about back in March, Mia accidentally overdoses on some heroin that Vincent had stashed in his jacket pocket. When Vincent discovers Mia on the floor, unconscious and unresponsive, he drives her to his drug dealer, Lance’s, home in the hopes that Lance can help her. It is there that Vincent winds up giving Mia an adrenaline shot, saving her life.

In the scene, Vincent crashes his car into the front of Lance’s house, destroying the roof and part of the porch.

I am very happy to report that the residence’s roof and porch are currently intact and that, despite the property’s shabby appearance onscreen, as you can see above, it is actually quite adorable in person.

And while the apartment building across the street from Lance’s house still looks very much the same as it did in the movie;

there is now, sadly, a fence located on the eastern side of the property, which blocks the neighboring lawn that is pictured in the above screen capture from view.

And while I am fairly certain that the real life interior of the residence was also used in the filming, I, unfortunately, could not find any photographs online to verify that hunch.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, for finding this location. You can check out Chas’ extensive Pulp Fiction filming locations page here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Lance’s house from Pulp Fiction is located at 3519 La Clede Avenue in the Atwater Village neighborhood of Los Angeles.

August 11, 2011August 10, 2011

The “Eye for an Eye” House

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

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

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

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

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

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

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

August 4, 2011December 6, 2013

Twin Palms – Frank Sinatra’s Former Palm Springs Estate

Another Palm-Springs-area location that the Grim Cheaper and I stalked two weekends ago while vacationing in the Coachella Valley was Twin Palms, the former desert home of legendary crooner Frank Sinatra and his then-wife Nancy Barbato. And while I have actually stalked – and even blogged about – this location once before (way back in April of 2008!), since it was in the very early days of my site, it was an extremely short post that did not include any of the property’s vastly fascinating history. So I decided that the estate was most definitely worthy of a re-write.

Apparently, on May 1, 1947, Frank Sinatra, who had just signed a highly profitable movie contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, wandered into the offices of newly-founded architectural firm Williams, Williams, & Williams. At the time, now-legendary architect E. Stewart Williams, who designed Frankie’s house from Alpha Dog which I blogged about last Thursday, was a novice who had just joined his father’s firm and had yet to design a private residence. Frank, who was holding an ice cream cone and wearing a sailor’s hat, informed the team that he wanted them to design and build a huge Georgian-style estate by Christmas, in time for a party the singer was hosting. And even though the desired finish date was only seven short months away, Williams, Williams, & Williams took the job. Apparently, Frank was a difficult man to say “no” to. E. Stewart came up with two designs for the singer, one in the Georgian-style that Frank had originally envisioned, and another in the mid-century-modern-style, which Stewart would later become famous for. Sinatra liked the modern design and the rest, as they say, is history. E. Stewart’s partner and brother, Roger, later said, “We’d have been ruined if we’d been forced to build Georgian in the desert.”

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The four-bedroom, five-bathroom, 4,500-square-foot estate, which was built fully air-conditioned at a cost of $150,000, was completed in time for Frank’s party. The property was nick-named “Twin Palms”, thanks to the two large palm trees which flanked the home’s piano-shaped swimming pool. The estate, which is currently used as a vacation rental and filming location, currently boasts authentic period furniture, countless Frank Sinatra memorabilia, the original Valentino sound system on which Frank used to cut his records, a pool house complete with his-and-her bathrooms, and a full library of the iconic crooner’s music.

Frank and Nancy divorced in 1948 and Frank’s mistress and future wife Ava Gardner subsequently moved in. Of her time in the house, Ava said, “It was the site of probably the most spectacular fight of our young married life, and honey don’t think I don’t know that’s really saying something . . . Frank’s establishment in Palm Springs, the only house we really could ever call our own, has seen some pretty amazing occurrences.” Indeed! According to the home’s rental website, one of the sinks in the master bathroom bears a crack from a champagne bottle that Frank threw at Ava during one of their legendary brawls. You can see a photograph of that crack here. Frank also reportedly once threw all of Eva’s belongings into the driveway of the home after she had attempted to catch him cheating on her with actress Lana Turner. It was also in this house that Frank kept a room for his friend and my girl Marilyn Monroe, who was a frequent guest. In 1957, after filing for divorce from Ava, Frank sold the property and moved to a new home in nearby Rancho Mirage. Today, Twin Palms is a Palm Springs Class 1 Historical Site and is featured regularly in photo shoots for fashion magazines, including Men’s Health, Town & Country, Palm Springs Life, Sunset, German Elle, and Vogue. And the dwelling is also a filming location! Apparently Frank allowed the exterior of the property to be featured in the 1950 movie The Damned Don’t Cry, which starred Joan Crawford. You can see some fabulous interior photographs of the estate on the Rearranged Design website here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Twin Palms, Frank Sinatra’s former desert home, is located at 1148 East Alejo Road in Palm Springs. You can visit the property’s official website here. Tours of the estate are conducted on a semi-regular basis and private tours, for a minimum of 20 guests, can also be arranged by clicking here.

July 29, 2011July 28, 2011

The Hartunian House from “Alpha Dog”

Another Palm-Springs-area locale that fellow stalker/location scout Scott Trimble, of the STS Locations website, helped me to find recently was the residence where Frankie Ballenbacher’s (aka Justin Timberlake’s) good friend/”Witness #11”, Susan Hartunian (aka Dominique Swain), lived with her utterly clueless and apathetic mother, Tiffany Hartunian (aka ER’s Alex Kingston), in the 2006 movie Alpha Dog. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post about the Koerner House , while I did not exactly love me some Alpha Dog, darn if the flick’s location scouts did not choose some FABULOUS and COMPLETELY UNIQUE locales to feature in it, one of which was the exquisite, mid-century-modern-style Hartunian abode. So I, of course, just had to drag the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the place while the two of us were vacationing in the Coachella Valley two weekends ago.

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As stated yesterday, Alpha Dog is based on the harrowing true story of the kidnapping and murder of 15-year-old Nicholas Markowitz, whose brother, Ben, owed $1,200 in drug debt to infamous West-Hills-area marijuana dealer Jesse James Hollywood. During the three-day-long ordeal, which more closely resembled a vacation than a kidnapping, Markowitz hung out and partied with Hollywood’s small group of low-life cronies in the Santa Barbara area and was seen by no less than 38 witnesses, none of whom reported – or for the most part even realized – that anything out of the ordinary was going on. In the movie, the character of Susan Hartunian, who was based on 17-year-old Santa-Barbara-resident Natasha Adams-Young, was the only one of those 38 witnesses who expressed any sort of concern over the fact that the boy, whose character was named Zack Mazursky and who was portrayed by Anton Yelchin, had been kidnapped. She was also the one who finally reported the involvement of the Jesse James Hollywood character, Johnny Truelove (aka Emile Hirsch), and his best friend Frankie to the police shortly after Zack’s body was found. Susan’s incredible house was featured several times in Alpha Dog and both the exterior . .

. . . and the interior of the property were used.

In real life, the Hartunian residence is known as the Burgess House or the Bougain Villa house, a play on the term “bougainvillea”, which is the name of a hearty, brightly-flowering plant that thrives in hot desert climates. The Burgess House, which was originally built in 1958 and boasts 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and 2,932 square feet of living space, is situated on a one-acre plot of land that is nestled into a rocky mountainside located about 200 feet above Downtown Palm Springs. The altitude of the lot affords for some amazing mountain and city views and architects Hugh Kaptur and William Burgess took advantage of the lot’s unique position by fashioning the home with huge, floor-to-ceiling windows made of mirrored glass which reflect the surrounding landscape. They also installed numerous sparkling pools and ponds, large boulders located both inside and outside of the residence, large open patios, and huge canopy overhangs, which protect the residence and its occupants from the desert’s intense heat. In 1986, Albert Frey, the legendary Swiss-born architect who is largely regarded as the father of the Desert Modernism Movement, added a large guest home to the property. Sadly though, as fabulous as the house is, as you can see above very little of it can actually be seen from the street.

But I did manage to spot the patio where filming took place for the scene towards the beginning of Alpha Dog in which Susan told her mother that she was heading off to a party at Frankie’s house.

Aerial views of the property, which are sadly not that great either, are pictured above. And you can check out some FABULOUS photographs of the place that Martha Stewart took – yes, that Martha Stewart – on a 2009 trip to the desert here. If you would like to read a more in-depth account of the Nicholas Markowitz murder, you can check out a fabulous LA Magazine article titled “The Last Ride of Jesse James Hollywood” here.

I would like to send out a very big HAPPY BIRTHDAY wish today to my dear friend and fellow stalker Kerry up in Anacortes, Washington. I hope you are having fabulous day! I love you, girl!

Big THANK YOU to Scott Trimble, from the STS Locations website, for finding this location! Smile You can follow Scott on Twitter, and learn all about his many location scout adventures, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Burgess House, aka the Hartunian residence from Alpha Dog, is located at 550 West Palisades Drive in Palm Springs. Palisades Drive is a private, gated road that is not accessible to the public, but you can catch some good views of the residence from West Tahquitz Canyon Way, just east of where it meets Palisades Drive.

July 28, 2011September 4, 2012

Frankie’s House from “Alpha Dog”

One location that I have been on the lookout for for what seems like forever now is the home belonging to Frankie Ballenbacher’s (aka Justin Timberlake’s) father, Juergen Ballenbacher (aka Chris Kinkade), in the ultra-dark and depressing movie Alpha Dog. As I have expressed a few times before on this blog, I was not at all a fan of the 2006 flick, which was based on the real-life kidnapping and murder of 15-year-old Nicholas Markowitz by Jesse James Hollywood and his group of drug-dealing cronies, as it was far too disturbing for my taste. But I did absolutely fall in love with the mid-century-modern-style abode where the teenaged kidnap victim, who was named Zack Mazursky (aka Anton Yelchin) in the movie, spent the majority of his imprisonment. I started looking for the Ballenbacher residence pretty much immediately after first watching the film and, even though I knew it was located somewhere in the Palm Springs area, try as I might, I just could not seem to find it. Then on June 1st, fellow stalker/location manager Scott Trimble, of the STS Locations website, wrote a comment on my post about the Caliente Tropics Resort, the motel featured in Alpha Dog, stating that he had actually worked on the movie. So I immediately wrote to him and enlisted his help in tracking the place down. And even though he had only worked on the portion of the movie that was filmed in Los Angeles and was therefore unsure of where the Ballenbacher home was located, he was instrumental in finally helping me to find it. Thank you, Scott! Smile So a couple of weekends ago, while out visiting my parents in Palm Springs, I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the place.

In real life, the Ballenbacher residence is known as the Koerner House and it boasts 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, 4,224 square feet of living space, and 1.1 acres of land. The abode was originally designed in 1955 by legendary mid-century modernist architect E. Stewart Williams, the very same man who constructed the Kenaston Residence in Rancho Mirage – the dwelling where Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie posed for their now-infamous July 2005 W Magazine photo shoot. As you can see above, the home is pretty darn incredible!

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In Alpha Dog, drug-dealing kingpin Johnny Truelove (aka Emile Hirsch) orders his friend Frankie to take Zack, whom Johnny is holding as a marker for a $1,200 debt Zack’s brother has incurred, to Frankie’s father’s house in Palm Springs to hide out for a few days. The vast majority of the movie was filmed at the dwelling and both the exterior . . .

. . . and the interior of the property were used in the flick.

And while the house is pretty darn incredible, it was actually the backyard area, which appeared quite frequently in Alpha Dog, that I became so enamored of. What an absolutely amazing piece of property! As you can see above, because it is so strikingly beautiful, it was rather difficult for me to narrow down which screen captures of the backyard to post.

While driving to stalk the Koerner House, the GC and I spotted several open house signs and, thinking that it might just be the Koerner House that was open and that I might just have the opportunity to go inside and see that amazing backyard in person, I almost had a full-blown heart attack! Sadly though, it was in fact a neighboring residence that was hosting the open house, so I guess, for the time being at least, I will just have to settle for looking at aerial views of the property.

Big THANK YOU to Scott Trimble, from the STS Locations website, for finding this location for me! Smile You can follow Scott on Twitter, and learn all about his many location scout adventures, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Koerner House, aka Frankie Ballenbacher’s home from Alpha Dog, is located at 1275 South Calle De Maria in Palm Springs.

May 23, 2011May 20, 2011

The “Ocean’s Eleven” House

One location that I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to stalk last weekend while vacationing in Palm Springs was the supposed-Las-Vegas, Nevada-area residence where Reuben Tishkoff (aka Elliot Gould) lived in the 2001 heist movie Ocean’s Eleven. I had absolutely fallen in love with the mid-century-modern-style residence while first watching the film just about a decade ago and was shocked to discover, thanks to a free Map of the Stars’ Vacation Homes that I once picked up at the Palm Springs Visitors’ Center, that it was located in the Coachella Valley. And while I had actually dragged the GC out to stalk the dwelling once before quite a few years back – long before I ever started my blog – because I had only taken one photograph of it, I decided the place was definitely worthy of a re-stalk.

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Reuben Tishkoff’s house popped up twice in Ocean’s Eleven. It first appeared in the scene in which Danny Ocean (aka George Clooney) and Rusty Ryan (aka cheater, cheater, pumpkin eater Brad Pitt) try to convince the millionaire hotelier to put up the money to fund their proposed casino heist.

It later showed up as the spot where Danny pitched his plan for robbing the Bellagio, the Mirage, and the MGM Grand casinos to his band of cohorts including Frank Catton (aka Bernie Mac), Livingston Dell (aka Eddie Jemison), Yen (aka Shaobo Qin), Saul Bloom (aka Carl Reiner), Linus Caldwell (aka Matt Damon), Basher Tarr (aka Don Cheadle, who, interestingly enough, had an uncredited role in the film), and brothers Virgil and Turk Malloy (aka Casey Affleck and Scott Caan, respectively). Quite a bit of the house was featured in the movie including the front gate and the front door areas (both are pictured above);

the backyard;

. . . and the living room.

And while not a lot of the property can actually be seen from the street, this is one location that I would still definitely recommend stalking as it is just so unique. According to IMBD’s Ocean’s Eleven trivia page, the abode was designed in 1959 by Archibald Quincy Jones, the same architect who gave us the Palm Springs Tennis Club, Campbell Hall Episcopal School in North Hollywood (Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen’s alma mater) and the once popular, but now-defunct restaurant Romanoff’s On the Rocks. According to the Ocean’s Eleven production notes, which I found online, director Steven Soderbergh and production designer Phil Messina wanted the residence of the “old school” Tishkoff character to be a “throwback to the 1950s and 60s”. Messina says, “We looked for sweeping, low line, mid-century homes in Las Vegas and discovered that that architecture doesn’t exist there anymore. I had a book on modern houses in Palm Springs and that’s where we ended up filming Tishkoff’s house.” IMDB also states that the homeowners were paid a whopping $200,000 for the property’s onscreen appearance! Yowza, now that’s what I call a paycheck! In real life, the one-story residence boasts 3 bedrooms, 6 baths, 6,307 square feet of living space and sits on a 1.2-acre corner plot of land located just about a mile away from the heart of Downtown Palm Springs.

As you can see in the above photographs, the house also boasts some amazing views of the San Jacinto Mountains.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Ocean’s Eleven house is located at 999 North Patencio Road in Palm Springs. Here is a Bing map link to that location.

May 20, 2011May 19, 2011

The “She’s Out of Control” House

Last week I enlisted fellow stalker Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, to help me find locations from the 1989 teen comedy She’s Out of Control. Now I should mention here that while I absolutely LOVED LOVED LOVED She’s Out of Control growing up, according to the movie’s IMDB trivia page film critic Gene Siskel detested it so much that he actually considered quitting his job after viewing it! LOL In truth, the flick is one of my very favorite 80s movies of all time, so how Gene could hate it that much is absolutely beyond me!

I mean, how can you go wrong with a movie that features performances by both a very young Dustin Diamond (aka Screech from Saved by the Bell!) . . .

. . . AND Mr. Chandler Bing himself, Matthew Perry?!? Sheesh! I don’t even want to know what choice words Gene would have for that other favorite 80s movie of mine Girls Just Want To Have Fun!

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Anyway, Chas being the great guy that he is immediately added the DVD to his Netflix queue (even though it is unequivocally a chick flick) and it arrived in his mailbox just a few days later. He watched the movie shortly after receiving it and, amazingly enough, somehow managed to track down the house belonging to the Simpson Family – Doug (aka Tony Danza), Katie (aka Ami Dolenz), and Bonnie (aka Laura Mooney) – that very same night! The abode was, of course, the location that I was most interested in stalking, so I could not have been more excited when he gave me the news and I ran right out to stalk the place the very next morning. Yay!

I had fallen in love with the Simpson house the first time I watched She’s Out of Control over two decades ago and I am very happy to report that it is just as cute and charming in person as it appeared to be onscreen.

And while I had originally thought that the real life interior of the residence was used in the movie, that does not actually seem to be the case. I happened to find these interior photographs of the house online and, as you can see in the above screen captures as compared with this interior image as well as this one, the stairwell which appeared onscreen does not match that of the actual house.

The real life kitchen and living room areas also do not seem to match their onscreen counterparts.

While doing some internet research on the property yesterday morning, I was shocked to discover that the very same dwelling also popped up as the residence where Laurie Strode (aka Scout Taylor-Compton) babysat Tommy Doyle (aka Skyler Gisondo) in the 2007 Rob-Zombie-directed remake of the horror film Halloween.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, for finding this location! Smile You can check out Chas’ detailed She’s Out of Control filming locations page here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Simpson house from She’s Out of Control is located at 1960 La France Avenue in South Pasadena. Here is a map link to that location.