movie houses – Page 7 – IAMNOTASTALKER

September 23, 2010September 23, 2010

The Schaffer Residence from “A Single Man”

A couple of weeks ago, I dragged my new husband out to stalk an architecturally and cinematically famous house located in Glendale at the base of the Verdugo Mountains – the John Lautner-designed Schaffer Residence which appeared in fashion designer Tom Ford’s directorial debut, A Single Man. I found this location thanks to fellow stalker Gary from England, who immediately set about cyberstalking the residence after watching the flick back in February of this year. And even though I’ve never actually seen A Single Man – I try to avoid any and all movies that have a depressing subject matter – because I am a HUGE fan of legendary architect John Lautner and because the house is simply gorgeous, I just had to stalk it.

The two bedroom, two bath Schaffer Residence, which was originally built in 1949, measures 1,698 square feet and sits on a heavily wooded quarter acre of land. The home was constructed entirely out of steel, glass, redwood, and concrete and boasts an open floor plan with glass walls, which several websites have described as “transparent”. Apparently being in the home makes one feel as if they are actually outside. The house is so spectacular, that according to the John Lautner Foundation website, both architects Frank Gehry and Frank Escher consider the Schaffer house to be among their most favorite abodes ever created. Sadly, though, as you can see in the above photographs, not much of the house is visible from the street.

Nor is much visible from Bing’s aerial views, either. 🙁

Thankfully though, the Schaffer Residence is currently for sale (for a cool $1,495,000 and as fellow stalker Gary said in his email to me, “I am saving as I type!!!!!”) and there are plenty of pictures of the property on its real estate website. You can also check out some fabulous photographs of the interior of the home on the Big Shed website here. As you can see above, the Schaffer house is a post-modern masterpiece, stunning in its detail, and with its wood, steel, and glass features, is very reminiscent of both the abode belonging to Sebastian Stark (aka James Woods) on the television series Shark and the residence where Ted Crawford (aka Anthony Hopkins) lived in the movie Fracture.

In A Single Man, which premiered last year, the Schaffer Residence stands in for the Santa Monica-area home of Professor George Falconer (aka Colin Firth), and both the exterior . . .

. . . and the interior of the property were used quite extensively in the filming. When I skimmed through A Single Man earlier today to make the above screen captures, I was actually surprised to see how the home was portrayed onscreen. In the movie, George’s house is very dark and dreary, which is ironic being that, in reality, a huge part of what makes the home so special and unique are the large plate-glass windows which bathe the interior of the property in an exorbitant amount of natural light. As depicted in the real estate photographs and in all that I’ve read about the dwelling online, in real life the Schaffer residence is bright and airy – not at all how it appeared in A Single Man. In fact, after seeing how it was depicted onscreen, I’m quite surprised that director Tom Ford chose to use the home at all in the movie. I would have assumed that he’d want to film at a house that, at the very least, had less windows. But what do I know? 😉

The Schaffer Residence also made an appearance in the ultra-strange 2005 dramedy Happy Endings as the residence where Charley (aka Steve Coogan) and Gil (David Sutcliffe) lived.

On a side note – If you want to see photographs of the house where Charley (aka Julianne Moore) lived in A Single Man, you can do so on MovieShotsLA.

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On another side note – A Single Man director Tom Ford also just so happens to be the designer behind my girl Jennifer Aniston’s favorite sunglasses – the “Tom Ford Jennifer sunglasses” (pictured above). Jen loves the glasses so much, in fact, that legend has it that Tom even named them after her. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to own a pair of those! 🙂

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Gary for finding this location! 🙂

Stalk It: The Schaffer Residence from A Single Man is located at 527 Whiting Woods Way in Glendale. You can check out the home’s real estate website here.

September 16, 2010September 15, 2010

The “E.T.” House

Although I consider myself somewhat of a master stalker (not as good as fellow stalkers Owen, Mike, from MovieshotsLA, or Chas, from ItsFilmedThere, of course), for whatever reason, up until this past weekend I had yet to visit one of the most famous movie locations of them all – the home where Mary (aka Dee Wallace), Elliot (aka Henry Thomas), Michael (aka Robert MacNaughton), and Gertie (aka Drew Barrymore) lived in the 1982 classic film E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial. I am not sure how, or even why, I avoided the location for as long as I did, but my best guess is that it is due to the fact that it is located in Tujunga, which is kind of out in the middle of nowhere, far from the areas I usually drag my husband out to stalk. In fact, up until this past Saturday afternoon, I had never actually set foot in the Crescenta Valley suburb, which is situated just north of Glendale and just east of Sunland. But, this weekend, while on our way home from doing some stalking in the Valley, a light bulb went off in my head and I asked my fiancé to take a little detour on the 210 Freeway so that I could finally, finally stalk the E.T. house.

It is absolutely amazing to me how iconic the E.T. home still is – almost thirty years after the movie was filmed! As the Grim Cheaper and I drove up the hill where the residence is located and the property came into view, we both immediately recognized not only the actual house, but the cul-de-sac and neighboring residences which surround it. Being that I haven’t seen E.T. in almost three decades (I only watched it once, when it first came out, and I became so hysterical when E.T. left Elliot that my parents had to drag me out of the auditorium kicking and screaming and I’ve never been able to re-watch it since), I find that to be absolutely amazing! The long, sloped driveway, the cul-de-sac, the mountains in the background – for better or for worse, those images of the house are indelibly engraved in my memories.

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Thankfully, the residence still looks extremely similar today to how it appeared back in 1982 when E.T. was filmed. The only real difference I noticed was the fact that the property is now dotted with large trees and shrubs, which wasn’t the case thirty years ago. At the time of the filming, the house was newly-built and therefore had very little foliage surrounding it. I cannot tell you how awesome it was for me to stalk a place I haven’t laid eyes on since 1982 and have it still look almost exactly the same now as it did then. Love it!

According to director McG’s DVD commentary, the house was also used in another Drew Barrymore flick – 2000’s Charlie’s Angels, as the residence where the character of Dylan Sanders falls after being shot by Eric Knox (aka Sam Rockwell). I find it incredibly cool that McG decided to shoot a scene at this location! Such a nice nod to the home’s iconic cinematic history.

The sliding glass door that Dylan knocks on in Charlie’s Angels can also be seen in several scenes in E.T.

For those who haven’t seen the above YouTube video, which chronicles most of E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial’s filming locations, you really need to check it out! The video, which was put together by fellow stalker/filmmaker Herve Attia, artfully morphs clips of the movie with footage of how the locations look today. It is simply amazing to watch!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The E.T. house is located at 7121 Lonzo Street in Tujunga.

September 13, 2010September 12, 2010

The “10 Things I Hate About You” House

As I was going through my stalking archives today, I realized that there are countless Seattle-area locations that I stalked during my recent trip up to the Pacific Northwest that I still have yet to blog about. I figure it’s better to be late than never, though, right? One of the locations was the house where the Stratford family – sisters Kat (aka Julia Stiles) and Bianca (aka Larisa Oleynik) and their father, Walter (aka Larry Miller) – lived in the movie 10 Things I Hate About You. I found this location, as usual, thanks to fellow stalker Owen who somehow managed to track down a whole slew of locales from the 1999 romantic comedy, which was billed as a modern adaptation of the William Shakespeare classic Taming of the Shrew. Ironically enough, I didn’t remember liking the movie all that much when I first saw it in theatres a little over a decade ago, but after Owen emailed me the list of the flick’s many filming locales, I decided to give it a re-watch and ended up really enjoying it. And my favorite part about it was, of course, the Stratford’s beautiful Victorian-style home.

The 10 Things I Hate About You house is actually even more gorgeous in person than it appeared in the movie, if that is at all possible. Part of what makes the residence so magnificent is its setting. The home is situated high up on a large, corner lot of a grassy, little knoll overlooking the clear blue waters of Puget Sound.

We were lucky enough to visit the residence during the one very brief moment of sunshine we experienced while in Seattle and the blue skies coupled with the blue of the water made for a striking view. In fact, the setting was so incredibly picturesque it didn’t seem real. I definitely felt as if I was standing right in the middle of a movie set. So, it is not at all hard to see why filmmakers chose the property to be featured in the flick. Ironically enough, though, 10 Things wasn’t the first time Hollywood location scouts came a’knockin’ on the home’s front door. According to an article which appeared in the May 31, 1998 edition of Seattle-Tacoma’s local News Tribune newspaper (which I can’t link to because there is a fee to access it), William and Joan McGovern, the owners of the 10 Things house, were approached by location scouts in 1991 about their residence being used as the main home in The Hand That Rocks The Cradle. The McGoverns ultimately turned down the proposal after finding out that filmmakers wanted to cut holes in several interior walls, paint over some of their interior woodwork, and move out all of their furniture and other personal effects. But when 10 Things producers scouted the house seven years later, in May of 1998, they told the McGoverns that they wanted to use the premises exactly as-is. The couple agreed and filming began a few weeks later on June 9, 1998. The shoot lasted a mere eight days before moving on to nearby Stadium High School, which I also stalked and will be blogging about in the coming weeks.

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The 10 Things house, which was originally built in 1906 and boasts 5 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and 4,330 square feet of living space, was used quite extensively in 10 Things I Hate About You. The exterior appeared numerous times;

as did the property’s real life interior along with the homeowners’ actual furniture.

The back balcony . . .

. . . and the front porch area were also used in the flick.

The house is absolutely beautiful in person and I honestly can’t recommend stalking it enough. Even if you weren’t a fan of the movie, the residence is worth a drive-by.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Owen for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The 10 Things I Hate About You house is located at 2715 North Junett Street, at the corner of 28th Street, in Tacoma, Washington.

September 8, 2010September 8, 2010

The “Thirteen Days” House

While I mentioned last week that today’s blog would be most likely be about the Cabo San Lucas rocks where Jennifer Aniston posed for her recent Jennifer Aniston Perfume advertisement, I’ve actually decided to postpone that post until a later date and instead write about a location that can be found right here in Los Angeles – the supposed Washington, DC-area home where top presidential aide Kenny O’Donnell (aka Kevin Costner) lived with his family in the 2000 movie Thirteen Days. I found this location thanks to my one of my mom’s co-workers, Teresa, who attended last year’s Alhambra Historic Home tour, which is put on annually by the Alhambra Preservation Group. One of the stops on the tour just so happened to be the residence located at 504 North Almansor Street, and when the tour guide mentioned the property’s cinematic history, Teresa wrote down the address so that my mom could pass it along to me. The place has been on my ever-growing To-Stalk list ever since. So, when Mike, from MovieShotsLA, mentioned that he wanted to do some stalking in the Pasadena-area this past Tuesday, I told him that we first had to head over to Alhambra so that I could finally stalk the Thirteen Days house.

The Thirteen Days house was originally built in 1924 and boasts 5 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, and 3,383 square feet of living space. Because of its distinct “All-American” feel, it’s not very hard to see why producers chose to use it as the Washington D.C.-area residence of one of John F. Kennedy’s top-ranking aides.

Even though Thirteen Days was set in 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, not much of the residence was changed for the filming. In fact, it looks pretty much exactly the same in person as it did in the flick. Love it! 🙂

And, as you can see in the above photographs, which I got off of the home’s real estate website, the real life interior of the residence, right down to the window curtains hanging in the kitchen, were also used in the flick. So darn cool!

And, as you can see in the above photograph of the real life bedroom which stood in for the Connelly’s master bedroom in the flick, the owners even have a Thirteen Days poster out on prominent display. Love it!

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The very same residence also appeared in the 2006 made-for-television movie Though None Go With Me, where it was used as Will Bishop’s (aka David Norona’s) home.

Ironically enough, the Thirteen Days house is located right next door to the residence where Percy Jones (aka Bernie Mac) and his family lived in Guess Who, which just so happens to be the very same residence where the backyard scenes from both Father of the Bride movies were also filmed. So darn cool!

Big THANK YOU to Teresa for finding this location for me!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Thirteen Days house is located at 504 North Almansor Street in Alhambra, directly next door to the Guess Who/Father of the Bride house, which is located at 500 North Almansor.

August 11, 2010August 11, 2010

The “Date Night” House

Last night, the Grim Cheaper and I sat down to watch the movie Date Night which FINALLY came out on DVD this week. We somehow missed seeing the flick in theatres when it first came out in April and I have been not-so-patiently waiting for it to be released on DVD ever since. Especially since Mike, from MovieShotsLA, tracked down the house which belonged to Phil and Claire Foster (played by Steve Carell and Tina Fey, respectively) in it over four months ago. Because I suffer from the need for immediate gratification, I actually stalked the place immediately after Mike told me its location and, as you can imagine, have been ABSOLUTELY DYING to see the movie ever since – even though the previews didn’t look especially promising. I have to say that I was very pleasantly surprised while watching it, too – despite what the reviews said, Date Night is a really cute movie! It’s heartwarming and sweet and laugh-out-loud funny. Not to mention the fact that Tina Fey and Steve Carell are exceptional in it! Loved it, loved it, loved it! But I digress!

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Mike tracked down the Date Night house pretty much immediately after seeing the movie in theatres. He knew from the get-go that the supposed New Jersey-area home was actually located somewhere in Pasadena thanks to these JFX Online paparazzi photos taken of Tina Fey and Leighton Meester during the filming. He also spotted an address number of “620” while watching the movie and from there used Google Street View to search all of the 600 blocks in the Pasadena area until he found the right residence. Thank you, Mike!

The Foster house actually shows up only a few times in Date Night, most notably in the ending scene in which Phil and Claire return home after their disastrous date in New York City.

And I am very happy to report that not only does the home look exactly the same in person as it did in the movie, but it is also ABSOLUTELY ADORABLE. In fact, it is almost too adorable. Had Mike not found the property’s real life location and had I not seen the place with my own two eyes, I would have been absolutely convinced that it was a fake house located on a studio backlot somewhere in Hollywood. The residence has that “studio” feel to it even in person and looks like it belongs on Wisteria Lane and not in the real world. 😉

As you can see in these photographs of the inside of the home, the real life interior of the property was also used in the filming.

And, ironically enough, the “Byzantine/Mediterranean” house that Claire tries to sell at the beginning of Date Night is located right next door to the Foster home, which makes things convenient for us stalkers.

On a Date Night side note – If you haven’t yet watched the bloopers reel featured at the end of the flick, you REALLY need to and can do so by clicking above. They are absolutely hilarious and really show how much fun the movie must have been to work on. It was actually watching stuff like this that first made me want to be an actor. Yes, the hours are long and the work is tedious, but in what other kind of career does one get to laugh as much as this??? 🙂

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for finding these locations! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Phil and Claire Foster’s house from Date Night is located at 620 Vallombrosa Drive in Pasadena. The home that Claire tries to sell at the beginning of the movie is located right next door at 608 Vallombrosa Drive.

July 30, 2010July 29, 2010

The Pasadena House Where the Prom in “Twilight” Was Filmed

One location that I have been on the lookout for for what seems like forever now is the Pasadena-area home where part of the prom scene from the original Twilight movie was filmed. I first found out about this location while browsing through Catherine Hardwick’s fabulous book Twilight: Director’s Notebook at my local bookstore. According to Hardwick, after filming of the 2008 flick had been completed, it was decided that an additional conversation between Bella Swan (aka Kristen Stewart) and Jacob Black (aka Taylor Lautner) was needed to complete the prom scene, which had been filmed at a picturesque hotel in Oregon named the View Point Inn (pictured above). Because the cast and crew had long since returned to Southern California, the movie’s location manager was called upon to find a property in the area that looked similar enough to the View Point Inn that a scene could be shot there without the audience realizing it was a different locale. He found that location at a private residence in Pasadena and filming took place there in late August of 2008. And even though I wasn’t a huge fan of the vampire movie, I was absolutely DYING to stalk the house. The only problem was that, for the life of me, I could NOT find it. Until I called in Mike, from MovieShotsLA, that is, who tracked down the property in record time – and without the aid of screen caps, I might add!

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Mike, who had yet to watch Twilight, knew that the prom scene had been filmed at a Tudor-style property with a long driveway, so armed with those two rather vague descriptions he went to work. Late Wednesday afternoon, he ended up stumbling upon some sort of Twilight message board where a girl had posted a comment saying that a scene from the flick had been shot in her neighborhood on Arroyo Boulevard near the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. From there, Mike used aerial maps to search the area for a Tudor-style house with a large driveway and eventually landed upon the right location. Yay! Thank you, Mike! And, as soon as he gave me the address, I ran right out to stalk the place. Sadly, though, not much of it can be seen from the road.

While not gated, as you can see in the above aerial images, the home is set quite a ways back from the street and is surrounded by a massive amount of foliage.

And while a bit of it can actually be spotted through the tall trees which line the front of the property, because the view is so limited, this house, unfortunately, makes for quite a disappointing stalk.

But that’s why God created real estate listings, which is where I snagged the two images pictured above. 🙂 The house, which was designed in 1915 by architect Stiles O. Clements, is currently for sale at a price that is only given “upon request”. The property boasts seven bedrooms, TEN bathrooms!, five fireplaces, a separate one bedroom, one bathroom guesthouse, and sits on over 3.5 acres of land. You can visit the home’s real estate listing and see a more close-up view of the property here.

The scene shot at the Pasadena house was a very brief one in which Jacob warns Bella upon entering the prom that her boyfriend, Edward Cullen (aka Robert Pattinson), may be a dangerous individual. Bella blows off his warning and then walks arm-in-arm with Edward around the corner and into the prom, at which point the location miraculously transforms into the View Point Inn.

The scene was filmed on the lawn in front of the north portion of the home’s wrap-around driveway, which is denoted with the blue “X” in the above aerial image.

I find it absolutely amazing that the location manager was able to find an area home that not only looked quite a bit like the View Point Inn, but one that was also situated in an Oregonian-like setting. When I first heard that the scene in which Jacob walks out of the woods to talk to Bella had been filmed in Pasadena, I wrongly assumed that fake trees had been brought in to make the property appear more wooded and forest-like. But in reality, the scene pictured above is what the grounds surrounding the house actually look like. It truly is an incredibly piece of property!

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The house where the beginning portion of the prom scene in Twilight was filmed is located at 1200 South Arroyo Boulevard in Pasadena.

June 24, 2010June 23, 2010

Juno’s House from “Juno”

While I realize that most of my fellow stalkers are currently clamoring for me to put my Pacific Northwest blogging on hold in order to write about locales in the Southern California area, there are two more locations from the Academy Award-winning movie Juno that I wanted to blog about before doing so. So, please bear with me for now, as I promise to get back to my L.A. roots first thing next week. 🙂 In the meantime, the second Juno location that I stalked while in Vancouver three weeks ago was the supposed Minnesota-area house where the flick’s eponymous lead character, the lovable, but quirky Juno MacGuff (aka Ellen Page), lived with her equally lovable, but quirky parents, Mac (aka J.K. Simmons) and Brenda (aka Allison Janney). I, of course, found this location yet again thanks to fellow stalker Owen who had, in turn, tracked it down thanks to this ever-informative Flikr page. Thank you, Owen! On a side note, I am quickly discovering the endless values of using Flikr as a stalking tool. The site is an enormous treasure trove of location information that one can easily sift through using key word searches and I highly recommend it to anyone who is currently trying to track down an elusive locale. But, as usual, I digress.

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According to this fabulous February 2008 Vancouver Sun article about Juno filming locations in the area, two different homes actually stood in for the MacGuff residence in the movie – one property was used for all interior filming, while a different one entirely was used for all of the exterior scenes. The article states that while scouting residences for his lead character in January of 2007, just one short month before filming began, director Ivan Reitman, along with Canadian location scout Neil Robertson, sought out an average-looking, middle-America-type home that had some “old-school” elements to it, like La-Z-Boy recliners and wood paneling. Reitman found his perfect home (pictured above) in the Dunbar area of West Vancouver. Unfortunately, though, upon closer inspection, the property’s interior proved to be too small for the filming, so, the scenes involving Juno’s kitchen, family room, and basement had to be shot at a different residence, which was also located in the Dunbar area, although I am not sure of exactly where. The shooting of the interior scenes took a week to complete, during which time the owner, Yvonne Kolstee – along with her cat – had to relocate to a hotel. And although one of Kolstee’s lamps did make an appearance in the flick, for the most part her property was completely revamped for the filming. According to the article, set-designers made her “multi-million dollar home in Dunbar look like a trailer”. Which begs the question, why not just build a set to film on? Ah, I’ll never understand the decision-making process behind choosing filming locations. Anyway, the article also states that Kolstee used the money she made off of the filming to take not one, but two vacations to Mexico, along with trips to India and Singapore, as well. Oh, when are location scouts going to come knocking on my door??? 😉

I am very happy to report that the home which was used for the exterior of Juno’s residence looks pretty much EXACTLY the same in person as it did onscreen in the movie.

The only notable difference is the fact that the tree from which Juno tried to hang herself using a few feet of Red Rope licorice in the beginning of the flick is not there in real life. In actuality, that tree was a fake that was brought in solely for the filming. The MacGuff residence is absolutely adorable in person and it’s not very hard to see why producers chose to use it.

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Juno’s house from the hit movie Juno is located at 4053 32 Avenue West in the Dunbar suburb of Vancouver, British Columbia. Mark and Vanessa’s house, which we, unfortunately, didn’t have time to stalk, is located at 13926 23 Avenue in the city of Surrey, which is located about 30 miles southeast of Vancouver.

June 23, 2010June 22, 2010

Bleeker’s House from “Juno”

Another Vancouver location that fellow stalker Owen managed to track down was the supposed Minnesota-area house belonging to dorky high school track-star Paulie Bleeker (aka Michael Cera) in the 2007 breakout dramedy Juno. And even though I was not a big fan of the flick – it was funny and all, but not especially spectacular and, in my never-to-be-humble opinion, dealt with the issue of teenage pregnancy far too cavalierly for my taste – because it was such a huge hit and because I was in the area three weeks ago, I just had to stalk the house where Paulie lived. I should mention here that I did love Ellen Page’s performance in the movie – she was absolutely adorable, not to mention the fact that her acting was phenomenal. So, I guess there’s that. 🙂 But I digress. Owen managed to find the Bleeker family residence thanks to a Flikr page which posted a number of photos of locales featured in Juno, along with a rather vague description of where they could be found. From there, he did a bit of cyber-stalking and was fairly quickly able to pin down the exact location of Paulie’s house. Thank you, Owen!

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According to the blog written by Academy-Award-winning Juno screenwriter Diablo Cody during the filming of the flick, Bleeker’s house was the very first location that the cast and crew shot at. Sadly, though, the owners of the property gave the exterior of their home a slight facelift after filming wrapped, so the residence looks a bit different today than it did on February 14, 2007, when the filming of Juno began. Boo!

The most notable difference, for me at least, was the fact that the mailbox which Juno filled with Tic Tacs candies in order to surprise Bleeker was not actually there in real life.

Nor was it there in the movie’s final scene, though, which was a fairly big gaff on the filmmakers’ part.

Because Bleeker’s mailbox was M.I.A. in the movie’s closing scene, I am fairly certain that it was, in actuality, just a prop that was brought in for the filming. As you can see in the above photograph, the home’s real life mailbox is located just to the left of the front door.

And I, of course, just had to sit in the same spot where Bleeker and Juno sat while singing The Moldy Peaches’ “Anyone Else But You” in that final scene.

Amazingly enough, while we were stalking the house, the owner happened to walk outside – well, truth be told, she actually came outside to investigate why I was sitting on her front stoop 😉 – and she truly could NOT have been nicer. She answered all of my silly little questions about the filming and didn’t even mind at all that I was sitting on her property. She explained that her home has become a frequent stalking destination ever since Juno premiered back in 2007 and that visitors frequently stop by to pose for photographs on her front stoop. She said she doesn’t really mind the massive attention her home draws as the majority of the picture-takers are all very respectful. 🙂 She also told us that some filming of Juno did take place inside of the house, which was redecorated slightly for the movie, and that she and her family even had to relocate to a hotel for a brief period of time during the shoot. She also got to meet actors Ellen Page and Michael Cera, whom she said were both extremely nice. 🙂 Love it!

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Bleeker’s house from Juno is located at 3961 36 Avenue West in Vancouver.

June 18, 2010June 17, 2010

Nick’s (Almost) Apartment from “The Crush”

Just a mile and a half away from the Forrester mansion, which appeared in the 1993 thriller The Crush and which I blogged about yesterday, is the supposed Seattle-area apartment house where Nick Eliot (aka Cary Elwes) tried to rent a unit after discovering that his current landlords’ 14-year old daughter Adrian (aka Alicia Silverstone) had developed a highly-inappropriate and psychotically-obsessive crush on him. I found this location, yet again, thanks to master stalker Owen, who had managed to track down one of the movie’s crew members who happened to remember the general vicinity where the apartment house was located. From there, Owen once again employed Google Street View to pinpoint the property’s exact location. And even though the building only showed up in two very brief scenes in The Crush, because of my Alicia Silverstone connection, I just had to stalk the place.

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I am very happy to report that Nick’s apartment house looks much the same in person as it did onscreen in The Crush, except for one pretty glaring difference – the building is now located in a different place.

Yes, you read that right – according to this Flikr website, Nick’s apartment house was formerly located just a bit north of where it is now, adjacent to a vacant lot, and was numbered 2132 (as you can see in the above screen capture). When the neighboring Reeve house, a historic property, was moved for preservation purposes in 1999, the Crush apartment also had to be moved a few hundred feet to the south to accommodate it. The Crush building’s address number was subsequently changed to 2156 and, because it had to be built into the side of a hill, appears to be a bit lower to the ground now than it was previously. Isn’t that incredible? I mean, I’ve heard of filming locations being torn down entirely, but I’ve never heard of one being moved from one plot of land to another! I’m so, so glad that the property was preserved, though, for all of us stalkers to continue to appreciate. You can see some great interior photographs of the building’s super-cute little front unit on a former real estate listing from 2008 here. I absolutely LOVE the built-in bookshelves next to the fireplace!! So darn cute! I am a little upset, though, that the real estate agent failed to make mention of the property’s cinematic history on the listing. Hmph!

On an interesting side note – While doing research on The Crush for yesterday’s blog post, I came across some information on IMDB which stated that the flick’s screenwriter/director Alan Shapiro based his screenplay on actual events from his life that took place while he was living in a guesthouse on the property of a wealthy Beverly Hills family back in 1982. And while I don’t know how much of the movie was actually based on fact and how much was embellished for dramatic effect, apparently Shapiro touted his production as being inspired by “real-life events”. Quite a bit of the story must have been factual, though, because after the movie premiered in April of 1993, Shapiro was sued by his former landlords over the fact that he had named his lead character “Darian” – the actual name of his former landlords’ daughter. The lawsuit was eventually settled and producers agreed to dub the name “Adrian” in for “Darian” in all future airings and DVD/VHS copies of the flick.

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The apartment Nick unsuccessfully tries to rent towards the end of The Crush is located at 2156 Cypress Street in Vancouver, British Columbia.

June 16, 2010June 15, 2010

The Cullen House from “The Twilight Saga: New Moon”

Another location that I stalked while in Vancouver two weeks ago was the residence where the Cullen family – including Edward (aka Robert Pattinson), Alice (aka Ashley Greene), Jasper (aka Jackson Rathbone), Carlisle (aka Peter Facinelli), Esme (aka Elizabeth Reaser), Emmett (aka Kellan Lutz), and Rosalie (aka Nikki Reed) – lived in the 2009 movie The Twilight Saga: New Moon. And even though I am not at all a fan of the Twilight series, nor have I yet to even see the New Moon installment, I was absolutely dying to stalk the home where filming took place ever since first seeing it in a real estate listing when it went on the market this past November. From what I saw in the listing, the modern-style abode was nothing short of spectacular, so when fellow stalker Kerry mentioned that she knew the property’s location, I practically salivated and begged her to take me there. And I have to say that, in person, the home definitely did NOT disappoint! The Cullen house is absolutely breathtaking and I would give anything to live in something even remotely as beautiful. And while I would have loved to have taken a peek at the interior of the property, unfortunately, due to the many inquiries about the home from various Twi-hards the world over, the real estate agent is currently only offering tours to serious buyers.

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Oddly enough, the exterior of the West Vancouver-area home never actually appeared in New Moon. For the lone exterior shot featured in the flick (pictured above), producers used footage of the Hoke house in Portland, Oregon – the very same residence which stood in for the Cullen abode in the original Twilight movie. When it was decided that the Twilight sequel would be shot entirely on location in Canada – where filming is much less expensive than in the U.S. – location scouts had to track down a home which had somewhat similar interiors to the residence that was used in the original flick.

They found that home in West Vancouver and fans of the movie followed – in droves. Apparently the residence has become quite the tourist attraction ever since New Moon was filmed there beginning on April 15th of last year. The house was the setting for two scenes in the movie – the scene involving Bella’s ill-fated 18th birthday party and the scene in which the Cullen family is put to a vote to decide Bella’s fate. Those relatively short segments took a whopping four days to film. The same home will also be standing in for the interior of the Cullen residence in the upcoming The Twilight Saga: Eclipse movie.

The 5 bedroom, 4 bathroom, 5,117 square-foot abode, which was completely remodeled in 2001 and is currently for sale for a whopping $2,998,000, features 20 foot ceilings, a media room, slate and concrete flooring, a pool, a spa, a koi pond, a chef’s kitchen with granite countertops and cherry wood cabinets, and a 1/2 acre of wooded, creekside land. Ironically enough, the home’s real estate listing touts its numerous picture windows which allow for “bright sunfilled exposure” throughout – something I don’t think the Cullen family would have appreciated very much. 😉 You can view the home’s real estate listing here.

Big THANK YOU to Kerry for not only finding this location, but for taking me to stalk it, as well! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Cullen house from The Twilight Saga: New Moon is located at 118 Stevens Drive in West Vancouver, British Columbia. You can check out the home’s real estate website here.