Pacific Palisades filming locations

January 16, 2013January 15, 2013

Villa de Leon

Back in September, while doing research on the Glendale Amtrak Station from Bulletproof (which I blogged about here), I came across a fabulous post on the Paradise Leased website about Villa de Leon – a huge Pacific Palisades-area estate that was also designed by architect Kenneth MacDonald Jr. I quickly became entranced by the ginormous manse, which overlooks the Pacific Ocean, because not only is it an oft-filmed-at locale, but it is also one of the most consistently mis-identified buildings in all of Los Angeles. In fact, until reading the Paradise Leased post, even yours truly had gotten this one wrong. I had seen the dwelling countless times in the past whenever driving along the Pacific Coast Highway and had always assumed that it was the Getty Villa – as do most people, even native Angelinos. It is an easy mistake to make, though.

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As you can see in the images below, Villa de Leon is situated directly above a sign for the Getty Villa, confusing tourists and residents alike. In fact, even The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal have mis-identified the place, so I guess I am in good company.

In actuality, the Getty Villa sits hidden from the road, directly behind and just north of Villa de Leon. As you can see below, both buildings are also Mediterranean in style and quite significant in size, which only furthers the confusion.

And while the Getty Villa is, I’m sure, spectacular (I’ve never actually been there), Villa de Leon is a masterpiece in and of itself – easily one of the most stunning properties that I have ever laid eyes upon. The 35-room Beaux Arts/Mediterranean-style estate was built for a wealthy wool magnate named Leon Kauffman and his wife, Clemence, in 1927. The three-story structure took over five years to complete and cost a whopping $1 million to construct – about $12 million today. At the time that the Villa was built, it was the only residence in the area. In fact, even the Pacific Coast Highway had yet to exist. Access to the beach from the home was made possible thanks to a funicular (yeah, I had to look that one up, too).

Sadly, Clemence Kauffman passed away in 1933, only five years after the house was completed, and Leon followed soon after in 1935. The Villa remained unoccupied, except for a caretaker, for the next twenty years, until it was finally put up for auction in 1952, where it sold for the unbelievably-low price of $71,000. The property then went through a succession of different owners and was last purchased in 2007 for $10 million.

The massive Villa de Leon boasts ten bedrooms, ten baths, 10,277 square feet of living space, a one-acre plot of seaside land, a 67-foot tall entry hall, a library with coffered ceilings, a master suite with mahogany-paneled walls, a spiral staircase, a living room with a 35-foot tall hand-stenciled ceiling, a circular-shaped formal dining room with ocean views, a seven-car garage(!) with its own car wash (!), formal gardens (many of which have been destroyed over the years due to landslides), a working elevator, two vaults, a central vacuum system (one of the first to ever be built), and several terraces. You can check out some fabulous photographs of the mansion’s interior here. What I wouldn’t give to go inside that place!

Thankfully, unlike most Los Angeles-area mega-mansions, this one is quite visible from the road.

As I mentioned above, Villa de Leon has been featured in countless productions over the years, most notably photo shoots. I actually dragged the Grim Cheaper out to stalk the location twice as, on our first visit, I was not able to get any faraway photographs. Amazingly enough, there was something being shot on the premises BOTH times that we were there, as you can see below.

The exterior of Villa de Leon was featured on the cover of Procol Harum’s Grand Hotel album in 1973.

In 2008, Victoria Beckham did a photo shoot for Harper’s Bazaar Indonesia at the mansion.

Villa de Leon was one of two estates used in the music video for Lady Gaga’s 2009 song “Paparazzi”. While the majority of the video was filmed at 10425 Revuelta Way in Bel Air (which was also the location of this week’s group date on The Bachelor), portions of the Villa were featured, as well, including the back patio area . . .

. . . and parts of the interior.

You can watch the “Paparazzi” video by clicking below.

Also in 2009, the home appeared in Michael Bay’s “A Thousand Fantasies” commercial for Victoria’s Secret.

Villa de Leon was the site of Heidi Klum’s photo shoot for the February 2010 issue of InStyle magazine, although very little of the property can actually be seen in the final spread. (The stills below came from a behind-the-scenes video of the shoot posted on the InStyle website.)

Robert Pattinson shot the (extremely NSFW) cover story for the March 2010 issue of Details magazine at Villa de Leon.

Angelina Jolie posed for the cover of the December 2010 Vogue there.

Reese Witherspoon’s spread for the October 2011 issue of Marie Claire also took place at the Villa.

The promotional pictures for Britney Spears’ 2011 album Femme Fatale were shot on the premises.

The estate appeared in the music video for Foster the People’s 2011 song “Call It What You Want”. Both the exterior . . .

. . . and the interior of the house were used extensively in the video.

You can watch the “Call It What You Want” video by clicking below.

Robert Downey Jr. did a photo shoot for the May 2012 issue of Esquire magazine at Villa de Leon.

As did Freida Pinto for the July 2012 issue of Flaunt Magazine.

Rod Stewart’s 2012 Christmas special, Rod Stewart: Merry Christmas, Baby, was also filmed at the estate.

The Kardashians, Maria Menounos, Katy Perry, Ginnifer Goodwin, and Justin Long have also done shoots at the house – all of which you can see photographs of 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.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Villa de Leon is located at 17948 Porto Marina Way in Pacific Palisades.

April 27, 2012April 26, 2012

The Former Site of the “Doogie Howser, M.D.” House

This past (dismal and dreary) Sunday afternoon, after stalking the Jack & Jill house, which I blogged about on Tuesday, I dragged the Grim Cheaper a few blocks south to stalk a location that I had been wanting to see in person for years – the Howser residence, where teenage prodigy Dr. Doogie Howser (Neil Patrick Harris) and his parents, Katherine Howser (Belinda Montgomery) and Dr. David Howser (James Sikking), lived in the 1989 television series Doogie Howser, M.D. As Stephen Sondheim said, “a funny thing happened on the way to the forum”, though, because when we arrived at the site, the property did not look at all familiar to me.

The address of the Doogie Howser, M.D. house – 796 Amalfi Drive in Pacific Palisades – has long been listed in pretty much every filming locations book ever printed, as well as on every filming locations website that can be found online. I first discovered it, though, thanks to The Ultimate Hollywood Tour Book by William A. Gordon. As you can see above, the property that stands at 796 Amalfi is a very large, very beautiful, wood-shingled, Hamptons-style residence, but the property that I remembered Doogie living in was a much more traditional, Colonial-style dwelling. I figured that my memory, which is usually like that of an elephant, must have been deceiving me, though, so I decided to snap some photographs of the place regardless. It was not until I got home and scanned through my Doogie Howser DVDs that I realized my recollection had, in fact, been correct. Thank God! I knew I was too young to be completely losing my faculties! Winking smile

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Screen shots of the actual Howser residence are pictured above. As you can see, the home is very traditional and Colonial in style, much as I had remembered, and looks nothing at all like the property that I had just stalked.

Upon doing further research, I discovered that the dwelling located at 796 Amalfi Drive was not constructed until 2006, a good 13 years after Doogie Howser, M.D. had gone off the air. Because author William A. Gordon obtained most of the information in his book from ultra-accurate “shoot sheets”, though, I was 99.9% certain that the address he had published was correct. For those not familiar with the term “shoot sheet”, up until September 11, 2001, anyone could walk into the EIDC Film Office in Hollywood and obtain a list of every production being shot in the area on any particular day, along with the exact address of where filming was taking place. Those lists were called shoot sheets. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to have been living in Los Angeles at that time! I so would have been at that film office every single day to pick up a sheet so that I could follow around the cast of Beverly Hills, 90210 wherever they might be filming. Winking smile As Gary states on Seeing Stars, “In short, it looks like 9/11 has produced another victim: the well-meaning tourist who used to enjoy watching movies being made on location in Hollywood, who will now have to do without the shoot sheets that were once his guide.” UGH! You can check out what a shoot sheet looked like on the Seeing Stars website here. Isn’t it just about the coolest thing ever? Sigh!

From what I had gathered online, I surmised that the Howser residence did at one time did stand at 796 Amalfi Drive, but that it was torn down sometime since the series ended and a new dwelling built in its place. Because I do not like to blog about a location unless I am 100% certain that the information I am giving out is correct, though, I wanted to see a photograph of the former 796 Amalfi Drive house before writing this post. Unfortunately, I just could not seem to locate one anywhere. Thankfully, fellow stalker Billy stepped in and gave me the idea to track down historic aerial views of the property, which I did using the Historic Aerials website. As you can see in the above (albeit blurry) images, which were taken in 1980 and 2003, respectively, the domicile which used to stand on the site does very closely resemble the Doogie Howser house. The residence’s general shape, the circular driveway, the two-tiered roofline, and the white fence surrounding the property all match up to what appeared onscreen. Voila!

So, even though the Doogie Howser, M.D. house is no longer standing, because there is so much misinformation about the property online and because the dwelling that was built in its place is pretty darn spectacular, I figured the location was still blog-worthy.

According to The Ultimate Hollywood Tour Book, the Doogie Howser house was not-so-coincidentally located in the same neighborhood as that of legendary television producer/writer Steven Bochco, who created the series. Thanks to my buddy E.J.’s The Movieland Directory website, I found that address, as well. Steven Bochco’s former home is located at 694 Amalfi Drive, one short block away from the Howser residence. Unfortunately though, I did not stalk the property while I was in the area.

Ironically enough, in the Season 3 episode of Doogie Howser, M.D. titled “Lonesome Doog”, Doogie’s home address is shown as 1782 Amalfi Drive in Pacific Palisades. In reality, Amalfi Drive does not have any addresses in the 1700 range as the street dead-ends at the 1600 block.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Doogie Howser, M.D. house was formerly located at 796 Amalfi Drive in Pacific Palisades. Doogie Howser-creator Steven Bochco’s former home is located one block south at 694 Amalfi Drive. And the Jack and Jill house is located just a few blocks up the street at 1343 Amalfi Drive.

April 24, 2012April 26, 2012

The “Jack and Jill” House

This past Sunday afternoon, while doing some stalking in the Pacific Palisades area, I dragged the Grim Cheaper over to Amalfi Drive to stalk the main house used in the 2011 movie Jack and Jill. And I should mention here that while I did not have very high hopes for Jack and Jill before watching it a couple of weeks ago, both the GC and I ended up really enjoying it. Granted, it is by no means a classic, nor will it be winning any major awards any time soon, but it is sweet and funny and I found myself laughing out loud on more than one occasion. I also absolutely fell in love with the uh-ma-zing Mediterranean-style mansion where advertising executive Jack Sadelstein (Adam Sandler) lived in the flick and became just a wee-bit obsessed with stalking it. Thankfully, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, was able to track it down for me.

While watching Jack and Jill, Mike had noticed an address number of “343” visible on the curb in the background of the scene in which gardener Felipe (Eugenio Derbez) drove Jack’s visiting twin sister, Jill Sadelstein (who was also played by Adam Sandler), home from a party. Mike knew that the residence was located somewhere in Pacific Palisades thanks to an article on the Gambino Landscape Lighting blog and began searching aerial views of the area for Mediterranean mansions with a “343” in their number. Amazingly, it was not long before he found the right one. So I immediately added the address to my “To-Stalk” list and headed on over there on what turned out to be a very dreary and dismal afternoon, one which I did not dress at all appropriately for. I am surprised my lips are not blue in the first picture on this post. Winking smile

The Jack and Jill house was just recently built in 2005 and boasts 8 bedrooms, 8 baths, 10,160 square feet of living space, and 0.64 acres of land. As you can see on this Estately.com listing, a completely different residence once stood on the site, one that was built in 1948 and measured 3 bedrooms, 3 baths and 3,686 square feet, but it was sold in July 2002 (for a whopping $4 million, mind you) and subsequently torn down to make way for the Mediterranean manse pictured above.

Aerial views of the home show that there used to be a residence located next door, as well.

But that property has also since been leveled and its land now makes up the backyard of the Jack and Jill house;

as you can see above.

While we were stalking the house, a woman who lives in the area walked by and asked why we were taking pictures. When I told her that the home was where Adam Sandler lived in Jack and Jill, she got very excited and said she could not wait to tell her nieces and nephews the next time they came to visit. I SO love it when I inform random strangers about filming locations and they actually get excited, ‘cause, let me tell you, most of the time people (from L.A., at least) could care less. I am definitely an anomaly in this city. Winking smile

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In Jack and Jill, the Mediterranean-style mansion was where Jack lived with his family – wife Erin (Katie Holmes), daughter Sofia (Elodie Tougne) and son Gary (Rohan Chand). The exterior of the residence was shown repeatedly throughout the movie.

Al Pacino, who played a crazy version of himself in the flick, even filmed a scene outside of the home’s front gate, which I somehow did not get a picture of. Fail!

The property’s real life backyard and pool area also appeared in the flick.

The interior of the Sadelstein house was just a set, though. You can check out some photographs of the property’s real life interior here and, as you can see, it does not match up at all to what appeared onscreen.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Jack and Jill house is located at 1343 Amalfi Drive in Pacific Palisades.

March 9, 2012March 8, 2012

The Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine Temple

Another location that I stalked while my good friend Nat was in town a few weeks ago was the Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine Temple – a ten-acre public oasis located on Sunset Boulevard in Pacific Palisades that was established by spiritual leader/Kriya Yoga guru Paramahansa Yogananda in 1950. Because Nat is a dedicated yogi, I thought she would love visiting the site. Little did I know how much the Grim Cheaper and I would enjoy it, too. And while the Lake Shrine is not actually a filming location, because it is located on the site of a former movie studio, I thought my fellow stalkers might be interested in it, as well.

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I first learned about the Lake Shrine Temple from Laura Randall’s fabulous book Peaceful Places Los Angeles: 100 Tranquil Sites in the City of Angels, which I gifted to the GC for Christmas a few years back. In the tome, Randall states, “Among my collection of peaceful places, this may be the most famous one in all of Los Angeles.” How was it possible, then, that this stalker had never before heard of it? As it turns out, the Lake Shrine is one of Southern California’s best kept secrets.

The site where the Lake Shrine Temple now sits was originally part of an 18,460-acre plot of land that made up Inceville – Hollywood’s first modern movie studio, which was established by producer Thomas Ince in Santa Ynez Canyon in 1912. For the next four years, hundreds upon hundreds of silent western-style films were shot on the lot. Sadly, in January 1916, a few days after Thomas had opened a second studio in Culver City, a fire ravaged Inceville, destroying numerous sets. That fire was the first of many and, by 1922, the lot was rendered virtually useless. In 1927, after the land had changed hands several times, a real estate developer named Alphonzo Bell, Sr. began hydraulically grading a portion of the site in the hopes of building a new residential community there. As fate would have it, Bell ran out of money mid-excavation and walked away from the project, leaving a large vacant basin that, thanks to the many underground springs in the area, ended up filling with water. The basin was neglected until 1940 when H. Everett “Big Mac” McElroy, an assistant superintendent of construction at 20th Century Fox studios, and his wife stepped in and purchased the ten-acre parcel. Because construction materials were in short supply due to World War II, the couple then had their Mississippi-style houseboat, Adeline, moved to the property and they resided on it for the next few years. That houseboat still sits on the lake to this day (pictured above).

Mac and his wife eventually built themselves a new residence – one that was modeled after a mill house and which featured a two-and-a-half ton, fifteen-foot working waterwheel that irrigated the land. The mill house now serves as the Lake Shrine’s museum and gift shop.

With their new home completed, the couple then began construction on a three-story replica of 16th-Century Dutch windmill (which has since been transformed into the Shrine’s chapel) . . .

. . . as well as a neighboring boat dock and landing. As you can see above, the grounds are so idyllic they look like they were created by Walt Disney!

In the late 1940s, the McElroy’s sold their enchanting lakeside oasis to an oil magnate, who promptly moved into the windmill and set about making plans to build a hotel on the premises. According to the Lake Shrine’s official website, fate stepped in when the magnate had several dreams about his property becoming a “Church of All Religions”. Those dreams prompted him to sell his acreage to Paramahansa Yogananda, founder of the Self-Realization Fellowship, who further landscaped the area and turned it into an open-air shrine dedicated to all religions. Today, thousands of people each year stop by the Lake Shrine in order to meditate, pray, or simply just sit and appreciate its vast beauty. According to Seeing Stars, not only was Elvis Presley a frequent visitor to the site, but the memorial service for former Beatle George Harrison was also held on the premises.

The Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine currently consists of the Golden Lotus Archway, which was designed by Paramahansa Yogananda;

the Mahatma Gandhi World Peace Memorial – a “wall-less temple” which houses a portion of the Indian spiritual leader’s ashes (the only portion of his ashes to be interred outside of India, in fact);

picturesque waterfalls;

sprawling lawns;

verses from various religious texts displayed on plaques;

statues of Jesus Christ, Saint Francis of Assisi, Bhagavan Krishna, Buddha, and the Madonna and Child;

a sunken garden and grotto;

and various animals, including swans;

and, my personal favorite, turtles! Hard to believe that all of that tranquility is situated on a busy stretch of Sunset Boulevard! The Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine is an absolutely AMAZING sanctuary that is a must-see for both visitors to the city and longtime Angelinos alike. I honestly cannot more highly recommend stalking the place!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine Temple is located at 17190 Sunset Boulevard in Pacific Palisades. You can visit the official Lake Shrine website here. The site is open to the public Tuesday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and both parking and admission are free.