Pasadena filming locations

December 16, 2013May 8, 2019

Citizens Bank Building from “The Sting”

Upon landing my new gig writing for Los Angeles magazine’s CityThink blog, I comprised a list of iconic SoCal locales to spotlight in my weekly column, one of which was the Santa Monica Pier Carousel from 1973’s The Sting. The only problem was that I had never actually seen The Sting. Neither had the Grim Cheaper. So I set out to remedy the situation and immediately ordered the DVD from Amazon. We watched it shortly after it arrived and I was shocked at how good it was – forty years later! Not to mention the fact that the locations absolutely blew my mind. While The Sting takes place in 1936 Chicago, the vast majority of it was lensed in 1973 Los Angeles, with a significant portion of the filming taking place in my former hometown of Pasadena. Shockingly, I did not recognize any of the Rose City locales that were featured and when I started doing research on the flick, I just about fell out of my chair. One spot used prominently towards the end of the movie was the J. Crew store in Old Town, a place I used to shop at on a weekly basis! So while I was in L.A. last week, I spent one particularly cold morning (the GC said my outfit above resembled Nanook of the North) stalking the flick’s Pasadena locations, one of which was the historic Citizens Bank Building.

[ad]

The Citizens Bank Building was constructed in quite an unusual manner. The bottom floor of the structure was built in 1906 to house Citizens Bank. The site was designed by architects John Parkinson [who also gave us the Bullocks Wilshire department store from Christmas Vacation (which I blogged about here) and Union Station (which I blogged about here)] and George Edwin Bergstrom.

In 1914, when Citizens Bank was ready to expand, Parkinson and Bergstrom added the top six levels to the structure, creating the seven-story building that stands today.

The square cast metal clock featured on the corner of the edifice was added in 1926 and is still currently in working condition.

Citizens Bank occupied the site until September 2004, at which point it was sold to a developer, who immediately began a large renovation. The first-level former bank area was gutted entirely and now serves as offices for the Dilbeck real estate company.

I found this spot thanks to The Worldwide Guide to Movie Locations and just about fell over when I did, due to the fact that the GC had an office in the Citizens Bank Building for years. His office was reached via a side door, though, and neither of us had ever seen the interior of the bottom floor bank space during his tenure there.

The bank popped up in the beginning of The Sting, in the montage scene in which grifter Henry Gondorff (Paul Newman) is shown getting together a team of people to help exact revenge on Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw).

The space is only featured for a brief moment in the scene and only a very small portion of the interior is shown.

The interior of the former bank area, post-remodel, is pictured below. While researching this location, a few things gave me pause as to whether it was the bank that was used in The Sting. For instance, the shape and spacing of the windows that appeared onscreen don’t seem to match up to the building’s actual windows. And in a very frustrating twist, I could not find any interior photographs of the space prior to its renovation to verify that it was the location used. I even contacted the current property manager and sent her screen captures from the movie, but she was uncertain as well. Boo! If anyone out there has any photographs of the site pre-remodel, please let me know as I’d love to verify this locale.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Citizens Bank Building from The Sting is located at 255 East Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena.

November 19, 2013November 18, 2013

The Stuart Building from “That Thing You Do!”

Back in early October, upon returning home from doing some That Thing You Do! stalking in Orange (you can read my posts on the locations I stalked here, here and here), I popped in my DVD of the 1996 flick to re-watch it for the first time in years. I was absolutely shocked – and floored – to discover in the course of the viewing that The Stuart at Sierra Madre Villa, an architecturally-stunning Pasadena apartment complex that I toured while house-hunting in 2006, had been featured in the movie. Because I had not taken any photos of The Stuart during the tour, I ran right out to re-stalk the place while I was in L.A. last week.

[ad]

The Stuart at Sierra Madre Villa was originally constructed as the Stuart Pharmaceutical Company’s (they created Mylanta!) main manufacturing facility and office headquarters in 1958. The New Formalist-style structure, which is set back 150 feet from Foothill Boulevard and which was originally known as the Stuart Company Building, was designed by architect Edward Durell Stone and took two years to complete. (Stone also fashioned Radio City Music Hall in New York and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.) The Stuart’s 9.4-acre grounds were designed by legendary landscape architect Thomas Dolliver Church.

The flat-roofed building, which boasts a cast concrete block screen façade and a large linear reflecting pool with fountains, won the National First Honor Award from the American Institute of Architects and was featured on the cover of Time magazine the year it was completed.

Arthur O. Hanisch, the Stuart Company’s forward-thinking owner, sought comfort for his employees in the construction of the building and assigned several recreational areas to the 35,000-square-foot site, including an atrium with a gorgeous open staircase, a garden court, a dining lounge, a pool, a pool house, a large terrace, and an outdoor shade pavilion. As you can see below, the two-story atrium is pretty darn striking! There’s a reason I remembered it all these years later while watching That Thing You Do!

In 1990, the Stuart Company, which had been named in honor of Arthur O. Hanisch’s son, was purchased by Johnson and Johnson/Merck Pharmaceuticals Co. The Stuart Company Building was shuttered shortly thereafter and, in 1993, was put on the market for $16 million. A year later, it was purchased by the Metropolitan Transit Authority, who intended to bulldoze it and construct a metro station on the property. Thankfully, the Pasadena Heritage group immediately stepped in and nominated the Stuart for National Registry status to protect it from demolition. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1998. During the interim, while its fate was being decided, the building sat vacant and, sadly, fell victim to vandals and transients. Then, in 2002, the site was purchased by a development company named BRE Properties and a multi-million dollar restoration project was begun. BRE also started construction on an upscale 188-unit apartment complex directly behind the Stuart Building, which became known as The Stuart at Sierra Madre Villa. Today, the arresting atrium serves as a leasing office and communal space for residents.

In That Thing You Do!, the Stuart Company Building’s atrium masqueraded as the Play-Tone Records headquarters where The Wonders – Guy Patterson (Tom Everett Scott), Jimmy Mattingly (Johnathon Schaech), Lenny Haise (Steve Zahn), and T.B. Player (Ethan Embry) – posed for publicity photos upon first arriving in Los Angeles.

The Stuart Company Building was also featured in the 2000 made-for-television movie If These Walls Could Talk 2, in which it stood in for the fertility center visited by Fran (Sharon Stone) and Kal (Ellen DeGeneres). Several areas of the property were used in the filming, including the atrium;

a hallway;

a waiting room;

and an office.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Stuart at Sierra Madre Villa, from That Thing You Do!, is located at 3360 East Foothill Boulevard in Pasadena. You can visit the complex’s official website here.

September 26, 2013September 26, 2013

Joyce’s House from “Little Black Book”

Last week, while doing research on locations from fave movie Little Black Book, I decided to watch the “Live & On-Air: The Making of Little Black Book” DVD special feature in which the filming of a deleted scene happened to be shown taking place in front of a house that I immediately recognized. I had actually stalked – and blogged about – the home back in March 2010 thanks to its appearance in Father of the Bride Part II. (You can read that post here.) Because I had written the column so long ago, though, I decided the residence was most-definitely worthy of a redux and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk it this past weekend while the two of us were in L.A.

[ad]

Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I first discovered the residence a couple of years back while strolling along Madison Avenue in Pasadena on our way to stalk the house Babe Bennett (Winona Ryder) supposedly lived in during her childhood years in Mr. Deeds. Mike noticed the picturesque property – or “Thanksgiving home” as I like to call such idyllic dwellings that always seem to bring to mind images of family holidays – immediately and commented that it had to have been used in a movie at some point. So when fellow stalker Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, happened to send me screen captures of the place a few weeks later while on a quest to track down some minor locales from Father of the Bride Part II, I recognized it right away.

The charming five-bedroom, three-bath, 4,466-square-foot home, which was originally built in 1905, sits on 0.46 acres and last sold in June 2009 for $2,580,000. The residence, which looks like it was made to be in movies, features two game rooms, a garden room, a pool, a spa, a library, and a three-car garage. You can check out some great interior photographs of the place here.

As you can see from the side-view images pictured below, the house is actually much larger than its façade would lead you to believe. It’s absolutely ginormous!

In the “Live & On-Air: The Making of Little Black Book” special feature, the scene shown being filmed in front of the residence involved (I believe) Stacy (Brittany Murphy) leaving a note at the home of her boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend, Joyce (Julianne Nicholson). No dialogue could be heard in the segment, but as you can see below, an envelope with what I think is the name “Joyce” on it was visible on the front porch. I am guessing that the scene was to be featured at the end of the movie and most likely entailed Stacy apologizing to Joyce for lying to her and humiliating her on national television. Because it wound up on the cutting room floor, though, and because no deleted scenes were included on the DVD (BOO!), I guess we will never know for sure.

Even though only a small portion of the home’s front porch was shown in “Live & On-Air,” I still recognized the place immediately. Yes, I’m that good. Winking smile

Not surprisingly, thanks to its massive curb appeal, the house has been featured in numerous productions over the years. In Father of the Bride Part II, which premiered in 1995, it was where father-to-be George Banks (Steve Martin) witnessed a stranger saying good-bye to his son before leaving for work.

In 1995’s Bye Bye Love, the residence was where Susan (Amy Brenneman) lived. Both the interior and the exterior of the property were used in the flick.

In 2007, the home stood in for the supposed Medora, Wisconsin-area residence of the Tolchuck family – Justin (Dan Byrd), Claire (Lindsey Shaw), Franny (Amy Pietz), Gary (Scott Gordon-Patterson), and Pakistani foreign exchange student Raja (Adhir Kalyan) – in the pilot episode of Aliens in America. Oddly enough, though, only the interior of the house;

a few close-up shots of the front porch;

and the backyard appeared in the episode.

For the establishing shots of the residence’s front exterior, a different house – located at 6337 Larch St in Vancouver (thank you to fellow stalker Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, for the address!) – was used. This was due to the fact that Aliens in American’s pilot episode was shot in Southern California, but production moved to Canada once the series got picked up. To avoid the confusion of using two different exteriors when the show started airing, producers just swapped in an image of the Canada house for all of the establishing shots shown in the pilot episode.

In “Live & On-Air: The Making of Little Black Book,” the residence directly across the street from Joyce’s was also briefly shown, which got me to thinking that it might have been the dwelling used as Stacy’s childhood home in the flick. In real life, the Frederick L. Roehrig-designed abode, which was originally built in 1908, is known as the Lincoln Clark House and it is a City of Pasadena Designated Landmark Property.

Only a very limited portion of Stacy’s childhood home can actually be seen in Little Black Book. In the beginning of the movie, there is a brief shot of a young Stacy (Katie Murphy) watching her father from a window as he leaves her mother. In that scene, a unique, multi-limbed tree is visible on the side of the path that Stacy’s father walks down. As you can see below, there is a very similar-looking tree located on the side of the walkway at the Lincoln Clark House, as well. And the window that is located just beyond it resembles the window that Stacy looked through in the scene.

The porch area of the Lincoln Clark House (which you can see a close-up photograph of here) also closely resembles the porch that appeared in the montage clip showing Stacy’s boyfriends throughout the years.

The interior of Stacy’s childhood home was also featured in a few scenes at the beginning of Little Black Book. As you can see below, the three-paneled window that appeared onscreen is a match to the Lincoln Clark House windows. And the steep roofline is a match, as well. Without seeing interior photographs of the Lincoln Clark House, though, there is no way for me to say with any certainty whether or not it was used in the filming.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Joyce’s house from a deleted scene in Little Black Book is located at 639 South Madison Avenue in Pasadena. The Lincoln Clark House, which I think may have been used as Stacy’s childhood home in the flick, is located directly across the street at 646 South Madison Avenue.

May 16, 2013May 16, 2013

My Day on the Set of “90210”

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago in my post about the Hideaway Saloon (which you can read here), I was devastated to learn of the cancellation of fave show 90210 – especially being that the cast and crew were informed of said cancellation while in the midst of shooting what was to be the (most-likely cliffhanger-ish) Season 5 finale. Thankfully though, the script was rewritten mid-shoot and the series given the proper sendoff that it deserved, with (spoiler alert!) Liam Court (my man Matt Lanter) finally proposing to longtime love Annie Wilson (Shenae Grimes). Hallelujah! I literally had anxiety all day Monday while waiting for the show to air because I was afraid that Liam and Annie would remain star-crossed for all eternity and I just could not have handled that. I needed closure and am so thankful that I (as well as the rest of the fans) got it. Anyway, I thought it would only be fitting to write today’s post about a memorable time that I spent on the set of 90210 a few years back.

[ad]

Thanks to fave website OnLocationVacations, I learned, about a week ahead of time, that 90210 would be filming on August 31st, 2011 at the Langham Huntington hotel in Pasadena. I immediately called up my mom, who was already living in Palm Springs by that time, and asked if she and my dad would be willing to drive out to help me stalk the filming, since 90210 was my favorite show and all. Winking smile My mom said that she would talk to my dad about it and call me back. Well, let me tell you, I just about passed out from excitement when she called just a few minutes later and informed me that not only were they coming out for the filming, but that they had booked a room at the Langham for that day! Yes, my parents are that cool! Flash forward to the morning of the 31st. When I arrived at the hotel, I was floored to see the yellow sign pictured below. “The Code” – get it? LOVE!

When I first told my mom about the filming, I mentioned that the one 90210 star whom I was absolutely dying to meet was Shenae Grimes. (I had already met Matt Lanter a few months prior.) So imagine my surprise when I got to the Langham and, after striking up a conversation with a crew member, found out that Shenae was the only series regular on set that day. Talk about fate! I told the crew member what a huge fan of Shenae’s I was and that I would love to get a photograph with her, to which he said, “Oh, sure. One second.” He then got on his walkie-talkie and informed someone on the other end, “There’s a fan here who wants a picture with Shenae.” The person spoke back to him and the crew member told me to wait right where I was and that Shenae would be out in a minute. Well, let me tell you, I just about fell over at that! It was as if it was just expected that if there was a fan on the premises wanting a pic, that the actors would be happy to pose. Not all sets are like that, I can assure you. In fact, very few are that accommodating. True to the crew member’s word, Shenae came out just a minute later and walked right up to me and introduced herself. She was so sweet and we even got to chat for a minute about what a huge “Lannie” fan I am.

A few minutes later, a different crew member came up to me and invited me to watch the next scene that was being filmed (they had already finished up with the first scene of the day by the time I arrived). The crew member, who turned out to be the show’s location manager (yeah, I talked his ear off once I found that out!), parked me in the “Video Village” area behind where the directors and writers sit during a shoot and even took the below photograph to commemorate the event. And yes, I was definitely pinching myself! I’m surprised I didn’t have black and blue marks all up and down my arm, in fact! Winking smile

The scene I got to watch being filmed was the scene in which Annie first met her future boyfriend/john, Patrick Westhill (Chris McKenna). In the episode, which turned out to be Season 4’s “Benefit of the Doubt”, the Langham Huntington was the hotel where Patrick stayed while visiting L.A. Amazingly enough, it took less than an hour, and only about three or four takes, to shoot the sequence. Those of you who have ever witnessed any filming know what a feat that is, being that most shows require umpteen takes of each and every scene.

The scene was shot in the hotel’s Lobby Lounge, which is located right next door to The Tap Room bar.

I, of course, just had to go back to the Lobby Lounge later that day to pose for a (rather blurry) picture in the spot where Annie sat in the scene.

After that scene was completed, the cast and crew moved out to the hotel’s Horseshoe Garden, which you can see some photographs of here, to set up another sequence. (The Bachelorette’s Ashley Hebert and J.P. Rosenbaum got married in the Horseshoe Garden last December, but that’s a different post for a different day.) By this point, my parents had arrived at the Langham and the three of us set up camp on the patio of The Tap Room, which overlooks the Garden, so that we could watch the filming – and drink champagne at the same time. Winking smile

My dad acted as my paparazzi the whole day and got some great shots of the crew setting up the scene.

As you can see below, it was quite an undertaking.

He also got some great shots of Shenae during a break (notice she’s carrying a Starbucks – we could so be besties! Winking smile );

getting her make-up put on;

rehearsing with Chris;

and actually acting out the scene.

The scene being filmed in the Horseshoe Garden area involved Patrick taking Annie to lunch . . . on a helicopter!

And while the location manager informed me that they had originally planned on landing an actual helicopter on the Horseshoe Garden lawn, the city of Pasadena objected (ya think?), so they ended up adding the chopper in digitally during post production.

In reality, the lawn was completely empty during the filming, although at one point they did bring in a tiny toy helicopter that I think may have been used in the screen capture below.

After that scene wrapped, the cast and crew moved into the hotel’s Huntington Ballroom (you can check out a photograph of it here) which had been dressed to look like an art museum for the shoot. By that point, my parents were rather tired, so we opted to head out to dinner rather than watch more of the filming. All in all, it was a FABULOUS day and a FABULOUS memory – one that I will never forget.

The scene that was filmed early in the day, before I arrived at the hotel, involved Annie showing up to Patrick’s room to tell him that she likes him. Patrick’s room was actually the Langham’s Ford Cottage Room 1550, which you can check out some 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: The Langham Huntington, aka Patrick’s hotel from “The Benefit of the Doubt” episode of 90210, is located at 1401 South Oak Knoll Avenue in Pasadena. You can visit the Langham’s official website here.

February 28, 2013February 27, 2013

54 Holly from “1600 Penn”

Way back in April of last year, my good friend Marci, owner of my very favorite gift shop, Lula Mae, texted me to let me know that something was being filmed at a vacant diner (that was once the site of an eatery named 54 Holly) located just down the street from her store. And while I was absolutely itching to get down there to watch the filming, at the time that I received Marci’s text I was all the way across town in Hollywood stalking a premiere with my girl, Miss Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog. When I was finally able to stalk the restaurant the following day, it had already been stripped and returned to its bare bones self, which is a shame because set decorators had apparently gone all out with their embellishment of the place. I did manage to snap some pics of the empty eatery, though, and from there set out to discover what exactly had been filmed on the premises.

[ad]

Because Marci had told me that all of the production trucks had Glee signs posted in their front windows, I emailed the pictures to my go-to Glee source, fellow stalker April, to ask her to watch out for 54 Holly in upcoming episodes. (Yes, I was at one time a diehard Gleek – then I met the cast and my fandom went right out the window. They are absolutely horrid. I have not seen a single episode since. You can read a great write-up on Mike the Fanboy about the early days of the show when the cast was nice here.) April scoured several episodes of the series for me during the time period that the restaurant would have appeared, but did not see it pop up anywhere. It was then that I took to cyberstalking and came across a post on fave website OnLocationVacations which stated that the filming at 54 Holly was actually for an episode of 1600 Penn. So I finally sat down to watch the series last night – and I have to say that I was not impressed. In fact, I am thankful that the diner appeared in the show’s pilot, which spared me from having to see more than one episode. Winking smile

54 Holly was originally founded by Ernie Tan and Irene Pan in 1984, which makes me so incredibly sad. I hate to see restaurants that have been around for decades close their doors, especially when the spaces that once housed them then sit empty for months or even years, which is exactly what happened in this case. Such a shame. Anyway, 54 Holly looks to have been shuttered sometime in early 2012 after almost thirty years in business, and the storefront has remained vacant ever since. While it was in operation, the eatery maintained a retro feel. The blogger Foodoofus visited 54 Holly back in September 2011 and spoke with Ernie who informed him that he kept the place looking like an old time coffee shop because, “It’s the ambiance that keeps people wanting to come back. The ambiance is first and the food is second.” Apparently he did want to make changes to the décor at one point in time, but his customers wouldn’t hear of it. You can see photographs of what the place used to look like here. Quite a few celebrities, including Dustin Hoffman and Elizabeth Hurley, had even been known to pop in from time to time.

The tiny, 1,053-square-foot property is currently still for lease at a rate of $2,632.50 per month. You can check out its LoopNet listing here. As you can see, almost all of the fixtures, including the tops of the stools, have been removed and the site is now pretty much just a skeleton of its former self – which made it perfect for filming as set dressers were given a blank slate with which to work.

54 Holly showed up at the very end of the pilot episode of 1600 Penn, which was titled “Putting Out Fires”, in the scene in which President Dale Gilchrist (Bill Pullman) took his family – Emily Nash Gilchrist (Jenna Elfman), Skip Gilchrist (Josh Gad), Becca Gilchrist (Martha MacIsaac), Marigold Gilchrist (Amara Miller), and Xander Gilchrist (Benjamin Stockham) – out for a “normal” dinner at a supposed Washington, D.C.-area pizza joint. Both the interior . . .

. . . and the exterior of the restaurant were shown in the episode.

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

Big THANK YOU to my good friend Marci, from Lula Mae, for telling me about this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The site of the former 54 Holly restaurant, from the pilot episode of 1600 Penn, is located at 54 East Holly Street in Old Town Pasadena.

February 4, 2013September 24, 2019

My Favorite Pasadena Places – Part II

As promised, today’s blog is a continuation of my top ten favorite places in Pasadena. If you missed the first installment, you can check it out here. And now, on with the post! (Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for taking the above photograph of Pasadena City Hall. I swear, that guy takes THE BEST pictures. I was just telling him the other night that if I ever get rich, I am hiring him to take photos for my site fulltime. I’ll do the writing and he can handle the pics. We’d so be unstoppable! Winking smile )

[ad]

6. Old Town Pasadena Historic District – If there’s one thing this stalker loves almost as much as stalking, it’s shopping. I absolutely hate being inside, though, so when I first moved to Pasadena and discovered Old Town’s historic shopping district, I thought I had died and gone to heaven.

Old Town Pasadena, which is comprised of blocks upon blocks of fabulous boutiques, restaurants and specialty stores (like The Soap Kitchen, which makes the best lip balm I have ever owned), features stunning architecture, spacious courtyards and lots and lots of brick. It is hands down my favorite place to shop in all of Southern California. And because I used to live about a mile from it, walking there daily provided me with my only form of exercise. See, shopping can be good for you! The area also has a bit of a celebrity twist. In the 1940s, Old Town Pasadena fell into serious disarray and became a haven for criminal and drug activity. Thankfully though, in the early ‘90s, the site’s potential was realized by several real estate developers and businessmen who set about revitalizing the district and wound up turning it into what is now one of L.A.’s most popular shopping and dining venues. One of the men who was involved in that revitalization was none other than producer Garry Marshall, although he ended up backing out after the project almost bankrupted him. He talks quite a bit about the venture in his fabulous book My Happy Days in Hollywood.

The area also sees quite a bit of filming. In fact, just the other day I learned that the Urban Outfitters in Old Town was featured in the 2004 movie National Treasure, in the scene in which Benjamin Franklin Gates (Nicolas Cage), Abigail Chase (Diane Kruger) and Riley Poole (Justin Bartha) go shopping for new clothes.

The center of Old Town Pasadena is located at 1 Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena. You can visit the district’s official website here.

7. The Starbucks at Lake & Green – Not the closest Starbucks to my former apartment, but my most-favorite one and easily the best in all of Pasadena. I would walk about a mile out of my way each day to visit this particular branch, that’s how much I love the place. At most Starbucks locations, the wait is atrocious and items are invariably out of stock – there is one in particular in the Pasadena area that shall remain unnamed (753 S. Arroyo Parkway) that is constantly out of whole milk and it drives me up the wall. This particular store, though, has GOT IT DOWN! I can honestly say that in the six years I frequented the place, I never had to wait longer than five minutes from the time I walked through the front door to the time I walked out, drink in hand. I love, love, love this Starbucks. The GC would often try to get me to stop at other Sbux outposts that happened to be on the way to wherever we were going on that particular day, and every single time he got his way and we ended up at another store, we would get stuck in some god-forsaken line and lose about ten minutes time. Men! I became such a regular at Lake & Green that when one of my favorite baristas, Eve, won Partner of the Quarter for her district, I was invited to the event, as were a few other customers. That’s just the way the Lake & Green store is. It is like the Cheers bar of Starbucks stores – where everybody knows your name. My favorite Starbucks is located at 82 South Lake Avenue in Pasadena.

8. Betty Nails & Spa – Anyone who lives in L.A. knows that most nail salons there are conveyor-belt type places that can be found on pretty much each and every street corner. Some are even downright skeevy. Not Betty Nails & Spa, though. As soon as I walked in for my first visit, I immediately felt comfortable and welcomed. The place was clean and laid-back, the stylists friendly and the prices extremely reasonable. What I liked best, though, was the fact that the manicurist took her time. In all of my visits there, I never felt like they were trying to rush through the process to move on to the next customer. They also never tried to upsell me. Quite the contrary, actually – the first time I asked for a callus removal (Cat, from the Pasadena Blo-Out Lounge, had told me how fabulous callus removals are and she was right!), I was told that I really did not need one. The best part about Betty’s manicures and pedicures, though, are the massages. Sigh! After I discovered Betty’s and became a regular, I recommended the place to my mom and she subsequently became a regular, too. When she moved to desert, she would often lament to me that she could not find a nail salon that she liked nearly as much that didn’t cost an arm and a leg – which doesn’t bode well for me now that I live there, as well. Needless to say, my nails – and hair – will be suffering due to my move. Sad smile Betty Nails & Spa is located at 766 East Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena.

9. El Portal – Our favorite Pasadena-area Mexican eatery. El Portal is a family-owned and operated place that specializes in Yucatan cuisine and has been awarded Pasadena Weekly’s “Best Mexican Restaurant” more times than I can count. The Grim Cheaper has long been addicted to their shredded beef tacos and while I typically do not have a hard time sticking to my carb-free diabetic-friendly diet when dining out, whenever I am at El Portal I canNOT resist their cheese quesadillas! They are like my kryptonite. I do not know how one can make a quesadilla stand out from others (I mean, aren’t they just tortillas and cheese?), but no other quesadilla that I have ever sampled even compares to the ones at El Portal. They are that good! El Portal’s champagne, unfortunately, wasn’t, though. The restaurant used to serve a very sweet brand of sparking wine that I was not at all a fan of, so one day I decided to ask El Portal’s owner, Abel Ramirez, if he would ever consider stocking a different variety. I mentioned that the rather inexpensive Freixenet brand was one of my favorites (my best friend actually calls me “The Freixenet Girl”) and the very next week when we sat down at the bar, our favorite bartender popped a Freixenet split down in front of me! How incredible is that? I just about fell over I was so excited. The bartender also later told us that the restaurant has been selling quite a bit more champagne now since they made the switch, which I was over the moon about. For the best quesadillas in the world, head to El Portal, which is located at 695 East Green Street, inside of Arcade Lane, in Pasadena. You can visit the restaurant’s website here.

10. Our Former Loft – The GC and I have both long been obsessed with New York loft-style architecture, so when we toured the one pictured below while looking for our first apartment together in 2008, we signed the lease immediately. We absolutely LOVED living in what we took to calling “our perfect little loft”, despite the fact that it was only 750 square feet. And while we did end up desperately needing more space as the years went on, it was truly heartbreaking to leave the place and not a day goes by that I don’t miss it.

Especially the floor-to-ceiling brick wall.

One thing I will NOT miss about our loft, though, is the tiny closet, which I actually had to split with the GC! For a hyper-organized clotheshorse like myself, sharing such a small closet was miserable.

As you can see, because the closet was so small and because I have so many clothes, the result was a rather disorganized storage system, which was enough to drive the Monica Geller in me crazy on a daily basis. I get an eye twitch just looking at the pictures below. Winking smile

So when we decided to move to the desert, I stole a line from Carrie Bradshaw and told the GC, “Just get me a really big closet!” Which he did, and which my dad, who is quite the craftsman (he constructed the bookshelves, ladder and butcher block pictured in the above photographs of our loft), custom-built for me. The original closet, as it came with our new apartment, is pictured below.

I asked my dad to base the design on Emily Schuman’s closet (from fave website Cupcakes and Cashmere), which you can take a look at here. The result is pictured below and, while it is still not completely finished, I could NOT be happier with it. I feel like I’ve died and gone to closet heaven! I keep calling it my Barbie Dream Closet and literally can’t get enough of it. I think it is safe to say that I will be spending the vast majority of my time in there, just gazing around in awe. Smile

Although two of my very favorite area locales, I purposely left The Huntington Library and the Walsh house from Beverly Hills, 90210 out of this post because both are featured quite prominently on My L.A. Must-Stalk List, which you can read 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

October 26, 2012September 29, 2017

Rebecca’s House from “The Roommate”

One location that I have been on the lookout for for over a year now is the mansion where Rebecca Evans (Leighton Meester) lived in the 2011 flick The Roommate. And I should mention here that while I did not particularly like the Single White Female-esque thriller, because my main man, cutie Matt Lanter, had a role in it (albeit an extremely small one), I purchased it as soon as it came out on DVD and became just a wee bit obsessed with tracking down its locales. The location I was most interested in finding, of course, was the ginormous mansion where Rebecca grew up. Because Kaldi Coffee & Tea in South Pasadena (which I blogged about way back in February 2012) was featured in the flick, I figured that Rebecca’s residence would most likely be located in the same vicinity. Try as I might, though, I just could not seem to find it. Then, last week, while driving to the Rose Bowl Flea Market, the Grim Cheaper and I passed by a house that I thought might be the right one (as it turns out, it wasn’t). It was not until I popped in my The Roommate DVD later that afternoon to check, though, that I realized what a complete and total blonde I am!

[ad]

Somehow, the first time I watched The Roommate, I missed the glaringly obvious address placard reading “1234 S Oak Knoll Ave” that was visible on the front gate of Rebecca’s house. So, upon noticing it while watching the flick last weekend (and after a few minutes of feeling like an absolute dolt!), I did a Google search for “1234 South Oak Knoll Avenue” and “Pasadena” and, lo and behold, it was the right spot! How in the heck I missed that sign the first time around, I will never know! Anyway, once I had the address, I dragged the GC right on out to stalk the place.

In real life, the property is known as Le Petit Trianon, after Marie Antoinette’s onetime Palace of Versailles residence of the same name, on which the design was based. The estate was originally constructed in 1916 by architect Louis du Puget Millar. It boasts 6 bedrooms, 7 baths, a whopping 13,000 square feet of living space, a recording studio (with its own pub!), a gym, a guest house, a gardener/tool room, a 0.98-acre plot of land, a carport, and a five-car garage. One of the residence’s early owners was Robert Woolsey, of the Wheeler & Woolsey comedy team, who reportedly threw lavish Hollywood parties on the premises. Sadly though, as you can see below, not much of the mansion is visible from the street.

The abode appears a few times in The Roommate, during the portion of the movie in which Rebecca takes her new college roommate, Sara Matthews (Minka Kelly), to her childhood home for Thanksgiving weekend. The film’s production notes state, “One of the most striking locations used in the film is a historic house in Pasadena, which served as Rebecca’s parents’ home. Built in 1916, the house is an exact replica of Marie Antoinette’s Versailles getaway, Le Petit Trianon. Everything in the house is original from the doorknobs to the chandeliers. Its ballroom, a popular setting for fundraisers, is decked out with moldings of 14- and 17-karat gold. Over the decades, guests have ranged from silent film legend Charlie Chaplin to the Cardinal Roger Mahony, Archbishop of Los Angeles. Now owned by Letty Isberra, the house has become a local landmark. The Isberra family is so proud of their home’s unusual provenance, they travelled to Versailles to visit its inspiration and had themselves photographed in front of the original. ‘Then we came home and took a picture in front of our house with the same clothes,’ says Isberra. ‘We had both pictures framed and we display them side by side. You can’t tell the difference.’” SO INCREDIBLY COOL!

And while I was bummed at the fact that virtually none of the residence was visible from the street, I was pretty floored to see that address placard in person.

The real life interior of the mansion, which you can check out some pictures of here, was also used in the filming. The areas of the house which appeared in the flick include the entryway (which you can see an actual photograph of here);

a bedroom (which you can see a photograph of here)

the stairway (which you can see a photograph of here);

the living room (which you can see a photograph of here and which stood in for a dining room in the flick);

and the kitchen (which you can see a photograph of here).

Thanks to fave website OnLocationVacations, I learned that the same mansion was also featured in the Season 1 episode of GCB titled “Sex is Divine” as the residence that Burl Lourd (Bruce Boxleitner) considered buying for Gigi Stopper (Annie Potts).

Only the interior was used though. As you can see below, for the exterior of the house, a different property was featured.

Also thanks to OnLocationVacations, I learned that the pilot episode of Devious Maids, which is not set to air until 2013, was filmed at the residence. (I got the screen captures below from a promo for the show.)

And, fellow stalker Ashley, of The Drewseum website, informed me that the interior of the property was used as the wedding venue in the Season 6 episode of CSI titled “Rashomama”. Interestingly enough, the exterior of the mansion that appeared in that episode was the mansion from The Beverly Hillbillies movie, which I blogged about back in January.

Ironically enough, just two doors down from The Roommate mansion is a house that I am very familiar with. In fact, I make a point of stalking the place each and every October.

As you can see below, the house is an absolute Halloween masterpiece! I so wish I was still young enough to go trick-or-treating as I would love to knock on that door on Halloween! Anyone have a couple of kids I can borrow on the 31st? Winking smile

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: Rebecca’s house from The Roommate is located at 1234 South Oak Knoll Avenue in Pasadena. The mansion with the fabulous Halloween decorations is located just two doors south at 1254 South Oak Knoll Avenue.

October 2, 2012September 29, 2017

The Blankenhorn Lamphear House from “Teaching Mrs. Tingle”

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post (which you can read here), I recently went on a trek to find all of the locations used in the 1999 thriller Teaching Mrs. Tingle. The locale I was most interested in tracking down, of course, was the huge Victorian manse belonging to the movie’s titular character, who was played by Helen Mirren. Once I learned from the flick’s production notes that the residence was located in the Pasadena area, I figured that, thanks to its fabulous façade, it would most likely be chronicled in the architectural section of Hometown Pasadena. So I immediately started scanning through the tome and fairly quickly came across a blurb about a property named the Blankenhorn Lamphear house which said, “This house is one of Pasadena’s finest examples of the Queen Anne style, the most romantic and fanciful of the Victorian era’s architectural idioms.” I quickly punched the address provided into Google Street View and, sure enough, the Blankenhorn Lamphear house and Mrs. Tingle’s abode were one and the same! So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the place just a few minutes later.

[ad]

The Blankenhorn Lamphear house was originally constructed in 1893 by the Bradbeer and Ferris architecture firm. It was commissioned by a wealthy railroad executive named David F. Blankenhorn. David’s son, David F. Blankenhorn Jr., who was born on the premises, grew up to become a very successful real estate mogul – it was he who handled William Wrigley Jr.’s purchase of Catalina Island in 1919. The Blankenhorns later sold the property to a Mr. and Mrs. John Lamphear, who lived there for many years with their three children. The property changed hands once again in 1994 when the Lamphear estate sold it to its current owner for $425,000.

As you can see below, the 6-bedroom, 2-bath, 3,017-square-foot home, which sits on 0.31 acres, is absolutely spectacular in person.

In Teaching Mrs. Tingle, high school students Leigh Ann Watson (Katie Holmes), Luke Churner (Barry Watson) and Jo Lynn Jordan (Marisa Coughlan – in an AMAZING performance) pay a late night visit to the home of their mean-spirited English teacher, Mrs. Tingle, in order to clear up a misunderstanding. Things don’t go quite according to plan, though, and the three wind up holding Mrs. Tingle hostage inside of the abode for a few days.

A large gate and a massive amount of foliage were added to the residence for the filming, so it looks quite a bit different (and a lot less spooky) in person than it did onscreen.

And while the Teaching Mrs. Tingle production notes state, “The filmmakers chose for Mrs. Tingle an elegant Victorian house in Pasadena, split by a mysterious spiral staircase – a layout that matches the constant shifts and turns of plot and ups and downs of the fate of Leigh Ann Watson and Mrs. Tingle”, because the majority of the movie’s action took place inside of the home, I do not believe that the real life interior was used in the flick. Unfortunately, I was not able to find any interior photographs of the property with which to verify that hunch, though.

Fellow stalker Anthony informed me that the very same house was also used as the residence where Helen North Beardsley (Lucille Ball) and Frank Beardsley (Henry Fonda) lived with their eighteen (!) children in the 1968 flick Yours, Mine and Ours. As you can see below, the façade of the house has not changed much since that time.

The home’s real life address number of “346” was even visible in the background of a few scenes. Love it!

According to a 1974 Pasadena Star News article, only the exterior of the Blankenhorn Lamphear house was used in the flick. The interior of the Beardsley home was a set built inside of a soundstage somewhere in Hollywood. As you can see below, it does not match the interior of Mrs. Tingle’s house in the slightest.

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: The Blankenhorn Lamphear house, aka Mrs. Tingle’s home from Teaching Mrs. Tingle, is located at 346 Markham Place in Pasadena. The Daddy Day Care house is located right around the corner at 351 Congress Place.

October 1, 2012September 29, 2017

Coach Wenchell’s House from “Teaching Mrs. Tingle”

It’s that time again, my fellow stalkers! October 1st – the beginning of my Haunted Hollywood postings. And I could not be more excited! So without further ado . . . let’s get started! A couple of months ago, I stopped by my good friend Marci’s boyfriend’s house to pick up something she had left for me there. (Marci just so happens to be the owner of one of my favorite places in the entire world – Lula Mae gift shop at 100 North Fair Oaks Avenue in Pasadena. If you are in the area, I cannot more highly recommend stopping by. I love the place so much, I practically hang out there. It’s where I go whenever I need a gift, or am in a bad mood, or am suffering from writer’s block. The store manages to cure all of my ails! But I digress.) While I was there, Marci’s bf and I got to talking about filming locations (imagine that!) and he mentioned that the 1999 thriller Teaching Mrs. Tingle had been filmed at a residence near where he used to live on Atchison Street in Pasadena. Well, let me tell you, I just about fell over upon hearing the news as I had long been under the assumption that the flick had been lensed in North Carolina. So I ran right out to purchase the DVD and immediately started trying to track down all of its locales. Thanks to some big help from the usual suspects (fellow stalkers Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog), I managed to find quite a few of them. So I figured what better way to kick off my Haunted Hollywood month than by posting about the house that started my Teaching Mrs. Tingle obsession.

[ad]

As it turns out, the house on Atchison Street stood in for the residence where Coach Wenchell (Jeffrey Tambor) lived in Teaching Mrs. Tingle. It popped up only once in the movie, in the scene in which Leigh Ann Watson (Katie Holmes) and Luke Churner (Barry Watson) drove the passed-out (and married!) Coach back to his home after he stopped by Mrs. Tingle’s (Helen Mirren) pad for a booty call. And I should mention here that while I was not really a fan of Teaching Mrs. Tingle, this stalker absolutely LOVES LOVES LOVES herself some Katie Holmes, which is why I became so obsessed with tracking down locales from the flick.

After they arrive at his house, Leigh Ann and Luke dump the Coach onto his front porch and then Leigh Ann, sadly, spots the Coach’s wife sitting inside reading by herself. Only a very tight shot of the home and its front porch area was shown in the flick.

It was such a tight shot, in fact, that I had a hard time pinpointing the exact house that appeared in the movie. (Marci’s boyfriend had only told me that the residence was located on the 1100 block of Atchison). It was not until I spotted two very distinct trees in the background, located in front of a neighboring residence, that I was able to figure it out.

In real life, Coach Wenchell’s house, which was originally built in 1926, boasts two bedrooms, two baths, 2,112 square feet of living space, and a 0.33-acre plot of land. As you can see below, it is an absolutely adorable little house and I am really surprised that more of it was not shown onscreen.

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. (I made the photograph below using some SERIOUSLY COOL Halloween filters, fonts and graphics that were just added to my favorite photo editing program PicMonkey.)

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Coach Wenchell’s house from Teaching Mrs. Tingle is located at 1101 Atchison Street in Pasadena. Westminster Presbyterian Church, where Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag got married, is located just around the corner at 1757 North Lake Avenue.

May 16, 2012May 15, 2012

“The Big Bang Theory” Rooftop – Where Howard and Bernadette Got Married

This past Monday evening, the Grim Cheaper and I sat down to catch up on a slew of television episodes that we had backlogged over the past week, one of which was The Big Bang Theory’s “The Countdown Reflection”. In the episode, which has to be one of the cutest of the entire series, Howard Wolowitz (Simon Helberg) and longtime girlfriend, Bernadette Rostenkowski (Melissa Rauch), finally tie the knot on the rooftop of the building where Leonard Hofstadter (Johnny Galecki) and Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons) live. Well, as you can imagine, as soon as I finished watching the wedding scene, I became just a wee-bit obsessed with tracking down that rooftop. I was fairly certain that it was located somewhere in Pasadena as the Big Bang gang supposedly lives in the City of Roses and area locations appear regularly on the show. Heck, even my building was filmed once for the background of a driving scene back in 2010, although I was never able to spot it in an episode. And while Leonard and Sheldon’s address has been referred to a few times as 2311 North Los Robles Avenue, in actuality that location does not exist as Los Robles ends at the 2200 block. So thinking I would need some help with this one, I immediately texted fellow stalker Owen, from the When Write is Wrong blog, to ask for his assistance. And imagine my surprise when, at 7:30 yesterday morning, I received a text back from him with an address! Yay! When I asked how he had found the rooftop so fast, he replied, “Sheldon isn’t the only smart guy around.” Winking smile

[ad]

As it turns out, one quick Google search had led Owen to the YouTube video posted below, which pinpointed the rooftop’s exact location. So, as soon as I received Owen’s text, I headed right on over there to stalk the place, after first hitting up a Starbucks, of course.

“The Big Bang Theory” Rooftop from “The Countdown Reflection” Episode

In “The Countdown Reflection”, Bernadette decides she wants to marry Howard before he takes off on his venture into space, so the two go down to the local courthouse and attempt to have a quickie ceremony. When those plans fall through, Raj Koothrappali (Kunal Nayyar) suggests that they hold their wedding on Leonard and Sheldon’s rooftop that upcoming Sunday, when the Google Earth satellite will be overhead. All five of Howard and Bernadette’s closest friends – Raj, Leonard, Sheldon, Penny (Kaley Cuoco), and Amy Farrah Fowler (Mayim Bialik) – quickly ordain themselves as ministers and, in a tear-inducing moment, perform the ceremony together.

After Howard and Bernadette seal their union with a kiss, the camera pulls away from the group and we see that Raj, who in the episode said, “If I wasn’t an astrophysicist, I would have been a party planner!”, has decorated the rooftop with a heart and arrow made out of silk. SO DARN CUTE! I literally got goose bumps when I saw it!

As the camera pulls farther away, we are given an aerial view of Leonard and Sheldon’s building and the surrounding area. And while The Big Bang rooftop and the structure located directly below it do not match up to what appeared onscreen (thanks to some CGI magic), the rest of the surrounding buildings do, as you can see below. And while Owen suggested that I rent a plane to get some actual photographs of the rooftop, until I have the means to do so, Google aerial images will have to do. Winking smile

I did manage to snap some actual photographs of the front of the building, though. Interestingly enough, while doing research for today’s post, I happened to come across a Big Bang Theory forum in which member “jcc551f9n” states that he or she is fairly certain that the interior of Leonard and Sheldon’s building was based on the Brookmore Apartments located at 189 North Marengo Avenue in Pasadena. Jcc551f9n says, “I lived in the building for two years and the inside looks like the exact replica of The Big Bang Theory apartments. Exposed brick, stairwell looping around the elevator, very similar front doors as the show. And the Brookmore Apartments elevator was always broken. Even the laundry room looks the same. A number of Caltech and JPL physicists live there as well as more than one aspiring actress.” Another commenter named “ottonomy” replied to jcc551f9n’s post stating that he or she also thought the Brookmore was the inspiration for the Big Bang apartment set. He or she says, “Hmm… The Brookmore Apartments were one of the first places I considered, when trying to guess where the apartment might be. You’re spot on about the stairs and elevator. I remember delivering pizzas there in the eighties. It was run down, and the halls were lined with addicts, prostitutes, and their dealers and pimps. The renaissance of Old Pasadena had changed it by the late nineties, when I started working as a locksmith and made frequent appearances there to open locked doors for people who were better at rocket science than at keeping track of their keys. It’s amazing how much the place has improved, though the elevator was indeed not working when last I was there.” So interesting! I stopped by the Brookmore yesterday to try to sneak a peak at the elevator area through the front door, but unfortunately it was not visible. What I wouldn’t give to see the inside of that building, though!

On a The Big Bang Theory side-note – I am just a wee-bit obsessed with series star Kaley Cuoco’s recent in-flight photo shoot for CBS Watch Magazine (which is like the best magazine, ever, by the way – if you do not already have a subscription, I highly recommend getting one). The shoot, which took place during an actual flight, intrigued me for two reasons – one because I am absolutely petrified of flying and am astounded that the crew was able to pull off an entire photo shoot while aboard a 777 jet en route from New York to London.

And two, because I absolutely fell in love with Kaley’s Louis Vuitton clutch, which I am fairly certain is vintage, being that I cannot find it anywhere on the LV website. Love it, love it, love it! Why this stalker’s eye is immediately drawn to anything in that classic, brown LV pattern, I will never know, but it is – like a magnet! Oh, Grim Cheaper, are you listening? My birthday is coming up! Winking smile

Be sure to “Like” IAMNOTASTALKER on Facebook here and “Friend” me on my personal page here. You can also check out the IAMNOTASTALKER About Me page here. And you can follow me on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, for finding this location! Smile

Stalk It: Leonard and Sheldon’s rooftop from The Big Bang Theory is located at 215 South Madison Avenue in Pasadena.