Pasadena filming locations – Page 4

July 12, 2010July 22, 2010

David Wallace’s House from “The Office”

Fellow stalker Owen and I recently set out upon a mission to try to track down the Colonial-style residence belonging to David Wallace in the Season 3 episode of The Office titled “Branch Closing”. This proved to be a rather difficult find for us, though, being that we had virtually nothing to go on – no house number or street sign was visible in the background of the episode and neither Owen nor I had any idea of which city the house might be located in. We figured that unless we were able to get ahold of a crew member and gather some inside information, we would never be able to track the place down. That is until last week, when I stumbled upon this fabulous filming locations database, which, lo and behold, had photographs of the exact property which we were looking for! And not only did the database state that the house was located in Pasadena, but it also gave us an address number – 1485. YAY! I immediately emailed the link to Owen and the two of us set about using Google Maps to search every 1400 block in the Pasadena area. Three minutes later I got a text from Owen with the address. And while he says that this one was a team effort, my hat is definitely off to him because there is absolutely NO WAY I ever would have found the place as quickly as he did. So, THANK YOU, OWEN! 🙂

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In the “Branch Closing” episode of The Office, Michael Scott (aka Steve Carell) and Dwight Schrute (aka Rainn Wilson) come up with a plan to save the Dunder Mifflin Paper Company’s Scranton branch by driving to New York to make a personal face-to-face plea to CFO David Wallace (aka Andy Buckley) at his home, the address of which Dwight has stolen off of the company Christmas card list. Because Wallace is not at home when they show up to confront him “Michael Moore-style”, they are forced to wait outside on the sidewalk all day and into the night with only a bottle of Gatorade to sustain them. And while Dwight and Michael never end up getting the chance to confront Wallace in the episode, the Scranton Branch does eventually get spared from closure.

I am VERY happy to report that the Wallace residence looks much the same in person as it did onscreen. In fact, the only difference I noticed was that the bronze eagle that was affixed to the round portico above the front door in the episode was not there in real life. Otherwise, though, the house looks exactly as it did on the show. Love it!

As you can see in the above screen capture and photograph, producers even went so far as to have the house’s real life “San Marino Security” sign covered over with a “Mount Vernon Security” sign for the filming, which is so darn cool!

And, of course, I just had to sit in the spot where Dwight and Michael were sitting at the end of the episode. 🙂

On a side note – for whatever reason, in the episode of The Office titled “Cocktails”, which aired during the very same season as the “Branch Closing” episode, a similar-looking, but obviously very different, home stood in for the Wallace residence. Have no fear, though, Owen also found that property, so I will be stalking it soon!

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: David Wallace’s house from the “Branch Closing” episode of The Office is located at 1485 Lomita Drive in Pasadena.

July 8, 2010July 7, 2010

On the Set of “Mad Men”

This past Tuesday, I received an email from one of my fellow stalkers alerting me to the fact that the hit AMC television series Mad Men was going to be shooting on location in Pasadena the following day at Don and Betty Draper’s house, which I blogged about last June. And even though I don’t really watch the show, I just had to venture out to stalk the set – with my camera in hand, of course! 🙂 Unfortunately though, not a whole lot was going on while I was there and the filming only lasted a few short hours. The scene being shot was a very short little driving scene involving actor Jon Hamm, who plays advertising executive Don Draper on the show. And sadly, the crew, while nice, made it very clear that they did NOT want photographs being taken of anything – the set, the filming, the actors, etc., etc., etc. And while I was in no way going to let that stop me ;), the only pictures I could take were on the down low, so I didn’t get very many good ones. I did manage to snap the above photograph of Jon as he was leaving the set after shooting had wrapped, though, and let me tell you, I was completely floored about that! 🙂

Jon seemed super friendly and waved to me and another stalker who I was hanging out with from his van as he was being driven away from the set. I so would have LOVED to have gotten a photograph with him, but unfortunately he was shuttled away from the premises rather quickly as he was due in Downtown L.A., where more Mad Men filming was taking place.

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After Jon Hamm was driven away, I stuck around for a bit to watch the crew members strike the set, a process which I find incredibly interesting. I always love to see what aspects of a property are changed for a filming and which are left the same. One altered aspect of the Draper house that I knew about prior to my set visit yesterday was the color of their front door. As you can see in the above photograph, which I took when I stalked the property last June, in real life the home’s front door is painted blue.

But on the show, the Draper’s front door is painted a bright red color, and, let me tell you, when I set out to stalk the set yesterday, I was most excited over the prospect of seeing that red door in person – even more so than I was about the prospect of seeing Jon Hamm. 😉 And I was even more excited when I was able to snap the above photograph of it! YAY! I found out from a crew member that the home’s real life front door is actually painted red each and every time they film at the property! I had mistakenly assumed that set dressers had a special door that they installed during each filming, but in reality, someone is actually brought in the day before shooting to paint the real life door red and then, after shooting wraps, he or she paints it back to its original blue color . . . every single time they film! Isn’t that incredible? I mean, I realize doors are expensive and all, but it seems to me that it would be a whole lot more cost effective and a whole lot more timely to simply switch out the real door for a red one. Not to mention the fact that there now must be over a dozen layers of paint on that door! I swear, I’ll never understand Hollywood sometimes!

Set dressers also install a fake light post (which you can see laying on the ground in the above photograph) each time filming takes place, which was incredible to see. They actually dig up a part of the home’s front lawn in order to bury the base of the light each and every time they film! With all the filming that takes place at the property that poor lawn probably never has time to grow back! They also bring in a slew of potted plants (which you can also see in the above photograph) which are placed on the front porch for each filming.

The coolest thing for me to see, though, was the fake street sign that was put up for the scene. The signs above which read “Shady Lane” and “Bullet Park Road” normally spell out “El Molino Avenue” and “Arden Road”. So darn cool! According to one of the crew members I talked to, the fake sign was so realistic that it caused a bit of confusion for a passerby who was driving around, trying unsuccessfully to find Arden Road. LOL

Set dressers also covered up the above-pictured stop sign with a fake 50’s style stop sign, but unfortunately I didn’t get a photograph of it. In fact, I didn’t even notice it was a fake sign until one of the set dressers removed it after filming had wrapped. I SO wish I had gotten a picture of it! UGH! I am SO blonde sometimes.

Ironically enough, my fiancé and I were watching the 1995 movie Outbreak a couple of weeks ago and I was floored to discover that the house belonging to Robby Keough (aka Rene Russo) in the flick was none other than the Mad Men house! So cool! You can see some great interior photographs of the home here. And, according to one of the crew members I talked to, some Mad Men filming does actually take place inside of the home.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Don and Betty Draper’s house from Mad Men is located at 675 Arden Road in Pasadena.

June 15, 2010January 17, 2012

Amanda’s House from “The Holiday”

I thought I’d mix it up a bit today by forgoing blogging about one of the many Pacific Northwest locations that I stalked while in Vancouver and Seattle two weeks ago, in order to write about a residence that can be found right here in the San Gabriel Valley – the mansion which belonged to Amanda (aka Cameron Diaz) in the 2006 romantic comedy The Holiday. I found this location thanks to fellow stalker Nick, who had done some research on the subject and had managed to discern that the home featured in the movie was located somewhere in San Marino and had been designed in 1928 by legendary Los Angeles architect Wallace Neff. According to Nick, Neff, along with his family, had even lived in the property at one point during the 1930’s. So, I immediately headed over to my friend, and fellow stalker, E.J.’s website – The Movieland Directory – which has an entire page dedicated to Wallace Neff-designed homes in the L.A. area. The Movieland Directory listed a total of three San Marino residences that the famed architect had once called home. Because I had never seen The Holiday, I sent all three addresses to Nick to see if one of them was the mansion featured in the movie and, sure enough, one was! YAY! So, I immediately ran right out to stalk it and, then yesterday, finally sat down to watch The Holiday for the first time. And I have to say that I absolutely LOVED it!!! I have NO idea how I missed it when it first came out four years ago. But I digress.

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In person, The Holiday mansion is absolutely beautiful and absolutely humongous! The Tuscan-style villa boasts 9 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms, and a whopping 10,324 square feet of living space!

The residence pops up quite a few times in The Holiday, especially the front entrance and second story balcony areas.

And while, for the most part, the mansion looks much the same as it did in the movie, there have been quite a few changes, including the front gate, which is now wrought-iron instead of wood . . .

. . . the front door which is now recessed . . .

. . . and the driveway area, to which a fountain had since been added.

And while I was fairly certain that the real life interior of the mansion had been used in the filming, according to IMDB’s trivia page for The Holiday, all of the interiors of the house were actually just sets that had been built on a soundstage and had cost a whopping $1 million to construct!

But as you can see in the above screen captures and aerial view, the home’s real life backyard and pool were actually used in the flick.

On a side note – Sadly, the picturesque English cottage which belonged to Iris (aka Kate Winslet) in The Holiday does not actually exist in real life. Both the interiors and the exteriors of the adorable little home were built solely for the filming of the movie. You can see photographs of the construction of Iris’ cottage on fave website Hooked on Houses here.

Big THANK YOU to Nick for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Cameron Diaz’s mansion from The Holiday is located at 1883 Orlando Road in San Marino.

April 28, 2010April 27, 2010

Viola’s Mansion from “Monster-in-Law”

The second Monster-in-Law location that I set my sights on tracking down this past weekend was the gargantuan mansion owned by Viola Fields (aka Jane Fonda) in the flick. Once again, fellow stalker Nick had done most of the legwork on this one by discerning that the house was located in Pasadena and had been built in 1927 by famed Los Angeles-area architect Wallace Neff, the very same man who was responsible for designing King Gillette Ranch (aka the Biggest Loser Ranch) and the dwelling where Brad and Jen lived during most of their five year marriage. But even though Nick had provided me with that wealth of information, for some reason, I had a very difficult time finding this particular residence. As fate would have it, not only did Wallace Neff design quite a few homes in the Pasadena area, but the vast majority of them were Mediterranean in style and extremely similar in appearance to the Monster-in-Law mansion. So, I once again headed over to fave bookstore Vroman’s with the hope that it could provide me with some Wallace Neff insight. And, sure enough, it did! As was the case with Kevin’s house from Monster-in-Law, which I blogged about yesterday, Viola’s mansion was chronicled in the very first book in which I looked – Wallace Neff: Architect of California’s Golden Age.

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In real life, the Monster-in-Law mansion is known as the “George O. Noble House” and, as I mentioned above, it was designed by Wallace Neff in 1927. The Spanish Revival-style abode boasts six bedrooms, five bathrooms, and a whopping 8,971 square feet of living space. And, while it once sat on over three acres of land, much of the parcel was subdivided in later years and the property currently encompasses “only” 1.2 acres. Sadly, though, not much of the residence is visible from the street.

But, as I’ve said before, that’s why God created aerial maps! 😉 As you can see in the above image, the George O. Noble House is not only stunning, but absolutely ginormous!

The mansion was featured quite a few times in Monster-in-Law . . .

. . . most notably in the scene in which Charlie Cantilini (aka Jennifer Lopez) and Kevin Fields (aka Michael Vartan) get married.

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And, thanks to a photograph provided in the book Architectural Realism, you can see that the mansion’s real life interior was also used in the flick.

The George O. Noble House also appeared in the 2009 horror flick Drag Me to Hell as the residence belonging to Clay Dalton’s (aka Justin Long’s) parents. And, as was the case with Monster-in-Law, the real life interior of the residence was also used in the movie.

A few other Monster-in-Law locations can also be found in the Pasadena area, including the Ross House, which I blogged about yesterday, and the Bundy House, aka the Governor’s mansion from Benson, which was used as the home of one of Charlie’s dog walking employers (pictured above). And, yes, I did also find Charlie’s apartment building from Monster-in-Law. Tune in tomorrow for that location. 🙂

Big THANK YOU to Nick for helping me find this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The George O. Noble house, aka Viola’s mansion from Monster-in-Law, is located at 675 Burleigh Drive in Pasadena. The Governor’s Mansion from Benson is located at 1365 South Oakland Avenue in Pasadena.

April 27, 2010April 27, 2010

Charlie and Kevin’s House from “Monster-in-Law”

A couple of weeks ago, fellow stalker Nick challenged me to track down all of the residences used in the 2005 romantic comedy Monster-in-Law, including Charlie Cantilini’s (aka Jennifer Lopez’s) Mediterranean-style apartment building, Kevin Fields’ (aka Michael Vartan’s) Craftsman house, and Viola Fields’ (aka Jane Fonda’s) opulent mansion. Nick had already done most of the heavy lifting for this particular hunt by narrowing down the cities in which each of the dwellings was located. All that was left for me to do was pinpoint the exact address of each location. So, this past Saturday night, my fiancé and I finally sat down to watch Monster-in-Law for the first time. I didn’t actually expect to like the movie, but I have to say that I was very pleasantly surprised – it’s a really cute flick! Anyway, the first house I set my sights on finding was the large Craftsman bungalow where Kevin, and later Charlie, lived in the movie. Nick had ascertained that this particular house was located somewhere in Pasadena and I had a hunch that, due to its stunning Craftsman-style architecture, it was most likely a famous residence. So, on Sunday morning, I headed over to fave bookstore, Vroman’s, to take a peek at some Pasadena area architectural guidebooks and, sure enough, I found the Monster-in-Law house in the very first one in which I looked. Yay!

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In real life, the Monster-in-Law house is known as the Ross House and it was designed in 1911 by Alfred and Arthur Heineman, the same architectural team who was responsible for giving us Dylan’s house from Beverly Hills, 90210 and the Eppes house from the television series Numb3rs. The Heineman brothers built the residence, which features Craftsman, Asian, and Neo-Classical design elements, for a rancher named Winslow Ross at a cost of $8,000. The house, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, boasts Batchelder tile work, a hand-painted mural, four bedrooms, three bathrooms, and a whopping 4,657 square feet of living space. And, let me tell you, it is absolutely beautiful in person!

The exterior of the Ross House showed up numerous times in Monster-in-Law.

As did the home’s large front porch.

But, according to the behind-the-scenes information featured in the movie’s DVD extras, the interiors were not filmed on location at the residence, but on a soundstage at Culver Studios in Culver City. As you can see in these photographs of the real life house, the actual interior doesn’t much look like its onscreen counterpart, which is pictured above. You can check out a more in-depth view of the set where filming took place on fave website Hooked On Houses.

While watching Monster-in-Law on Saturday night, I spotted an unusual-looking street sign in the background behind Jane Fonda in a scene that had been filmed in front of the house. I was hoping it would give me some sort of clue as to the residence’s exact location, but, try as I might, I could not for the life of me make out what the sign said. As it turned out, I didn’t end up needing the sign to find the house, but when I stalked the place on Sunday, I was absolutely dying to see that sign in person and of course, just had to take a picture with it. 🙂

Big THANK YOU to Nick for helping me find this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Ross House, aka Charlie and Kevin’s house from Monster-in-Law, is located at 674 Elliott Drive in Pasadena.

April 6, 2010May 12, 2010

Wayne Manor From the “Batman” Television Series

Just up the street from the Just Married mansion which I blogged about yesterday is the residence which stood in for Wayne Manor, aka Batman’s abode, in the 1966 television series and movie of the same name. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, the Batman mansion and the Just Married mansion are quite often mistaken for each other due to a myriad of reasons. So, to set the record straight – and since we already were in the area a couple of weeks ago doing some Just Married stalking- I decided to drag my fiancé a few hundreds yards up the road to also stalk Bruce Wayne’s pad. Sadly, though, not very much of it is visible from the street.

According to Zillow, the residence, which was built in 1928, boasts ten bedrooms, six bathrooms, a whopping 16,599 square feet of living space, and sits on over five acres of land! And if you look at the above photographs, it is very easy to see why the property is often confused with the Just Married mansion that burned down in October of 2005. Not only are both houses gargantuan, set far back from the road, and Tudor/Gothic Revival in style, but both were constructed almost entirely out of brick by the very same architect, Paul Revere Williams, and bear a striking resemblance to each other. Further adding to the confusion between the properties is the fact that they are located within blocks of each other on the very same street, San Rafael Avenue, in Pasadena and have both been featured in countless productions over the years.

Because the location rumors about the two mansions have been running rampant for so very long, this weekend I decided to try to get my hands on as many of the productions filmed on the premises as I could to try to set the record straight once and for all. And I didn’t do too bad – the only movies I wasn’t able to track down were Topper, Three Men and a Little Lady, Executive Action, The Gumball Rally, The Bells of St. Mary’s, Sweet Bird of Youth, and True Confessions. If anyone has those movies or has seen them in the past, can you let me know which, if either, of the San Rafael mansions was featured in them?

As I mentioned above, the mansion’s most famous appearance was as Wayne Manor in the 1966 television series Batman and the subsequent movie of the same name that was made that very same year. But its resume hardly ends there.

The residence was also used as both the St. Audrey’s Home for Boys where Grace (aka Emma Thompson) was taken in by a nun . . .

. . . and as Roman Strauss’ (aka Kenneth Branagh’s) home in 1991’s Dead Again.

In the first Rush Hour movie, the mansion stood in for Los Angeles’ Chinese Consulate.

As you can see in the above photograph and screen capture, though, the exterior gate which appears in that movie is not the home’s real life gate.

In 1999’s Bowfinger, the mansion was used as the residence of action star Kit Ramsey (aka Eddie Murphy).

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And in that flick the home’s real life gate does actually appear and was the site of one of the movie’s funniest scenes.

In Scary Movie 2, the mansion stood in for Hell House/Kane Manor where most of the film’s action takes place.

In X-Files: Fight The Future, it was used as the Somerset, England home of the Well-Manicured Man (aka John Neville).

According to some reports that I found online, the mansion was also featured in 1986’s Stand By Me, which seemed a bit odd being that I had always heard that Stand By Me was filmed almost in its entirety in the state of Oregon. After re-watching the flick earlier today, though, I believe that the mansion did appear once at the very end of the movie as the residence of “The Writer” (aka Richard Dreyfuss). As you can see in the above screen captures, the front driveway area does match that of the Batman mansion. Why would they come all the way to Pasadena to film this one brief scene, though, when the rest of the movie was filmed hundreds of miles away in Oregon, you ask? Well, according to IMDB’s Stand By Me trivia page, an actor named David Dukes was originally cast in the role of “The Writer”. After his scenes were shot, though, and filming had wrapped, they re-cast the role with actor Richard Dreyfuss and re-shot all of his character’s scenes. So, since the Richard Dreyfuss scenes were filmed at a later date – I am guessing after principal photography in Oregon had already wrapped – it makes sense that they would have been shot somewhere in the L.A. area, closer to where the film was being edited.

And if you’ll notice in the above screen captures, which were taken from the movie Dead Again, the mansion’s front window and the view from it does sort of match that which appeared in Stand By Me, which makes me think that the property was actually used in the movie, although I don’t have any concrete proof to back that up.

Fellow stalker Ivan just sent me the above screen captures from the television series Land of Giants, in which Wayne Manor stood in for the residence belonging to Uncle Trojar in the episode entitled “Collector’s Item”. And, yes, the mansion was blown up t the end of that episode. Thank you, Ivan! 🙂

According to fave website OnLocationVacations, the mansion was also the site of some filming from the upcoming Dinner For Schmucks movie starring Steve Carell, Paul Rudd, and Zach Galifianikis. Besides being a filming location, the mansion was also the Pasadena Showcase House of Design in 1997. So, I hope that at least partially puts to rest some of the locations rumors about the two landmark San Rafael Avenue mansions. If I come across any further information, I will post it here! And please let me know, dear readers, if you come across any information yourselves!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Wayne Manor from the Batman television series is located at 380 South San Rafael Avenue in Pasadena. Unfortunately, the residence is not very visible from the street. To see the best views of the home, drive just a bit north of where the main gates are located.

April 5, 2010April 6, 2010

The “Just Married” Mansion

Since we are currently knee-deep in the middle of wedding planning, a few weeks ago my fiancé and I decided to sit down and finally watch the 2003 movie Just Married for the very first time. And I have to say that I absolutely LOVED it! While watching it, though, I became obsessed with finding the gargantuan, red brick, Tudor-style mansion where Sarah (aka Brittany Murphy) and her family lived in the flick, which as luck would have it, wasn’t too hard to track down. Thanks to IMDB’s Just Married filming locations page, I discovered that the mansion was located at 160 South San Rafael Avenue right here in Pasadena. So, I immediately dragged my fiancé right over there the following morning. We had a sad surprise awaiting us when we arrived at the front gates, though – the mansion was no longer there. It had completely burned to the ground in a massive fire back in October of 2005. SO SAD.

All that currently remains of the once massive mansion are its front gate, guard house, and red brick retaining wall. I can’t tell you how depressing this was to discover, being that the now-fallen house was something of a historic landmark in Pasadena. The residence which once stood on the property was originally built in 1929 for British thoroughbred horse breeder Jack Pease Atkin for $500,000. The home was designed by famed celebrity architect Paul Revere Williams, who is best known for being the very first African American member of the American Institute of Architects and for designing the Beverly Hills Hotel and the Jet-Age Theme Building, aka Encounter Restaurant, at LAX. He also built Jennie Garth and Peter Facinelli’s house, but I digress. The three-story mansion boasted 21 rooms, three stories, a 1,200 square foot gate house, over 12,000 square feet of living space, and sat on a lot measuring 3.3 acres. The house’s love affair with the movies began early on, in the 1930s, when Atkins decided to rent his property out to film crews in order to raise money to fund soup kitchens for the downtrodden in Depression-era L.A. And the filming never stopped. In 2004, the home was purchased by Michael Armand Hammer, the grandson of oil tycoon Armand Hammer, who also founded the famed Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Culture in Westwood. Hammer immediately set about completely restoring the entire property. Sadly, though, a massive fire broke out at approximately 9:20 p.m. on the night of October 5, 2005, one month before he was set to move in. Over 80 firefighters were called in from neighboring cities to fight the blaze and it took them over three hours to even contain it. Flames were still burning the following morning and ended up causing over $20 million worth of damage and completely gutting the property. According to some neighbors that I spoke with while stalking the place, rumor has it that the fire was started due to a dispute between contractors. What a complete and total shame! No charges were ever filed in the case and the 3.3 acre vacant lot is currently for sale for a whopping $10 million. You can see some great aerial views of the mansion before and after it was burned on Zillow.

Hollywood rumors about the mansion have been circling around Pasadena pretty much since the time the house was built, the two most prevalent of which being that it was owned at one time by former Beatle Paul McCartney and that it was used as Bruce Wayne’s manor in the 1960s television series Batman. Both of those rumors are completely false. And while I am not sure how the Paul McCartney story came to be, the Batman rumor is easy enough to figure out. The real Wayne Manor is located just a few houses up the road at 380 S. San Rafael Avenue and looks extremely similar in appearance to the Just Married mansion. Batman and Paul McCartney aside, though, the Atkin’s house has a Hollywood resume any actor would envy.

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In Just Married, the mansion, which was supposedly located in Beverly Hills, belonged to Sarah’s extremely wealthy father, who co-owned both the Dodgers and the Lakers in the flick. For whatever reason, though, the exterior of the house was never shown in its entirety, but the front gate area did appear quite a bit.

As did the front door/front porch . . .

. . . and the intercom outside of the main gate, which was used as a running joke throughout the movie. And, even though it wasn’t the same exact intercom which appeared in Just Married, I just had to pose for a pic with it. 😉

Thankfully, the area where Sam (aka Ashton Kutcher) played flag football with Sarah’s family is still intact and is visible through the front gate.

The mansion also stood in for the Carlton Hotel in several episodes of TV’s Dynasty.

The residence was also featured in the 1985 movie Clue, but as you can see in the above screen capture, some movie magic was definitely employed in the production.

According to some reports that I read online, while the real life driveway, retaining wall, front porch and bottom half of the mansion’s exterior were used in Clue . . .

. . . producers had a matte painting added to the top portion of the house to make it appear larger and more sinister than it actually was.

In the 1991 movie Mobsters, the mansion belonged to Arnold Rothstein (aka F. Murray Abraham), but only the interior of it was ever shown.

In 2003’s Hollywood Homicide, it belonged to Jerry Duran (aka Martin Landau) who gave part time real estate agent Sergeant Joe Gavilan (aka Harrison Ford) 72 hours to sell it.

I am fairly certain that the real inside of the home was used in the movie, as well.

According to several books, the mansion also stood in for the home of Rocky Balboa in Rocky V, but as you can see in the above screen captures, while the two properties resemble each other, they are not in fact the same. There are also reports which state that the mansion was featured in the 1979 Peter Sellers’ movie Being There, but I just re-watched that film last night and did not see it anywhere. I am guessing that it was either not in fact used in the movie or that it was used solely for interior shots.

The mansion also supposedly appeared in The Bells of St. Mary’s, Sweet Bird of Youth, Three Men and a Little Lady, True Confessions, an episode of Murder, She Wrote, and in both the movie Topper and the subsequent television series of the same name, but because I don’t own any of those productions I have not been able to verify that information.

UPDATE – Fellow blogger Petrea from the Pasadena Daily Photo website just sent me this amazing photograph that a friend of hers named Dave Thompson took of the Just Married mansion shortly after it was destroyed in the 2005 fire. Thanks, Petrea!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Just Married mansion was formerly located at 160 South San Rafael Avenue in Pasadena. Sadly, the area is currently just a vacant lot.

March 31, 2010March 30, 2010

The “Father of the Bride Part II” Wall, House, and Intersection

As I’ve mentioned quite a few times in the past, fellow stalker Owen and I are just a bit obsessed with both the 1991 movie Father of the Bride and its sequel, 1995’s Father of the Bride Part II. And while we had tracked down most of the locales featured in the flicks, Owen had his sights set on locating the wavy stone wall that George Banks (aka Steve Martin) walked by towards the beginning of Part II. Although the wall only appears for one very brief second in the movie and seems like a rather peculiar spot to want to stalk, Owen was absolutely consumed with finding it. And I must say, I understand. Yes, maybe to some it is just a wall that flashed by once in a movie that is well over a decade and a half old, but to people who love Father of the Bride Part II and have watched it countless times over, that wall is a landmark – a significant piece of cinematic history. Fellow stalker David from Spain made a comment to me the other day that rang so very true. Speaking about our shared and unwavering desire to track down certain filming locations, he said, “I think you and I are infected with the same virus.” 😉 Couldn’t have said it better myself, David, couldn’t have said it better! So, when Owen told me he was dying to stalk that Father of the Bride Part II wall, I completely understood and vowed to help him find it. As it turned out, though, he didn’t need my help after all.

I was able to help him with one thing, though. After Owen asked for my assistance with this particular stalk, I popped in my Father of the Bride Part II DVD and immediately recognized the grey-shingled home that George walks by just prior to the stone wall. In the scene, George is shown walking in his neighborhood after getting into a fight with his wife Nina (aka Dianne Keaton), after just finding out that she is pregnant. While walking he wonders if he still has what it takes to be a good dad at his age and then spots a man much younger than he standing on the front porch of a home kissing his son goodbye before leaving for work.

As fate would have it, Mike from MovieShotsLA, and I had JUST walked by that very same house a few weeks beforehand. While grabbing a Starbucks one day in Pasadena, the two of us decided to take a walk over to the Mr. Deeds house which was fairly close by. As we strolled down Madison Avenue, we randomly stopped to admire the above pictured residence and Mike said, “Wow, what a beautiful home! I bet it’s been used in a movie before!” Because the house was so incredibly picturesque and had “Anywhere, U.S.A.” written all over it, I completely agreed. As the two of us walked on, the residence stuck in my brain and became one of many in Pasadena that I refer to as a “Thanksgiving House”. Every so often in my stalking travels I will come across incredibly charming and idyllic spots that immediately make me think of coming home at Thanksgiving. I started using the phrase “Thanksgiving House” as a child after taking a stroll one holiday morning with my parents and listening to my mom say “Don’t you want to spend Thanksgiving in a house that looks like that?” as she pointed out the many beautiful residences we passed. The term has, for whatever reason, stuck. So, when I popped in my Father of the Bride Part II DVD to help Owen with his search, I, of course, immediately recognized my “Thanksgiving House”! Which proved Mike right – it had been used in a movie! 😉 And, ironically enough, when I returned to the house a few weeks later to snap some pictures, a crew was just getting ready to set up for the filming of a Cialis commercial on the premises!

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Once Owen knew that the grey-shingled house was located in Pasadena, he began searching for the stone wall there, too. What he found first, though, was the intersection where George gets propositioned by a young blond woman in a convertible. How in the heck he managed to recognize a fairly non-descript intersection is beyond me! But he did and my hat is definitely off to him! As fate would have it, while looking at the intersection via Google Street View, Owen fairly quickly noticed that it was located at the top of a very large hill. Also located on that hill? You guessed it – the stone wall Owen had been searching for! YAY!

Sadly, though, Owen’s stone wall looks very different today than it did in 1995 when Father of the Bride Part II was filmed. In fact, the entire thing is now completely covered over with ivy and is almost completely unrecognizable. Such a bummer! Why anyone would cover up such a cool looking stone wall is beyond me.

But as you can see in the above photograph, a few stones can still be seen peeking out from under the ivy in some parts of the wall. So, at least there’s that.

Big THANK YOU to Owen for tracking down these locations! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Father of the Bride Part II house is located at 639 South Madison Avenue in Pasadena. The spot where the blond woman hits on Steve Martin is at the intersection of South Grand Avenue and Arbor Street in Pasadena. The stone wall Steve Martin walks in front of later on in the movie is just west of the intersection, on the 500 block of Arbor Street.

December 10, 2009December 10, 2009

The “Father of the Bride” Bar

A few weeks ago, while wandering around Old Town Pasadena, my fiancé and I found ourselves in the familiar predicament of having to decide whether to go out to eat or cook dinner at home. Being that the only thing I like to make for dinner is reservations, I voted to eat out and started looking around at nearby restaurants. And, let me tell you, I just about fell over when I realized we were standing only steps away from an eatery where a scene from fave movie Father of the Bride took place. At the time the movie was filmed, the restaurant was known as Delacey’s Club 41 and it was something of a Pasadena institution, but for some odd reason, in my almost ten years of living in the area, I had yet to dine there. So, you can imagine my disappointment when the placed closed down in 2007, after 25 long years of serving Pasadena patrons. 🙁 A little pub called Spitfire Saloon soon opened up in its place, but it wasn’t long before that restaurant was also shuttered and the space’s current inhabitant – a French bistro named Cheval Blanc – set up shop. So, not wanting to take the chance that the new eatery would also close, I grabbed my fiancé and headed right in!

And I am so glad I did because even though it has been over 18 years since Father of the Bride was filmed and even though the place has gone through a succession of different owners since Delacey’s Club 41 closed its doors more than two years ago, both the interior and the exterior of the restaurant still look EXACTLY the same as they did in the movie. YAY! I mean, even the black and white tiled floor is still intact. LOVE IT!

Only a very brief scene from Father of the Bride took place at Cheval Blanc. In the scene, a fight has just erupted between Bryan Mackenzie (aka George Newbern) and his fiancé Annie Banks (aka Kimberly Williams) over his decision to give her a blender as a pre-wedding present. To calm the situation, Annie’s father, George Banks (aka Steve Martin), decides to take Bryan out for a cocktail and a little heart-to-heart at, you guessed it, Cheval Blanc. 🙂 It is in that scene that George says one of my very favorite lines from the movie, “You know, Brian, Annie’s a very passionate person and passionate people tend to overreact at times. Annie comes from a long line of major overreactors. Me – I can definitely lose it. My mother – a nut. My grandfather – stories about him were legendary. The good news however is that this overreacting tends to get proportionately less by generation. So, your kids could be normal. But on the upside, with this passion comes great spirit and individuality, which is probably one of the reasons you love Annie. ” Ah, George, I can so relate! I, too, am a very, ahem, passionate person, and have done my fair share of overreacting over the years. And I just so happen to also hail from a long line of major overreactors – both of my parents would actually fit into that category. 🙂 As fate would have it, I just recently learned a pretty good lesson about overreacting. Those of you who read my blog regularly know that the guy who I paid to make my wedding dress skipped town a few months back – with my money. Well, as it turns out, even though the guy did close up his shop, disconnect his phone, and was M.I.A. for over two months time, the whole thing was actually just a big misunderstanding. But, let me tell you, during those two months, there was quite a bit of overreacting going on!! LOL So, when the guy called me out of the blue two weeks ago to let me know that my dress was finished and ready to be picked up – at his new shop LOL – I felt like a complete fool! What a waste all that anger and worry was. The next time something like that happens I just need to let go, relax, and let things take their natural course. That’ll never happen, of course, but it’s a nice sentiment, nonetheless. 🙂 But I digress. Besides being featured in Father of the Bride, Cheval Blanc also showed up in I Love Trouble, Judging Amy, and in ten different episodes of Equal Justice.

I honestly cannot say enough good things about Cheval Blanc! My fiancé and I had an absolute blast dining there! The manager, who knew quite a bit about the restaurant’s filming history, truly could not have been nicer to us and told me I could take as many interior photographs of the place as I wanted. LOVE IT! The service was also spectacular and don’t even get me started on the food! The macaroni and cheese is to die for! 🙂 And even though Cheval Blanc’s menu is French, the decor is very Old New York, with dim lighting, dark paneled walls, and an incredibly ornate Mahogany bar. The place is absolutely gorgeous inside, which should come as no surprise being that it is owned by the hugely successful restaurateur team of Bob and Gregg Smith, aka the Smith Brothers, who also started the Arroyo Chophouse, the Crocodile Cafe chain, Smitty’s Grill, and the hugely popular Parkway Grill.

On a side note – Cheval Blanc also showed up in the movie Father of the Bride Part II. Well, sort of. In the flick, Steve Martin’s Side Kicks shoe factory is located directly across the street from the restaurant and the exterior of it can be seen very briefly in the background of the scene pictured above. I’m not sure what occupied the Side Kicks space at the time Father of the Bride Part II was filmed, but I am guessing it was simply a vacant warehouse that producers dressed for the movie. Today, Steve Martin’s shoe warehouse space houses a restaurant named Brix 42. It is the restaurant’s side door, which looks much different today, that Steve Martin enters in the above scene.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Father of the Bride bar, aka Cheval Blanc , is located at 41 South De Lacey Avenue in Pasadena. Steve Martin’s shoe factory from Father of the Bride Part II is really the side entrance to Brix 42 Restaurant, which is located at 42 South De Lacey Avenue, just across the street from Cheval Blanc.

August 21, 2009August 21, 2009

The “Twins” Mansion

Another day, another Twins location. 🙂 Unbelievably, before writing my post about the Twins house yesterday, I had yet to actually see the movie. For some reason, even though we own a copy of it on DVD, I had never sat down to watch it. Until yesterday, that is. But, as often happens to me when watching a movie for the first time, I got more absorbed in the locations and behind-the-scenes information than the actual storyline. I kept having to pause the movie to run to my computer to look things up. LOL One of the locales that I became a bit obsessed with finding yesterday was the mansion belonging to Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito’s father in the movie. Ironically enough, while doing some cyberstalking of the home, I came across this post on fave website ’80s Movie Rewind and was SHOCKED to see the location of the house listed with a special thanks to none other than my good friend Mike, from MovieShotsLA. LOL LOL LOL It’s such a small stalking world, isn’t it?? Granted, I’m sure Mike had told me the address of the Twins mansion before, but when the two of us get to talking about locations I get so excited that half of what he says doesn’t even register. I’ll ask him about a movie locale months later and he’ll say “I ALREADY told you where that was!” LOL Needless to say, the Twins mansion address is one of the bits of information that, for whatever reason, my brain didn’t store.

Anyway, as soon as I had the address yesterday, I ran right out to stalk the house. And I am very happy to report that – over TWO DECADES later – the Twins mansion looks pretty much EXACTLY the same today as it did when the movie was filmed! I mean, even the paint color is still the same! LOVE IT! In fact, the only differences I noticed were some very minor changes in foliage. Movie location owners really need to take lessons from the people that live in this house! LOL

The Twins mansion shows up very briefly in the scene when Arnold is out looking for infomation about his mother who passed away in childbirth. He winds up at this home and ends up meeting his father for the very first time. A scene takes place in the front yard of the house and then, later, in the father’s study. And, from how it looked in the movie, I believe a real room inside the house was used as the study.

The Twins mansion, which in real life is known as the A.L. Garford House, was built in 1916 by the prominent Pasadena architectural firm of Marston & Van Pelt. Sylvanus Marston built over 1,000 residences in the Pasadena area throughout his twenty-two year career, including America’s first ever bungalow motor court apartment complex, and has even been called “Pasadena’s Quintessential Architect”. Marston built homes and buildings in an eclectic array of styles ranging from English Tudor to Imperial Chinese. The Garford House was actually one of the first Pasadena area homes to be built in the elaborate Churrigueresque, or Spanish Baroque, style, and, according to this article, was the first ever Spanish style home to have a painted stucco exterior. It truly is a very beautiful and absolutely ginormous home!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito’s father’s house from Twins, aka the A.L. Garford House, is located at 1126 Hillcrest Avenue, on the Northeast corner of Hillcrest Avenue and South Oak Knoll Avenue, in Pasadena.