Pasadena houses – IAMNOTASTALKER

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.

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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.

February 15, 2012February 14, 2012

Oliver’s Palm Springs House from “The O.C.”

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, the Grim Cheaper and I have just recently started watching fave series The O.C. over again from the beginning and one location that popped up during the first season that I have been absolutely dying to find and stalk was the supposed-Palm-Springs-area house that belonged to troublemaker Oliver Trask (Taylor Handley) in the episode titled “The Links”. So imagine my surprise when fellow stalker Geoff, of the 90210Locations website, randomly emailed me last week, after seeing my post on Café-Club Fais Do-Do (which stood in for a Tijuana nightclub in one of The O.C.’s early episodes), to let me know that he had tracked down a few of the show’s more elusive locales, one of which was Oliver’s Palm Springs residence! I kid you not! As you can imagine, I was absolutely bowled over by this information and, as I told Geoff, would have run out to stalk the place right then and there had it not been pouring at the time. When the rain finally did subside the following morning, I, of course, rushed right on over to the house to finally stalk it. Yay!

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In “The Links” episode of The O.C., Oliver invites the Newport gang – Ryan Atwood (Ben McKenzie), Seth Cohen (Adam Brody), Marissa Cooper (Mischa Barton), Luke Ward (Chris Carmack), Summer Roberts (Rachel Bilson), and Anna Stern (Samaire Armstrong) – to spend the weekend with him at his parents’ mid-century-modern-style home in Palm Springs, which he states is located “right on PGA West”. And while Geoff originally thought that the property was in Huntington Beach, near the Seacliff Country Club where the group played golf in the episode, he came up completely empty-handed after searching the area. Then, a few months later, while trying to track down a different locale in South Pasadena, he spotted a house on Arroyo Drive that looked vaguely familiar. He was unsure of where he had seen the residence before, but made a note of the address. It was not until a couple of weeks afterwards that he happened to re-watch “The Links” episode of The O.C. and realized that the house that had looked so familiar was Oliver’s. Nicely done, Geoff!

In real life, the 3-bedroom, 3-bath, 3,032-square-foot home, which was originally built in 1959 and sits on almost half an acre of land, is pretty darn spectacular! In fact, the main reason that I wanted to stalk the property so badly, besides the fact that it appeared on The O.C. of course, was that I had fallen in love with its mid-century-style architecture pretty much as soon as it had appeared on my TV screen. And I am very happy to report that, in person, the place did not disappoint.

As you can see above, the residence most definitely does look like a Palm-Springs-area home, so it is not very hard to see why producers chose to use it in “The Links” episode.

The real-life interior of the property, and even some of the real-life furniture – both of which you can see photographs of here – were also used in the episode.

I am fairly certain, though, that the bedrooms where Ryan, Marissa, Seth, and Anna stayed were just sets that were built inside of a soundstage at Raleigh Studios Manhattan Beach where the series was lensed, as they do not seem to match the real-life interior of the house.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, for finding this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Oliver’s Palm Springs house from “The Links” episode of The O.C. is located at 534 Arroyo Drive in South Pasadena.

February 14, 2012February 14, 2012

Robert Reed’s Former Home

I (along with cutie Matt Lanter – sigh!) would like to start out today by wishing all of my fellow stalkers a very happy Valentine’s Day! And now, on with the post!

A couple of weeks ago, while doing research on the Nanny and the Professor house, I happened to stumble upon an article on my friend Scott Michaels’ FindADeath website about Robert Reed, the Shakespearian-trained actor who is most famous for having portrayed architect/patriarch Mike Brady on the 1970s television sitcom The Brady Bunch. And, let me tell you, I almost fell right out of my chair when I read the portion of the article which stated that the star had lived the majority of his later years right here in Pasadena. Come again, now? How in the world had I not previously known this information?? Especially considering that The Brady Bunch is one of my favorite shows of all time! I mean, why on earth is this data not posted right there on the homepage of the official City of Pasadena website, or on a plaque on the walls of City Hall itself?? It is a pretty major claim to fame – in my eyes at least! Sheesh! Do I have to think of everything? Anyway, I was so excited about the news that I ran right out to stalk the place later that same week.

According to Zillow, Robert Reed’s former home, which was originally built in 1947 and sits on almost half an acre of land, boasts 3 bedrooms, 4 baths, and 4,400 square feet of living space. There seems to be a bit of a discrepancy somewhere, though, because the Property Shark website has a differing set of statistics which state that the abode measures 4 bedrooms, 5 baths, and 4,010 square feet of living space. And, unfortunately, I am unsure of which information is correct. Either way, I cannot express how incredibly cool I think it is that Robert Reed, who was a household name and an instantly recognizable star at the time, lived in a dwelling that was largely visible from the street. Love it!

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According to his death certificate, which can be viewed on the FindADeath website, Robert Reed passed away at Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena on Tuesday, May 12th, 1992, and not at his home as several websites have stated. The actor was 59 years old at the time. His funeral was held at All Saints Church in Pasadena, an oft-filmed-at location that I have yet to blog about, and he is buried at Memorial Park Cemetery in Skokie, Illinois. According to a commenter named Rita on the FindADeath site, the home pictured above was not Robert Reed’s first Pasadena-area residence. The star, who was born John Robert Rietz, originally purchased a property located at 1210 South Arroyo Boulevard sometime during the mid-sixties. That gargantuan abode, which boasts 3 bedrooms, 5 baths, a whopping 9,218 square feet, and 0.84 acres of land, is, sadly, not at all visible from the street, though, so I did not attempt to stalk it. Reed sold his original Pasadena residence sometime around 1985, at which point he moved about a half a mile east, into the sprawling Spanish-style home where he would live out the remainder of his years.

Big THANK YOU to Scott Michaels, from the FindADeath website, for finding this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Robert Reed’s former house is located at 980 Stoneridge Drive in Pasadena. The Cravens Estate, from Commander in Chief and JAG, is located right around the corner at 430 Madeline Drive in Pasadena.

November 21, 2011November 20, 2011

The Pasadena Recovery Center from “Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew”

One location that I stalked with my good friends, fellow stalkers Lavonna, Beth, Melissa, Kim, and Sandy, while they were in town visiting from Ohio last week was the Pasadena Recovery Center from Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew. And while I had never before actually seen an episode of the VH1 reality series, which just finished up its fifth season, Beth is a MAJOR die-hard fan of it and the treatment facility was the Number One location on her Southern-California-To-Stalk list. So after grabbing lunch at The Slaw Dogs – a Pasadena-area hot dog restaurant that has quickly become my most recent culinary obsession – the six of us headed on over to North Raymond Avenue to check out the famous rehabilitation center in person.

Before doing research on the Pasadena Recovery Center for today’s post, I had incorrectly assumed that it had been founded by Celebrity Rehab star/executive producer Dr. Drew Pinsky, but as it turns out I do not think that the “Silver Fox” (as Chelsea Handler likes to call him) has much to do with the place outside of the filming the show. In reality, the facility was started in 2001 by Dr. Lee Bloom, a former psychiatrist for the United States Air Force. When Dr. Bloom passed away in 2008, his son Michael and daughter Alison took over the center’s management and they continue to run it today.

I am very happy to report that the Pasadena Recover Center looks EXACTLY the same in person as it does on TV. Before writing today’s post, I sat down to watch a few episodes of the series and found it to be highly addictive (pun intended). It is a mesmerizing, compassionate look into the face of addiction and has made me more understanding of certain celebrities who I previously thought were pretty useless. Bai Ling’s storyline, for example, was especially heartbreaking and, where I had before thought the actress was out-of-her-mind crazy, after hearing about her childhood I feel nothing but sorrow and empathy towards her. That poor, poor woman. It is amazing she is even able to stand after what she lived through. Amy Fisher, on the other hand, is (in this stalker’s never-to-be-humble opinion) nothing but a heartless, sociopathic, spoiled brat who makes me want to put my fist through the TV, but I digress. Winking smile Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew is a fabulous show and I highly recommend checking it out.

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All five seasons of Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew have taken place at the Pasadena Recovery Center, during which participants move into the holistic treatment facility for 21 days in the hopes of beating their various addictions.

The real life interior of the facility also appears regularly on the show. You can check out some photographs of that interior on the Pasadena Recovery Center’s official website here.

The backyard and pool area also show up quite frequently on the series, although there are, sadly, no images of those spaces featured on the facility’s website. Besides Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew, the Pasadena Recovery Center also appeared on the WE tv series Secret Lives of Women.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Pasadena Recovery Center from Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew is located at 1811 North Raymond Avenue in Pasadena. Please remember that it is a working rehabilitation facility, with actual patients whose privacy needs to be respected at all times. You can visit the Pasadena Recovery Center’s official website here.

September 15, 2011September 14, 2011

The “Beaches” Mansion

One location that I have been asked about repeatedly ever since I first started my blog almost four years ago (and I CANNOT even believe that it has been that long!!!) is the large Tudor-style mansion where Hillary Whitney Essex (aka Barbara Hershey) lived in the 1988 tearjerker Beaches. And while it had long been noted on various websites that the property was located somewhere in the Pasadena area, try as I might, I just could not seem to track the place down. Then this past January a fellow stalker named Alain who lives in France emailed me to ask about a mansion that had appeared in the Season 7 episode of Columbo titled “Try and Catch Me”. He mentioned that the same estate had also been used in Beaches. I explained to Alain that I had been trying to find that particular home for years, but had had absolutely no luck. Flash forward 9 months to this past Tuesday afternoon when I received another email from Alain, this one announcing that he had found the property! Whoo-hoo! How he managed to locate it while living thousands of miles away in France, when I failed to do so while living right here in Pasadena, is absolutely beyond me! My hat is most-definitely off to you, Alain!

So I, of course, ran right out to stalk the place early Wednesday morning. Sadly though, as you can see above, hardly any of the property is visible from the street.

But, as I have said before, that is why God created aerial views. In real life, the 7,479-square-foot, 8-bedroom, 4-bath home, which was built in 1916 by the noted Pasadena architecture firm Marston & Van Pelt (who also designed the Twins mansion), is known as the S. S. Hinds Estate. The property was named for one of its original owners, actor Samuel S. Hinds, who is best known for playing Peter Bailey, George Bailey’s (aka James Stewart’s) father, in the 1946 classic It’s A Wonderful Life. According to my buddy E.J. over at The Movieland Directory, Hinds lived in the home from the 1920s until the 1940s. Ironically enough, Hinds was originally a very prominent attorney who lost his fortune in the stock market crash of 1929. He was able to keep his Pasadena manse during that difficult time by renting it out to various boarders. Finding himself destitute at the age of 54, he decided to abandon law and try his hand at acting and it was not long before Hollywood came a’callin’. Hinds went on to star in over 200 films before his death in 1948.

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In Beaches, the S.S Hinds Estate stood in for the supposed Atherton-area residence where Hillary lived both as a child and an adult.

The house’s front gate was used quite prominently in the movie in the scenes in which Hillary checked her mailbox in anticipation of receiving letters from her lifelong best friend, Cecilia “CC” Carol Bloom (aka Bette Midler).

And while the gate is thankfully visible from the street and still looks EXACTLY the same today as it did in 1988 when Beaches was filmed, sadly, as you can see above, Hillary’s mailbox is not there in real life. I am guessing that it was just a set piece that was brought in solely for the filming.

The real life interior of the property was also used in the flick.

Thanks to fave website OnLocationVacations, I learned that the Season 3 episode of Mad Men titled “My Old Kentucky Home” was also filmed at the S.S. Hinds Estate. In the episode, the property stood in for the country club where Roger Sterling (aka John Slattery) and Jane Siegel (aka Peyton List) hosted their Kentucky Derby party.

As you can see in the screen captures above, one of the hallways that appeared in Beaches was also used in Mad Men as the spot where Betty Draper (aka January Jones) first met Henry Francis (aka Christopher Stanley).

I am fairly certain, though, that the club’s bar, where Don Draper (aka Jon Hamm) spent most of his evening, is not actually located inside of the Hinds Estate, but is a real life bar somewhere in Los Angeles.

And again thanks to OnLocationVacations, I also learned that the estate was used as the Turnbill Mansion, which Leslie Knope (aka Amy Poehler) fought to save, in the Season 2 episode of Parks & Recreation titled “94 Meetings”.

Amazingly, the very same hallway that appeared in both Mad Men and Beaches was also featured in Parks and Recreation.

As was the stairway from Beaches.

And the front gate, which Leslie Knopes barricaded herself to, thinking it opened in the middle, on Parks and Recreation. LOL

A large painting of the mansion was created for the filming of Parks and Recreation, as well. Being that I doubt the painting would ever be used again on the series, I am wondering if the owners of the Hinds Estate got to keep it. So cool if they did!

Unfortunately, I was not able to find a copy of the Columbo “Try and Catch Me” episode anywhere, so I could not make screen captures of the Hinds Estate’s appearance in it for this post.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Alain for telling me about this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Beaches mansion is located at 880 La Loma Road in Pasadena.

September 2, 2011September 2, 2011

Aunt Mitsy’s House from “Rumor Has It”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

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

July 15, 2011July 13, 2011

Mary See’s Former House

Another location that I was reminded of while taking the Scott’s L.A. Audio Driving Tour of Pasadena this past week was the Craftsman-style residence where Mary See and her son Charles, founders of See’s Famous Old Time Candies, lived in the 1920s during the time when the legendary chocolate company was first established. Because I practically grew up on See’s Candies – I can still remember my parents and grandparents taking me to the chain’s Hillsdale Mall outpost for a treat on an almost weekly occasion – I was absolutely FLOORED to discover that the See family had once lived practically right in my own backyard.

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Mary Wiseman See, who was born and raised in Ontario, Canada, first started making candy while living on Tremont Park Island where her husband, Alexander, managed a resort. When Alexander passed away in 1919, Mary decided to start anew by moving with her son Charles, his wife Florence, and their three children to Southern California, where Charles was seeking work as a pharmacist. The family settled into a Craftsman-style bungalow located at 462 South Marengo Avenue shortly after arriving in the area and sometime thereafter Charles decided to try his hand at selling Mary’s homemade chocolates to the public.

In November of 1921, the family set up their first See’s Candies store in a building located at 135 North Western Avenue in Los Angeles. That original store is pictured above and, amazingly enough, the building which once housed it is still standing to this day! You can see a picture of how the building appeared circa April of 2011 here. Charles designed the shop with a black and white motif and checkered floor to resemble Mary’s actual kitchen at home where her now-famous candy was first baked. That ascetic model is still used to this day, over nine decades later, for all See’s locations, as is the company’s original logo, which consists of a black and white photograph of Mary See. See’s Famous Old Time Candies became an instant success and by the mid-1920s, eleven more storefronts had opened. The chain’s second store was located at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood and the third was at 356 East Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena. Sadly, the Pasadena building that once housed that location was torn down in the 1970s to make way for the now-defunct Plaza Pasadena Shopping Center. (In an interesting bit of trivia, according to the History, Los Angeles County blog, during the 1920s the company used custom-built Harley-Davidson motorcycles, painted with the black and white See’s insignia and fitted with a side-car, to make deliveries throughout the Los Angeles area. One of those motorcycles is pictured above.)

According to the Scott’s L.A. Audio Driving Tour, the kitchen of the See’s family bungalow was located toward the rear of the property, in what I believe is the area pictured above. I am not sure if it is this kitchen that Charles modeled the design of his stores after or if it was the kitchen at the home in Canada where he grew up, but oh, what I wouldn’t give to go inside and find out. Winking smile

Mary See sadly passed away on July 31st, 1939 at the age of 85. Charles continued to run See’s Candies until his death in 1949, at which point his son Laurance took over the reins. In 1972, Laurance sold the company to none other than Warren Buffett, who acquired it as part of his Berkshire Hathaway Corporation. See’s Famous Old Time Candies is still going strong to this day and now boasts over 200 stores in 11 different states, as well as locations in Hong Kong, Japan, and Macau. It was all started right here, though, in a little bungalow in Pasadena. The See home, which was originally built in 1903, is no longer a private residence, but now houses offices for various area professionals.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Mary See’s former house is located at 462 South Marengo Avenue in Pasadena.

July 14, 2011July 13, 2011

The “Bruce Almighty” Party House

Last week while going through the glove compartment of my car, I came across the Scott’s L.A. Audio Tour of Pasadena CD that I had purchased about seven years prior. For those who have never heard of Scott’s L.A., the family-owned company produces a series of audio driving tours of the Southern California area, all of which feature numerous famous locations, including quite a few that have appeared in movies and on television. Since I had not listened to the CD in years, I decided to spend a couple of hours re-taking the tour. And I am so glad that I did because there were a few locales mentioned on it that I had completely forgotten about, the most important of which was the party house from the 2003 movie Bruce Almighty. And even though I was not at all a fan of Bruce Almighty, because my girl Jen had filmed a scene at the house, I figured it was most-definitely stalk- and blog-worthy.

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In real life, the Bruce Almighty party mansion is known as the Stern House and it was originally built in 1938 by architects Garrett Van Pelt and Robert E. Alexander. The Mediterranean-style property, which sits on 0.83 acres of land, boasts 7 bedrooms, 9 bathrooms, and 7,146 square feet of living space. And even though the residence has a name and seems to be historic in some way, surprisingly I could not find any other information about it online.

In Bruce Almighty, the Channel 7 news team throws Bruce Nolan (aka Jim Carrey) a party at the supposed Vanderbilt Estate in New York in honor of his recent promotion. When Bruce’s girlfriend Grace Connelly (aka Jennifer Aniston) shows up at the party, she catches him kissing his co-anchor Susan Ortega (aka Catherine Bell) and a fight ensues out in front of the mansion.

And while I could not find any photographs of the inside of the property to verify this, I am fairly certain that a different residence was used to film the interior party scenes.

Ironically enough, while scanning through Bruce Almighty yesterday to make screen captures for this post, I noticed that the house belonging to Debbie (aka Lisa Ann Walter) in the flick is the very same property where the Simpson family lived in fave movie She’s Out of Control, which I stalked this past May.

I also came across this super-cute photograph on IMDB of my girl Jen and Bruce Almighty director Tom Shadyac which was taken out in front of the She’s Out of Control house. Love it!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Bruce Almighty party house is located at 1395 Ridge Way in Pasadena. You can visit the Scott’s L.A. website and purchase the company’s various tour CDs here.

July 1, 2011June 30, 2011

Teddy Montgomery’s House from “90210”

As I mentioned in Tuesday’s post, there has not been a lot of time for me to do much stalking as of late and, because of that, I have been feeling a bit out of sorts. I am also in the process of giving up coffee (I know, I know, that’s crazy talk!), which further explains why I have been feeling so unlike myself lately. Not to mention that I am still pretty bummed out over my parents’ recent move. So yesterday morning I decided to return some normalcy to my life by doing a bit of stalking. Because I did not have much time, I decided to stick close to home and figured what better location to stalk than the house where Teddy Montgomery (aka Trevor Donovan) lives on fave show 90210. I found this location, as always, thanks to fellow stalker Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, who actually tracked the place down a little over a year ago. For whatever reason, though, I had yet to make it out there until yesterday morning. And please excuse the above photograph – I was alone when I took it and had to prop the camera up on the roof of my car and use the self-timer. LOL

Teddy Montgomery’s supposed-Beverly-Hills-area abode has actually appeared only once on 90210, in the Season 2 episode titled “Meet the Parent”, in the scene in which Teddy introduces Silver (aka Jessica Stroup) to his movie star father, Spence Montgomery (aka Ryan O’Neal), for the first time.

Areas of the house which appeared in the episode include the exterior;

the living room;

the study;

. . . and the backyard.

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In real life, the mansion, which was originally built in 1911 and sits on a .63-acre plot of land, boasts 5 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, and a whopping 7,850 square feet of living space.

Sadly though, not much of the property, which according to the sign out front is named Villa Arroyo Vista, is visible from the street.

And the aerial views aren’t that great either. Thankfully though, I did some digging and found some fabulous interior photographs of the mansion, which you can take a look at here.

Villa Arroyo Vista has actually appeared several times onscreen. According to the Worldwide Guide to Movie Locations website, the mansion was also the site of the Christmas scene in the 1994 movie Star Trek: Generations.

And it was where Christina Aguilera shot the commercial for her Royal Desire perfume in late 2010.

Christina Aguilera commercial–Villa Arroyo Vista

You can watch the making of that commercial by clicking above.

According to my friend E.J. over at the Movieland Directory, the home was also used in the filming of the 2007 television series 12 Miles of Bad Road.

Big THANK YOU to Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, for finding this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Teddy Montgomery’s house from 90210 is located at 465 South Grand Avenue in Pasadena.

May 19, 2011May 20, 2011

The Cravens Estate from “Commander in Chief”

As I mentioned a few weeks back, because of my love for Matt Lanter, the Grim Cheaper and I recently purchased and sat down to watch the first – and only – season of the short-lived television series Commander in Chief, on which the cutie actor portrayed the role of First Son Horace Calloway. I absolutely fell in love with the show and immediately started creating a list of locations to stalk from it, the most important being Pasadena’s former Cravens Estate, now the American Red Cross’ San Gabriel Pomona Valley Headquarters, which was used several times to stand in for the White House on the series. And as soon as the GC and I finished watching the final episode, I dragged my dad right on out to stalk the place. I have actually written about the Cravens Estate once before, back in July of 2008 just a few months after I first started my blog, but it was a very brief post and did not include any photographs of the interior of the property. So, I figured the place was definitely worthy of a re-post.

The Cravens Estate was originally built in 1930 for Mr. John S. Cravens and his wife Mildred and was designed by San Francisco-area architect Lewis P. Hobart, who was also responsible for constructing the City by the Bay’s Grace Episcopal Cathedral and the Crocker Building on Market Street. After migrating to Pasadena in 1900, the Cravens first commissioned an English-style mansion to be built on a 16-acre plot of land on what was then known as “Millionaires’ Row”. Three decades later, after vacationing in France, the couple decided to tear down their existing abode and build a new one based upon the design of the the Chateau Vaux-le-Vicomte, located just south of Paris. That new manse became known as the Cravens Estate and it cost a whopping $310,000 to construct, making it one of Pasadena’s most expensive homes at the time. After the Cravens, who had no children, passed away in the 1940s, the property went through a succession of owners until finally being donated to the American Red Cross in 1962, whereupon it became their San Gabriel Pomona Valley Headquarters. The mansion is both a Pasadena Cultural Landmark and a Landmark of Historical Significance. In 2010, it was chosen to be used as the Pasadena Showcase House of Design, whereupon numerous designers came in and completely restored the property, which had lost a bit of its luster over the years, back to its original grandeur.

When I originally dragged my dad out to stalk the estate, I was hoping that we might be allowed to take a quick peek at the interior of the property and snap a few pictures. Well, imagine my surprise when the SUPER-nice receptionist said that if we were interested we could schedule a full-blown tour of the building. If we were interested? IF WE WERE INTERESTED??? Um, heck yes, we were interested!!! So I immediately scheduled a tour and dragged my dad back out to the estate once again just a few days later. What we ended up being given, though, was not what I had expected at all. Our SUPER-nice tour guide was extremely excited over how much I already knew about the estate and my enthusiasm for its filming history, so she wound up taking us on a TWO-AND-A-HALF-HOUR excursion through the property during which she showed us its every nook and cranny, including the attic area, the servants’ quarters and the basement. I can honestly say that it was one of the best stalking experiences of my life! Even my dad enjoyed it! The estate, which boasts four levels, 50 rooms, and just under 20,000 square feet of living space, is an absolutely remarkable piece of property! Pictured above is the entryway, which features hand-painted murals depicting the grounds of the Chateau Vaux-le-Vicomte.

Our tour included the Cravens Estate’s reception room;

dining room;

Mrs. Cravens’ former sitting room;

a sun room;

the media room;

one of the original bathrooms;

the upstairs balcony;

the bridal room;

Mrs. Cravens’ original closet;

and the back side of the estate.

The area of the home that I was most excited about seeing, though, was the kitchen, which stood in for the White House Residence’s kitchen on the first few episodes of Commander in Chief.

The Cravens Estate kitchen was actually remodeled in 2010 for the Pasadena Showcase House of Design, but thankfully, as you can see above, it still looks very much the same as it did on the series.

We also got to see one of the property’s upstairs rooms . . .

. . . which was featured on Commander in Chief as the office of First Gentleman Rod Calloway (aka Kyle Secor).

And we were shown the central stairwell and glass-plated dome area . . .

. . . which popped up in the series as a White House stairwell in the episode titled “The Price You Pay”.

I just about died when our tour guide said I could pose for a picture on that very same stairwell. LOVE IT!

The exterior of the Cravens Estate also appeared in “The Price You Pay” episode as a supposed Washington, D.C.-area restaurant where President Mackenzie Calloway (aka Geena Davis) and her husband, Rod, take Attorney General nominee Carl Brantley (aka Alan Arkin) and his wife, Sue (aka Elizabeth Dennehy), out for dinner.

The Cravens Estate was also used extensively as Dalton Academy during this past season of Glee – a show which has gotten so bad that I can hardly bear to watch it anymore. Anyway, it first showed up in the Season 2 episode titled “Never Been Kissed” in the scene in which Kurt Hummel (aka Chris Colfer) spies on a rival Glee club known as the Warblers. Kurt later transfers to Dalton and joins the Warblers, after which time the estate was featured regularly on the series. Areas of the estate which appeared on the show include the central staircase;

the entryway;

the reception room;

and the dining room.

The Cravens Estate was also featured weekly as the supposed Falls Church, Virginia-area JAG headquarters on the television series of the same name. According to the official Cravens Estate website, JAG producer Donald P. Bellisario used to regularly receive letters from fans stating that they had searched high and low for the property while on stalking expeditions in Falls Church, Virginia, not realizing that it was actually located right here in Pasadena.

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The Cravens Estate was also used extensively as the Silverberg & Blake law firm where Robert Clayton Dean (aka Will Smith) worked in the 1998 thriller Enemy of the State. Areas which appeared in the movie include the exterior;

the dining room;

the central stairway;

and the same upstairs room that was used as Rod Calloway’s office on Commander in Chief.

In the 2001 movie Swordfish, the estate was where Stanley Jobson’s (aka Hugh Jackman’s) daughter, Holly (aka Camryn Grimes), went to school.

The back of the estate stood in for the French Consulate where a limo was bombed towards the beginning of the 2007 flick Rush Hour 3.

The estate’s reception room also appeared in Rush Hour 3.

According to the book The Worldwide Guide to Movie Locations, the above-pictured scene from the 2001 movie Traffic, in which Robert Wakefield (aka Michael Douglas) is briefed by the White House Chief of Staff (aka Albert Finney), was filmed in a room at the Cravens Estate, although because only a tight shot of it was shown, I am not able to verify this or make a guess as to the exact room where filming took place.

The estate was also where Chauncey Gardiner (aka Peter Sellers) and Eve Rand (aka Shirley MacLaine) attended a cocktail party in the 1979 movie Being There.

The estate also stood in for the University of Minnesota dorm where Brenda Walsh (aka Shannen Doherty) briefly lived in the Season 4 episodes of Beverly Hills, 90210 titled “So Long, Auf Wiedersehen” and “The Girl from New York”.

In the Season 5 episode of Desperate Housewives titled “Look Into Their Eyes and You See What They Know”, the estate stood in for Beecher Academy, where Edie Britt’s (aka Nicolette Sheridan’s) son Travers (aka Stephen Lunsford) attended school. After Edie’s death, the women of Wisteria Lane – Bree Hodge (aka Marcia Cross), Lynette Scavo (aka Felicity Huffman), Gabrielle Solis (aka Eva Longoria), Susan Mayer (aka Teri Hatcher), and Karen McCluskey (aka Kathryn Joosten) – travel to the school in order to bring Edie’s ashes to Travers.

The entryway of the Cravens Estate was transformed into a restaurant in the Season 3 episode of Mad Men titled “The Gypsy and the Hobo” for the scene in which Roger Sterling (aka John Slattery) takes Annabelle Mathis (aka Mary Page Keller, who, ironically enough, also had a recurring role on Commander in Chief) out for dinner.

Fellow stalker/Jennifer Love Hewitt-aficionado Owen also let me know that the estate appeared as Parkdale Academy in the Season 4 episode of Ghost Whisperer titled “Delusions of Grandview”.

Both the exterior . . .

. . . and the interior of the property were used quite extensively in the episode.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The American Red Cross’ San Gabriel Pomona Valley Headquarters, aka the Cravens Estate from Commander in Chief, is located at 430 Madeline Drive in Pasadena. Here is a map link to the location. You can visit the property’s official website here. If you would like a tour of the estate, please call to schedule an appointment first.