San Diego Filming Locations

September 11, 2009September 15, 2009

Kirsten Dunst’s Bring It On House

Well, as Vanessa Williams once sang, I definitely “saved the best for last” regarding my Bring It On posts this week. As you might have already guessed, the BIO filming location I was most excited about stalking was, of course, the ultra-cool, modern-style abode belonging to Kirsten Dunst’s character, Torrance Shipman, in the movie. Fellow stalker Owen found this location by, again, getting a hold of a Bring It On crew member who remembered that the house was located on a cul-de-sac about twenty-five miles north of San Diego in a small beach community named Cardiff-by-the-Sea. Owen got to cyber-stalking and, sure enough, found the house pretty much immediately. So, on our way home from San Diego this past Saturday morning, I dragged my parents out to Cardiff-by-the-Sea to stalk the house. And, let me tell you, the stalking gods were definitely smiling down on me that day, because when we pulled up to the house the owners happened to be standing outside and they ended up giving us a TOUR OF THEIR HOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 🙂 But I’ll get to that in a minute.

When I first hopped out of the car, camera in hand, and noticed the owners standing outside, I asked them if their house had been used in Bring It On and they said, “You found us!” LOL The owners honestly could NOT have been nicer and literally talked to us for over twenty minutes and answered all of my silly little questions about the filming. They also told us all sorts of cool behind-the-scenes information, like the fact that the movie was originally titled Cheer Fever and that the flick was not expected to be released in theatres, but to instead go straight to DVD. No one had any idea it would turn out to be such a huge hit! The owner, Cindy, also told us that producers were considering three different houses in the area to stand in as Torrance’s home in the movie – hers, one just around the corner, and another in Point Loma. They ended up choosing Cindy’s because they liked the fact that it was located on a cul-de-sac. So interesting! Then, when I asked Cindy if she had gotten to meet Kirsten Dunst during the filming, she said “Hold on a minute!”, ran inside, and grabbed a photo album that she had made of the shoot!!!! It was at that point that I just about keeled over from excitement!!! 🙂

As you can probably imagine, I was absolutely mesmerized by Cindy’s photo album! It contained numerous pictures of the filming, including candid photographs of the actors hanging out on set and getting their make-up done, and photographs of the house being dressed up for the shoot. Cindy told us that producers actually changed the front of her home quite significantly for the filming. In real life, the home has two separate garages – a single car garage on the right hand side and a two car garage on the left. For a reason that she was unsure of, set dressers built a false exterior to cover up the two-car garage, as you can see in the above photograph. They also added a significant amount of foliage in front of that fake exterior, I am guessing to hide that part of the driveway.

One part of the home that was not changed for the movie was the little circular address plaque situated on the front of the single car garage. Yay!! I so loved seeing that! 🙂

Another cool tidbit of information that Cindy told me what that prior to the filming of Bring It On, she did not have a bench in her front porch area. But when producers brought one in for the shoot, Cindy and her husband really liked how it looked and ended up purchasing one to put in the exact same spot where Jesse Bradford sat in the above scene. Love it!

Included in Cindy’s Bring It On scrapbook were pictures of the interior of her home all dressed up for the filming. As I had been under the assumption that all of the interior scenes had taken place on a soundstage, I just about fell over when I found out that they had actually filmed inside of the real house! And it was then that Cindy asked – are you sitting down for this??? – if my mom and I wanted to come inside her home to see the areas that were used in the movie! DID WE WANT TO COME INSIDE? DID WE WANT TO COME INSIDE? LOL OF COURSE WE DID! 🙂 The area of the home that I was most excited about seeing was the cool spiral staircase located off of the living room, as my fiancé and I have a very similar stairwell in our apartment! 🙂 When I mentioned that fact to Cindy, she insisted that I pose for a picture on the stairs. SO COOL! 🙂 Thank God she did, too, as it was the ONLY photograph I ended up taking inside of the house. 🙁 I was so incredibly overwhelmed at seeing everything in person that I totally forgot to take any pictures! LOL I am such an airhead sometimes, I swear!

Needless to say, the Bring It On house is absolutely beautiful inside. The areas of the home that were used in the filming include the kitchen and the living room, which both look a bit different in real life, as producers changed the color of the walls and brought in all new furnishings for the shoot.

The home’s master bedroom – which we did not get to see – was also used in the movie as Kirsten Dunst’s room. Producers not only had the room painted a mustard yellow color (yuck!) for the filming, but also paid a young girl to decorate the walls with magazine pin-ups, photographs, and cheerleading memorabilia. Oh, how I would have LOVED to have had that job as a kid! LOL So would have been right up my alley. 🙂

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I cannot tell you how cool it was to see the Bring It On house so up close and personal and to get to speak with the real life owners at length about their experiences during the filming. My mom was completely floored, too, and she’s never even seen Bring It On! LOL As I was leaving the house, I texted Owen to let him know the awesome news and he wrote back “How do you always get so darn lucky???” To tell you the truth, I often find myself asking that very same question! LOL Sometimes the stalking stars just align, I guess, but, let me tell you, I often have to pinch myself when thinking about all of the amazingly cool things I’ve gotten to do while stalking! 🙂

A big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location. And another BIG THANK YOU to the owners of the Bring It On house for COMPLETELY making my day by inviting my mom and me into their home and spending so much time chatting with us! You guys ROCK! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Kirsten Dunst’s house from Bring It On is located at 2002 Bruceala Court in Cardiff-by-the-Sea, just North of San Diego. If you stalk this home, please respect the owners’ privacy and do not trespass, ring the doorbell, or ask to be let inside. My mom and I were extremely lucky to meet the residents and be given a tour of the home, but as this is not common practice, please don’t bother the owners about doing it yourself.

September 10, 2009September 9, 2009

Eliza Dushku’s House from Bring It On

One of the locations I was most excited about seeing this past weekend in San Diego was the La Jolla area residence that was used as the home of siblings Missy Pantone (aka Eliza Dushku) and Cliff Pantone (aka cutie Jesse Bradford) in 2000’s Bring It On. Full credit goes to fellow stalker Owen for tracking down this locale through some painstaking research. A few weeks back, when Owen first set out on his mission to find all of the Bring It On locations, we both decided that the places we were most interested in seeing were the two main homes used in the movie. I’m not sure why, but for some reason, out of all the movie and television locations I’ve stalked, homes always seem to be my favorite! 🙂 Anyway, Owen managed to get ahold of a Bring It On crew member who told him that he remembered exactly two things about Eliza Dushku’s house in the movie. One – it was absolutely GINORMOUS in size, and two – it was located on a cul-de-sac somewhere near La Jolla Village Drive in La Jolla. So, with that information in hand, Owen got to work using Google Maps and, sure enough, it wasn’t long before he had found it! So, this past weekend while vacationing in San Diego, I,of course, immediately dragged my parents right out to stalk the Bring It On house.

As you can see in the above photographs and screen capture, Eliza Dushku’s Bring It On house still looks pretty much the same today as it did back in 2000 when the movie was filmed. And, the crew member Owen spoke with was right – the home is absolutely HUGE! So huge, in fact, that I couldn’t step back far enough to fit the whole thing in my camera lens. LOL

A few minor changes have actually been made to the exterior of the house, though, which shouldn’t be all that surprising, I guess, being that Bring It On was filmed almost a decade ago. Those changes include the two trees flanking each side of the front door, which have grown considerably since the filming;

the wrought-iron stairway railing which has since been removed;

and – what is, in my mind, the strangest alteration of all – the front door, which has been changed from a double door to a single. So odd!

As you can see from the above screen captures and Google Maps aerial view, the backyard still looks pretty much exactly the same today as it did when Bring It On was filmed. The only thing missing is the swing set, which I am fairly certain was just a prop brought in solely for the filming.

Eliza Dushku’s house shows up several times throughout Bring It On, most memorably in the Kirsten Dunst and Jesse Bradford toothbrushing scene that I talked about in Tuesday’s post – one of my most favorite movie scenes ever! So love it! 🙂

Eliza Dushku’s Bring It On house is truly beautiful in person – and, as I mentioned before, absolutely enormous! According to Zillow, the five bedroom, six bathroom home, which was built in 1991, measures a whopping 7,160 square feet!! And, as you can see in the above photograph, also has a FIVE CAR GARAGE!

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Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Eliza Dushku’s Bring It On house is located at 7762 Starlight Drive in La Jolla.

September 9, 2009September 8, 2009

Humphrey’s Half Moon Inn & Suites from Bring It On

The second item on my Bring It On stalking agenda from last weekend was a little hotel named Humphrey’s Half Moon Inn & Suites, which is also located on San Diego’s Shelter Island, just down the street from the Marlin Club which I blogged about yesterday. This is one location that I actually hadn’t planned on stalking when I first headed down to San Diego last Friday. But – thanks to fellow stalker Owen – I had the address written down in my trusty stalking notebook, so when my dad mentioned that he wanted to look at a boat store that was in the same area as Humphrey’s, I asked if he would be so kind as to also take me by the hotel. Well, as you can probably imagine, that request did NOT go over well AT ALL! My dad promptly reminded me that I had originally promised I would only be dragging him to two stalking locations that weekend. He was more than just slightly peeved that I was all of a sudden adding previously unmentioned locales to the list. In his defense, though, he hadn’t really been feeling well all weekend and, being that he just barely tolerates my stalking habit on a good day, perhaps this is one request I shouldn’t have made. But since we were going to be in the area, I just HAD to ask. Well, my dad did end up – very relunctantly – taking me by the hotel and, as fate would have it, as soon as we got there he absolutely fell in love with the place! He took about a million pictures, walked the entire hotel grounds, and even suggested to my mom that they stay there during their next San Diego trip. LOL LOL LOL See, as I’ve always said, good things come to those who stalk!! 🙂 You simply just never know what cool spot is waiting right around the corner for you to discover!

I’m actually not at all surprised that my dad was so taken with Humphrey’s, as it is a really beautiful hotel which boasts a private marina, picturesque ocean views, a fitness center, a heated pool and jacuzzi complete with a poolside bar, a putting green, a spa, large lawns, meandering ponds, and a waterfront restaurant which was recently named “San Diego’s Finest Restaurant with Live Music Venue” by the California Restaurant Association.

Humphrey’s also has quite a large celebrity connection. Besides being a favorite of television star John Stamos, whose E! True Hollywood Story was filmed in part at the hotel, each summer Humphrey’s is also the site of a very successful outdoor concert series named Humphrey’s Concerts by the Bay. I literally almost fell over when I read a list of the many famous names who had recently graced Humphrey’s stage. Those names include The Soup’s Joel McHale (so LOVE him!), Joe Cocker, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, LeAnn Rimes, Joan Baez, the Indigo Girls, Tori Amos, Jewel, Chicago, Tears for Fears, the Moody Blues, Earth, Wind, & Fire, Lyle Lovett, Tracy Chapman, Tower of Power, Dave Koz, Sinbad, Air Supply, Christopher Cross, Wanda Sykes, the Beach Boys, Crosby, Stills, & Nash, Loggins & Messina, and Chris Botti. Whew! What a lineup!

Ironically enough, while my parents and I were perusing the hotel grounds (before we had learned about Humphrey’s A-List concert series), we happened upon a rock group setting up in a backstage area. As we were walking by, one of the band members put his arm out to block my path and said “Hey, are you with the band?” I was a bit taken aback at the man’s rude tone and said “No, I’m sorry, I’m actually not with the band. Am I not supposed to be walking through here?” The guy laughed and said “Aw, I’m just joking with you. Unless, of course, you want to volunteer to help these guys set up the stage.” To which I said, “If you make me the star of your next music video, I might stick around to help.” LOL Well, the guy just laughed at me and that was that. Until a few minutes later when I noticed a large crate with the words “RatDog” and “Grateful Dead” stenciled across the front. I immediately grabbed my mom and said “Oh my God, I think we were just talking to members of the Grateful Dead!” She looked at me like I was absolutely crazy and said “No, Lindsay, trust me, the Grateful Dead would not be playing here.” Well, come to find out, former Dead guitarist Bob Weir and his band, RatDog, were, in fact, playing at Humphrey’s that night and not only had we walked right past some of the band members, but I had actually unknowingly spoken with one and asked him to put me in his next music video! LOL LOL LOL When we went back later to ask the band if they’d take a picture with me, they were, unfortunately, nowhere to be found. 🙁

In Bring It On, Humphrey’s stood in for the Daytona Beach Tiki Adventure Suites hotel where Kirsten Dunst and the rest of the Toros stayed during the Universal Cheer Association Nationals Competition towards the end of the movie. I’m actually quite surprised that producers chose to use Humphrey’s to represent a Florida area hotel, as the place looks more like it belongs in Waikiki than Daytona Beach. Although its close proximity to the Marlin Club must have made it the easy choice for filming.

Several areas of the hotel were featured in Bring It On, including the front entrance;

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the exterior of some of the rooms,

the pool area,

and the interior of one of the rooms.

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Humphrey’s Half Moon Inn & Suites is a really beautiful place and I highly recommend stalking it! I am very much looking forward to my parent’s next trip down to San Diego, as it looks like they will most likely be staying at Humphrey’s, so you can bet I’ll be tagging along with them once again!!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Bring It On hotel, aka Humphrey’s Half Moon Inn & Suites, is located at 2303 Shelter Island Drive on Shelter Island, just outside of Point Loma, in San Diego. You can visit their website here. Humphrey’s is located just down the street from another Bring It On location – the Marlin Club – which can be found at 2445 Shelter Island Drive.

September 8, 2009September 8, 2009

The Marlin Club from “Bring It On”

A few weeks ago, my parents, my fiance, and I went down to San Diego for a few days for a short little summer vacay. When I told fellow stalker Owen where I was headed, he set out on a mission to find pretty much every single location used in 2000’s Bring It On, a teen comedy which was filmed in its entirety in the beachside city. Well, imagine my disappointment when I received an email from Owen listing ALL of the Bring It On locations – including the two main houses featured in the movie! – a few days later while in the car on the way home from that trip! Being that we were already outside the city limits by the time I read his email, and being that my parents outright refused to turn the car around (I know, the nerve!), there was no way I would be able stalk the Bring It On locales that day. Needless to say, I could NOT have been more disappointed!!! 🙁 The only silver lining to the whole situation was the fact that since I find myself in the San Diego area at least once a month, I knew I would be able to stalk the locations in the very near future. So, last week, when my parents announced that they would be traveling to San Diego for a few days, I just about had a heart attack and told them that, like it or not, I would be joining them on their trip. 🙂 So, bright and early Friday morning, I headed down to sunny San Diego. The first item on my Bring It On stalking agenda? The Shelter Island Marlin Club, where the brief, but memorable bikini car wash scene took place. 🙂

In Bring It On, the Rancho Carne Toros Cheeleading Team decides to host a massive car wash event at the Marlin Club in order to raise money to hire a professional choreographer who will hopefully give them the leg up at their upcoming regional competition. To attract potential car wash clients, the team, which includes cheerleaders Kirsten Dunst and Eliza Dushku, conducts the entire event in their bathing suits, which is perhaps why this particular scene has become the most well-known out of the entire movie. Well, amongst males anyway. My personal favorite scene is, of course, Jesse Bradford and Kirsten Dunst’s toothbrushing scene, which has got to be one of the best movie scenes of all time!!! So, darn cute! 🙂 And if you don’t happen to know the scene of which I am speaking, obviously you have yet to see Bring It On, in which case you must go out and rent it RIGHT NOW! 🙂 But, I digress.

In actuality, the Marlin Club is not a car wash at all, but a fishing club and free, certified fish weighing station located on a tiny peninsula in San Diego known as Shelter Island. The Club, which was started on September 15, 1931, is open year-round for local and visiting fisherman who want to get their recent catches weighed for free. In 1952, the Marlin Club built their clubhouse, which can be seen in the background of the above screen capture and photograph. And in 1958, the Club became incorporated as a non-profit organization. The Marlin Club now boasts several hundred members, each paying annual dues which go to help support the free weighings provided to the public. According to their website, they invite any and all fishing enthusiasts to “drop in and share a fish story” anytime.

Ironically enough, a Marlin can even be seen hanging in the background of the car wash scene in Bring It On, although the camera moved far too fast for me to get a good screen capture of it.

Because the Marlin Club is, in essence, a large parking lot with a gorgeous view, it’s not very hard to see why producers chose to use it for the Bring It On car wash scene. And I am very happy to report that the Club still looks pretty much identical to how it appeared onscreen almost a full decade ago. And, even though, it’s really “just” a parking lot, it is still very easily recognizable from the movie.

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Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Marlin Club from Bring It On can be found at 2445 Shelter Island Drive on Shelter Island, which is located just outside of Point Loma, in San Diego. You can visit the Marlin Club’s website here.

January 8, 2009February 13, 2009

Kansas City Barbeque – Back and Better Than Ever!

I thought I’d take a little break today from my NYC blogging – and yes, I do have many more Manhattan filming locations to write about 🙂 – to do a little post about an old favorite of mine – Kansas City Barbeque in San Diego, or as it is more commonly known, the Top Gun Bar. The restaurant, which suffered from a devastating fire on June 26th of last year, recently reopened this past November – just in time to serve up it’s annual free Thanksgiving dinner for active duty military. And I had yet to stalk the place since it’s grand reopening. So a few weeks ago, while in San Diego celebrating my best friend’s college graduation, I dragged my boyfriend out for a little post-fire stalking.

I am happy to report that despite the interior of the restaurant needing to be almost entirely redone due to smoke and fire damage, Kansas City Barbeque still looks pretty much the same as it did in Top Gun. Some of the changes that were made – the bar area was remodeled and altered slightly, skylights were added to the dining room, the kitchen was entirely rebuilt, and new exterior awnings were installed. But other than looking a bit shinier and newer, it’s still the same old Kansas City Barbeque we all knew and loved. 🙂 And I am very, very happy to report that much of the Top Gun memorabilia actually survived the fire, including Goose’s piano, which was actually owner Martin Blair’s childhood piano.

Some items that were sadly ruined in June’s fire? The many autographed headshots of celebs who had frequented KCBBQ in the past. A few stars were kind enough to send in replacement pics, though, after being contacted by Martin after the fire. How cool is that?? Brooke Shields, Andre Agassi, Richard Dean Anderson, a few Padres players, and Jerry Lewis all sent in new headshots to be placed on KCBBQ’s new walls. Ostensibly missing from the headshot wall, though, is Tom Cruise, who was apparently contacted for a new pic, but has yet to send one in. Personally I think that’s pretty darn crappy, especially since Maverick was the role that made him a star. But, hey, I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt because, despite his couch-jumping antics and Pro-Scientology rants, I still believe that deep down Tommy is a really nice guy. I just can’t help it. 🙂 I am guessing that Tom C. Ruz is a pretty hard guy to get ahold of and maybe his publicist just isn’t giving him KCBBQ’s message. So Tommy, if you’re out there, do the right thing and send your headshot to Kansas City Barbeque. While you’re at it, thrown in one of Katie and Suri, as well. 🙂 Other stars who have frequented the legendary restaurant include Lorenzo Llamas, Dennis Rodman, and Dallas’ Charlene Tilton.

I highly recommend stalking KCBBQ, even if you are not a Top Gun fan. The bar has a great atmosphere and serves us some fabulous food – especially the French fries. I ate an entire plate of them! Not kidding. 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It:Kansas City Barbeque is located at 610 W. Market Street in Downtown San Diego.

October 21, 2008September 29, 2017

Kansas City Barbeque Is Back In Business – Just In Time For Halloween!

This weekend, I took a little vacay down to San Diego with my family. Of course, while there I had to do some stalking of the Top Gun Bar, aka Kansas City Barbeque, which sadly has been closed since June 26th of this year due to a major fire. I was very curious to see what the restaurant looked like since the devastating fire took place and what progress, if any, had been made on the restoration of the property.

I was actually shocked to see that the restaurant actually looked pretty good! I was expecting complete devastation, but I am happy to report that, from the outside, the place looks pretty much the same as it did before the fire, despite a few scorch marks.

While we were outside taking photographs, one of the staff members walked over to talk with us. He really could not have been nicer and he even showed us some photographs and newspaper articles about the fire. And he gave us the good news that, while the restaurant probably won’t be open for regular business until mid-November, there will be a Halloween party held there on October 31st! Not only is that great news, but it also allowed me to tie KCBBQ in with my Halloween theme for this month! 🙂

He told us that the kitchen area, which is located towards the rear of the restaurant and which is where most of the fire damage occurred, has already been entirely rebuilt. The interior seating area suffered mostly just smoke damage, and sadly much of the Top Gun memorabilia was lost, including the juke box where Kelly McGillis plays “You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling” in the closing scene of the movie. 🙁 But thankfully Goose’s piano was salvaged, as were most of the candid photographs taken by KCBBQ staff during the filming.

The owners are asking for replacement memorabilia at this time. They are looking for anything having to do with Top Gun, the military, Kansas City, or flying in general. You can send any memorabilia you wish to donate to the address listed below. They ask that you sign and date everything you donate.

I am glad to report, too, that through the disaster KCBBQ kept its sense of humor – at one point they even added the letter “D” to the their logo out front so that it read “Kansas City Barbequed”. LOL I truly can’t wait for this San Diego (and Hollywood, for that matter) landmark to re-open. Until that time, if you happen to be in the area on Halloween, be sure to stop by KCBBQ. Tickets are $20 per person, but include all the alcohol you can drink.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Kansas City Barbeque is located at 610 W. Market Street in San Diego. The restaurant will hopefully re-open for regular business in mid-November. For more information you can visit their website.

June 30, 2008February 13, 2009

Sad Day for Stalkers!

Sad news!! Tony just posted a comment on my Top Gun Bar post letting me know that a fire destroyed Kansas City Barbeque, aka the Top Gun Bar, this past Thursday afternoon. This has NOT been a good month for fires and filming locations – first Universal and now this. 🙁 At approximately 2:15PM on Thursday, a fire broke out in an open fire pit in the kitchen area and quickly spread throughout the rest of the restaurant. Even though firefighters had the blaze put out in twenty minutes, most of the restaurant had already been gutted. The owners of Kansas City Barbeque did manage to save Goose’s piano, as well as some other Top Gun memorabilia, but most of the restaurant is sadly gone. They do plan to rebuild, but I can’t help feeling like a piece of movie history has been lost. 🙁 Such a sad day for stalkers!!

You can read the whole story on the fire here and here. You can also watch a news video which shows footage of the restaurant here.

June 19, 2008February 13, 2009

"Goose, You Big Stud . . . "

No self-respecting stalker can take a trip to San Diego without visiting Kansas City Barbecue, which is more commonly known as the “Top Gun Bar”. Kansas City Barbeque was actually featured twice in the 1986 Tom Cruise flick. It first shows up in the scene where Goose and Maverick serenade Kelly McGillis and Meg Ryan with “Great Balls of Fire” and Meg Ryan utters her famous line “Goose, you big stuuuuuud! Take me to bed now or lose me forever!” It also appears in the very final scene of the movie, where Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis reunite while “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” plays on the jukebox in the background. (Yes, that jukebox is still there!) 🙂

Even though Top Gun was filmed over 20 years ago, fans still flock to the tiny bar on a regular basis. I’ve even seen huge tour buses pull up out front on occasion. All of the bartenders there are extremely nice and will tell you all sorts of stories about the filming of the movie. The place would definitely be considered a dive bar, but it serves up some GREAT food in a super fun atmosphere. Sitting there, you might wonder how in the heck Kansas City Barbeque wound up in one of the biggest movies of the 80’s. Apparently, location scouts were out and about searching San Diego for filming locations for Top Gun and they stopped into Kansas City Barbeque for a cold beer and some lunch. They ended up loving the place so much, they brought director Tony Scott back there for lunch and he wound up featuring it in the movie. The rest, as they say, is history.

Goose’s piano and the jukebox can still be found in the Top Gun Bar, although they have been moved from where they stood during filming. There are tons of photographs and other movie memorabilia located throughout the restaurant – it’s a Top Gun museum of sorts. You will for sure recognize it from the movie as soon as you walk in the door and you’ll probably get the urge to sit down at Goose’s piano and play “Great Balls of Fire”. 🙂 Kansas City Barbeque is a super fun place to spend an afternoon or an evening and I highly recommend stalking it! It has also been voted “Best BBQ in San Diego” for ten years in a row.

Note – my pictures of the Top Gun Bar are extremely old! I couldn’t find my more recent ones. But trust me, the bar looks pretty much the same as it did over ten years ago when my pictures were taken. 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Kansas City Barbeque is located at 610 West Market Street in Downtown San Diego, just across the street from Seaport Village. You can visit the bar’s website here. After hanging out at the Top Gun Bar head across the street to Seaport Village, a cute little outdoor shopping center right on the water. Edgewater Grill, located in Seaport Village, is an excellent place for dinner!

June 18, 2008December 6, 2013

Hotel Del Coronado

Ever since I was a little girl, my family has been vacationing at Hotel Del Coronado on the island of Coronado. Hotel Del is a truly magical place – like no other hotel I have ever seen. Stepping inside it is literally like stepping back in time a hundred years to a completely different era. Completed in 1888 for the cost of one million dollars, the Victorian style hotel is one of the oldest and last remaining buildings made entirely of wood. It’s hard to believe, but not one single nail was used in the building of the hotel, instead the workers used wooden pegs to fasten and secure. Hotel Del Coronado was named a historical landmark in 1977 and it truly is a marvel to see in person. The lobby is covered in dark wood paneling and looks like it was taken right out of the set of James Cameron’s Titanic.

The hotel has undergone many changes in the past decade, including a $57 million renovation. Ironically I preferred the hotel in its pre-renovation days, as many of the original areas of the Del are now gone. When I was a little girl, the original men’s cigar room was still intact, but it was gutted a few years ago and is now a restaurant. The lobby piano bar was a favorite of my parents, but it was recently turned into a gift shop. The hotel’s original dining room, the Crown Room, used to be a magnificent 156 foot long restaurant with 30 foot high arched ceilings made entirely of Oregon Sugar Pine, but it is no longer open to the public and is now only used for special events. My parents actually threw me a surprise 21st birthday party in the Crown Room, so it holds a special place in my heart. While the hotel truly is still a magical place, sadly it was much more enchanting in years past.

Hotel Del is now and has always been a celebrity mecca. Hundreds of celebrities, dignitaries, authors, and almost every single American president of the past 20 years have all been guests of the hotel. Thomas Edison, George Burns, Harry Truman, Charlie Chaplin, Babe Ruth, Charles Lindbergh, Lucille Ball, and Frank Sinatra all stayed at the Del at one time or another. L. Frank Baum, who lived on Coronado, was a frequent guest of the hotel, and it is rumored that the Del was his inspiration for Emerald City in The Wizard of Oz. He also designed the crown chandeliers that still hang to this day in the Crown Room.

Countless TV and movie productions have been filmed at the Del – including My Blue Heaven, K-9, Mr. Wrong, The Stunt Man, The Married Virgin, Simon & Simon, Ghosts of California, Baywatch and, of course, the 1959 Marilyn Monroe classic Some Like It Hot , where it was used extensively as a Miami resort. Interestingly enough, Billy Wilder chose to shoot Some Like It Hot at the Del because at the time the hotel was in an economic decline so the owners let him film there for minimal costs. He also wanted to shoot at a place where Marilyn Monroe could stay on location – due to her numerous on-set antics, he did not want to take the risk of her not showing up to the set due to transporation problems. The picture to left is of the stage where Marilyn and “the girls” performed their concert in Miami. Also, the book Bid Time Return , on which the 1980 movie Somewhere In Time was based, was written about Hotel Del Coronado. However, producers chose to use the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island in Michigan for the filming of the movie.

Movie memorabilia and photographs used to line the Del’s long hallways and as a little girl I would walk the corridors looking at all of the old time movie photographs, completely mesmerized. At the time, being at the Del was the closest I ever got to being on a movie set. Today, the memorabilia has been moved to the Coronado Museum of History and Art, just down the street from the Del. For a $4 admission fee, you can enter the museum and learn the history of the island and the hotel.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Hotel Del Coronado is located at 1500 Orange Avenue on Coronado Island in San Diego. You can visit the hotel’s website to book a room here. While at the hotel, be sure to visit the Est. 1888 gift shop – they sell photos and souvenirs from the many movies filmed at the Del. The Coronado Museum of History and Art is located at 1100 Orange Avenue. They are open Monday through Friday from 9am to 5pm and Saturdays and Sundays from 10am to 5pm. You can visit their website here.

June 17, 2008February 13, 2009

Stalking San Diego

Spent this past weekend in Coronado, a small island off the coast of San Diego, with my family to celebrate Father’s Day. My best friend, who lives nearby, came over to spend the day with me by the hotel pool and when she got there she mentioned that she was a “bit afraid” to tell me that a production crew was filming on the San Diego-Coronado Bridge. LOL While I didn’t drag her over to the bridge to do some stalking, I thought I’d do a post about past productions that took place there.

The Coronado Bridge, as it is more commonly referred to, is 11,288 feet long and 200 feet high – a height which permits Navy ships harbored at the nearby Naval Station San Diego to safely sail underneath. The Bridge was built in 1969 and connects the City of San Diego, via the 5 Freeway, to Coronado Island. It is the third most popular suicide bridge in America, following the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and the Aurora Bridge in Seattle, Washington. My best friend also shared a very cool, little known bridge fact with me – it floats! Yes, you read that right! In the case of a disaster, natural or otherwise, if the Coronado Bridge is destroyed, pieces of it will actually float instead of sinking to the bottom. It was designed this way so that in the case of a disaster large pieces of the bridge can be towed out of the harbor so that the Naval Station and Navy ships are not blocked in.

The Coronado Bridge is an oft used filming location, mostly for commercials, but it has showed up in a few TV shows. The bridge was featured each week in the opening credits of the TV show Simon & Simon and it also showed up several times on Veronica Mars, where most notably it was the bridge where Logan’s mother jumped to her death. While it is sometimes referenced as the bridge used in Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, even though that movie was supposed to take place in “Sun” Diego, it was actually filmed almost entirely in Long Beach. The scene where Will Ferrel and Jack Black get into a fist fight was actually filmed on the Queensway Bridge in Long Beach, not on the Coronado Bridge.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The San Diego-Coronado Bridge is located off the 5 Freeway in San Diego County, just past the Downtown San Diego exits. If you have time, spend the afternoon walking around Coronado – it is an adorable little town.