The Bachelorette – IAMNOTASTALKER

April 20, 2015April 17, 2015

ARIA Resort & Casino “The Bachelor”

Each season, The Bachelor reality series whisks its stars and contestants to various exotic, high-end locales. During Brad Womack’s second stint as The Bachelor, he and the ladies (including my girl Emily Maynard) headed to the ARIA Resort & Casino in Las Vegas. Prior to last month, I had not been to Sin City in over a decade (that’s like a lifetime in Vegas years!), long before the ARIA had been built, and I was absolutely itching to stalk the place. So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on over there to grab cocktails our second night in town.

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ARIA Resort & Casino, which is comprised of two curvilinear glass towers, is situated in the middle of CityCenter, a 67-acre, 6-building complex consisting of 3 condominium towers, 3 hotels with a total of 4,800 rooms, and an upscale mall named The Shops at Crystals.

ARIA was designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects and opened to the public in December 2009. According to a USA Today article from that year, the site’s unusual name was derived from the fact that the hotel is the focal point of the CityCenter complex and arias are the focal points of operas.

The AAA Five Diamond-rated hotel stands at 600 feet tall, measures 4,000,000 square feet, and is nothing short of stunning! The property features 4,004 rooms and suites, 16 restaurants, 15 bars and nightclubs, 5 pools, 3 hot tubs, an 80,000-square-foot spa, a convention center, a theater, and, of course, a casino.

ARIA’s three-story lobby boasts incredible textures. I realize that is kind of an odd way to describe the design of a hotel, but every corner of the place seems to sport a uniquely tactile feature. From a hanging glass ball curtain . . .

. . . to a wall of thick, reclaimed wood planks . . .

. . . to a massive chandelier made of what appeared to be paper-thin shells – every décor piece had its own unique look and feel and, when put together, the result was fabulous.

I was especially enamored of the 84-foot silver sculpture situated behind the registration desk. Named Silver River, the piece, which was designed by Maya Lin, who also designed the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., was inspired by the layout of the Colorado River.

And don’t even get me started on The Shops at Crystals! It is easily the most architecturally unique mall I have ever set foot in.

I mean, check out that ceiling!

The Crystals’ Starbucks was pretty darn amazing, as well.

During a Season 15 episode of The Bachelor, Brad Womack and the ladies ventured to Las Vegas for a series of dates. The ARIA was used extensively throughout the episode.

While there, the women stayed in one of the hotel’s massive Sky Suites.

Many of the dates took place at ARIA, as well.

The most memorable date, for me at least, was Shawntel Newton’s shopping spree date at The Shops at Crystals, during which she got to purchase anything and everything she wanted. Um, DREAM DATE!

As if that wasn’t enough, Shawntel’s date ended with a dinner and fireworks show on the roof of Crystals.

ARIA was also featured in a Season 6 episode of The Bachelorette in which Ali Fedotowsky took Jesse Beck to Las Vegas for a one-on-one date.

During the date, the couple spent time at ARIA’s Liquid Pool & Lounge . . .

. . . and ate dinner in a Sky Villa.

They also attended a private concert with singer Jamie Cullum at ARIA’s Haze Nightclub, which has since closed.

Much of Last Vegas, one of my favorite movies of 2013, took place at ARIA.

In the comedy, childhood buddies Billy (Michael Douglas), Paddy (Robert De Niro), Archie (Morgan Freeman) and Sam (Kevin Kline) gather at ARIA for Billy’s bachelor party.

Though much of the hotel was featured throughout the movie, the guys’ four-bedroom Penthouse Villa was just a set.

In the 2013 thriller Now You See Me, the Four Horsemen – J. Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson), Henley Reeves (Isla Fisher) and Jack Wilder (Dave Franco) – were arrested at the ARIA.

One of the hotel’s Sky Villas was used in the filming.

And this past weekend, Sarah Jessica Parker was on hand at The Shops at Crystals for the launch of the pop-up boutique for her The SJP shoe collection (images below via The Shops at Crystals Instagram and the SJP Collection Instagram).

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: ARIA Resort & Casino, from The Bachelor, is located at 3730 South Las Vegas Boulevard in Las Vegas. You can visit the hotel’s official website here.

August 19, 2014August 16, 2014

The Ritz-Carlton, Rancho Mirage

The Ritz-Carlton, Rancho Mirage recently re-opened after what amounted to countless delays and an almost eight-year closure. A few years prior to its shuttering, when it was known as The Lodge at Rancho Mirage, the resort hosted the nuptials of Bachelorette Trista Rehn and Ryan Sutter, and I had been itching to stalk it ever since. The Grim Cheaper and I had actually stayed at the property a couple of times, long before Trista and Ryan’s wedding and long before I ever had a blog, but, unfortunately I never took any pictures, so, for me, the grand unveil could not come soon enough. When the hotel finally did re-open a few months ago, I ran right out to stalk it. Sadly though, it no longer looks anything like it did when Trista and Ryan tied the knot there a little over a decade ago.

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The 24-acre resort located at 68900 Frank Sinatra Drive was originally constructed in 1988 as the seventh hotel in the Ritz-Carlton chain. In 2001, it was sold to Vail Resorts, Inc. and was renamed The Lodge at Rancho Mirage. The décor and design largely remained the same as it was during the Ritz days. During that time, the property was awarded several distinctions, including one of the Top 500 Hotels in the World by Travel + Leisure, one of the Top 100 Golf Resorts in North America by Condé Nast Traveler, and Highest Rated Resort, Palm Springs Area by ZAGAT. Despite the success, Vail Resorts sold The Lodge to Gencom in 2005. The site was shuttered the following year and arrangements made to fully renovate it and re-open it once again as a Ritz. Things did not go according to plan, though, and the project was halted in 2008 when Lehman Brothers, which was backing the renovation financially, filed for bankruptcy. The property was subsequently left vacant for the next five years until a new development company stepped in. Construction resumed in 2013 and, after several delays, the redesign was finally unveiled this past May.

That redesign turned out to be a complete gutting. Sadly, the resort no longer resembles its former self in the slightest. And while the remodel is undeniably beautiful, I much preferred the look of the place in its old state.

I am of the opinion that a hotel should embrace the city it is located in. If I am staying in a hotel in New York, I want to know I’m in New York. If I check into a resort in Seattle, I want to know I’m in Seattle. While some desert elements were incorporated into the new design of the Ritz, nothing about it says “Palm Springs” to me. The place has more of a generic feel. Walking through the lobby, I felt as if I could have been anywhere – Arizona, Pasadena or even Hawaii for that matter.

I was completely obsessed with the hardwood flooring, though. Gorge!

The outside remodel was also disappointing. The resort’s exterior space used to be much more open, with green rolling lawns as far as the eye could see. Today, the property is partitioned into several different areas and, while each section is beautiful, I prefer a sprawling look.

One thing that hasn’t changed, though, is the view. The Ritz, which sits atop a 650-foot bluff, still boasts some of the best panoramas in the entire Coachella Valley.

Trista and Ryan’s wedding, which was televised by ABC (of course), took place on December 6th, 2003. The lavish affair cost a reported $4 million, with some 30,000 roses flown in from Ecuador and Holland for the occasion. The Lodge was shut down to the public for a whopping four days during the event. You can check out some photographs of the nuptials here.

The couple was married on The Lodge’s east lawn, in a spot adjacent to the resort’s popular wedding gazebo. Sadly, that gazebo, and the entire lawn area, in fact, were dismantled during the renovation. The former location of the gazebo is denoted with a pink arrow in the image below and the area where Trista and Ryan’s nuptials took place is denoted with a pink “X.” You can check out some photographs of what the east lawn used to look like here.

That same spot post-remodel is pictured below. While it used to consist of a large sprawling lawn, today it is made up of a pool . . .

. . . and a large AstroTurf (I know, gross!) lounge area.

It is also now surrounded by hotel wings on three sides (one of the wings is a new addition) and, therefore, not as open as it once was.

Trista and Ryan are hardly the only celebs to have stayed at the resort. A few of the other luminaries who have walked the halls include Brad Pitt, Jennifer Aniston, Jennifer Lopez, former president Gerald Ford, John Travolta, Bruce Springsteen, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Kathy Ireland.

On an exciting side-note – this Thursday morning at 8 a.m. PST, I will be a guest on my favorite desert radio show, “The Bill Feingold Show Featuring Kevin Holmes” on K-News 94.3. (That’s me with Bill “Bulldog” Feingold below.) You can listen to it live online here.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Ritz-Carlton, Rancho Mirage, aka the place where Trista Rehn and Ryan Sutter got married, is located at 68900 Frank Sinatra Drive in Rancho Mirage. You can visit the resort’s official website here.

May 24, 2012May 24, 2012

An “Extra” Taping with “The Bachelorette’s” Emily Maynard!

Late last week, Miss Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog, informed me that the current Bachelorette, the impossibly adorable Emily Maynard, would be filming a segment for Extra at The Grove in L.A. on Tuesday, May 22nd. And while I am not usually a fan of getting celebrity pictures during Extra tapings – there are always massive amounts of people trying to do the exact same thing, security is difficult, at best, and the set-up is different everyday so one never knows the best place to stand – because this stalker absolutely LOVES LOVES LOVES herself some Emily Maynard, I had to at least try. Which is how I found myself heading out to The Grove bright and early this past Tuesday morning, and, as it turned out, things could not have gone more perfectly! And I would like to go on the record here and state that while I LOVE Emily as The Bachelorette, it is this stalker’s never-to-be-humble opinion that producers seriously dropped the ball on choosing her suitors. There is not one guy in the bunch that I even mildly like. (Although I did truly laugh out loud at the comment contestant John “Wolf” made about fellow contestant Kalon in Monday night’s episode in which he said, “I have a rule – if you have Louis Vuitton luggage and you’re a dude, you’re an a**hole!”) Emily, you’ve definitely got your work cut out for you!

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I ended up arriving at The Grove at around 9 a.m., about two hours before Emily’s interview was scheduled to begin and, amazingly enough, the mall and area around the Extra stage were both completely empty. After milling around for a bit, looking in the windows of my favorite stores, I lucked out by spotting host Maria Menounos walking towards the set, so I ran up to ask for a pic. Maria was a complete and total sweetheart and even chatted with me a bit about her stint on Dancing with the Stars. Love it! Shortly thereafter, one of the Extra crew members came to the stage and announced that a prize would be given to those audience members who were willing to stick around for the entire taping, which would last about three hours. I, of course, agreed to stay, not because I wanted the prize, but because, as you all know, I LOVE to watch filming of any kind! The crew member then came up to me and the two women standing next to me to inquire if we would be willing to ask Emily Maynard a “fan question” during the show. Um, yes, please! I mean, could this day get any better? Smile (For those who read my blog regularly, you will remember that I also asked actor Colin Egglesfield a fan question during an Extra taping a couple of weeks ago, but it seems that I ended up on the cutting room floor as I never saw my question air.)

Shortly after we were informed of the questions we were to ask during the taping (yes, the fan questions are written by producers and are not spontaneous), Emily showed up on the scene looking absolutely adorable, as you can see below!

I was OBSESSED with her shoes, which, thanks to a quick internet search, I discovered are Pierre Hardy’s Canvas Multi-Colored Wedges. For those of you who have an extra $695 burning a hole in your pockets, you can pick yourselves up a pair here.

I happened to spot Emily as she was making her way to the Extra set, completely unnoticed by passersby. Seizing the opportunity, I snuck away from the crowd and approached her to ask for a picture, knowing it would likely be my only chance. And while security seemed extremely peeved with me and told me that photos could only be taken once filming was completed, Emily said it was OK and happily posed. She seemed quite a bit shy and was surprised I wanted a picture with her, but was very sweet. And yes, she is just as cute in person as she appears to be onscreen. As it turns out, the stalking gods had definitely been smiling down upon me when I spotted her, because after her interview was over, she was mobbed by fans and my chances of getting a photograph would have been slim to none.

Emily’s interview, which lasted about ten minutes, was very fun to watch and she was very sweet answering my fan question, which was, “Did you learn anything from your previous experience with Brad? Is there anything you are going to avoid this time around?” After the interview was completed, one of the Extra crew members took a photo of The Bachelorette posing with Mario Lopez, which I somehow made it into the background of (!!!) and which The Grove later posted on its Facebook page. (Thanks to Lisa, from the Finding the Famous blog, for letting me know!) SO INCREDIBLY COOL! Can you tell I was excited? Winking smile You can check out another pic from the taping that fellow stalker Sandy told me about here.

After Emily left, Mario, Maria, and host Renee Bargh taped a few more brief segments. The girl who was standing next to me – a super nice tourist from Texas named Danielle – really wanted a photograph with Mario, and even though it is typically extremely hard to get pictures with him during the filming of Extra, I decided to try to help her make it happen. After getting turned down four separate times by him throughout the course of the morning, we were noticed by his security guard who, knowing that we had been standing there for over three hours and had participated in the show by asking fan questions, took pity on us, asked for our cameras and managed to snap pics of each of us posing with Mario during a break. Yay! As I said earlier, the stalking gods were definitely smiling down upon me on Tuesday!

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention our prize! All of the audience members who stayed for the duration of the filming were gifted a Philips Sonicare Airfloss Electric Flosser, which at first I thought was pretty lame – until I got home, that is, and tried it out. The Flosser is seriously one of the coolest things I have ever owned! The machine flosses one’s entire mouth electronically, using air and water, in about sixty seconds time. For someone who has never been a fan of flossing, this is pretty much the best invention ever and I am now completely in love with it! The Grim Cheaper has Siri and I have my Philips Sonicare Airfloss Electric Flosser. Winking smile All in all, it was a fabulous, FABULOUS day that I could not have enjoyed more! Look for Emily’s interview to air on Extra next Monday, May 28th.

Big THANK YOU to Miss Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog, for telling me about Emily’s appearance on Extra! Smile

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Extra tapes daily at The Grove shopping center, which is located at 189 The Grove Drive in Los Angeles. You can visit The Grove’s official website here and Extra’s official website here.

May 23, 2012May 24, 2012

Attending a Taping of Extra . . .

I spent all of yesterday morning at The Grove watching an episode of Extra being filmed that featured special guest Bachelorette Emily Maynard, whom I LOVE LOVE LOVE. (She is so freaking cute, it is almost unbelievable!) Then, when I finally did get home, the Grim Cheaper hooked me up with a new watermark (check it out above) and a cutting-edge photograph program, which I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to master. As I said a couple of weeks ago, this stalker is taking things to the next level. Smile Anyway, because of all of that I was not able to write a new post for today, but I will be back tomorrow writing about my whole Extra experience, which was FABULOUS! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

May 4, 2011May 3, 2011

Teri Hatcher’s Red Carpet Charity Yard Sale

This past Sunday morning, Miss Pinky Lovejoy, from the Thinking Pink blog, called me up to let me know that she had just found out about a celebrity fundraising event in Santa Monica that was being hosted by actress Teri Hatcher. So, much to the Grim Cheaper’s chagrin, I immediately hopped right out of bed, ran a brush through my hair, threw on some make-up, grabbed my car keys, and dragged him right on over to the West Side to stalk it. To say that my life has changed for the better since meeting Pinky this past Valentine’s Day would be a rather gross understatement! I have met more celebrities and gone to more celebrity events in the past three months since knowing her than in the previous ten-plus years that I have lived in Los Angeles put together! And I have made a great friend in the process, to boot!

Teri’s fundraiser, which took place at the Tiato Market Garden Café, was a celebrity yard sale benefiting St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital (my girl Jen Aniston’s favorite charity) and the RockSTAR music education program, and featured for sale “gently used” clothing, handbags, and furnishings formerly owned by such celebrities as Dancing with the Stars judge Carrie Ann Inaba, actress Goldi Hawn, Glee’s Jayma Mays, and reality star Kourtney Kardashian. The yard sale was a very relaxed, low-key event and while there were several journalists on hand to document the goings-on, the only stalkers in attendance were me, Pinky, our friend Mike, from the Mike the Fanboy website, and his friend Erica. The autograph hounds, or the “graphers” as Pinky likes to call them, were thankfully nowhere to be found, which meant that I did not get pushed or shoved once the entire morning! Yay!

The first celeb to arrive on the scene was reality star Bob Guiney, who was a contestant on Trista Rehn’s season of The Bachelorette in 2003 and then later starred on the fourth season of The Bachelor. Bob was SUPER nice and remembered Pinky from when he had met her a few months prior and even joked with her about how he had kissed too many women during his Bachelor stint.

Next up was James Denton whom I have heard on countless occasions is one of the nicest celebrities out there and I am very happy to report that he did NOT disappoint! James was an absolute sweetheart and was very outgoing and friendly. Love, love, love him!

The next celeb to arrive was Mark Moses, aka Desperate Housewives’ Paul Young, and he was also SUPER nice and friendly in person, which was quite the shock to my system being that his character is so completely cold and devious. My brain almost could not process talking to him because he had a smile on his face the whole time which was such a huge departure from how I am used to seeing him on TV.

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Also in attendance was Tamra Barney from The Real Housewives of Orange County . . .

. . . who was GORGEOUS in person (she reminded me a lot of Emily Maynard from this past season of The Bachelor);

Natasha Alam from True Blood, whom I met a couple of weeks ago at the Decisions Movie Premiere and Celebration of Corey Haim’s Life event;

and Estella Warren from the 2001 Planet of the Apes re-make . . .

. . . whose dress I was absolutely obsessed with! I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE dresses that have pockets!!!! And the color! Sigh! So incredibly adorable.

Teri Hatcher came out to walk the red carpet towards the end of the media portion of the event and she was ABSOLUTELY MOBBED by photographers and journalists, making it impossible to get close enough to her to ask for a picture. She was STUNNING in person, though, and SO INCREDIBLY TINY!

After about thirty minutes of watching Teri get mobbed by media people everywhere she went, Pinky and I resigned ourselves to not getting a photograph with her. But, as fate would have it, when we stepped inside of the restaurant to use the bathroom before leaving the event, we encountered Teri standing all by herself! Pinky and I each quickly posed for a pic with her and then she was off! Talk about your perfect timing! Had we been five seconds earlier or five seconds later we would have missed her entirely. This was one celebrity photograph that was definitely meant to be! Smile

I also randomly ran into Josh Sussman, who plays blogger/Rachel-Berry-lover Jacob Ben Israel on Glee, this weekend just after hitting up a Starbucks in Burbank. Unlike all of my other encounters with actors from Glee, Josh truly could NOT have been nicer and happily posed for a pic with me and even waited patiently while I dug around in my purse trying to find my camera. Yay! All in all, it was definitely a FABULOUS weekend. Smile

On a stalking side note – Marci, the SUPER sweet owner of Lula Mae, my very favorite store, just gifted me with the notebook pictured above, which I think is just about the cutest thing ever! I stop by Lula Mae at least four times a week (what can I say, I am addicted to the place!) and spend quite a bit of time chatting with Marci about my various stalking adventures, so while she was out shopping this past weekend she spotted the “Actors I Met and Liked” notebook and immediately thought of me. Love it, love it, love it! I think I am going to have to add an “Actors I Met and Disliked” section to the book, too, as there are quite a few of those, as well. Winking smile

Big THANK YOU to Pinky Lovejoy, from the Thinking Pink blog, for telling me about this event!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Tiato Market Garden Café, where Teri Hatcher’s Red Carpet Charity Yard Sale was held, is located at 2700 Colorado Boulevard in Santa Monica. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.

April 28, 2008February 13, 2009

Where Trista and Ryan Got Married

Even though I have not been a big fan of this season’s The Bachelor, I was a HUGE fan of Bachelorette Trista Rehn back in 2003, so this weekend while in Palm Springs I just had to stalk the hotel where she married Ryan Sutter in their million dollar wedding extravaganza. The nuptials took place on December 10, 2003 and were watched by over 26 million viewers. The ceremony was held at the hotel the Lodge at Rancho Mirage and my boyfriend and I actually stayed there quite a few years ago, long before Trista and Ryan were even a gleam in ABC’s eyes. I had been dying to go back to stalk the hotel ever since the wedding aired on TV and I finally made it there this weekend.

Unfortunately, the Lodge closed back in August of 2006 to undergo an extensive remodel and it has yet to reopen. During the remodel, the property was actually purchased by the Ritz Carlton Hotel Company and it is set to open as the Ritz Carlton Rancho Mirage in the fall. Sadly you can’t get very close to the property and there isn’t much to see at this time. But I am definitely planning on doing a little stalking of the Ritz this winter when it reopens. 🙂 I sure hope that the gazebo where Trista and Ryan got married is still there.

Side note: A few years ago I also stalked Jerry Ferris from the third season of The Bachelorette. Jerry was the jilted bachelor who had his heart broken on national TV when Jen Schefft refused his proposal. He was also my celebrity crush of 2005. 🙂 I knew from watching the show that Jerry worked at an art gallery in LA and after doing a bit of stalking, I located it. Jerry could not have been nicer (or cuter) in person and I was absolutely floored to meet him. Unfortunately Jerry’s art gallery closed a few years back, but it used to be located in The Grove shopping center in LA.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Ritz Carlton Rancho Mirage is located at 69-730 Highway 111 in Rancho Mirage. You can visit their website here. The hotel is scheduled to open in late 2008.