The Holiday – IAMNOTASTALKER

December 21, 2018August 24, 2020

The Majestic Downtown from “The Holiday”

The Holiday has definitely been on my brain as of late. I wrote about two of the houses used in the 2006 film for the December issue of Los Angeles magazine and recently got to tour Thorne Hall at Occidental College, the setting of one of its most poignant scenes. So I figured it was only appropriate to dedicate a post to another of the movie’s locales, DTLA’s SB Spring building, more specifically its lower level former bank space known as The Majestic Downtown, which masqueraded as the supposed London office of The Daily Telegraph newspaper in the flick. I have blogged about this spot twice before, once in 2010 for my own site and then again in 2014 for L.A. mag. The last time I did some stalking of it, though, an event was being set up and the friendly security guard manning the front door happened to invite me inside for a closer look! I have yet to share the photos I snapped that day, so I decided it was definitely time for a third go-round.

[ad]

SB Spring was originally erected in 1924 as the headquarters of the Hellman Commercial Trust and Savings Bank.

Commissioned by Isaias Hellman at a cost of $2.5-million, the Beaux Arts-style structure was designed by the Schultze & Weaver architecture firm.

Featuring an Indiana limestone façade with sweeping arched windows and doors and terra cotta carvings, the 12-story building originally housed offices on the upper levels . . .

. . . and a two-story Spanish Revival-style bank on the ground floor boasting 40-foot-tall hand-painted coffered ceilings, marble columns, stairs and flooring, intricate bronze chandeliers, and a large mezzanine. You can check out a photo of what the grand space looked like during its early days here.

Soon after construction of the property was complete, Hellman Commercial merged with Merchants National Bank and then was taken over by Bank of America shortly thereafter. The 250,000-square-foot structure became the financial institution’s Los Angeles headquarters and, as such, was known largely as the “Bank of America Building.”

When B of A moved its headquarters to a new location on Flower Street in 1972, the upstairs offices of the Spring Street building were leased out to various companies. The ground floor bank, however, remained in operation until its doors were finally closed due to a decline in business in March 1988.

Developer Barry Shy purchased the structure in 2009 and converted the upstairs offices into a 174-unit loft-style apartment building known as SB Spring.

Thankfully, the bank space, now a special events venue known as The Majestic Downtown, has been left largely intact over the years, making it the perfect spot for filming. And locations scouts have definitely taken note!

In The Holiday, The Majestic Downtown is where Iris Simpkins (Kate Winslet) works as a newspaper writer.

It is during the paper’s Christmas party at the beginning of the film that Iris learns her total cad of an ex-boyfriend, Jasper Bloom (Rufus Sewell), has proposed to the girl that he cheated on her with.

SB Spring has appeared in countless productions in addition to The Holiday. So many, that it would be impossible to chronicle all of its onscreen appearances here, but below are a few of my personal favorites.

Sam Wheat (Patrick Swayze) has Oda Mae Brown (Whoopi Goldberg) fill out a signature card under a fake name at the bank in 1990’s Ghost.

The Majestic Downtown masks as the Fourth Reich Bank of Hamburg where Harris K. Telemacher (Steve Martin) provides his financial records in an attempt to secure a dinner reservation at L’Idiot restaurant in the 1991 comedy L.A. Story.

The site portrays Edge City Savings & Loan, where Stanley Ipkiss (Jim Carrey) works, in the 1994 comedy The Mask.

Robbie Hart (Adam Sandler) applies for a job there in the 1998 romcom The Wedding Singer.

In 2001’s Heartbreakers, Max Conners (Sigourney Weaver) and her daughter, Page Conners (Jennifer Love Hewitt), attempt to withdraw money from their accounts at the bank, but are thwarted by the IRS.

Jenna Rink (Jennifer Garner) saves a party at The Majestic Downtown by performing the Zombie Dance from Thriller in the 2004 comedy 13 Going on 30.

And, yes, I did, of course, imitate Jenna doing a Thriller move while I was there, but unfortunately the lighting in the building was extremely low, so my photo did not come out. (Many of the images I took that day suffered the same fate, unfortunately.)

The exterior of SB Spring masquerades as Belle en Blanc bridal salon in the 2011 comedy Bridesmaids.

Me doing my best Helen (Rose Byrne) out in front. Too bad the shop’s ornate intercom isn’t actually there in real life.

Though the interior of the salon was a studio-built set, it is outside of SB Spring that the scene’s most memorable moment took place.

It is there that Lillian (Maya Rudolph), ahem, loses her sh*t in the middle of the street.

Had to do it! (Though I accidentally posed a bit too far to the north.)

SB Spring plays Capitol Trust Bank, where Jake Peralta (Andy Samberg) and the gang attend a Homeland Security counterterrorism drill, in the Season 2 episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine titled “Windbreaker City,” which aired in 2014.

In 2018, the exterior of the bank popped up in the music video for the Lil Dicky/Chris Brown song “Freak Friday,” which you can watch here.

And E.B. Jonathan (John Lithgow) unsuccessfully attempts to secure a loan there in the hopes of saving his practice in the Season 1 episode of the new HBO series Perry Mason titled “Chapter 4.”

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: The Majestic Downtown, aka The Daily Telegraph newspaper office from The Holiday, is located at 650 South Spring Street in downtown Los Angeles. You can visit the venue’s official website here.

December 14, 2018December 14, 2018

Thorne Hall from “The Holiday”

If I had to pick a favorite movie character it would be Arthur Abbott (Eli Wallach) from The Holiday. There’s nothing about him that I don’t adore – his kind heart, his wit, his charm, his championing of Iris Simpkins (Kate Winslet). And there’s no scene that makes me cry more than the one in which he is honored by the Writers Guild of America West at the end of the film. When those theatre doors open and he sees that the auditorium is packed, the emotion is overwhelming! And then, just when you think you’ve caught your breath, his theme music – composed by Miles Dumont (Jack Black) – comes tinkling through the speakers and the tears start all over again. So I was ecstatic when, while on a tour of Occidental College with Mike, from MovieShotsLA, a couple of years back, our guide pointed to Thorne Hall on the north edge of campus and informed us that the iconic scene – which you can watch here – had been shot there! Though we didn’t get to see the inside of the building that particular day, thanks to an incredibly nice contact I have at the school who interviewed me a few years ago, I was able to tour it last month, just in time for a holiday post!

[ad]

Thorne Hall was the brainchild of Rev. Remsen D. Bird, who served as Occidental’s president from 1921 to 1946. Upon taking office, Bird set out to expand and enhance the campus. Top on his list of wants was a large auditorium capable of hosting the entire student body and staff. The project was finally made possible thanks to financing provided by Charles Thorne, heir to the Montgomery Ward fortune, and groundbreaking took place on May 21st, 1937.

Myron Hunt & H.C. Chambers, the architecture team who also gave us Pasadena Central Library, were commissioned to design the Palladian-style beauty, which was named in honor of Charles’ late wife, Belle Wilber Thorne. The venue opened to the public on July 13th, 1938 with a concert put on by Westminster Choir School.

Little of the landmark site has been altered in the ensuing decades, though it did undergo a $2.1-million renovation in 1989. Spearheaded by architect/preservation specialist Brenda Levin, the project mildly revamped the auditorium’s interior by adding baffling over the stage to allow for better acoustics. As she explained to the Los Angeles Times, “Thorne Hall is one of Hunt’s purest Palladian buildings. Its beautiful Beaux Arts colonnade closes the western end of the main campus axis, and gives it its great sense of calm. I had to try and modernize the hall’s interior without cheapening its relationship to the dignity of its exterior.” A woman after my own heart!

The grand 792-seat venue has hosted countless famous figures over the years including Martin Luther King Jr., Bob Hope, Linda Ronstadt, Harry Belafonte, Edward James Olmos, Richard Nixon, Jane Goodall, Earl Warren, Robert Frost, Amy Tan, Anne Lamott, Cesar Chavez, Desmond Tutu, and Oliver Stone, just to name a few.

According to a 2013 Occidental magazine article, in 1940 Howard Swan, then director of the space, stated “Belle Wilber Thorne Hall today is more than a structure of steel and concrete. Thorne Hall is an institution, fostering activities that reach out and touch many interests and many persons. The donor of the building wished it to receive extensive use; certainly none of us realized that we were so soon to witness the development of an institution of strength, tradition, and power.” Charles Thorne’s hope for extensive use is still being realized today, with the venue serving as the site of such varied events as theatre productions, concerts, lectures, speeches, classes, and dance performances.

Oh, and filming.

It is at Thorne Hall that the Writers Guild of America West hosts “An Evening with Arthur Abbott,” in honor of the legendary octogenarian screenwriter, in The Holiday.

As Arthur walks into Thorne’s lobby with Iris, his worst fears are confirmed – it appears as if no one has shown up for the event.

But when the doors to the auditorium open . . .

. . . a resounding applause breaks out and Arthur is overwhelmed to see a packed house engaged in a massive standing ovation. His life’s work, it turns out, has not gone unnoticed by his peers.

Iris and Arthur proceed down the aisle into Thorne’s auditorium . . .

. . . and Arthur ventures onto the stage where he gives a glorious speech about the showbusiness of yesteryear. It is a heartwarming scene from beginning to end.

Sadly, the stairs he walked up (on his own!) were just set dressing brought in for the shoot.

Thorne Hall’s actual stairs are located on the extreme sides of the stage, as you can see below.

The Holiday is hardly the only production to feature Thorne Hall. In fact, the site popped up in another favorite of mine!

In 1994, Thorne was used extensively as Evans Hall, the California University theatre where Brenda Walsh (Shannen Doherty) auditioned, rehearsed, and performed as Maggie in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in the Season 4 episodes of Beverly Hills, 90210 “Divas,” “Acting Out,” “Truth and Consequences,” and “Vital Signs.” The exterior . . .

. . . the lobby . . .

. . . and the auditorium all appeared in the episodes. (That’s a very young Ryan Hurst, aka Gerry Bertier from Remember the Titans, in the screen caps below.)

In what is actually a leftover establishing shot from 90210, Thorne Hall popped up briefly as “Evans Hall Library,” where Phoebe Halliwell (Alyssa Milano) investigates the death of her friend, Charlene Hughes (Rebecca Cross), in the Season 2 episode of Charmed titled “Ex Libris,” which aired in 2000. All interiors were shot at DC Stages in downtown L.A., though.

Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) gives a speech on raptors and asks for funding to continue his research on the subject in Thorne Hall in 2001’s Jurassic Park III.

Thorne portrays the Georgetown University auditorium where Tabitha Fortis (Laura Dern) gives a lecture on poetry in the Season 3 episode of The West Wing titled “The U.S. Poet Laureate,” which aired in 2002.

A prop fountain was installed in front of the hall for the shoot to give the locale more of a D.C. feel.

Thorne Hall masks as the U.S. Embassy in Belgravia, where a Marine is killed during a terrorist attack, in the Season 8 episode of NCIS titled “Defiance,” which aired in 2011.

In 2014 and 2015, Thorne Hall was turned into “Nerdvana” for Seasons 2 and 3 of the reality competition series King of the Nerds.

The Grim Cheaper and I happened to be on campus during one of the Nerd shoots and got to see Thorne Hall dressed in all of its Nerdvana glory!

Most recently, the building popped up briefly in the background of the Season 1 episode of The Romanoffs titled “Bright and High Circle,” which aired this past November.

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: Thorne Hall, from The Holiday, can be found at Occidental College, which is located at 1600 Campus Road in Eagle Rock. Please be advised that the theatre is closed to the public and is only accessible to those attending performances and shows on the premises. You can find out about the venue’s upcoming events here.

December 23, 2014December 22, 2014

Blockbuster Video from “The Holiday”

I cannot believe that Christmas is only two days away! This whole month (year, in fact) has flown by! Sadly, this will be my last post of the season (excluding one that will run on L.A. magazine’s website on Thursday). I will be taking the rest of the week off to do some last-minute shopping and to celebrate Christmas with my family. For my final holiday-themed post, I thought it would only be fitting to write about another The Holiday location – the Blockbuster Video featured in the 2006 romantic comedy.

[ad]

I had read online a while back that the Blockbuster used in The Holiday was located somewhere in Brentwood, so I did a simple Google search for “Blockbuster” and “Brentwood” and was led to a former location of the once-popular video store chain at 11770 San Vicente Boulevard. Today, the space houses a branch of the First Republic Bank, but thanks to the fact that several of its features have remained the same despite the change of hands, I was able to determine that it was the right spot.

First, I was able to match a tree located on San Vicente Boulevard across from First Republic Bank to the tree visible outside of the Blockbuster in the scene (though my photograph below was taken from a slightly different angle than that of the film).

For those who have never visited the area, San Vicente Boulevard is lined with a large central median that is dotted with numerous unusually-shaped trees, as you can see below.

Thanks to their highly unique formations, it was not hard for me to pinpoint the one featured in The Holiday.

The store’s large three-paned windows (denoted with Christmas tree arrows below) also match what appeared onscreen.

The windowed corner doorway from the Blockbuster in the movie also correlates to that of First National Bank, although it has been altered slightly in order to make room for the addition of an ATM vestibule.

In The Holiday, Blockbuster is where Iris Simpkins (Kate Winslet) and Miles (Jack Black) shop for the next videos on their friend Arthur Abbot’s (Eli Wallach) list of movies featuring strong, gumption-filled female characters. It’s funny to think about the fact that if the movie was being filmed today, only eight years after it was actually shot, this scene would be an impossibility considering the fact that video stores simply do not exist anymore – at least not in the L.A. area. (Outside of Vidiots, that is.) If The Holiday was shot today, Miles and Iris would instead have to peruse titles at a Redbox kiosk inside of a grocery store or online via the Netflix catalog, neither of which would have made for a very compelling scene.

In the scene, Miles, a film scorer, walks around Blockbuster picking up various DVD titles and humming their theme songs loudly to Iris. He happens to pick up The Graduate at one point and sings Simon & Garfunkel’s “Mrs. Robinson,” at which time the camera pans over to reveal Dustin Hoffman perusing titles in a different part of the store. Hoffman shakes his head and says, “Can’t go anywhere!” Amazingly, that bit was not planned. According to director Nancy Meyer’s DVD commentary, Dustin happened to be eating next door to the Brentwood Blockbuster at the time the scene was being filmed. Upon leaving the restaurant, he noticed the film trucks and popped in to see what was being shot. He knew Nancy and decided to hang out for a bit to watch. When The Graduate portion of the scene was being filmed (the scene had been included in the original script and was not simply added because Hoffman was randomly on set), Dustin asked if he could make a cameo and Nancy, of course, said yes. He then adlibbed the “Can’t go anywhere!” line. Such a great story behind what turned out to be one of the movie’s funniest moments.

You can watch Dustin’s cameo by clicking below.

While doing research for today’s post, I learned that the same retail complex that formerly housed the Blockbuster from The Holiday also once housed the infamous Mezzaluna restaurant, where Nicole Brown Simpson ate dinner the night of her murder and where Ronald Goldman worked as a waiter. Today, that portion of the property is home to a Peet’s Coffee & Tea outpost. You can check out a photo of what it looked like when Mezzaluna was still in operation here.

On a side-note – The Grim Cheaper and I have recently become obsessed with the new podcast Serial. We are currently in the midst of listening to Episode 6: The Case Against Adnan Syed, so, please, no spoilers from those who have finished the series! Sarah Koenig, the podcast’s host, reminds me quite a bit of myself when it comes to doing research. Her investigation into the existence of a payphone at the Security Boulevard Best Buy in Baltimore, Maryland was exactly on par with many of the location hunts I have been a part of over the years. Speaking of the payphone mystery, I am absolutely fascinated by it! It is the one detail of the story that remains constantly stuck in my head and I am convinced that my friend Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, and I could get to the bottom of the whole thing and prove once and for all whether or not the Best Buy in question ever had a payphone on the premises. Are you listening, Owen? Let’s get on this!

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Blockbuster Video from The Holiday was formerly located at 11770 San Vicente Boulevard in Brentwood. Today, the site houses a branch of First Republic Bank. Pete’s Coffee & Tea, the former site of Mezzaluna restaurant, is located at the opposite end of the same shopping complex at 11750 San Vicente.

December 16, 2014December 15, 2014

The Grill on the Alley from “The Holiday”

This past weekend, while wandering through my local Target with the Grim Cheaper, I happened to spot a DVD of fave movie The Holiday on sale for $3.99! When I saw that the special features included a commentary with director Nancy Meyers and a making-of featurette, I just about flipped my lid and immediately snapped the DVD up. (Though I have seen The Holiday more times than I can count, because I own it on iTunes, I had never seen any of the special features.) It was perfect timing, too, since I am now (finally) in the midst of writing my Christmas-themed posts. I had also just stalked The Grill on the Alley, which was featured in the flick, this past November while my friends Lavonna, Kim, Melissa and Maria were in town (that’s Melissa and Maria above), so I was most excited to listen to the commentary from that portion of the film.

[ad]

The Grill on the Alley was originally founded in January 1984 by a man named Bob Spivak. The food industry ran in Bob’s veins – his grandfather owned a Los Angeles ice cream/chocolate shop in the early 1900s and his father was the founder of the Redwood House, now known as the Redwood Bar & Grill, which was featured in Bridesmaids and which I blogged about here. In 1982, at the age of 39 and after a long tenure working in a grocery store and a short tenure owning a soup/salad restaurant, Bob found himself at a transition point in life. Recently divorced, without a job and living on his father’s couch, he decided he wanted to open an upscale steakhouse in Beverly Hills, one that offered fabulous customer service and no-nonsense food. He found financial backers fairly quickly and then secured a space to lease. The only problem with the 4,600-square-foot spot was that its main frontage was on an extremely traffic-y block of Wilshire Boulevard, on a stretch of street that did not allow parking until after 7 p.m. each day. (The Wilshire side of the building is pictured below.)

The location did have a rear entrance, though, reached via a side alley off of Dayton Way, which gave Bob an idea. In a February 2014 The Hollywood Reporter article, he explains, “I went to the building department and asked to place the entrance on the alley. They wouldn’t let me due to an ordinance against businesses opening onto an alley that they had in place. So I pulled maps and realized I had less than an inch of Dayton frontage and went to a hardware store, bought a mailbox and painted 9560 Dayton on it. Just made that address up. Then I went to the post office, mailed myself a letter, got it delivered and showed the canceled stamp to the building department. They approved it!”

That “less than an inch of Dayton frontage” is denoted with red arrows below. What a great story!

Thanks to its proximity to the headquarters of the William Morris Talent Agency, The Grill soon became the place “to lunch” in Beverly Hills. Just a few of the power players and their clients who have been spotted dining there over the years include Michael Ovitz, Sumner Redstone, Rupert Murdoch, Ron Meyer (father of Jennifer Meyer), Tom Brokaw, Vin Scully, Steven Spielberg, Bruce Springsteen, Fred Astaire, Ronald Reagan, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Muhammad Ali, Brian Grazer, Ron Howard, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Barbra Streisand, Johnny Carson, Katie Holmes, Sean Penn, Madonna, Drew Barrymore, Joel McHale, and Michael Douglas.

The Grill remains insanely popular to this day, over thirty years after its founding. In fact, the eatery has spawned six additional Grill on the Alley locations, as well as the casual dining chain The Daily Grill, of which there are currently 21 outposts.

While we were stalking the place, we had the pleasure of meeting The Grill’s longtime maître d’, Pamela Gonyea . . .

. . . as well as the restaurant’s wine education coordinator, Carmen Rupe, both of whom could NOT have been nicer. Bob maintains that The Grill’s customer service philosophy is, “The answer is yes – now what was the question.” And we were certainly given that treatment despite the fact that we were not even dining on the premises! Carmen and Pamela spent quite a bit of time answering all of our questions about the various filmings that have taken place there over the years and they also let us take all of the photographs of the place that we wanted. Carmen even led us over to the center of the dining room to show us exactly where The Holiday had been filmed!

In The Holiday, The Grill on the Alley is where Iris Simpkins (Kate Winslet) takes Arthur Abbott (Eli Wallach) for dinner shortly after meeting him. Before inviting him to dine with her, Iris asks Arthur if he is busy that evening, to which he gives his famous line, “Busy? Honey, I haven’t been busy since 1978.”

According to Nancy Meyers’ DVD commentary, The Grill on the Alley was chosen for the scene because it is a place that Arthur, a former Hollywood screenwriter, and his colleagues would have frequented in their day. Nancy had the two seated at a regular table in the center of the Grill’s dining room to show they are just regular people, not the “Hollywood elite.” Apparently the booths that line the perimeter of the restaurant are considered prime real estate in real life and where the show biz power players are usually seated.

I, of course, just had to pose for a picture in the same spot where the movie was filmed.

Carmen and Pamela also informed us that The Grill had been featured in the Season 5 episode of Entourage titled “Fantasy Island.”

In the episode, The Grill on the Alley was the spot where Vincent Chase (Adrian Grenier) discussed the upcoming movie Danger Beach with producer Carl Ertz (Kim Coates). Notice that Vincent and Carl were seated in a perimeter booth in the scene.

Pamela was even visible in the episode!

Pamela and Carmen also let us know that the Season 5 episode of The Hills titled “Keep Your Enemies Closer” had been shot at the restaurant. In the episode, The Grill was where Stephanie Pratt went on a date with a DJ named Robert.

On a side-note – I would like to wish a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY today to my dad, who, despite being chronically ill, always finds a way to regularly do special, extraordinary things for my mom, the GC and me. I love you so much! (That’s me and my dad pictured below during one of my very first trips to Disneyland.)

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Grill on the Alley, from The Holiday, is located at 9560 Dayton Way in Beverly Hills. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.

December 15, 2014December 12, 2014

Chaya Venice from “The Holiday”

It’s finally that time of year again, folks! Time for some Christmas-themed posts! And I could NOT be more excited. First up is a locale that I had been searching for for years – the sushi restaurant where Iris Simpkins (Kate Winslet) and Miles (Jack Black) dined towards the end of The Holiday. During my lengthy search for the eatery, I spent countless hours inputting terms like “sushi restaurant,” “The Holiday” and “filming” into Google, but always came up empty-handed. Then, this year, I decided to ask for some help and called in my friend Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, to see if he could work his magic in finding it. Sure enough, he did! After numerous Google inquiries using, as he stated, “Soooooooo many combinations and permutations” of terms, he sent an email to The Holiday’s production manager who got back to him right away and informed him that the restaurant was in Venice. Adding “Venice” to his search terms led him to a Yelp review of Chaya Venice, in which a patron named Hayley M. mentioned that the place had appeared in The Holiday. Yahoo! So I ran right on over there for lunch while I was in L.A. a couple of weeks ago.

[ad]

Chaya Venice was originally founded by the Tsunoda family in 1990. The Tsunodas’ tenure in the culinary field is an extensive one that has lasted almost forty decades. Yes, you read that right – forty decades! About 390 years ago, the family set up shop, so to speak, under a large tree in Hayama, Japan, where they served tea and snacks to travelers on horseback who happened to pass by. At some point thereafter, they opened an inn on the site, which was eventually transformed into a Japanese restaurant that they named “Hikage Chaya.” (Chaya means “teahouse” in Japanese.) It is still open today. A second restaurant, La Maree de Chaya, which served French food, soon followed.

In the 1980s, the Tsunodas migrated to the United States and, in 1984, opened Chaya Brasserie in Beverly Hills. It, too, is still in operation today. Sister restaurants, including Chaya Venice, soon began to pop up and there are currently four Chaya outposts located throughout California. The eateries, which serve French/Japanese cuisine, are headed by executive chef Shigefumi Tachibe, who just so happens to be the inventor of tuna tartare. He created the dish at Chaya Brasserie the same year that the eatery opened, after a patron requested an alternative to the steak tartare that was then being offered on the prix-fixe menu. The rest, as they say, is history.

I absolutely loved my experience at Chaya Venice! While I am not a fan of sushi (I do not like most fish), I opted for some veggie rolls and they were delish! The staff also could not have been nicer to me and answered all of my silly little questions about the filming of The Holiday. The atmosphere of the place is quite beautiful, too. It is not very hard to see why Chaya Venice wound up being featured on the silver screen.

I was particularly obsessed with the restaurant’s painted ceiling. Gorgeous!

In The Holiday, Chaya Venice was where Miles and Iris were eating lunch when Miles’ ex-girlfriend, Maggie (Shannyn Sossamon), called to tell him she wanted him back.

As you can see, the place looks much the same in person as it did onscreen.

“Accidental boob graze!”

The Holiday is not the only production to have been lensed at Chaya Venice. In the Season 5 episode of The Hills titled “Mess with Me, I Mess With You,” which was filmed in 2009, Stephanie Pratt and Audrina Patridge grabbed lunch at the eatery and discussed Kristin Cavallari and Justin Bobby’s burgeoning relationship.

And in the Season 5 episode of Californication titled “The Ride-Along,” which aired in 2012, Chaya Venice was where Richard Bates (Jason Beghe) got naked while standing on a sushi bar.

The entrance to Chaya Venice also appeared in the episode.

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

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Chaya Venice, from The Holiday, is located at 110 Navy Street in Venice. You can visit the eatery’s official website here.

June 26, 2014August 28, 2014

New “Los Angeles” Magazine Post – Eli Wallach’s House from “The Holiday”

Today’s Los Angeles magazine post was written in honor of the legendary actor Eli Wallach, who passed away yesterday at the age of 98. Wallach portrayed one of my favorite movie characters of all time. Rest in peace, dear Arthur Abbott. You can read the post here. My columns typically get published in the late morning/early afternoon hours.

December 21, 2011December 20, 2011

The Ohara House – aka Miles’ House from “The Holiday”

One location that my good friend/fellow stalker Lavonna suggested that I blog about during my Christmas-themed stalking week was the modernist abode where Miles (aka Jack Black) lived in the 2006 Nancy-Meyers-directed flick The Holiday. Ironically enough, just a few days after my conversation with Lavonna, my mom and I happened to catch The Holiday on TV and when a scene showing Miles’ residence popped up onscreen, she said, “Oh my gosh, what a cool house! Lindsay, you have got to find it!” Talk about synchronicity! So I started doing some research and quickly stumbled upon the flick’s production notes, which, amazingly enough, spelled out the property’s exact location. Whoo-hoo! I so love it when that happens! So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out there to stalk the place this past weekend.

The Holiday’s incredibly informative production notes stated, “Miles’ house was designed by Richard Neutra, the Vienna-born master of Southern California modernism and is situated on Neutra Place in L.A.’s Silverlake [sic] area, near downtown.” As it turns out, in the 1950s and 60s, the legendary Neutra, who also designed the famous Kauffman house in Palm Springs which I blogged about last December, constructed ten residences on Silver Lake Boulevard and an adjoining cul-de-sac that is now known as Neutra Place. All ten dwellings were built in the Pavilion style – a design characterized by box-shapes, horizontal planes, open floor plans, and large plate glass windows. And towards the very end of that short Pavilion-home-lined cul-de-sac sits the property where Miles lived in The Holiday. In real life, it is known as the Ohara house and it was originally built in 1961 for June and Hitoshi Ohara and their two daughters. Sadly though, as you can see above, not much of it is visible from the street.

Because I was absolutely itching to see the property in person, I just had to climb up the front steps a tiny bit to catch a better peek. And I am very happy to report that the residence did not disappoint! As you can see above, it is absolutely spectacular in person! Even the Grim Cheaper, who is not fazed by much of anything, was impressed with it. In real life, the Ohara house boasts 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, 1,564 square feet of living space, and a .23-acre plot of land, and was last sold in December of 2003 for a cool $1.2 million.

[ad]

The exterior of Miles’ house showed up only once, and very briefly at that, in The Holiday. I absolutely LOVE how it appeared in the movie, with its expansive front yard and cantilevered roofline all lit up. Sigh! What I would not give to live in a house like that!

The interior of the property, which is also quite spectacular, was featured a few times in the movie, as well.

On a celebrity side-note – While out doing some Christmas shopping in Beverly Hills this past weekend, the GC and I stopped into Madame Chocolat, which I blogged about back in January of this year, and who should be there but Madame Chocolat herself, Hasty Torres. I had met Hasty once before at the shop and did not ask her for a photograph, which I have always regretted. Well, believe you me, I was not going to make the same mistake twice and I am very happy to report that Hasty seemed seriously flattered when I approached her and could not have been more excited to pose with me. Love it! For those not in the know, Hasty is the proprietor of the ever-popular Madame Chocolat and has appeared in such shows as The Girls Next Door and The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Ohara house, aka Miles’ house from The Holiday, is located at 2210 Neutra Place in the Silver Lake area of Los Angeles.

June 15, 2010January 17, 2012

Amanda’s House from “The Holiday”

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

[ad]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Big THANK YOU to Nick for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

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