TV Locations – IAMNOTASTALKER

January 7, 2013January 7, 2013

Ben and Leslie’s New House from “Parks and Recreation”

Back in October, while watching the fabulous Season 5 episode of Parks and Recreation titled “Halloween Surprise”, I became just a wee-bit obsessed with tracking down the Anywhere, U.S.A.-style home that Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) leased with her longtime boyfriend, Ben Wyatt (Adam Scott – whom I just saw the other day at my local Target, but I digress). I had a pretty strong inkling that the residence was most-likely located in the Sherman Oaks area, in the same vicinity as the dwelling used as Diane’s (Lucy Lawless’) house on the series, where most of the “Halloween Surprise” episode had taken place.

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Luckily, while watching “Halloween Surprise”, I had spotted what I thought was an address number of 4620 on the curb in front of Leslie and Ben’s rental, so I immediately started searching through all of the 4600 blocks in Sherman Oaks. Sure enough, I found the place just a mile or so south of Diane’s home. Woot woot! It was not until two weekends ago, though, that I finally managed to drag the Grim Cheaper out there to stalk it.

In “Halloween Surprise”, Leslie takes her BFF Ann Perkins (Rashida Jones) to look at a home she is thinking of renting because, as she explains it, “Ben is coming back from D.C. in ten days and we are moving into a house together. He would move in my place, but it’s a scary, nightmare, hoarder nest. His words. And Ann’s. And the official report filed by the Health Department.” LOL While there, Leslie decides to lease the place (despite the fact that it does not have her desired “trampoline room”), but those plans get thwarted when Ben is offered a new job in D.C. When Leslie later returns to the residence to tell the agent that they will no no longer be taking the place, Ben shows up and (SPOILER ALERT), in a tear-inducing moment, proposes to Leslie on bended-knee. And while the property has yet to appear in any other Parks and Recreations episodes and it was never actually made clear in “Halloween Surprise” if the newly-betrothed couple did actually lease the place or not, I am assuming that they did.

While the house, which was originally built in 1938, looks very much the same in person as it did onscreen, I was not expecting it to be so large. Because the angle featured in the episode was a tight one, showing only one side, I assumed that it was a fairly modest residence with only one or two bedrooms.

In actuality, though, the house boasts four bedrooms, four baths and a spacious 2,688 square feet of living space.

And while I would have bet money on the fact that the real life interior of the property had been used in the episode, that was actually not the case. As you can see in these photographs of the home, aside from the massive stone fireplace, nothing about the actual interior matches what appeared onscreen.

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Ben and Leslie’s new house from Parks and Recreation is located at 4620 Wortser Avenue in Sherman Oaks.

July 16, 2012July 15, 2012

Riley’s House from “The Client List”

As I have mentioned many times before on this site, fellow stalker Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, is the biggest Jennifer Love Hewitt fan this side of the Atlantic. So when the actress’ new show, The Client List, premiered in April, he, of course, immediately set about searching for locations from it. He managed to track down quite a few of them, too, including “The Rub” massage parlor (which, ironically enough, has a significant Beverly Hills, 90210-connection, but I’ll save that information for a future post) and the supposed Beaumont, Texas-area home where JLH’s character, Riley Parks, lives with her two children, Travis Parks (Tyler Champagne – um, LOVE that last name!) and Katie Parks (Cassidy Guetersloh). So while out doing some stalking with Mike, from MovieShotsLA, a few weeks back, the two of us dropped by to stalk the abode.

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Riley’s one-story, ranch-style house appears regularly each week on The Client List. Quite a few areas of the home are featured on the series, including the front exterior . . .

. . . and the backyard.

If I had to guess, I would say that the real life interior of the home was used in the pilot episode of the series, which was titled “The Rub of Sugarland”, and was then recreated on a soundstage for the episodes that followed. Unfortunately though, I could not find any interior shots of the property with which to verify that hunch.

I absolutely LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Riley’s kitchen, by the way. Drool!

In real life, the abode, which was built in 1946, boasts two bedrooms, two baths, 1,836 square feet, and 0.36 acres of land. And, as you can see below, it looks pretty much exactly the same in person as it does onscreen – minus the Parks family’s white mailbox, which was just a prop brought in for the filming.

We happened to meet a super-nice neighbor while we were stalking the place and he told us that the white fence in the home’s front yard was installed specifically for the show to make the property appear more “Texas-like”. The owners ended up liking it, though, and decided to leave it up after filming for the season had been completed.

Before doing research for today’s post, I had no idea that The Client List was based upon a true story about an actual mom named Crystal Burchett and an actual prostitution scandal that rocked the small town of Odessa, Texas. In January 2005, Texas Monthly magazine published an expose on the scandal titled “She Had Brains, a Body, and the Ability To Make Men Love Her”, which Jennifer Love Hewitt’s production company, Fedora Films, later purchased the rights to. The article was then turned into the hit Lifetime Television Movie The Client List, which premiered in July 2010. A little over a year later, Lifetime greenlit a television series based upon that movie and the rest, as they say, is history. I highly recommend checking out the Texas Monthly article as it is an absolutely fascinating read! I tried to dig up some photographs of Crystal Burchett, whom Jennifer Love’s character is based upon, but I could not find any anywhere. And while the article describes the former homecoming-queen-turned-prostitute as not a “run-of-the-mill whore” (LOL) and having a “bubbly personality” and “girlish looks that made her irresistible” (which could very well be a description of JLH), I am going to go out on a limb and guess that the real life Crystal was nowhere near as good-looking.

I have to admit that I actually really like The Client List. It is a sweet show and Colin Egglesfield is not hard to look at, either. Winking smile I do have to say, though, that JLH’s eyelashes in the series are completely distracting! She looks like she could take flight with those things! Ridic!

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. And don’t forget to take a look at my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Riley’s house from The Client List is located at 6619 Peach Avenue in Van Nuys.

July 13, 2012July 15, 2012

Clark Magnet High School from “Our House”

Back in March, a fellow stalker named Bill contacted me to ask for some help in tracking down the high school that Kris Witherspoon (my girl Shannen Doherty) attended in the 1986 television series Our House. In his email, Bill included the links to several episodes of the series on YouTube (because it is maddeningly not yet available on DVD!), but the large brick structure did not look at all familiar to me. So I called up Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and asked if he happened to know of any large brick schools in the L.A.-area off the top of his head. He, of course, did and mentioned three of them that he thought I should check out – Grant High School in Van Nuys, Taft High School in Woodland Hills and Clark Magnet High School in La Crescenta. As luck would have it, Clark Magnet was the right one! That right there is why I love Mike – I can give him the vaguest of descriptions and, right off the bat, he knows the exact place I am talking about! So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out there a few days later.

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Sadly though, Clark Magnet High School – like most schools in L.A. – is gated and, aside from the front entrance, not very accessible to the public. So I called on Mike – who is now a location manager – once again, and suggested that he scout Clark the next time he was in need of a high school location – and that he should also bring me along. Which he did just a few weeks later. Yay!

Clark Magnet High School, which was named in honor of humanitarian Anderson W. Clark, was originally founded in 1961 as a middle school, serving kids in the 7th through 9th grades. In 1983, suffering from low enrollment, the property’s doors were forced to close. Thankfully though, the structure was not torn down, but instead became a community center, a teacher resource and training station and an office for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. And it was also used for filming. Due to the fact that Clark was no longer a functioning school and therefore easy to film at, and had a desirable All-American look, the place became an obvious choice for location scouts. But more on that later. In 1996, a task force decided to re-open Clark, this time as a high school, to alleviate nearby overcrowding and the property subsequently underwent a 13-month, $15 million renovation and modernization project. The site was re-founded in the fall of 1998 as a magnet school with focuses on science and technology and is currently the most technologically advanced school in the entire Glendale Unified School District. In a very odd side-note – Clark has a “twin” – a virtually identical carbon copy – named Rosemont Middle School that is located about ten blocks east. Both properties were built at the same time and, in order to be cost efficient, were designed in the exact same image. So incredibly weird!

In Our House, Clark Magnet High School stood in for James Polk High School, which Kris attended and where her mother, Jessica ‘Jessie’ Witherspoon (Deidre Hall), taught for a time. The school can best be seen in the Season 1 episode titled “First Impressions”. As you will notice below, during the renovation, Clark’s windows were, unfortunately, changed and no longer look as they did in the series. Blah!

In the “First Impressions” episode, Kris and her friend are shown walking through Clark’s humongous interior quad and then sitting on a set of cement bleachers. It was those bleachers that I most wanted to see while we were there. And thankfully, unlike the windows, they still look pretty much exactly the same as they did onscreen.

And I, of course, just had to sit in the area where Shannen was sitting in the episode.

Clark Magnet High School was also the school attended by despondent teenager Lane Meyer (John Cusack) in the 1985 flick Better Off Dead. (My second photograph below does not exactly match the posted screen shot, but it is of the general area. I am going to re-stalk the school soon so that I can get an exact pic.)

In 2003’s Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star, Clark Magnet was the school attended by Sam Finney (Scott Terra) and Sally Finney (Jenna Boyd).

The school’s gym, which we did not get to see, appeared in the movie’s pep squad tryout scene. You can see a real life photograph of the Clark gym here.

And thanks to this 1987 Los Angeles Times article, I learned that the movie Return to Horror High was also filmed at Clark.

Randomly enough, a very young George Clooney had a starring role in Return to Horror High.

As did Maureen McCormick, aka Marcia Brady.

According to IMDB, the 1986 flick Dangerously Close was also filmed at Clark Magnet High School, but I could not find a copy of the movie with which to verify that.

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for finding this location and taking me to stalk it! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Clark Magnet High School from Our House is located at 4747 New York Avenue in La Crescenta. You can visit the school’s official website here. Clark’s twin, Rosemont Middle School, is located at 4725 Rosemont Avenue in La Crescenta. You can visit that school’s official website here.

July 10, 2012July 9, 2012

Chris’ Apartment from “Parks and Recreation”

I realize that I am on serious Parks and Recreation overload here, but today’s location is one that I could not not blog about being that I am absolutely OBSESSED with it! What is the location you ask? The supposed Indianapolis-area ultra-modern loft that Chris Traeger (Rob Lowe) owns on the series. I became just a wee bit consumed with the pad the first time it popped up during Season 3 of P&R. One look at its high ceilings, open floor plan and towering staircase and I literally went weak in the knees and started drooling. Oddly enough, though, I did not recognize the place even though I had once previously stalked it. There I go having yet another blonde moment!

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Way back in December of 2008, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I went on a quest to track down the liquor store from L.A. Confidential, which we had heard was located on Larchmont Boulevard. (As it turns out, it wasn’t – the L.A. Confidential liquor store is actually on South Cochran Avenue. You can read my post on it here.) During the hunt, we spent hours driving back and forth down Larchmont looking for the store’s facade and also stopping in to speak with several different area shop owners, trying to gather some intel. And while no one had any information on the liquor store, one helpful person informed us that the movie Funny People had recently spent several weeks filming at the Larchmont Lofts on the corner of Larchmont Boulevard and Melrose Avenue. So Mike and I, of course, went to take a look at the building and snap some pics. We did not venture inside, though, nor did I ever see Funny People, so I had no idea what the interior of the actual apartment units looked like.

Flash forward to a couple of weeks ago when fellow stalker Justin asked me to track down some Parks and Recreation locales, one of which was Chris Traeger’s apartment building. At the time, I was not even sure if the location was a real one. Chris’s loft is so darn sleek and shiny that I figured it might just be a set. But I started to do some digging anyway and eventually discovered (thanks to fave website OnLocationVacations) that Chris’ pad was real and that it was located in none other than the Funny People building! Talk about a small world! Once I found out that information, I, of course, immediately began searching for rental rates being that Chris’ apartment is pretty much my dream home.

The three-story, ultra-modern Larchmont Lofts building was first completed in 2008. Its 21 loft-style units were originally slated to be sold as condominiums for $750,000 to $1.25 million a piece. Not a’ one of ‘em was purchased, though, according to fave website CurbedLA, and the spaces were eventually leased out as apartments. Rates currently start at a whopping $3,000 a month for a 1-bedroom, 1-bath, 1,200-square-foot flat. Um yeah, like the Grim Cheaper would ever go for that! What I wouldn’t give to live there, though! Sigh!

Chris Traeger’s apartment first popped up in the Season 3 episode of Parks and Recreation titled “Indianapolis”. Interestingly enough, though, while the front entrance and interior of one of the units were used in the episode, the exterior establishing shot was of a different location altogether, one that is no stranger to the screen. The exterior of Chris’ building is actually the exterior of the residence where Mitch Hiller (Billy Campbell) lived in the 2002 movie Enough, which Mike, from MovieShotsLA, stalked a while back. You can take a look at his photos of the property here.

In the “Indianapolis” episode, Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) and Ron Swanson (Nick Offerman) travel from Pawnee to Indianapolis to accept a special commendation on behalf of the Parks Department. While there, they meet up with Chris, who, at that point in the show, lived in the area. A brief scene from the episode was filmed in the Larchmont Lofts lobby, which you can see behind me in the photograph below.

In “Indianapolis”, Chris is shown to live in Unit #207, which is one of the Larchmont Lofts’ three-story townhomes.

As you can see below, the interior of his apartment is nothing short of STUNNING! Love, love, LOVE it!

Especially the large, open-air staircase. Sigh!

Chris’ apartment also appeared in the Season 3 episode of Parks and Recreation titled “Road Trip”, in the scene in which Chris hosts Leslie and Ben Wyatt (Adam Scott) on an overnight at his home. You can check out some interior photographs of the Larchmont Lofts building – including a three-story townhouse unit like Chris’ – on Curbed LA here.

And I, of course, just had to pretend to buzz Chris from the intercom while I was there. Smile

In Funny People, Larchmont Lofts is the building where Ira Wright (Seth Rogen), Leo Koenig (Jonah Hill), Mark Taylor Jackson (Jason Schwartzman), and Daisy Danby (Aubrey Plaza, who, ironically enough, plays April Ludgate on Parks and Recreation) live. The exterior of the building shows up quite a few times in the flick.

As does the interior of one of the building’s two-bedroom flats. As you can see below, the inside of Ira, Leo and Mark’s apartment in the flick closely resembles that of Chris’ apartment on Parks and Recreation – minus the awesome staircase, which is only a feature of the building’s three-story townhomes.

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. And you can check out my latest post – about low-carb tacos – on my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Chris Traeger’s apartment building from Parks and Recreation is actually the Larchmont Lofts, which is located at 5700 Melrose Avenue in the Larchmont Village area of Los Angeles. You can visit the complex’s official website here. And to contribute to the Lindsay-Wants-to-Live-at-the-Larchmont-Lofts fund, you can click here. Ha ha, just kidding. Winking smile

July 5, 2012July 4, 2012

The Bulge from “Parks and Recreation”

Another day, another location from fave show Parks and Recreation! Seriously, I hope you guys aren’t getting sick of P&R locales yet. Winking smile Anyway, a couple of weeks ago, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I hit up the Oxford Inn in Van Nuys, aka the bar that stands in for the Bulge – Pawnee, Indiana’s local gay bar. I learned of this location, as always, from fellow stalker Owen of the When Write Is Wrong blog.

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While watching the Season 3 episode of Parks and Recreation titled “Go Big or Go Home”, Owen had noticed an address number of 13713 written above the Bulge’s front door. One quick Google search of “13713”, “bar” and “Van Nuys” (because the show typically films in that area), led him to the Oxford Inn at 13713 Oxnard Street, directly across from Barone’s Famous Italian Restaurant from The Office, which I blogged about here. And, voila, the Inn turned out to be the right place. Yay! Come to find out, though, our search would not end there. But more on that later.

While the interior of the Bulge has been featured in two episodes of Parks and Recreation (Season 2’s “Pawnee Zoo” and Season’s 3 “Go Big or Go Home”), the exterior has only popped up once – in “Go Big or Go Home”. In the episode, Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) and Ben Wyatt (Adam Scott) crash Ann Perkin’s (Rashida Jones’) first date with Chris Traeger (Rob Lowe) and then convince the two of them to go dancing at the Bulge. As you can see below, aside from the fake neon “the Bulge” sign, the Oxwood Inn looks much the same in person as it did onscreen. And, in a synchronistic twist of fate, the Oxwood Inn is actually a gay bar in real life, too!

The interior, however, is another story entirely. As you can see below, the interior of the Oxwood Inn has a very definite blue hue to it. And while I did not remember that blue hue from the series, I figured that producers had changed the lighting for the filming. Oh, how wrong I was.

When I got home and re-watched “Pawnee Zoo” and “Go Big or Go Home”, I realized that a completely different bar had been used for all of the interior scenes – which meant that I had another hunt on my hands.

Because I am like a pit bull when it comes to stalking (once I latch on to a search, I have a very hard time letting go), I immediately started looking online for “divey” bars located in the San Fernando Valley. And while it took me a looooooooong time to track the place down, I am very happy to report that I finally did! As it turns out, the interior of the Bulge is Serra’s Dine & Dance in Studio City. I, of course, dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out there to grab some lunch just a few days later, but unfortunately the eatery is only open at night, so we were unable to go inside. I will be definitely be heading back there for a re-stalk in the near future, though. In the meantime, you can check out some interior photographs of Serra’s here and here. As you can see, it looks much the same in person as it does onscreen.

I am guessing that the reason two different bars were used as the Bulge’s interior and exterior is because the exterior of Serra’s Dine & Dance does not look very much like a small-town dive bar, while the Oxwood Inn does, as you can see below.

Big THANK YOU to Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, for finding this location! 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. And don’t forget to check out my new blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Oxwood Inn, aka the exterior of The Bulge from the “Go Big or Go Home” episode of Parks and Recreation, is located at 13713 Oxnard Street in Van Nuys. You can visit the bar’s official website here. Right across the street from the Oxwood Inn at 13726 Oxnard Street is Barone’s Famous Italian Restaurant from The Office, Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Bad News Bears, which I blogged about here. You can visit the Barone’s website here. Serra’s Dine & Dance, aka the interior of The Bulge from Parks and Recreation, is located at 12449 Ventura Boulevard in Studio City. You can visit Serra’s official website here.

May 16, 2012May 15, 2012

“The Big Bang Theory” Rooftop – Where Howard and Bernadette Got Married

This past Monday evening, the Grim Cheaper and I sat down to catch up on a slew of television episodes that we had backlogged over the past week, one of which was The Big Bang Theory’s “The Countdown Reflection”. In the episode, which has to be one of the cutest of the entire series, Howard Wolowitz (Simon Helberg) and longtime girlfriend, Bernadette Rostenkowski (Melissa Rauch), finally tie the knot on the rooftop of the building where Leonard Hofstadter (Johnny Galecki) and Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons) live. Well, as you can imagine, as soon as I finished watching the wedding scene, I became just a wee-bit obsessed with tracking down that rooftop. I was fairly certain that it was located somewhere in Pasadena as the Big Bang gang supposedly lives in the City of Roses and area locations appear regularly on the show. Heck, even my building was filmed once for the background of a driving scene back in 2010, although I was never able to spot it in an episode. And while Leonard and Sheldon’s address has been referred to a few times as 2311 North Los Robles Avenue, in actuality that location does not exist as Los Robles ends at the 2200 block. So thinking I would need some help with this one, I immediately texted fellow stalker Owen, from the When Write is Wrong blog, to ask for his assistance. And imagine my surprise when, at 7:30 yesterday morning, I received a text back from him with an address! Yay! When I asked how he had found the rooftop so fast, he replied, “Sheldon isn’t the only smart guy around.” Winking smile

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As it turns out, one quick Google search had led Owen to the YouTube video posted below, which pinpointed the rooftop’s exact location. So, as soon as I received Owen’s text, I headed right on over there to stalk the place, after first hitting up a Starbucks, of course.

“The Big Bang Theory” Rooftop from “The Countdown Reflection” Episode

In “The Countdown Reflection”, Bernadette decides she wants to marry Howard before he takes off on his venture into space, so the two go down to the local courthouse and attempt to have a quickie ceremony. When those plans fall through, Raj Koothrappali (Kunal Nayyar) suggests that they hold their wedding on Leonard and Sheldon’s rooftop that upcoming Sunday, when the Google Earth satellite will be overhead. All five of Howard and Bernadette’s closest friends – Raj, Leonard, Sheldon, Penny (Kaley Cuoco), and Amy Farrah Fowler (Mayim Bialik) – quickly ordain themselves as ministers and, in a tear-inducing moment, perform the ceremony together.

After Howard and Bernadette seal their union with a kiss, the camera pulls away from the group and we see that Raj, who in the episode said, “If I wasn’t an astrophysicist, I would have been a party planner!”, has decorated the rooftop with a heart and arrow made out of silk. SO DARN CUTE! I literally got goose bumps when I saw it!

As the camera pulls farther away, we are given an aerial view of Leonard and Sheldon’s building and the surrounding area. And while The Big Bang rooftop and the structure located directly below it do not match up to what appeared onscreen (thanks to some CGI magic), the rest of the surrounding buildings do, as you can see below. And while Owen suggested that I rent a plane to get some actual photographs of the rooftop, until I have the means to do so, Google aerial images will have to do. Winking smile

I did manage to snap some actual photographs of the front of the building, though. Interestingly enough, while doing research for today’s post, I happened to come across a Big Bang Theory forum in which member “jcc551f9n” states that he or she is fairly certain that the interior of Leonard and Sheldon’s building was based on the Brookmore Apartments located at 189 North Marengo Avenue in Pasadena. Jcc551f9n says, “I lived in the building for two years and the inside looks like the exact replica of The Big Bang Theory apartments. Exposed brick, stairwell looping around the elevator, very similar front doors as the show. And the Brookmore Apartments elevator was always broken. Even the laundry room looks the same. A number of Caltech and JPL physicists live there as well as more than one aspiring actress.” Another commenter named “ottonomy” replied to jcc551f9n’s post stating that he or she also thought the Brookmore was the inspiration for the Big Bang apartment set. He or she says, “Hmm… The Brookmore Apartments were one of the first places I considered, when trying to guess where the apartment might be. You’re spot on about the stairs and elevator. I remember delivering pizzas there in the eighties. It was run down, and the halls were lined with addicts, prostitutes, and their dealers and pimps. The renaissance of Old Pasadena had changed it by the late nineties, when I started working as a locksmith and made frequent appearances there to open locked doors for people who were better at rocket science than at keeping track of their keys. It’s amazing how much the place has improved, though the elevator was indeed not working when last I was there.” So interesting! I stopped by the Brookmore yesterday to try to sneak a peak at the elevator area through the front door, but unfortunately it was not visible. What I wouldn’t give to see the inside of that building, though!

On a The Big Bang Theory side-note – I am just a wee-bit obsessed with series star Kaley Cuoco’s recent in-flight photo shoot for CBS Watch Magazine (which is like the best magazine, ever, by the way – if you do not already have a subscription, I highly recommend getting one). The shoot, which took place during an actual flight, intrigued me for two reasons – one because I am absolutely petrified of flying and am astounded that the crew was able to pull off an entire photo shoot while aboard a 777 jet en route from New York to London.

And two, because I absolutely fell in love with Kaley’s Louis Vuitton clutch, which I am fairly certain is vintage, being that I cannot find it anywhere on the LV website. Love it, love it, love it! Why this stalker’s eye is immediately drawn to anything in that classic, brown LV pattern, I will never know, but it is – like a magnet! Oh, Grim Cheaper, are you listening? My birthday is coming up! Winking 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.

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

Stalk It: Leonard and Sheldon’s rooftop from The Big Bang Theory is located at 215 South Madison Avenue in Pasadena.

April 16, 2012April 15, 2012

Shooters Bar & Grill from “Melrose Place”

One location that had been on my “To Stalk” list pretty much ever since I first moved to Southern California over twelve years ago was Fellini’s “Old Country” Italian restaurant – the Hollywood-area eatery that stood in for Shooters Bar & Grill on the 1992 Beverly Hills, 90210-spinoff Melrose Place. And while I was never a huge fan of the series (I think I was a bit too young for it as most of the storylines went right over my head), I did watch the entire first season and the pool hall/bar where the characters regularly hung out was a place that I had always wanted to see in person. For whatever reason, though, I had just never made it out there. So, while Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I were out doing some stalking in the Hollywood area two weeks ago, I suggested that we stop by. Sadly, this was a bit of a disappointing stalk for both of us, though, as the site has changed drastically since filming took place and is virtually unrecognizable from its weekly onscreen appearances as Shooters on Melrose Place.

Unfortunately, I could not find much information online about the history of Fellini’s, which is surprising being that the establishment seemed to be something of a Hollywood landmark and was around for almost two full decades. According to this December 1987 Los Angeles Times article, Fellini’s, which was named in honor of the legendary Italian film director Federico Fellini, was founded in 1976 by a man named Gary Michael Gilson. The portion of the building that stood in for Shooters was not actually a part of the original restaurant, but was added in 1982 when Gilson decided to expand into a vacant former antique shop located next door. During its heyday, such stars as Bonnie Raitt and Dennis Quaid were said to not only have hung out there, but were even known to jump up on the eatery’s tiny stage and sing a few tunes from time to time. Fellini’s ended up shutting its doors sometime in the late ‘80s, at which point it was transformed into a short-lived nightclub named Trinity that closed after less than a year. The establishment was then purchased by new owners and was reopened once again as Fellini’s, but not until 1993, so it seems that at the time Melrose Place was first filmed, the site was vacant. I am not sure when Fellini’s officially closed for the second time, but in mid-2010 the place housed a furniture store, as you can see in these photographs on the Daveland blog here. The storefront, which has since been painted a drab blue-grey color, currently houses MUSE Atelier hair salon.

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The exterior of Fellini’s showed up weekly on Melrose Place throughout the series’ seven-season run. You can check out some pictures of what Fellini’s used to look like when it was still in business here and a close-up of its doors here. As you can see in the photographs, not much was changed for the filming of Melrose Place. Sadly, that is not the case today. Gone are the familiar black awning, peach-colored paint, and arched double windows. Today, the storefront is a bleak reminder of its former self. As Mike said to me while we there, “This place looks like a morgue!” LOL Why the new owners would take a formerly very cute façade – not to mention a historic filming location – and turn it into something dismal is beyond me.

While we were there, Mike did notice that some markings from the former arched double windows were still visible on the exterior of the building. I SO love when there is some remnant, no matter how small, still in existence on filming locations that have been drastically altered. So incredibly cool!

While scanning through episodes of Melrose Place to make screen captures for today’s post, I noticed that something was not quite right about the close-up shots of Shooters’ front doors, and I came to the conclusion that a set of the entrance area had been created for all of the close-up filming.

As you can see in the above screen captures, the wall just to the left of the Shooters’ awning is popped out in the close-up view, but not in the faraway shot.

And in the close-up shot, the window to the left of the awning has no ornamentation surrounding it, but in the faraway shot it does.

Being that, in real life, the façade of the building is flat and does have ornamentation surrounding its side window, the only explanation is that a replica of the entrance was created on a soundstage at Santa Clarita Studios in Valencia where the series was lensed for all of the close-up shots. (You can see a pretty cool picture of the original Melrose Place apartment set on the Santa Clarita Studios website here.)

The interior of Shooters was also just a set and, from what I read online, it did not at all resemble the dark wood-paneled, Old World-style of the real life Fellini’s. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to have been able to have seen that place in person!

And while Fellini’s was used almost entirely for establishing shots on Melrose Place, some actual filming did take place there. In the pilot episode of the series, Jake Hanson (Grant Show) takes Kelly Taylor (Jennie Garth) on a date at Shooters and the two are shown pulling up to the front of the restaurant on Jake’s motorcycle.

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for taking me to this location.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The former Fellini’s restaurant (now MUSE Atelier salon), aka Shooters Bar & Grill from the original Melrose Place, is located at 6808/6810 Melrose Avenue, just west of North Highland Avenue, in Hollywood.

April 5, 2012April 4, 2012

The Historic Mayfair Hotel from “The Office”

Fellow stalker John Bengtson, from the SIlent Locations blog, sent me an email last week after reading my post on Red Studios Hollywood from The Artist (a location that I had learned about from his website) informing me that he had tracked down some locales from Season 7’s “The Search” episode of The Office that I might be interested in stalking, most notably The Historic Mayfair Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles where Michael Scott (Steve Carell) and Holly Flax (Amy Ryan) shared a rooftop kiss. Ironically enough, my good friend, fellow stalker Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, had also sent me this location on February 4th of last year, the day after the episode had originally aired, along with a list of all of the other places featured in “The Search”. And while I did stalk a few of them – Kung Pao China Bistro and Larry’s Chili Dog – for whatever reason, I never made it out to The Mayfair. So, this past weekend, I decided to change that and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on over there. (I am not sure what happened with the above photograph, but somehow it turned out a bit wonky and neither the GC nor I realized it at the time.)

The Historic Mayfair Hotel was originally designed in 1927 by Alexander E. Curlett and Claud W. Beelman, the same architecture team who gave us the Park Plaza Hotel near MacArthur Park (an extremely popular filming location that I have stalked, but have yet to blog about), the Cooper Arms condominium building in Long Beach, and the Los Angeles Board of Trade Building in Downtown L.A. The 13-story hotel, which at the time was named simply The Mayfair, was commissioned by Texas oil tycoons and was constructed at a cost of $1.5 million – and we’re talking 1920’s dollars! In its heyday, the luxury property hosted such luminaries as Mary Pickford and John Barrymore. Raymond Chandler even wrote and set his 1939 short story “I’ll Be Waiting” at The Mayfair, although he dubbed the place the “Windermere Hotel” in the tale.

The property, which originally boasted 350 rooms, but now has just 304, was the largest hotel west of the Mississippi at one time and featured an immensely popular supper and dance club known as the Rainbow Isle Room, from which George Eckhardts, Jr. and the Rainbow Isle Orchestra would broadcast a live radio show each night. In 2004, after suffering from a long period of neglect, the structure underwent a massive and much-needed $40 million renovation, at which point it was renamed The Historic Mayfair Hotel. You can check out some great photographs of the place during its early days on The Mayfair’s Facebook page here.

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In “The Search” episode of The Office, after being stranded at a supposed Scranton, Pennsylvania-area gas station, Michael Scott goes on a walkabout which ends on the rooftop of The Historic Mayfair Hotel. When Holly finds him there and Michael tells her how much he has missed her, the two finally kiss, ending several years worth of will-they-or-won’t-they-get-together storylines and allowing audiences to finally breath a long-overdue sigh of relief. Not surprisingly, the roof area of The Mayfair is closed to the public, so I was unable to snap any pictures of it.

Mike, from MovieShotsLA, figured out that The Mayfair stood in for the supposed Chicago, Illinois-area The Addison Hotel where Beth Cappadora (Michelle Pfeiffer) attended her 15-year high school reunion in 1999’s The Deep End of the Ocean.

It was from the lobby of The Mayfair that Beth’s 3-year-old son, Ben Cappadora (Michael McElroy), was kidnapped.

As you can see above, despite the renovation, the lobby still looks very much the same today as it did back in 1998 when The Deep End of the Ocean was filmed.

The super-nice front desk clerk that we spoke with while we were there informed us that both the interior and the exterior of the property had also appeared in 1994’s True Lies, as the supposed Washington, D.C.-area Washington Mayfair Hotel where Harry Tasker (Arnold Schwarzenegger), on horseback, chased motor-cycle-riding religious zealot Salim Abu Aziz (Art Malik) through a lobby.

The Mayfair lobby was actually one of three different lobbies used in that particular scene. Harry is first shown chasing Salim across the length of The Mayfair’s lobby.

The two then turn a corner and are magically transported to the now-defunct The Ambassador hotel, the same lobby of which was used as the Regent Beverly Wilshire in 1990’s Pretty Woman.

The duo then heads outside, “across the street” and into The Westin Bonaventure Hotel. In reality, when the Ambassador was still standing, it was located a good two miles away from The Bonaventure. Ah, the magic of Hollywood!

Thanks to the Richard Dean Anderson Website, I learned that The Historic Mayfair Hotel was also used in the 1986 Season 1 episode of MacGyver titled “The Assassin”.

I am fairly certain that only the exterior of the property appeared in the episode, though, and that all of the interior hotel scenes were filmed on a set. And while IMDB states that The Mayfair was also featured in 2009’s Don’t Look Up, I scanned through the flick yesterday while doing research for this post and did not see it pop up anywhere.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalkers John Bengtson, from the SIlent Locations blog, and Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, for telling me about this location and to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for informing me of its appearance in The Deep End of the Ocean! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Historic Mayfair Hotel, from “The Search” episode of The Office, is located at 1256 West 7th Street in Downtown Los Angeles. You can visit the hotel’s official website here.

April 4, 2012April 3, 2012

The Coffee Pot from “90210”

As I mentioned back in March in my post about Bar Keeper in Silver Lake, the whimsical little barware store that stood in for Upon Galley in the 2005 movie A Lot Like Love, one locale that I had been absolutely itching to stalk in recent weeks was the Coffee Pot, an Echo Park-area café that appeared in the Season 4 episode of fave show 90210 titled “Babes in Toyland”. And while tracking down this location required minimal effort on my part, stalking it would be a different story altogether.

The GC and I actually tried to stalk the Coffee Pot not once, but twice, and both endeavors proved futile. Our first attempt took place on a Sunday when we just happened to be in the neighborhood and decided to drop by, only to discover that the shop is closed on Sundays. Then, last weekend, we made a special trip out there, on a Saturday this time, only to be met with a sign on the front door announcing that the small café was closed because “I’m the mom and I said so!” Um, OK. And while it is said that “the third time’s the charm”, I think we will just cut our losses at two unsuccessful stalks for this location. It is unfortunate, too, because the place looked absolutely adorable and I had a major hankering for some coffee at the time.

I was so flummoxed over the shop being closed yet again that I completely forgot to have the GC take my picture out front. I was able to snap two photographs of the Coffee Pot’s interior through the café’s front windows, though, and being that there was also a Starbucks located right across the street and I did manage to score myself a latte, I guess the trip was not a total loss. Winking smile

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In the “Babes in Toyland” episode of 90210, troublemaker Vanessa (Arielle Kebbel) tries to sabotage Adrianna Tate-Duncan (Jessica Lowndes) and Dixon Wilson (Tristan Wilds) by sending them to the fictional “Echo Park Grill” for a fake meeting with the VP of A&R for Def Jam Records. Oddly enough, three different locations were used to stand in for the restaurant in the episode. The first establishing shot shown in the scene was of the 3900 block of West Sunset Boulevard in the Sunset Junction area of Silver Lake, where Bar Keeper is located.

The second establishing shot was of Figaro Bistro in Los Feliz, which I I blogged about back in August 2011. The exterior of Figaro also appeared in the Season 3 episode of 90210 titled “How Much is that Liam in the Window”.

And, finally, the Coffee Pot was used for all of the “Echo Park Grill’s” interior scenes, where Adrianna and Dixon waited futilely for the record executive. As you can see above, the café is a pretty cute spot.

Despite the conflicting establishing shots, this location was actually a snap to track down as I had noticed the words “Coffee Pot” on the door of the café while watching the episode. A simple input of the terms “Coffee Pot” and “Los Angeles” into a Google search spit back a result of the Coffee Pot in Echo Park. Yay! Too bad it wasn’t quite as easy to stalk.

Fellow stalker Mike, from MovieShotsLA, also let me know that the Coffee Pot had appeared as “Spark Plug Coffee” where Officer Ben Sherman (cutie Ben McKenzie – sigh!) and Detective Sammy Bryant (Shawn Hatosy) arrested a man for having placed a hidden camera in a women’s bathroom in the Season 4 episode of Southland titled “Risk”.

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for informing me of the Coffee Pot’s Southland appearance.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Coffee Pot, from the “Babes in Toyland” episode of 90210 and the “Risk” episode of Southland, is located at 2201 West Sunset Boulevard in Echo Park.

March 30, 2012March 29, 2012

“The Bodyguard” Mansion – aka The Beverly House Compound

After the sad passing of singer Whitney Houston last month, I mentioned to fellow stalker Mike, from MovieShotsLA, that we should try to track down the mansion where one of Whitney’s most legendary characters, pop star Rachel Marron, lived in 1992’s The Bodyguard. For some very odd reason, I thought that the place had yet to be found, but Mike told me that way back in 2007 he had come across an article on fave website The Real Estalker about “The Beverly House Compound”, the most expensive home then for sale in the United States. In the comments section of the post, someone had reported that the very same mansion had been used as Rachel’s residence in The Bodyguard. How I had not previously come across that information in all my years of stalking is absolutely beyond me, especially considering that the location is one that I have long been itching to stalk. Well, believe you me, once Mike gave me the address, I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to Beverly Hills to see the place for myself.

The Beverly House Compound has a vast and storied Hollywood history. It was originally designed by Gordon B. Kaufmann, the very same architect who also designed the Hoover Dam, the Los Angeles Times Building, Scripps College, and the Athenaeum at the California Institute of Technology, a very popular filming location that I have yet to blog about. The Compound was commissioned by banker Milton Gerz in 1927 and cost over $1 million to construct – and we’re talking 1920’s money! In 1947, William Randolph Hearst and his mistress Marion Davies purchased the lavish three-story, 27-room estate, which sat on over 7 acres of land, for $120,000. Hearst died at the residence in 1951, as did Davies in 1961. Legend has it that John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Bouvier spent part of their 1953 honeymoon at the property and supposedly the mansion was also used as the West Coast headquarters for the Kennedy Presidential Campaign in 1960.

In 2007, financier Leonard Ross, who purchased The Compound in 1976, put it up for sale for a whopping $165 million, making it the most expensive home on the market in the entire country at the time. In 2010, the estate, minus three acres of land, was re-listed at the reduced price of $95 million. According to several articles, the lavish property, which has been expanded over the years, currently boasts four separate houses, a cottage, an apartment, 72,000 square feet of living space, 29 bedrooms, a two-story library, two movie projection rooms, a living room with a 22-foot arched ceiling, two tennis courts, a tennis pavilion, staff accommodations, a 50-foot entry hall, an 82-foot cascading waterfall, a disco, and three separate pools. You can check out some fabulous interior photographs of the mansion on the This and That and More of the Same blog here.

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In The Bodyguard, the exterior of The Beverly House Compound stood in for the exterior of the palatial home where Rachel Marron lived.

All of the interiors of Rachel’s estate were filmed at the nearby Greystone Mansion, though. You can see photographs of the room that was used as Rachel’s fake bedroom here and here.

And you can see a photograph of the Greystone Mansion kitchen here

And for the gate to Rachel’s home a third location was used! The gate actually belongs to the mansion located at 10231 Charing Cross Road in Beverly Hills, which just so happens to be the very same residence where Jeffrey Lebowski (David Huddleston) lived in The Big Lebowski.

A current Google Street View image of that gate is pictured above. And while it looks considerably different today than it did in The Bodyguard, you can see that the basic positioning remains the same.

I tracked down the location of Rachel’s gate thanks to an address number of “10224” that was visible in the background of the scene in which Frank Farmer (Kevin Costner) first arrived at Rachel’s mansion.

That gate also looks considerably different today, but, as you can see above, much like was the case with Rachel’s gate, the basic positioning remains the same.

The Beverly House Compound has been the site of constant filming over the years. In The Godfather, it was used as the mansion where movie producer Jack Woltz (John Marley) lived. Yes, that mansion.

According to The Worldwide Guide to Movie Locations website, only the exterior of The Compound was used in the filming, though. All of the interior scenes – including the infamous horse head scene – were shot at an estate located at 95 Middleneck Road on Long Island.

In the Season 1 episode of The Colbys titled “The Turning Point”, the residence stood in for the supposed Rome mansion where Francesca “Frankie”Colby (Katharine Ross) vacationed with Lord Roger Langdon (David Hedison).

Ironically enough, though, in the following episode, which was titled “Thursday’s Child”, Greystone Mansion stood in for that same Rome mansion.

In the 1979 movie The Jerk, the grounds of The Compound were used as the backyard of the home where Navin (Steve Martin) lived after he became rich.

As you can see above, though, the front of Navin’s home was a different location entirely.

In 1985’s Fletch, The Compound was where Alan Stanwyk (Tim Matheson) lived.

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

In 1985’s Into the Night, the mansion was where Jack Caper (Richard Farnsworth) lived.

The real life interior of The Compound was used in the filming of that movie, as well.

Way back in 1966, The Compound was used as the home of Mrs. Sampson (Lauren Bacall) in the thriller Harper.

At that time, the backyard and pool area of the property looked considerably different than they do today.

In the Season 3 episode of Charlie’s Angels titled “Rosemary, for Remembrance”, the mansion was where Jake Garfield (Ramon Bieri) lived.

The real life interior of the mansion was also used in the filming of that episode.

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for telling me about this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Beverly House Compound, aka Rachel Marron’s mansion from The Bodyguard, is located at 1011 North Beverly Drive in Beverly Hills. Greystone Mansion, which was used as the interior of Rachel’s home, is located at 905 Loma Vista Drive in Beverly Hills. The gate to Rachel’s mansion, which looks considerably different today, is located at 10231 Charing Cross Road in Beverly Hills.