TV shows – Page 2 – IAMNOTASTALKER

January 27, 2012November 3, 2014

Villa Sophia from the Final Episode of “Entourage”

A couple of weeks ago, while the Grim Cheaper and I were out doing some stalking in the Hollywood area, I received an email from Constantine Vlahos, the owner of a Los Feliz mansion named Villa Sophia. Constantine was writing to let me know that his home had been featured in the final episode of Entourage and that I might be interested in stalking it. Now, I just have to say here that that was most definitely a first – a homeowner not only seeking me out to inform me of his property’s filming history, but also encouraging me to stalk the place! Oh, how I wish more people would do the same! And interested in stalking it, I surely was, so I dragged the GC right on out there later that same day.

In real life, Villa Sophia is quite breathtaking. And while the Mediterranean-revival-style mansion, which was originally built in 1927, appears to be absolutely gargantuan from the street, in reality it “only” boasts 3 bedrooms, 4 baths, and 4,525 square feet – which is large, don’t get me wrong, but from the looks of the exterior, I expected the place to be a whole lot bigger.

As you can see in the above aerial view, the residence seems to be massive!

Villa Sophia was originally designed by Henry Harwood Hewitt, the L.A.-area architect who also gave us The Ebell Club of Los Angeles (an oft-used filming location that I really should have already blogged about being that I have stalked it twice!), the L.A. County Hall of Justice (also an oft-used location that was featured in the television shows Dragnet and Get Smart), and Bob Hope Patriotic Hall (yet another filming location that appeared in the movies Patton and Flashdance). Villa Sophia was commissioned by Clement E. Smoot, an Olympic-gold-medalist golfer turned industrial lighting manufacturer, and his wife, Margaret Miller Smoot. During the 1930s, the property became home to James Whale, the famed British film director who made Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, The Invisible Man, Show Boat, and The Man with the Iron Mask, and who was also the subject of the 1998 flick Gods and Monsters. In the late 90s, the dwelling was purchased by Constantine, my new favorite homeowner Smile , who had spent years fantasizing about owning the place and who immediately began a massive renovation and restoration process, during which he added on a 15-foot retaining wall, a pool, a pool house, upper and lower rear terraces, a loggia, and a dining pavilion. Constantine even rents the 750-square-foot pool house out to vacationers, so if you are in the area and would like to stay at an Entourage filming location, you can book a reservation here. And you can see some fabulous close-up pictures of the home here.

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In the final episode of Entourage, which was appropriately titled “The End”, Villa Sophia was featured in the very last, post-credits scene in which Ari Gold (Jeremy Piven) and his wife, Mrs. Ari (Perrey Reeves), are shown living their new life in Florence, Italy. It is at the home that Ari receives a phone call from Time Warner chairman John Ellis (Alan Dale), who announces that he is retiring and wants Ari to take over his job. Dun-dun-dun! As you can see above, the landscape of Florence was digitally added to the background of the scene.

Villa Sophia was also the site of a Victoria’s Secret “Bombshell Summer” commercial starring Candice Swanepoel, Chanel Iman, and Erin Heatherton that was filmed in May 2011.

Victoria’s Secret Bombshell Summer commercial filmed at Villa Sophia

You can watch a behind-the-scenes video of that shoot by clicking above.

Constantine also informed me that the home will be featured in the near future in a yet-to-be-released movie starring Kate Bosworth.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Villa Sophia, from “The End” episode of Entourage, is located at 4565 Dundee Drive in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles. You can visit the mansion’s official website here. The Lovell Health House, aka Pierce Patchett’s home from L.A. Confidential, is located just up the street at 4616 Dundee Drive.

January 10, 2012January 9, 2012

Westfield Fashion Square Mall from “The Office”

One location that my good friend, fellow stalker Lavonna, asked me to track down eons ago was the shopping center that was featured in the Season 3 episode of fave show The Office titled “Women’s Appreciation”. Because the series is taped in Van Nuys, I figured that the mall was located somewhere in the San Fernando Valley, so whenever the Grim Cheaper and I found ourselves in a shopping center in that area, I would wander around looking for the large circular water fountain that Michael Scott (aka Steve Carell) had tried to climb into in order to retrieve a one-dollar bill. Try as I might, though, I could not seem to find that fountain anywhere. I had almost given up hope when, two weekends ago, the GC and I were doing a little shopping at the Westfield Fashion Square Mall in Sherman Oaks and I spotted a water fountain just outside of Macy’s department store. I snapped a quick photo of it on my phone so that I could compare it to the fountain that had appeared in the episode once I got home. Ironically, as it turned out, the fountain I had taken a picture of did not, in fact, match, but, thinking that there might be more than one located inside of the mall, I did a quick search of “fountains” and “Westfield Fashion Square Mall” on Google and, sure enough, a photo of the correct fountain popped up. I am ashamed to admit that not only was The Office fountain located about ten feet away from the one that I had taken a picture of, but we had actually walked right by it while shopping that day and somehow did not notice. Doh! So this past weekend I dragged the GC right on back out there (much to his chagrin – he HATES malls) so that I could finally stalk it.

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In the “Women’s Appreciation” episode of The Office, Michael Scott takes the women of Dunder Mifflin – Pam Beesly (aka Jenna Fischer), Phyllis Vance (aka Phyllis Smith), Meredith Palmer (aka Kate Flannery), Kelly Kapoor (aka Mindy Kaling), Angela Martin (aka Angela Kinsey), and Karen Filippelli (aka Rashida Jones) – shopping at the supposed Steamtown Mall in order to show them that they are “appreciated” by the men in the office. And while the exterior of the actual The Mall at Steamtown in Scranton, Pennsylvania was used for the establishing shot of the shopping center in the episode, the interior of Westfield Fashion Square Mall was used for all of the actual filming.

Many areas of Westfield Fashion Square Mall were used in the episode, including the food court, where Michael and the ladies ate lunch and where Michael confessed that he wanted to break up with longtime girlfriend Jan Levenson (aka Melora Hardin).

In the scene, the gang sat just outside of The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf café;

in the area pictured above.

After lunch, Michael announces (however inappropriately) that he would like to buy each of the women a present of their choosing at Victoria’s Secret.

Some filming did take place inside of the actual Victoria’s Secret store and I very much wanted to venture inside to snap a few pics, but shops tend to get very antsy about photographs for some reason, so I did not even attempt it. Back in October, when I was stalking the Macy’s at the Burbank Town Center Mall, which appeared in the “Redemption” episode of The Mentalist, a store employee actually tried to confiscate my camera! Not kidding. Because I was taking pictures inside of a store – pictures of an area that had been immortalized on a hit TV show for all of the world to see, mind you – she told me she was going to call security and attempted to take my camera out of my hands! Um, OK. Doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. If you do not want photographs to be taken of your store, fine, no problem, but then do not put said store on national television! Sigh. I just really do not get people sometimes, but I digress. Winking smile

At the very end of the episode, Michael throws a coin into the mall’s fountain and makes a wish “for every woman in the world”. Of his wishes, he says, “I wished for Jan to get over me. I wished for Phyllis a plasma TV. I wished for Pam to gain courage. I wished for Angela a heart. And for Kelly, a brain.” LOL LOL LOL Ah, Michael Scott, how we miss you!

And, let me tell you, seeing that fountain in person after so many hours of searching for it was the absolute highlight of the stalk for me! Whoo hoo!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Westfield Fashion Square Mall, aka Steamtown Mall from the “Women’s Appreciation” episode of The Office, is located at 14006 Riverside Drive in Sherman Oaks. The water fountain that Michael Scott tried to climb into can be found just outside of The Disney Store on the mall’s first level. The Victoria’s Secret store where the women shopped in the episode is located just a few doors down from The Disney Store, also on the mall’s first level. The Food Court, where the women ate lunch, is located on the mall’s second level. The gang sat just outside of The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf café and Stone Oven restaurant.

January 9, 2012January 8, 2012

Charles W. Eliot Middle School from “The Mentalist”

Located directly across the street from the Larry Crowne apartment building in Altadena, which I blogged about last Friday, is Charles W. Eliot (not Elliot) Middle School – a very unique and arresting structure that looms over the neighborhood thanks to its large fortress-like bell tower. My veterinarian is located just up the street from Eliot and I had driven by the school countless times during my ten-plus years of living in Pasadena, and whenever my mom happened to be with me, she would comment, “That school is just so picturesque! I can guarantee you that it has been in a movie!” Well, as it turns out, she was right! I never did much research on the place, though, or even thought to stalk it, until January of 2010 when it popped up in the Season 2 episode of The Mentalist titled “Rose-Colored Glasses”, at which point I recognized it immediately. So, two weekends ago, after stalking the Larry Crowne apartment building, I dragged the Grim Cheaper across the street (and I say “drag” because even though it was located less than 10 yards away from where we were then standing, he complained about having to walk over to it) so that I could finally stalk the place.

Charles W. Eliot Middle School was originally founded in 1931 and, at the time, was known as Eliot Junior High School. It was named in honor of Charles William Eliot – a professor who, with a term of 40 years, became Harvard University’s longest-running president and transformed the institution into a premiere research college. Surprisingly, even though Eliot Middle School is extremely unique, I could find no information whatsoever about its architecture or its history. Hmph! I was able to dig up the names of a couple of the school’s famous alumni, though. As it turns out, not only did actor Edward Furlong attend Charles W. Eliot Middle School, but, in an unfortunate twist, so did Sirhan Sirhan, the Jordanian nationalist who assassinated presidential hopeful Bobby Kennedy on June 6, 1968.

As you can see above, the most recognizable and striking aspect of Charles W. Elliot Middle School is its tower. It is that tower that has also captured the imagination of the many location scouts who have returned time and time again to film on the school grounds.

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In the “Rose-Colored Glasses” episode of The Mentalist, Charles W. Eliot Middle School stood in for the supposed Northern-California-area Rancho Rosa High School where Patrick Jane (aka Simon Baker) and the rest of the CBI team investigated the murder of a married couple which took place at a 15-year high school reunion. In the episode, several areas of the school were used, including the rear blacktop;

the gym;

and the boy’s locker room.

Fellow stalker Allyn let me know that Charles W. Eliot Middle School was also featured prominently in the 1998 flick Devil in the Flesh. In the movie, Eliot was the school where Debbie Strand (aka Rose McGowan) was transferred to after her mother and her mother’s boyfriend were killed in a fire.

The real life interior of the school was also used in the production.

In the 1998 film Apt Pupil, Charles W. Eliot Middle School stood in for Santa Donato, the high school attended by Todd Bowden (aka Brad Renfro). And yes, that is none other than Ross Gellar himself – aka Friends’ star David Schwimmer – pictured in the last screen capture above!

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that cutie Joshua Jackson, aka Dawson’s Creek’s Pacey Witter, had a minor role in the flick, as well. Sigh. Love him!

The school’s interior was also featured in Apt Pupil. And, in an odd twist, a lawsuit was actually filed against the filmmakers for a scene that took place on location in the Eliot Middle School locker room. Three teenaged extras hired to act in a shower scene alleged that director Bryan Singer had forced them to strip naked for the shoot against their will. The lawsuit was ultimately dropped due to insufficient evidence, but you can read more about it on the Entertainment Weekly website here.

The interior of Charles W. Eliot Middle School also stood in for the interior of Haddonfield Elementary, the school attended by a young Michael Meyers (aka Daeg Faerch), in the 2007 Rob Zombie-directed Halloween.

The school’s library was also used as the library of the fictional Haddonfield High School, where Michael Meyers spied on his younger sister, Laurie Strode (aka Scout Taylor-Compton).

And, according to a March 1987 Los Angeles Times article, Charles W. Eliot Middle School was also set to be used as a location in a low-budget movie titled Night School. Unfortunately though, I could find no such movie listed on IMDB, so I am guessing that it was not ever completed.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Charles W. Eliot Middle School, from the “Rose-Colored Glasses” episode of The Mentalist, is located at 2184 North Lake Avenue in Altadena. Please remember that this is an active learning institution and you should not trespass or visit the grounds during school hours. The Larry Crowne apartment building is located directly across the street from Eliot at 906 Boston Street in Altadena. And Thalia’s store from Larry Crowne is located at 2104 North Lake Avenue in Altadena.

December 9, 2011December 8, 2011

The Infamous Solar Drive Mansion

Shortly before Halloween, my good friend Nat sent me a link to an article on the TopTenRealEstateDeals website (an article that I now maddeningly cannot find anywhere online) about the top ten haunted houses then for sale in the U.S. My interest was immediately piqued at one of the properties featured when I read that it had not only been the inspiration for and appeared in an episode of Law & Order: Los Angeles, but that it also had a long and sordid history, the stuff of which movies are made. I quickly added the never-occupied, long-ago-abandoned Runyon-Canyon-area manse to my To-Stalk list and even though my Haunted Hollywood postings had already come to a close, I dragged the GC right on out there to visit the place a few weeks later.

The “Wedding Cake House”, as neighbors are prone to call it, has been clouded in mystery and innuendo since its inception. Just a few of the rumors floating around include that it was built on an Indian burial ground, was once the site of an alien spaceship landing, and that a woman was murdered on a pool table inside of the billiard room. Needless to say, not many concrete facts are known about its history, but from what I was able to dig up it seems that construction on the ginormous pink Mediterranean manse began around the year 1993. Plans for the home were originally drawn up in 1989 by architect Gregg Madeo for a man named Tom Ego. Of the mansion’s early days fave website CurbedLA states, “It’s believed that Ego built the home as a spec house for an Argentinean couple, or sold it to them during the process of building it for himself. Either way, the Argentinean couple divorced while the house was under construction, so the residence was essentially abandoned, and architect Maedo left the project. (Subsequent contractors and architects would come along and “butcher” the original design, according to a rep for Maedo.)”

Due to the property’s on-going vacancy, it long ago became a den for all manner of illegal enterprise, including drug use, teenage raves, gang activity, and satanic rituals. The unauthorized activity got so bad that a private security guard had to be hired to keep watch over the residence, which is often referred to by trespassing partiers as the “Runyon Canyon Clubhouse”. The guard now lives onsite in a Winnebago parked in front of the home’s six-car garage – yes, six-car garage!!

In 2004, music executive Timothy Devine partnered up with former Miss Palm Springs Shauna Giliberti and purchased the unfinished residence as tenants in common for a cool $3.7 million. Things did not go according to plan, though, because Giliberti ended up getting sued by several investors and subsequently filed for bankruptcy. Devine then took over full ownership of the home and, in January of this year, put it on the market for $12.5 million. A few weeks later, the selling price was inexplicably raised to $15.2 million. According to a February 2011 Daily Mail Online article, the home exceeds the city’s zoning limits in both its height and lot coverage, and was built larger than what the original permits (which are now expired) allotted for, so it will have to be torn down, at least in part, by whoever purchases it. The residence also lacks a certificate of occupancy, so it is currently uninhabitable. “Fixer-upper” doesn’t even begin to describe this place! Winking smile

The unfinished dwelling boasts 5 bedrooms, 7 baths, 9,800 square feet, a 200-bottle wine cellar, a pool, a Jacuzzi, stone flooring, 22 acres of “mostly useable” hilltop land, and, as you can see above, sweeping views that reach all the way to the Pacific Ocean.

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The Solar Drive mansion played itself – an abandoned house where ne’er-do-well activity frequently takes place – in the fabulous Season 1 episode of Law & Order: Los Angeles titled “Runyon Canyon”.

The home’s real life interior, which you can see photographs of here, also appeared in the episode. According to several newspaper reports, many rooms in the mansion are covered with graffiti, so I am fairly certain that the “wall art” pictured above is real and not set dressing.

On a stalking side-note – I would like to alert all of my fellow stalkers to a celebrity event that is taking place this Saturday. Planet Green will be hosting The Recycle, Reuse, Rejoice Celebrity Celebration at the Sportsman’s Lodge Hotel, which is located at 12825 Venture Boulevard in Studio City. Such stars as Anthony Denison, Kevin Sorbo, Taylor Gray, Anson Williams, and Kate Linder are scheduled to attend. Entry is free, but Planet Green asks you to bring electronic waste items such as used inkjet and toner cartridges and old cell phones. You can find out more information here.

Big THANK YOU to Nat for sending me the article in which this location was featured! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The infamous Solar Drive mansion is located at 2450 Solar Drive in the Hollywood Hills. You can visit the home’s real estate website here.

November 15, 2011November 2, 2011

Larry’s Chili Dog from “The Office”

Because fellow stalker Lavonna has been in town for the past few days and I have been doing some major stalking with her, today’s post is, unfortunately, going to be a short one. Sad smile Sorry about that folks, but I do promise to be back tomorrow with a regular-sized write-up. And now, on with the post! One location that has been on my “To-Stalk” list since way back in early February is Larry’s Chili Dog – a tiny Burbank-area hot dog stand that was featured in the Season 7 episode of fave show The Office titled “The Search”. As I mentioned quite a few months back in my post about Kung Pao China Bistro, the Chinese food restaurant that was also featured in “The Search”, fellow stalker Owen tracked down every single location which appeared in the episode. And because, as I have also mentioned previously, this stalker absolutely loves herself some hot dogs, I was especially excited to stalk Larry’s, but for whatever reason had just never made it out there. So, a couple of weeks ago, when the Grim Cheaper and I found ourselves ravenously hungry after a shopping expedition at the Burbank IKEA, I knew exactly where to head!

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In “The Search” episode of The Office, after being left stranded at a local gas station sans wallet, money, and cell phone, Michael Scott (aka Steve Carell) decides to go on a “walkabout” through Downtown Scranton, Pennsylvania. He first hits up a pet store and talks to a few random animals about love, before heading over to Larry’s Chili Dog where he orders a hot dog. Because he has no means of paying, he tells the cashier that he will leave his “$45 watch” behind as a sort of marker, to which the cashier says, “We’re not a pawn shop.” Michael tries to barter with the cashier further, but he is having none of it and Michael ends up yelling “You’ve just lost my business” before walking away empty-handed. LOL God, I love that show! It has sadly gone downhill this season, but the reruns of the earlier episodes just never get old!

Larry’s Chili Dog looks much the same in person as it did on The Office and I am very happy to report that the owners truly could NOT have been nicer! They let me take all of the photographs of the place that I wanted and answered all of my silly little questions about the filming.

They also told me that Steve Carell was extremely nice and had posed for pictures with them during the filming. SO INCREDIBLY COOL!

Because the owners were so incredibly nice, it seriously pains me to say that I did not enjoy my hot dog all that much. It was of the snap-skin variety, which, for whatever reason, gives this stalker the major heebie-jeebies! As I have mentioned many times in the past, I am an extremely picky eater. The GC absolutely LOVED his hamburger, though, and the French fries and ranch dressing were both A-MA-ZING, so all in all our lunch was not a total loss.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Owen for finding this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Larry’s Chili Dog, from “The Search” episode of The Office, is located at 3122 West Burbank Boulevard in Burbank.

November 9, 2011October 16, 2011

Charlie’ Apartment Building from “Gossip Girl”

Well, it certainly looks as if it is shaping up to be Gossip Girl week here at IAMNOTASTALKER.com because here I am yet again with yet another location from the fabulous teen drama series – this time the apartment building where con-artist Charlie Rhodes (aka Kaylee DeFer) lived with her chef boyfriend, Max (aka Brian J. Smith), in the Season 5 episode titled “Beauty and the Feast”. This location was once again found by fellow stalker Geoff, from the 90210Locations website who has somehow managed to track down all of the Los-Angeles-area locales featured in the two episodes of the series that were filmed on the West Coast this past August. Thank you, Geoff! So, I, of course, dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to West Hollywood to stalk the place, shortly before grabbing cocktails at Eveleigh Restaurant a few weeks back.

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The exterior of Charlie’s apartment building is featured three times in the “Beauty and the Feast” episode of Gossip Girl. It first pops up in the scene in which Charlie and Max discuss the difficulties of trying to make it as an actor in Los Angeles.

It next shows up in the scene in which Serena van der Woodsen (aka Blake Lively) waits outside for Charlie in order to confront her about her bounced rental deposit check.

And finally it appears in the scene in which Serena arrives via limo to pick Charlie up to take her to their grandmother’s house in Montecito.

No filming took place inside of any of the actual apartment units, though. The interior of Charlie and Max’s dwelling was, I am fairly certain, just a set that was most likely built on a soundstage at Silvercup Studios in New York where the series is filmed, as was the case with Diana Payne’s bedroom which I talked about in yesterday’s post. You can check out some photographs of what the interior of the real-life apartments actually look like here and here. As you can see, they do not match up at all to what appeared onscreen and do not have nearly the same amount of charm that Charlie and Max’s apartment had.

I really had to laugh when Serena tried to convince Charlie to move out of the apartment building by saying, “But you can’t live here!” LOL While the outside of the place is a bit bland, I actually thought the interior of Charlie’s pad was kind of cute and not nearly the dump that Serena made it out to be. And I absolutely fell in love with her little kitchen alcove, which is pictured above. As my friend Pinky Lovejoy, from the Thinking Pink blog, would say, “It’s adorbs!” But then again, I did not grow up on the Upper East Side, so what do I know? Winking smile

In real life, the exterior of Charlie’s apartment building looks pretty much exactly the same as it did on Gossip Girl. I am totally kicking myself, though, as I SO wished I had leaned against the entryway to pose for a picture as Serena had done in the episode! I do not know WHY I did not think of it at the time. UGH! Ah well, I will just have to drag the GC back there sometime to re-stalk the place.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Charlie’s apartment building, from the “Beauty and the Feast” episode of Gossip Girl, is located at 1009-1015 North Croft Avenue in West Hollywood.

November 7, 2011October 16, 2011

Eveleigh Restaurant from “Gossip Girl”

Fellow stalker Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, emailed me a few weeks back to let me know that he had tracked down the open-air-patio-ed restaurant where Serena van der Woodsen (aka Blake Lively) and Charlie Rhodes (aka Kaylee DeFer) ate lunch in the Season 4 episode of Gossip Girl titled “Beauty and the Feast”. And while that lunch was supposed to have taken place in Los Angeles and some scenes from that episode were actually filmed in the SoCal area, I had been absolutely convinced that Serena and Charlie’s restaurant was located in New York. Not only did the place just look like a Manhattan-style eatery to me, but in the previous episode, which was titled “Yes, Then Zero”, Colonie, a restaurant in Brooklyn Heights, had been made to appear as if it was located in L.A. So when I received Geoff’s email alerting me to the fact that Eveleigh Restaurant in West Hollywood had been used in the “Beauty and the Feast” episode, I practically jumped for joy and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk it. Because I was in the thick of my Haunted Hollywood postings at the time, though, I had not been able to blog about the place until today. So here goes!

I can honestly say that Eveleigh, which opened on November 1st, 2010 in a space that used to house a Kenneth Cole shoe store, is easily one of the coolest places I have ever been! From the outside, the restaurant does not look like anything out of the ordinary. In fact, with its large hedges, unmarked doorway, and sidewalk street sign that screams “Sunset Blvd”, the eatery could not seem any more “Hollywood”. But when you step inside, it is a different story entirely.

From Eveleigh’s airy front patio . . .

. . . to its cozy fireplace, complete with armchairs . . .

. . . to its central bar and wood-beamed ceilings . . .

. . . to its couch-like and antique school-chair seating . . .

. . . to its exposed wood tables and chalkboard menus . . .

. . . to its sweeping views . . .

. . . to its large, tented back patio – all I can say is, we are certainly not in Los Angeles anymore, Toto! As you can see in the twenty-some-odd pictures I took while there, Eveleigh, named for a suburb in Australia, is entirely unique. It is a little bit country, a whole lotta New York, with a dash of California thrown in for good measure. And I absolutely fell in love with the place on site. The GC and I ended up only having cocktails while there, though, as the menu was a bit too extravagant for my low-brow tastes. The offerings are definitely geared toward “foodies” and not this stalker, who much prefers hot dogs, mac & cheese, and chicken strips to the upscale culinary feasts served at Eveleigh, which include duck rillettes, jidori chicken liver pate, roasted natural bone marrow salad, and crisp sonoma pork belly. We will definitely be stalking the place again, though, and if I am feeling more epicurean-ly brave, I will surely branch out and sample some of the fare.

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In the “Beauty and the Feast” episode of Gossip Girl, Serena and Charlie, a fraud who is posing as Serena’s cousin, meet up at Eveleigh and discuss life in California and possibly living together.

In the scene, the two sit on the restaurant’s tented patio, near the back bar.

After their meal, they walk past Eveleigh’s main bar, through the front patio area, and out onto Sunset Boulevard.

And our super-nice bartender informed us that the cover shoot for the Fall 2011 issue of Viva Magazine, which featured Paula Abdul, also took place at Eveleigh.

Besides being a filming location, Eveleigh is also something of a celebrity hot-spot. Just a few of the stars who have been spotted there over the past year include Ashley Greene, Paula Patton, Nicky Hilton, Nicole Richie, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Dakota Fanning, Kimora Lee Simmons, Lisa Edelstein, Marcia Cross, Rebecca Romijn, Jerry O’Connell, Robin Tunney, Ashley Simpson, Ali Fedotowsky, Sasha Alexander, Jordana Brewster, Pete Wentz, Samantha Ronson, Amy Smart, Rachel Leigh Cook, Dianna Agron, Jamie King, Jessica Capshaw, Busy Phillips, Elisha Cuthbert, Mindy Kaling, Nia Vardalos, Idris Elba, Pierce Brosnan, and Armie Hammer. And the restaurant also has one more celebrity connection. While researching this post, I discovered that back when the place was a Kenneth Cole shoe store, the front patio area was the site of the Kenneth Cole Walk of Fame – a take-off of the iconic Grauman’s Chinese Theatre forecourt in Hollywood. At the KC Walk of Fame, such stars as Elizabeth Taylor (and her dog Sugar), Richard Gere, Matthew Modine, Patricia Arquette, Elizabeth Glaser, Rosie O’Donnell, Julianne Phillips, and Leeza Gibbons all placed their bare feet into blocks of cement outside of the store, with Kenneth Cole promising to donate a portion of sales on the day of each participating star’s birthday to AIDS research. Sadly, when the store closed, the footprints were removed and I can find no information whatsoever about where they are now located. I cannot tell you how said I am that I never got to see them!

On a side-note, I would like to wish my mom a VERY happy 60th birthday today! I love you, Mom! Smile

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Eveleigh Restaurant, from the “Beauty and the Feast” episode of Gossip Girl, is located at 8752 West Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.

October 21, 2011September 29, 2017

Abbey San Encino from “Dexter”

As I have mentioned several times before on this blog, I absolutely cannot watch an episode of fave show Dexter without having my iPad next to me and a web-browser open to the Seeing Stars website’s extensive Dexter filming locations page. And this season has been no different. While watching the episode titled “Once Upon a Time . . . “ two Sundays ago, I became just a wee bit obsessed with the amazing abandoned church where serial killer Professor Gellar (aka Edward James Olmos) and his young protégé, Travis Marshall (aka Colin Hanks), conduct their various crimes. Gary, who runs Seeing Stars, of course, had the location listed on his site. As it turns out, it is a historic building named Abbey San Encino and it is located in the Highland Park area of Los Angeles, just west of South Pasadena. So, figuring it fit in perfectly with my Haunted Hollywood theme, I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out there to stalk the place this past weekend.

Abbey San Encino, a private home which took over a decade to construct, was designed and built by a wealthy printer/typographer named Clyde Browne. Clyde, who originally hailed from Ohio, had moved onto the property, into what was then just a frame building, with his wife Grace Wassum in 1904. In the summer of 1915, he began construction on his dream home which, according to a fabulous Big Orange Landmarks article, he modeled after several different historic properties including the chapel at Holyrod Palace in Scotland, Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo in Carmel-by-the-Sea, and Mission San Francisco de Solano in Sonoma. For his building materials, Clyde used a myriad of artifacts, such as bells, crucifixes, hinges, and lanterns, that colleagues picked up for him from various abandoned edifices across Europe. Browne also salvaged numerous materials from several defunct buildings in the Los Angeles area, most notably the Van Nuys Hotel, which had closed shortly following Prohibition. The 2,627-square-foot Abbey San Encino was finally completed in 1921 and boasted a chapel, a massive cellar, with what looks to be an actual jail cell, a bell tower, and a central courtyard. For whatever reason, Browne and his family did not move into their new home until 1924, three full years after it was completed. When Clyde passed away in 1942, his son moved into the Abbey where he raised Clyde’s two grandsons, songwriter Edward Severin Browne and singer Jackson Browne – yes, that Jackson Browne.

In fact, Jackson actually used a photograph of the Abbey’s inner courtyard on the cover of his second album, “For Everyman”. And, amazingly enough, his brother Edward still lives on the property, along with his wife, to this day.

Abbey San Encino is a true architectural wonder and was declared Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument #106 on November 15, 1972.

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Abbey San Encino first showed up in the Season 6 episode of Dexter titled “Once Upon a Time . . .”, in the scene in which Travis dropped off several bags of mannequins at Professor Gellar’s lair.

The door through which Travis tossed the bags of mannequins is pictured above.

The interior of Professor Gellar’s hideout appears later in that same episode, in the scene in which the Professor reprimands Travis for visiting his sister. And while the interior shown on Dexter does resemble the real life inside of the Abbey, which you can see photographs of here, filming did not actually take place there. I believe that for all of the interior scenes, producers most likely built a set based on the actual inside of the Abbey at Sunset-Gower Studios in Hollywood where the series is lensed.

The interior of the hideout showed up once again at the very end of the “Once Upon a Time . . . “ episode, in the scene in which Travis brought the Professor a jogger named Nathan (aka David Monahan) whom he had kidnapped.

The exterior of the Abbey was also featured in this past Sunday night’s episode of Dexter, which was titled “Smokey and the Bandit”, and I am guessing that it will also be appearing in all of the future episodes of Season 6, as well. And, according to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, the property is going to be used as the new home of Russell Edgington (aka Denis O’Hare) in the upcoming season of True Blood.

Abbey San Encino–Dexter Filming Location

You can check out a video which shows interior photographs of Abbey San Encino by clicking above.

Big THANK YOU to Gary, from the Seeing Stars website, for finding this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Abbey San Encino, aka Professor Gellar and Travis Marshall’s hideout from Season 6 of Dexter, is located at 6211 Arroyo Glen Street in Highland Park. You can visit the property’s official website here.

October 12, 2011September 29, 2017

The “American Horror Story” House

Last week, fellow stalker Owen sent me an email with a tip, as well as this Curbed LA article, about a Haunted-Hollywood-type location that he thought I might be interested in stalking – the imposing brick and marble abode which figures as the focal point of the new television series American Horror Story. And right he was! I had just TiVo-ed the premiere episode of the show the previous night and could hardly wait to sit down and watch it. And I was not disappointed – American Horror Story is absolutely riveting! The fact that Owen had already tracked down the main location used in it was like icing on the cake! Randomly enough, another fellow stalker named August sent me an email this past Thursday evening in which he also tipped me off to the location of the American Horror Story house, along with a link to the exact same Curbed LA article that Owen had also sent! I figured the universe was most definitely trying to tell me something, so I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the place this past weekend.

The American Horror Story house was originally built sometime during the early 1900s (the home’s official website says it was built in 1902, but Curbed LA and various other sites state that it was most likely constructed in 1908) by Alfred F. Rosenheim as his personal residence. The prominent Los Angeles architect also designed the Majestic Theatre on Broadway, the Herman W. Hellman Building in Downtown Los Angeles (L.A.’s very first first ten-story building), the Doheny Mansion’s glass conservancy and palm house in West Adams, and the Second Church of Christ Scientist, also in West Adams. The Rosenheim residence, which in 1999 was declared Los Angeles’ Historic-Cultural Monument Number 660, features a 9,660-square-foot, three-story main house, 7 bedrooms, 7 baths, Tiffany stained-glass windows, as well as Tiffany glass doors and light fixtures, maid’s quarters, a library, a hand-painted Japanese gold- and silver-leafed ceiling, a formal dining room, six different Batchelder fireplaces, a solarium, and a 1,600-square-foot basement. According to the Paradise Leased blog, upon its unveiling, the Los Angeles Times stated that the mansion was “magnificently appointed” and featured “almost every conceivable modern convenience and luxury” – including an intercom system that is still in working condition to this day!

In 1918, Rosenheim sold his self-designed abode to a mining tycoon named A.J. McQuatters, who used the mansion as his winter home. The property went through a succession of different residents in the following years, including character actor Edward Everett Horton, who leased the home for a short while, and the Sisters of Social Service, who converted the dwelling into a convent. In 1954, the Sisters also built a 50-foot-long, 4,500-square-foot detached chapel on the premises. That chapel has since been transformed into a recording studio. According to Curbed LA, the Rosenheim house has been on and off the market since 1999 and is currently for sale for a cool $4.5 million.

As you can see above, the residence, which sits on a 3/4-acre, corner plot of land and is truly magnificent in person, is actually much larger than its façade would lead you to believe. The place is absolutely GINORMOUS!

American Horror Story House–For Sale

You can watch the home’s real estate video by clicking above.

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The pilot episode of American Horror Story opens up in the year 1978 and shows two twin boys wreaking havoc on a dilapidated old mansion.

The real life interior of the property, which you can see pictures of here, was used in the filming of those scenes, although it was dressed considerably to appear neglected and run-down.

The episode then switches to the present day where it begins to follow the story of the Harmon family – mother Vivien (aka Connie Britton), father Ben (aka Dylan McDermott), and daughter Violet (aka Taissa Farmiga, who, in real life, is the younger sister of Up in the Air’s Vera Farmiga) – who has moved from Boston to Los Angeles in order to start a new life after suffering a considerable series of misfortunes. The family purchases the old mansion, which has since been fixed-up, despite being told about the previous owners’ murder-suicide, which took place shortly beforehand.

The real life interior of the house, in its actual state, is used extensively as the interior of the Harmon residence. You can see more interior photographs of the property here.

Oddly enough, though, the series does not make use of the property’s kitchen, which you can take a look at here. As you can see, it looks nothing like the kitchen that is shown on TV.

Thanks to fellow stalker Robert, from the Movie Locations and More website, I learned that the Rosenheim home was also used in the Halloween-themed Season 4 episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer titled “Fear, Itself”, as the Alpha Delta fraternity house where Buffy Summers (aka Sarah Michelle Gellar) and her friends attended a Halloween party.

The interior scenes look to have been shot at a different location, though.

Except for the scene in which Oz (aka Seth Green) turned into a werewolf, which was filmed inside of one of the property’s real life bathrooms.

There seems to be quite a bit of erroneous information about the home’s filming history floating around online. According to the property’s official website, it appeared in a 1950’s movie named Old Blue Eyes which starred Frank Sinatra, although I can find no such production listed on Frank’s IMDB page. And according to this website, the house was also used in 2002’s Spiderman and 2007’s Because I Said So, but I scanned through both of those movies earlier today and did not spot the place anywhere. That same website also states that the residence appeared in Seabiscuit, but because I do not own the film and could not find it to rent or stream anywhere, I was not able to verify that.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalkers Owen and August for telling me about this location! Smile

Stalk It: The American Horror Story house is located at 1120 Westchester Place in the Country Club Park section of Los Angeles.

October 5, 2011September 29, 2017

The Macy’s at Burbank Town Center Mall from “The Mentalist”

One spooky-type location that I have had on my To-Stalk list for just about forever now is the Macy’s department store located inside of the Burbank Town Center Mall, which was featured as a murder site in the Season 2 episode of fave show The Mentalist titled “Redemption”. And while I had recognized the location immediately while watching the episode way back in September of 2009 and had even stalked the Burbank Town Center Mall recently due to its appearance in another episode of The Mentalist, for whatever reason I had completely forgotten about Macy’s. So I promptly dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the place this past weekend after doing some shopping at a nearby Ikea.

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In the “Redemption” episode of The Mentalist, CBI Agent Teresa Lisbon (aka Robin Tunney) and her ne’er-do-well consultant Patrick Jane (aka Simon Baker) are called in to investigate the murder of a man in a supposed-Sacramento-area department store. The scene in which the two arrive at the store was filmed at the bottom of the escalators on Macy’s Second Floor, next to the MAC Cosmetics counter.

Lisbon and Jane are immediately escorted by Police Captain Bocanegra (aka Geoffrey Rivas) to the murder site in the store’s Men’s Department. It was due to this particular segment of the scene, in which Patrick and Jane walk over some unique green tile and wood flooring, that I recognized the episode had been shot at the Macy’s in Burbank. The GC and I once did some shopping in the Burbank Macy’s Men’s Department quite a few years back and while we were there I had commented on how pretty I thought the floors were. They did not look like typical department store floors and made me think of the upscale Herald Square Macy’s on 34th Street in New York in which the Men’s Department is composed of dark woods. Anyway, the image of those floors stuck with me, for whatever reason, so when I saw Lisbon and Jane walk over them in “Redemption”, I recognized them immediately.

Lisbon and Jane are then shown the bludgeoned body of Ivar Rasmussen, which was found in a little waiting area outside of the men’s dressing rooms. It is there that Patrick proceeds to smell the body in order to gather clues, infuriating Captain Bocanegra in the process.

Sadly, the area used for the filming of that scene was being redressed when we showed up to the stalk the place and was not very accessible.

But I did manage to snap a picture of a similar alcove located in a different section of the store.

After properly “sniffing out” the body, Jane proceeds downstairs to the Ground Level Furniture Department in order to interview the patrons who were in the store at the time of the bludgeoning.

It is there that he performs a ritual using the hands of one of the witnesses to lead him to the murder weapon, which turns out to be the base of a crystal wineglass.

After the murder weapon is found, a huge fight breaks out among the killer and the security guards, which ends up causing $250,000 worth of damage to the store. When Lisbon admonishes him for creating the ruckus, Jane says, “What? The case is closed isn’t it?” Ah, I so love Patrick Jane! Smile

That portion of the scene was filmed in Macy’s furniture/bedding/cookware department, which, amazingly enough, looks pretty much exactly the same in person as it did onscreen. I thought for sure the production crew had dressed the area for the filming, but that does not actually appear to have been the case.

On a Mentalist side note – A couple of weeks ago, my good friend Miss Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog, called me up for some help after she discovered that she had locked her keys inside of her car while doing some shopping at the Burbank Town Center Mall. I headed over there and after calling Roadside Assistance and having them jimmy open the lock, we discovered that her keys were not, in fact, inside of the car after all. So I ventured inside the mall to see if anyone had turned them in to the security office. No one had and Pinky’s poor dad ended up having to drive all the way from Ventura to bring her a spare set – and, sadly, her originals have still yet to be found. FAIL! But every cloud does indeed have a silver lining, as they say, because a few days later I was watching the Season Premiere of The Mentalist, which was titled “Scarlet Ribbons”, and just about died when I noticed that a scene was filmed at the Burbank Town Center Mall security office! As I mentioned in the post I wrote about the show’s Season 3 Finale back in June, Patrick Jane finally killed Red John (aka Bradley Whitford) in the middle of the Burbank Town Center Mall at the very end of the episode. Well, when Agents Kimball Cho (aka Tim Kang) and Wayne Rigsby (aka Owain Yeoman) set out to investigate the killing in the Season 4 opener, one of their first stops was the mall’s real life security office, looking exactly as it had when I visited it only days before. SO incredibly cool!

That security office is pictured above. I had to take the photograph a bit on the down-low as I was afraid that one of the security guards might get upset if he saw me snapping any pictures of the place.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Macy’s at Burbank Town Center Mall, from the “Redemption” episode of The Mentalist, is located at 200 East Cypress Avenue in Burbank.