Twilight filming locations

September 5, 2013September 11, 2013

The Hyatt Regency Valencia from “Little Miss Sunshine”

A couple of months ago, the Grim Cheaper and I sat down to re-watch fave 2006 dramedy Little Miss Sunshine and I just about fell out of my chair when I spotted the Hyatt Regency Valencia pop up in a brief scene. I had actually stalked and blogged about the Santa Clarita-area hotel way back in November 2009 (you can read that post here) due to its appearance in Twilight. Because the post was fairly brief, though, and had been published during the early days of my site, I figured it was most-definitely worthy of a redo. So the GC and I headed right on over there last month while the two of us were in L.A. for a visit.

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The Hyatt Regency Valencia, which has actually been featured in countless productions thanks to its Anywhere, U.S.A. look and feel, boasts 244 guest rooms, 11 of which are suites, a pool, a gym, a business center, an outdoor fireplace lounge, a lobby lounge, three gardens, 12,000 square feet of meeting space, a day spa, and access to three different local golf courses.

The hotel’s onsite eatery, Vines Restaurant & Bar, has become one of my and the GC’s favorite pit stops over the years; we often find ourselves dropping in for lunch or a cocktail whenever we are in the area.

In Little Miss Sunshine, the Hyatt Regency Valencia stood in for the Scottsdale, Arizona-area Desert Courtyard Suites where Richard Hoover (Greg Kinnear) tracked down Stan Grossman (Bryan Cranston) to confront him about his defunct “Nine Steps” deal. Several areas of the hotel were utilized in the short scene including the front entrance;

the lobby;

the lobby lounge, which was changed a bit for the filming;

and the pool. (I somehow failed to snap any pictures of the pool while I was stalking the Hyatt, so I snagged the one that appears below off of the hotel’s official website.)

In the Season 4 episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation titled “Fur and Loathing,” which aired in 2003, the Hyatt Valencia stood in for the Las Vegas-area King’s River Hotel where PAF CON ( the Plushies and Furries Convention – yes, plushies and furries) took place.

In the 2008 tween hit Twilight, the Valencia Hyatt masqueraded as the Phoenix-area hotel where Bella (Kristen Stewart), Alice (Ashley Greene), and Jasper (Jackson Rathbone) hid out while on the run towards the end of the movie. And while the exterior of the property . . .

. . . and the lobby were featured in the filming;

the interior of Bella, Alice and Jasper’s suite was filmed elsewhere. As you can see in these photographs as compared to the screen captures below, what appeared onscreen does not match the Hyatt’s actual rooms.

In 2010, the Hyatt again popped up as the site of a convention on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, this time for vampire- and werewolf-wannabes in the Season 11 episode titled “Blood Moon.” And while one of the hotel’s hallways;

outdoor fireplace lounge;

and a ballroom were used in the filming;

the interior of the room where Michael Wilson (Thad Luckinbill) was attacked was just a set. As you can see below, it looks nothing like the Hyatt’s actual rooms.

In the Christmas-themed Season 9 episode of NCIS titled “Newborn King,” which aired in 2011, the Hyatt Regency Valencia masqueraded as The Freemont Inn, where Navy Captain Jake Marsden (Marc Aden Gray) was killed.

One of the hotel’s suites (I think Room 334) also appeared in the episode.

As I mentioned in my March 2012 post about the Florida-area house where Erin Hannon (Ellie Kemper) lived during two Season 8 episodes of The Office, the Hyatt Regency Valencia masqueraded as the Palmetto Suites Tallahassee, the supposed Sunshine State hotel where the Dunder Mifflin gang stayed for a few weeks while setting up a chain of Sabre retail stores in the Season 8 episodes titled “Tallahassee” and “After Hours.” Quite a few areas of the Hyatt were utilized in the filming, including the front exterior;

the lobby;

the lobby lounge, where a fake gift shop was set up for the shoot;

several rooms, including Room 243 where Cathy (Lindsay Broad) stayed, Room 244 where Jim Halpert (John Krasinski) stayed, Room 248 where Erin stayed, and Room 249 where Dwight Schrute (Rainn Wilson) stayed;

two hallways;

and Vines Restaurant & Bar.

According to the Visit Santa Clarita website, episodes of Parenthood, CSI:New York, Make It or Break It, Las Vegas, Big Love, and The Unit have also been filmed at the Hyatt Valencia, but, unfortunately, I am unsure of which episodes in particular.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Hyatt Regency Valencia from Little Miss Sunshine is located at 24500 Town Center Drive in Valencia. You can visit the hotel’s official website here.

July 30, 2010July 29, 2010

The Pasadena House Where the Prom in “Twilight” Was Filmed

One location that I have been on the lookout for for what seems like forever now is the Pasadena-area home where part of the prom scene from the original Twilight movie was filmed. I first found out about this location while browsing through Catherine Hardwick’s fabulous book Twilight: Director’s Notebook at my local bookstore. According to Hardwick, after filming of the 2008 flick had been completed, it was decided that an additional conversation between Bella Swan (aka Kristen Stewart) and Jacob Black (aka Taylor Lautner) was needed to complete the prom scene, which had been filmed at a picturesque hotel in Oregon named the View Point Inn (pictured above). Because the cast and crew had long since returned to Southern California, the movie’s location manager was called upon to find a property in the area that looked similar enough to the View Point Inn that a scene could be shot there without the audience realizing it was a different locale. He found that location at a private residence in Pasadena and filming took place there in late August of 2008. And even though I wasn’t a huge fan of the vampire movie, I was absolutely DYING to stalk the house. The only problem was that, for the life of me, I could NOT find it. Until I called in Mike, from MovieShotsLA, that is, who tracked down the property in record time – and without the aid of screen caps, I might add!

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Mike, who had yet to watch Twilight, knew that the prom scene had been filmed at a Tudor-style property with a long driveway, so armed with those two rather vague descriptions he went to work. Late Wednesday afternoon, he ended up stumbling upon some sort of Twilight message board where a girl had posted a comment saying that a scene from the flick had been shot in her neighborhood on Arroyo Boulevard near the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. From there, Mike used aerial maps to search the area for a Tudor-style house with a large driveway and eventually landed upon the right location. Yay! Thank you, Mike! And, as soon as he gave me the address, I ran right out to stalk the place. Sadly, though, not much of it can be seen from the road.

While not gated, as you can see in the above aerial images, the home is set quite a ways back from the street and is surrounded by a massive amount of foliage.

And while a bit of it can actually be spotted through the tall trees which line the front of the property, because the view is so limited, this house, unfortunately, makes for quite a disappointing stalk.

But that’s why God created real estate listings, which is where I snagged the two images pictured above. 🙂 The house, which was designed in 1915 by architect Stiles O. Clements, is currently for sale at a price that is only given “upon request”. The property boasts seven bedrooms, TEN bathrooms!, five fireplaces, a separate one bedroom, one bathroom guesthouse, and sits on over 3.5 acres of land. You can visit the home’s real estate listing and see a more close-up view of the property here.

The scene shot at the Pasadena house was a very brief one in which Jacob warns Bella upon entering the prom that her boyfriend, Edward Cullen (aka Robert Pattinson), may be a dangerous individual. Bella blows off his warning and then walks arm-in-arm with Edward around the corner and into the prom, at which point the location miraculously transforms into the View Point Inn.

The scene was filmed on the lawn in front of the north portion of the home’s wrap-around driveway, which is denoted with the blue “X” in the above aerial image.

I find it absolutely amazing that the location manager was able to find an area home that not only looked quite a bit like the View Point Inn, but one that was also situated in an Oregonian-like setting. When I first heard that the scene in which Jacob walks out of the woods to talk to Bella had been filmed in Pasadena, I wrongly assumed that fake trees had been brought in to make the property appear more wooded and forest-like. But in reality, the scene pictured above is what the grounds surrounding the house actually look like. It truly is an incredibly piece of property!

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The house where the beginning portion of the prom scene in Twilight was filmed is located at 1200 South Arroyo Boulevard in Pasadena.

June 16, 2010June 15, 2010

The Cullen House from “The Twilight Saga: New Moon”

Another location that I stalked while in Vancouver two weeks ago was the residence where the Cullen family – including Edward (aka Robert Pattinson), Alice (aka Ashley Greene), Jasper (aka Jackson Rathbone), Carlisle (aka Peter Facinelli), Esme (aka Elizabeth Reaser), Emmett (aka Kellan Lutz), and Rosalie (aka Nikki Reed) – lived in the 2009 movie The Twilight Saga: New Moon. And even though I am not at all a fan of the Twilight series, nor have I yet to even see the New Moon installment, I was absolutely dying to stalk the home where filming took place ever since first seeing it in a real estate listing when it went on the market this past November. From what I saw in the listing, the modern-style abode was nothing short of spectacular, so when fellow stalker Kerry mentioned that she knew the property’s location, I practically salivated and begged her to take me there. And I have to say that, in person, the home definitely did NOT disappoint! The Cullen house is absolutely breathtaking and I would give anything to live in something even remotely as beautiful. And while I would have loved to have taken a peek at the interior of the property, unfortunately, due to the many inquiries about the home from various Twi-hards the world over, the real estate agent is currently only offering tours to serious buyers.

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Oddly enough, the exterior of the West Vancouver-area home never actually appeared in New Moon. For the lone exterior shot featured in the flick (pictured above), producers used footage of the Hoke house in Portland, Oregon – the very same residence which stood in for the Cullen abode in the original Twilight movie. When it was decided that the Twilight sequel would be shot entirely on location in Canada – where filming is much less expensive than in the U.S. – location scouts had to track down a home which had somewhat similar interiors to the residence that was used in the original flick.

They found that home in West Vancouver and fans of the movie followed – in droves. Apparently the residence has become quite the tourist attraction ever since New Moon was filmed there beginning on April 15th of last year. The house was the setting for two scenes in the movie – the scene involving Bella’s ill-fated 18th birthday party and the scene in which the Cullen family is put to a vote to decide Bella’s fate. Those relatively short segments took a whopping four days to film. The same home will also be standing in for the interior of the Cullen residence in the upcoming The Twilight Saga: Eclipse movie.

The 5 bedroom, 4 bathroom, 5,117 square-foot abode, which was completely remodeled in 2001 and is currently for sale for a whopping $2,998,000, features 20 foot ceilings, a media room, slate and concrete flooring, a pool, a spa, a koi pond, a chef’s kitchen with granite countertops and cherry wood cabinets, and a 1/2 acre of wooded, creekside land. Ironically enough, the home’s real estate listing touts its numerous picture windows which allow for “bright sunfilled exposure” throughout – something I don’t think the Cullen family would have appreciated very much. 😉 You can view the home’s real estate listing here.

Big THANK YOU to Kerry for not only finding this location, but for taking me to stalk it, as well! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Cullen house from The Twilight Saga: New Moon is located at 118 Stevens Drive in West Vancouver, British Columbia. You can check out the home’s real estate website here.

November 30, 2009December 9, 2020

The Hyatt Regency Valencia from “Twilight”

The other Los Angeles area filming location from Twilight that I mentioned in last Wednesday’s post is the Hyatt Regency Valencia Hotel. In Twilight, the Hyatt stood in for the Phoenix area hostelry where Bella (aka Kristen Stewart), Alice (aka Ashley Greene), and Jasper (aka Jackson Rathbone) hid out while on the run from the evil vampire James (Cam Gigandet) towards the end of the movie. In reality, the hotel is, of course, not located anywhere near Arizona, but instead can be found just about four miles away from the home that was used as Bella’s mom’s house in the flick. So, of course, since I was already in the area last week, I just had to stalk the place. 🙂 I found this location thanks again to the link that fellow stalker Kerry sent me last April while the first Twilight movie was still in production. Thank you, Kerry! 🙂

The Hyatt is, sadly, featured only briefly in Twilight, but I am happy to report that it looks very much the same in person as it did onscreen. In the scene featuring the Hyatt, Bella, Jasper, and Alice are first shown hanging out in a hotel room discussing their current predicament. And while the exterior set up shots for that scene were indeed filmed at the Hyatt Regency Valencia, after looking at photographs of the hotel’s rooms online, I am fairly certain that the interior filming took place elsewhere. My best guess is that the hotel room scene was either filmed on a soundstage or at a real hotel located somewhere in the Pacific Northwest, where the rest of the movie was filmed.

We next see Jasper and Alice in the hotel’s lobby area waiting to check out. And, as you can see in the above photographs and screen capture, that particular scene was actually shot on location at the Hyatt Regency Valencia and the lobby area still looks pretty much the same in person as it did in Twilight. Even the red flower paintings hanging behind the reception desk are there in real life. 🙂 Love it!

In a subsequent scene, Bella is shown rushing out of the Hyatt Regency Valencia’s main entrance and into a waiting taxi cab. And that pretty much covers the entire Twilight segment that took place at the Hyatt! LOL All told, the scenes probably last a little under 45 seconds. As I said in the previous Wednesday’s post, though, it’s better than nothing! 🙂

While stalking the hotel, I happened to strike up a conversation with one of the bellhops who truly could NOT have been nicer to me. He even took the photograph of me featured at the top of this post. 🙂 According to the bellhop, the Hyatt is actually an oft-used filming location and has been featured in such series as CSI: Las Vegas, NCIS, and the reality show Make It Or Break It. The bellhop said that a scene from Twilight was also filmed in the hotel’s parking garage, but he wasn’t sure which scene. He also informed me that Robert Pattinson actually stayed at the Hyatt Regency Valencia for a few days during the filming of Twilight. LOVE IT! The Hyatt Regency Valencia is a really beautiful hotel, with a large swimming pool, picturesque gardens, and a beautiful wedding courtyard (pictured above). I highly recommend stalking the place or even staying there while visiting the L.A. area. Who knows – you may even wind up in RP’s former room! 🙂

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On a very random side note: Earlier today, while reading the fabulous book Twilight: Director’s Notebook, I learned that the scene pictured above, in which Bella and Edward kiss for the first time, was actually filmed in Pasadena! Apparently, the scene was originally filmed on location in Oregon, but director Catherine Hardwicke never ended up getting the exact shot she wanted. So, a few months later, when the cast and crew was back in California, some reshoots were done, one of which was the Bella/Edward kiss scene. For the re-shoot, a replica of Bella’s bedroom was built at the Elk’s Lodge in Pasadena. 🙂 So, as it turns out, there are actually three L.A. area locations that were featured in Twilight. 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Hyatt Regency Valencia, where Bella, Jasper, and Alice hid out in Twilight, is located at 24500 Town Center Drive in Valencia. You can visit their website here. The Elks Lodge in Pasadena, where Bella and Edward first kissed, is located at 400 West Colorado Boulevard. You can visit their website here.

November 25, 2009November 24, 2009

Bella’s Mom’s House from “Twilight”

Well, it took me long enough, but on Monday afternoon I finally decided to crawl out from that rock I’ve been living under for the past year by sitting down to watch the movie that the rest of the world has long been obsessed with – Twilight. Yes, it’s true – while it seems that pretty much every other human being on the planet has gone Bella and Edward crazy, until earlier this week I had yet to watch – or even read – the saga’s first installment. I’m not exactly sure why I avoided the movie for as long as I did, being that I am usually right in line with the masses when it comes to the latest pop culture obsessions, especially the teeny-bopper ones. For some reason, though, Twilight never piqued my interest. But then, this past Friday night, I met up with fellow stalkers Lavonna, Beth, Kim, and Melissa, who were in town from Cincinnati, and they were all quite disappointed to learn that a stalker like myself had yet to see the movie. So, on Monday afternoon, I decided to bite the bullet and finally sat down – Starbucks iced latte in hand – to watch Twilight in its two hour entirety. And I am shocked to report that I didn’t hate it. I didn’t exactly love it, either, but I definitely didn’t hate it. It was actually pretty enjoyable. The cinematography was nothing short of breathtaking and Robert Pattinson wasn’t so bad to look at, either. Don’t hate me ladies, but before seeing the movie, I thought RB was absolutely hiddy. Now I can understand what all the fuss is about, though. There’s definitely just something about him. And I am happy to report that while most of Twilight was filmed on location in the Pacific Northwest, the movie did feature two locations in the Los Angeles area, most notably Bella’s mom’s house. So, of course, I just had to stalk it! 🙂

Thanks to my good friend and fellow stalker Kerry who sent me this Twilight link well over a year ago, I knew that Bella’s mom’s house was located somewhere in the Valencia area. I just wasn’t sure exactly where. So, yesterday, after watching the movie, I got to cyber-stalking and came across this page on Wikipedia, which stated that the home was located near Highlands Elementary School. And even though Wikipedia isn’t always the most reliable of sources, I decided to begin my search in the neighborhood surrounding the school. And sure enough, just about ten minutes later, I came across the house! YAY! So, early this morning, I made the journey out to Santa Clarita to do some Twilight stalking! Because Bella’s mom’s house is supposed to be located in Arizona in the movie, quite a bit of it was changed for the filming, including the paint color, the landscaping, and the exterior decor. Numerous fake cactus plants were also added to the surrounding area. You can see photographs of the house all decked out for the filming on this fansite, which details the experience of two stalkers who made a trek from Arizona to California – in the middle of the night, no less – just to watch Twilight being filmed! Two women after my own heart, I swear! (The photographs of the house are featured on the website under the heading “More Pictures on the Set 4/29 and 4/30”. You have to scroll down a ways to see them.).

Bella’s mom’s house is actually only featured very briefly in the movie. I’m talking like 30 seconds brief. LOL But since it is one of the only Twilight sites located in the state of California, I figured stalking it was better than nothing. 🙂 The abode first shows up in the very beginning of the movie, when Bella and her mom and step-dad are shown moving out of the property.

The spot where Bella digs up a cactus plant to take with her to her dad’s house is located in the field situated directly next to the home.

The house shows up once again towards the end of the movie, in the scene in which Bella is led to believe that the evil vampire James has kidnapped her mother.

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Even though the house looks a bit different in person than it appeared onscreen, to all of those L.A. area Twilight fans, I still highly recommend stalking it! It’s a whole lot cheaper than traveling all the way to Oregon and Washington where the rest of the movie was filmed. 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Bella’s mom’s house from Twilight is located at 22301 Cataro Drive in Santa Clarita.