Vince Vaughn locations – IAMNOTASTALKER

December 19, 2013December 18, 2013

The “Four Christmases” Bar

Last December, while doing research on the Venice residence that was used as the interior of the house belonging to Kate (Reese Witherspoon) and Brad (Vince Vaughn) in Four Christmases (which I blogged about here), I came across this Venice Paper article that stated that the 2008 comedy had also done some filming at a neighboring property located at 1319 Abbot Kinney Boulevard. When I Googled the address, I learned that it was the location of a spiritual gift shop/bookstore named Mystic Journey (which has since moved). Being that Four Christmases did not have a scene that took place at any sort of a store, I could not for the life of me figure out what the space had been used for in the flick. It was not until I came across these interior photographs of the building’s second floor that I figured out a fake bar had been built there for the shoot. I later confirmed my theory with the movie’s incredibly nice production designer, Shepherd Frankel, and then ran right out to stalk the place in early February.

[ad]

The 6,057-square-foot, three-story ultra-modern building was originally constructed in 2007 and was set up to accommodate two different retail/office spaces. The ground floor consists of a 2,000-square-foot storefront that has been vacant ever since Mystic Journey moved out this past April. (According to the Yo Venice website, It will soon be home to an IRO clothing store outpost.) You can see photographs of that bottom level here.

The top two floors are comprised of a 4,057-square-foot open live-work space with a full kitchen, hardwood flooring, two patios, and plenty of windows.

As you can see in the interior photographs below (which I got from the building’s former real estate listing), the place is absolutely incredible! Throw in a huge walk-in closet and it’s pretty much my ideal living space.

At the time of the filming of Four Christmases in December 2007, the building’s first floor and roof were being temporarily utilized for a Smart Car promotional event called the “Smart House.” Shepherd and his team took over the property’s second and third levels, which were vacant, and transformed them into a supposed San Francisco-area bar/art gallery.

The bar was only featured once in Four Christmases – in the opening scene, in which Kate and Brad pretended to be strangers named “Kent” and “Daphne.”

As you can see below, the place was dressed heavily for the filming and is virtually unrecognizable from the real estate listing photographs.

The third floor railing, thankfully, remains the same, though, and is what eventually tipped me off as to what the building had been used for in the movie.

The bathroom where Brad and Kate, ahem, rendezvoused in the scene was a set that Shepherd constructed inside of the building.

Although the exterior of the bar/gallery is never visible in Four Christmases, Kate and Brad are shown leaving the establishment and hopping onto a cable car. That portion of the scene was actually filmed in San Francisco (one of the few scenes that was), just outside of Café Grecco, which is located at 423 Columbus Avenue.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The fake Four Christmases bar/art gallery was created on the second and third floors of the building located at 1319 Abbot Kinney Boulevard in Venice. The spot where Kate and Brad caught a cable car outside of the bar can be found about 400 miles away at 423 Columbus Avenue in the North Beach area of San Francisco.

December 18, 2013December 17, 2013

The “Four Christmases” Church

Due to the fact that Christmas movies filmed in the L.A. area are few and far between, I typically only compile about five holiday-themed locales to blog about each year. (If I could swing an entire month of Christmas posts, believe me, I would.) This year was no different and because there are only five blogging days left until Christmas, you know what that means – my Yuletide posts start today! Yay! So here goes. Last January, while on the hunt for locations from Four Christmases, I managed to track down New Life Community Church, the Hawthorne parish that masqueraded as the United Church of Faith and Worship, Piedmont Branch, in the 2008 comedy. So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on over to stalk it a couple of weeks ago, after first stopping by Marilyn Monroe’s childhood home (which I blogged about here).

[ad]

While most of the interior spaces that appeared in Four Christmases were studio-built sets, I knew from the movie’s production notes that an actual religious institution in Hawthorne was used for the filming of the church scene. Because only the inside of it was shown, though, I had a tough time tracking it down. That is, until I came across production designer Shepherd Frankel’s FABULOUS website last year, on which were posted exterior photographs of the ultra-modern-looking parish where filming took place. From there I just did a Google search for modern places of worship in Hawthorne and was fairly quickly led to images of New Life Community Church.

New Life Community Church pops up towards the middle of Four Christmases (in the second Christmas vignette), in the scene in which Marilyn (Mary Steenburgen) takes her daughter Kate (Reese Witherspoon) and Kate’s boyfriend, Brad (Vince Vaughn), to a bit of an unconventional mass to meet her new boyfriend, Pastor Phil (Dwight Yoakam). While there – and despite Kate’s massive stage fright – Kate and Brad get roped into portraying Mary and Joseph in a reenactment of the Nativity of Jesus. According to the production notes, the church’s hi-tech style was not the original design concept. Director Seth Gordon states, “Pastor Phil was originally meant to play guitar and deliver a brief sermon, but Dwight brought such stature and swagger to it, with his arms raised and a booming voice that played to the furthest pews.” From there, the design scheme of the church was changed to include a large stage, huge video screen backdrops, colored lights, smoke, and blasting music. Frankel says, “The church was an environment that morphed considerably from its earliest conception. Pastor Phil’s sermon was originally written as something with a dilapidated smoke machine on a bare stage, but once Dwight got involved, it turned into a real rock n’ roll event with projection screens and lighting cues and neon illuminating the nativity. We did keep the smoke, though, and made it a key visual element to the set.”

Sadly, New Life Community Church was not open when we showed up to stalk it, so I was not able to get any interior photographs of the place. But you can see some on the church’s official Facebook page here.

Despite the fact that the church’s architecture is unusual to say the least, I could not find any information whatsoever about its construction or history online. The only thing I was able to discern – thanks to the Historic Aerials website – was that the structure was built sometime after 2005.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: New Life Community Church, from Four Christmases, is located at 5009 West 119th Street in Hawthorne. You can visit the church’s official website here.

September 29, 2011September 28, 2011

The “Beaches” Mansion vs. The “Starsky & Hutch” Mansion

Two weeks ago, fellow stalker Jenny left a comment on my post about the long-sought-after Beaches mansion in which she mentioned that the very same residence had also been used in both 1983’s Mr. Mom and 1987’s Who’s That Girl. Ironically enough, I had received virtually that same exact comment from a fellow stalker named Sarah on the post I wrote about the Starsky & Hutch mansion (pictured above) way back in May of 2009. So yesterday I decided to do some digging to see which mansion, if either, had been used in the two 80s flicks – a task which proved to be easier said than done.

Both the Beaches mansion and the Starsky & Hutch mansion are extremely large, Tudor-style residences situated on absolutely huge pieces of land in Pasadena, so it is easy to see how they have been mistaken as being one in the same over the years. The Beaches mansion, which is pictured above although sadly not much of it can be seen from the street, was originally built in 1916 and boasts 8 bedrooms, 4 baths, and a whopping 7,479 square feet of living space.

The gargantuan home sits on just under two acres of land.

In Beaches, the mansion was where Hillary Whitney Essex (aka Barbara Hershey) lived with her daughter, Victoria Cecilia Essex (aka Grace Johnston).

The Starsky & Hutch mansion, which was built in 1912, boasts 13 bedrooms (and no that is not a typo!), 8 baths, and 11,573 square feet of living space.

The monstrous residence sits on a 2.2 acre plot of land.

In 2004’s Starsky & Hutch, the mansion was where Reese Feldman (aka Vince Vaughn) lived with his wife, Mrs. Feldman (aka Molly Sims), and was where David Starsky (aka Ben Stiller) accidentally shot a pony while at a bar mitzvah party.

As it turns out and as you can see above, Mr. Mom was filmed at the Starsky & Hutch mansion and not at the Beaches mansion. In the movie, the property stood in for the residence belonging to Caroline’s (aka Teri Garr’s) millionaire boss, Ron Richardson (aka Martin Mull).

And here’s where things get confusing. As you can see above, the Starsky & Hutch mansion was also used as the home of Simon Worthington (aka John McMartin) in Who’s That Girl. Well, the front of the house was, at least.

The backyard, though, where the wedding of Louden Trott (aka Griffin Dunne) and Wendy Worthington (aka Sixteen Candles’ Haviland Morris) was supposed to take place, was actually the backyard of the Beaches mansion!

The interior scenes from Who’s That Girl were also filmed at the Beaches mansion. The screen captures in the top row pictured above were taken from Who’s That Girl, while the ones in the bottom row were taken from Beaches, and, as you can see, the interiors match perfectly.

The Starsky & Hutch mansion was also used numerous times in the television series Falcon Crest as the home belonging to Carlo Agretti (aka Carlos Romero) and his daughter, Melissa (aka Ana Alicia). It first showed up in the Season 1 episode titled “House of Cards” and then popped up repeatedly throughout the next few seasons. According to IMDB, the Starsky & Hutch mansion was also used in the Season 2 episode of Fantasy Island titled “The Last Whodunit” and in the Season 4 episode of Murder She Wrote titled “Witness for the Defense”, neither of which I could find a copy of to make screen captures for this post. And according to my buddy E.J. over at The Movieland Directory, the property also appeared in an episode of the short-lived television series Pepper Dennis.

As I mentioned in my post two weeks ago, the Beaches mansion has also been used in countless productions over the years. It stood in for Roger Sterling’s (aka John Slattery’s) country club in the Season 3 episode of Mad Men titled “My Old Kentucky Home”.

And in the Season 2 episode of Parks & Recreation titled “94 Meetings” it appeared as the Turnbill Mansion, which Leslie Knope (aka Amy Poehler) fought to save.

Fellow stalker Tamara in Australia also let me know that the Beaches mansion was used as the residence where the eponymous Alice (aka Natalie Gregory) lived in 1985’s FABULOUS Irwin-Allen-produced television movie Alice in Wonderland, which featured an all-star cast and which I used to watch repeatedly with my grandma when I was a child. The same property also appeared in the Season 7 episode of Columbo titled “Try and Catch Me”, which I was unfortunately unable to find a copy of to make screen captures for this post.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalkers Jenny, Sarah, and Tamara for helping me to clear up the filming location confusion with these particular properties. Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Beaches mansion is located at 880 La Loma Road in Pasadena. The Starsky & Hutch mansion is located just about two miles east at 1050 Arden Road in Pasadena.