Washington – IAMNOTASTALKER

November 19, 2010November 20, 2010

Gas Works Park from “10 Things I Hate About You”

Another location that I stalked while visiting the Pacific Northwest this past May – and yes, there are still quite a few of them that I have yet to blog about – was Seattle’s famously unique Gas Works Park, the spot where Patrick Verona (aka Heath Ledger) took Kat Stratford (aka Julia Stiles) to play a game of paintball in the 1999 movie 10 Things I Hate About You. I found this location, as well as countless other 10 Things I Hate About You locations, from fellow stalker Owen, who has managed to compile a mind-bogglingly massive list of Seattle-area filming locales over the past few years. And I can honestly say that Gas Works Park is easily the most interesting and unique of all of the locations that I stalked while vacationing in Washington State. Actually, come to think of it, the park is quite possibly the most unique and interesting of all the locations I have ever visited in my entire stalking career! The place is truly incredible.

Gas Works Park, as the name implies, was originally a gasification plant established by the Seattle Gas Company in 1906 to manufacture gas from coal. The plant was one of Seattle’s main sources of power until 1956 when the city began using natural, instead of “town” – or synthetically produced – gas, at which point the plant was shuttered. In 1962, the City of Seattle purchased the property for a cool $1,340,000 with the intention of turning the space into a public park. Enter award-winning landscape architect Richard Haag who was brought in to transform the area into a place of recreation and beauty, which he indeed did, later winning the American Society of Landscape Architects Presidents Award Design of Excellence for the project. In an unprecedented move, because the property was the only gasification plant still in existence in the U.S., Haag decided to preserve the seemingly-ugly and utilitarian equipment and incorporate them into his park design. And while a park that features old gas generator towers and rusted boiler rooms might not sound appealing, what Haag left us with is a truly stunning mix of industry and nature.

So stunning, in fact, that it has become a popular Seattle wedding venue, as unlikely as that might seem. As you can see in the above photograph, one was even being set up while we were stalking the place.

Part of what makes the 20.5-acre park, which is both a Seattle City Landmark and a Washington State Landmark, so spectacular is its amazing views of Lake Union, Downtown Seattle, and the Space Needle.

And, as fellow stalker Kerry pointed out, the park also boasts a perfect water-side view of the Sleepless in Seattle houseboat. So incredibly cool!

Thanks to the park’s unique architecture, it should come as no surprise that filmmakers have returned there time and time again to shoot various productions. In 10 Things I Hate About You, Patrick takes Kat to Gas Works Park to play paintball after she sneaks him out of detention and it is there that the couple shares their first kiss. In real life, the park does not actually feature a paintball area, though.

You can watch the 10 Things I Hate About You paintball scene by clicking above.

In the 1992 movie Singles, Gas Works Park is the location where Linda Powell (aka The Closer’s Kyra Sedgwick) says yes to Steve Dunne’s (aka Campbell Scott’s) marriage proposal.

In the 1989 movie Three Fugitives, the park is the spot where Ned Perry’s (aka Martin Short’s) daughter, Meg (aka Sarah Rowland Doroff), speaks for the first time.

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Gas Works Park was also featured twice on the reality television series The Amazing Race. It first appeared as the finish line for the final competition in Season 3 and was later used as the starting point in the very first competition in Season 10 (pictured above).

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Owen for telling me about this location and to fellow stalker Kerry and her husband Jim for taking me there. Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Gas Works Park, from 10 Things I Hate About You, is located at 2101 North Northlake Way in Seattle, Washington. The area where the paintball scene was filmed is denoted with a pink “X” in the above aerial view. The park is open daily from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. You can visit the official Gas Works Park website here.

November 10, 2010November 9, 2010

Dr. Mott’s House From “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle”

Another The Hand That Rocks the Cradle location that I stalked while vacationing in the Pacific Northwest this past May was the ultra-modern abode which belonged to Dr. Victor Mott (aka John de Lancie) and his wife, Peyton Flanders (aka Rebecca De Mornay), in the 1992 thriller. Amazingly enough, I didn’t actually remember the Mott home from the one time I viewed the movie almost two decades ago, but my good friend and fellow stalker Kerry, who lives in Washington State, insisted I stalk the place while we were up there and drove me and the Grim Cheaper by it on our final day in Seattle. And thank goodness she did, too, because the dwelling is nothing short of spectacular! In fact, how it is possible that I didn’t remember it from the film is absolutely beyond me!

In real life, the Mott residence, which seems to have been constructed almost entirely out of windows, boasts 4 bedrooms, a whopping 6 bathrooms, and 3,750-square feet of living space. The home was actually built in 1991, the same year that The Hand That Rocks the Cradle was lensed, so my guess is that it was vacant at the time of filming which is how producers came to use it in the movie.

The Mott house is featured in quite a few scenes in The Hand That Rocks the Cradle and, as you can see in the above screen captures, looks very much the same today as it did nineteen years ago when the movie was filmed. There have been a few subtle changes made to the residence over the years, of course, including the addition of a substantial amount of foliage around the front perimeter of the property, which wasn’t there at the time of the filming.

The residence’s front porch area has also been altered since The Hand That Rocks the Cradle was filmed and now features a blue-shingled overhang and brown wooden front doors, neither of which, in my never-to-be-humble-opinion, seem to fit in well with the rest of the abode. I much prefer the movie version of the front porch as to how it is currently designed.

It appears as if a window has also since been added to the rear portion of the home’s second story, as well. Other than those few changes, though, the property looks almost exactly the same in person as it appeared onscreen in The Hand That Rocks the Cradle. Love it! And, although you can’t quite tell in the above photograph due to the crappy weather we were experiencing that day, the breathtaking views of Downtown Seattle and Puget Sound that were shown in the movie are the real life views that can be seen from the actual home. Sigh!

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The real life interior of the property was also used for a few scenes in the movie as well.

As you can see in the above screen capture, and as was the case with the Bartel home which I blogged about yesterday, the property’s real life address was referred to in the movie in the scene in which Marlene Craven (aka Julianne Moore) looks at the real estate flyer for Dr. Mott’s former house.

Big THANK YOU to my good friend and fellow stalker Kerry for bringing me to this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Dr. Mott’s house from The Hand That Rocks the Cradle is located at 2502 37th Avenue West in the Magnolia neighborhood of Seattle, Washington.

November 9, 2010November 8, 2010

The “Hand That Rocks The Cradle” House

Another location that I stalked while visiting the Pacific Northwest this past May was the gorgeous Victorian-style residence where the Bartel family – Claire (aka Annabella Sciorra), Michael (aka Matt McCoy), Emma (aka an absolutely adorable pre-Californication Madeline Zima), and baby Joey (aka Eric, Jennifer, and Ashley Melander) – and their nanny, Peyton Flanders (aka Rebecca De Mornay), lived in the 1992 thriller The Hand That Rocks the Cradle. Even though I had actually only seen the movie once – almost two decades ago when it was first released in theatres – the Bartel home made such an impression on me that an image of it has been imprinted on my mind ever since. It is absolutely amazing to me how iconic the dwelling still is all these years later. Even more amazing to me is the fact that the home pictured above wasn’t actually the producer’s first choice for the filming of The Hand That Rocks the Cradle. They originally approached the owners of a different Tacoma-area Victorian residence – one that was chosen seven years later to stand in for the Stratford family home in the 1999 teen comedy 10 Things I Hate About You. But because The Hand filmmakers wanted to paint over some interior woodwork, cut holes in several walls, and temporarily remove all of the real life furnishings and decor, the 10 Things homeowners turned down the offer and a different property located just over a mile to the west was chosen instead. And the rest, as they say, is history. There’s a quote from the now-defunct Movieline Magazine that I’ve had pinned up on my bulletin board for over twenty years now which reads, “It is always fascinating to learn how an actress came to play a role in which she is so perfect for the part that you can’t imagine anyone else ever having been considered.” Well, the same can be said for houses, and it especially holds true for The Hand That Rocks the Cradle house – I honestly can’t imagine any other residence ever having been considered for the Bartel home.

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I am very happy to report that The Hand That Rocks the Cradle house looks remarkably the same today as it did eighteen years ago when it appeared in the movie. The residence has been painted a different color since that time and there is a quite a bit more foliage surrounding the property now, but otherwise it is still completely recognizable.

Even the light post/address marker located near the front porch is still there in real life, although the top of it is shaped a bit differently now.

The backside of the house and the garage area also appeared in the flick . . .

. . . although both have been remodeled quite a bit since filming took place.

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

Amazingly enough, the owners of the house decided to leave the famous Hand That Rocks the Cradle greenhouse, which played a pivotal role in the movie and which was built solely for the filming, intact after the flick had wrapped, which I think is just about the coolest thing ever! Even cooler still is the fact that there is a scene in the movie in which Michael calls 911 and says to the police, “We live at 808 Yakima”, which is the home’s actual address. I love it when real life details like that are included in a script!

In real life, The Hand That Rocks the Cradle house, which was originally built in 1891, boasts 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, and a whopping 6,105 square feet of living space. And while the residence is absolutely beautiful in person, I prefer the white color it was painted in the movie, as opposed to the yellow color it is currently painted today.

On a celebrity-sighting side-note – While doing some grocery shopping this past Sunday afternoon, I happened to run into actress Kimmy Robertson, who played Cathy in fave movie Don’t Tell Mom The Babysitter’s Dead. I just about died when I realized who she was and, despite the Grim Cheaper’s objections, followed her outside to ask if she wouldn’t mind taking a photograph with me. Kimmy was SUPER, SUPER nice and even chatted with us about Don’t Tell Mom for a bit. I think she found me a bit odd when I told her how upset I was that the All American Burger on Sunset Boulevard – which stood in for Clown Dog restaurant in the movie – had recently been torn down, but she and her dog Cleo happily posed for a pic with me nonetheless. So incredibly cool!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Hand That Rocks the Cradle house is located at 808 North Yakima Avenue in Tacoma, Washington.

July 20, 2010July 19, 2010

The Very First Starbucks Store

While this probably goes without saying, the location that I was most excited about stalking while vacationing in Seattle this past May was the very first Starbucks store at Pike Place Market. As I’ve mentioned countless times in the past – and as anyone who knows me even slightly well can attest to – I am an absolute Starbucks fiend! I visit my local branch at least twice a day and am on first name basis with all of the baristas who work there. Heck, some of them even read my blog! 🙂 So, when it was decided that the Grim Cheaper and I would be taking a mini-vacay to the Pacific Northwest to do some stalking and visit with our friends Kerry and Jim, I let it be known right away that there was absolutely no way I was leaving town without seeing the very first Starbucks store in person. And, let me tell you, I could NOT have been more excited about it. On the morning we were scheduled to stalk the store, my fiancé woke me and said, “Are you ready to visit your Mecca? Be sure to bring along a prayer rug or something so that you can pay your respects while there.” 😉 All joking aside, though, it really was a very special pilgrimage for me as I had always promised myself that one day I would get to Seattle so that I could stalk the store that started it all.

In the interest of integrity, though, I should mention here that the store which actually started it all is no longer standing and that the Pike Place Starbucks, which is generally touted as being the company’s first location, was actually the chain’s fourth. Confused? I’ll see if I can break it down. A couple of years ago I read a FASCINATING book by Taylor Clark called Starbucked: A Double Tall Tale of Caffeine, Commerce, and Culture. Besides sharing interesting tidbits, like the fact that “coffee is the second-most-traded physical commodity in the world” (oil being the first), the book chronicles the long and storied history of the now-ubiquitous coffee giant. The first Starbucks outlet was actually opened by three men – history teacher Zev Siegl, Boeing programmer Jerry Baldwin, and writer Gordon Bowker – on March 29, 1971 in Downtown Seattle’s Harbor Heights building, which used to be located at 2000 Western Avenue. And while the store did offer free drip coffee samples, the place was not actually a cafe, but a walk-up wholesale coffee bean vendor. There were no espresso machines, no comfy couches on which to linger, no pastries or desserts on offer in glass cases, and no music playing on the stereo. But even without all the extras, Starbucks was a success. By the time the owners of the Harbor Heights building decided to raze the property in 1974 (the building that currently stands on that site is pictured above), Starbucks had already opened two additional sister stores.

With their current location facing demolition, the original Starbucks store moved a few doors down to 1912 Pike Place (pictured above), making the first store the company’s fourth. I know, I know, it’s confusing. “Starbucked” author Clark explains it best: “The rundown building that once housed the first store was knocked down in 1974, so they built a new one a couple of blocks away, right across from the public market. But in the meantime, the three founders had opened new stores near the University of Washington and on Capital Hill in 1972 and 1973 – making what’s now called the “original” the fourth store by chronology.” Ironic, huh? Crazier still is the fact that Starbucks mega-mogul Howard Schultz didn’t come into the picture until 1981. He was working as a housewares salesman in New York at the time and had noticed that one of his customers, a tiny coffee chain in Seattle, was selling more of a certain kind of drip coffeemaker than Macy’s! He flew out to the Pacific Northwest to learn more about the then-unknown coffee company and was immediately taken with it. A year later, he left Manhattan and moved to Seattle in order to go to work for the small chain. The rest, as they say, is history.

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It’s amazing to think that a chain that currently boasts 17,743 different stores in more than 50 countries (there’s even a branch on the Great Wall of China! – not kidding!) started out as one tiny, little storefront in Seattle. Thankfully, that storefront has been left largely unaltered over the past 36 years and looks pretty much exactly like it did back in 1974 when it first opened. As Clark points out in his book, though, with its plank-wood flooring and weathered wooden countertops, the store more closely resembles a Peet’s Coffee shop than it does a Starbucks. There’s a reason for that, though. Dutch coffee roaster Alfred Peet, founder of Peet’s Coffee Company, actually helped Siegl, Baldwin, and Bowker get started in the business, and they modeled their first location after the original Peet’s store in Berkeley, California. I cannot even express how happy I am that the original store has been left untouched and was not remodeled to fit the cookie-cutter Starbucks mold over the years.

The Pike Place Starbucks also continues to use the chain’s original logo – that of a split-tailed mermaid with bared breasts, encircled by the words “Starbucks – Coffee, Tea, Spices” – an image which was deemed too risqué when the company went corporate.

To commemorate the store’s historical significance, there is also a brass post which reads “First Starbucks Store, Established 1971” on display at the front entrance. Love it! I wish they had a post like this on display at movie locations, as well!

And there’s even a map on the wall of all of the Starbucks locations worldwide.

But besides being the most unique-looking of all of the Starbucks stores, the Pike Place location is also the only one in North America which still hand-pulls its espresso shots, making for a more authentic coffee experience. (The other stores switched to automated espresso machines a few years back.) The Grim Cheaper was especially enthralled with watching the baristas craft the espresso by hand and took countless photographs of them. All of the baristas were also extremely friendly and knowledgeable about Starbucks – and coffee in general – which I absolutely LOVED. It was fascinating to speak with them about the history of the store and the company.

I absolutely cannot tell you how cool it was to be standing there ordering an iced latte at the very Starbucks store which started it all – definitely a moment I will never forget! And I have to say that even though the place was jam-packed with people, my drink was made in record time! I honestly cannot recommend stalking the first Starbucks enough! For those who don’t want to wade through the hordes of stalkers there, though, there is – of course – another Starbucks store located just around the corner from this one. 😉

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The first Starbucks store is located at 1912 Pike Place in Seattle. The location of the former Harbor Heights building, which housed the very first Starbucks store but has long since been torn down, can be found at 2000 Western Avenue.

April 2, 2010April 2, 2010

The “Sleepless in Seattle” Houseboat

Another Seattle area location that my good friend and fellow stalker Kerry stalked for me a few weeks back was the houseboat where Sam Baldwin (aka Tom Hanks) and his son Jonah (aka Ross Malinger) lived in one of my favorite romantic comedies of all time, 1993’s Sleepless in Seattle. I just re-watched Sleepless last night, actually, in order to write today’s post and was absolutely amazed at how incredibly fabulous the movie still is, almost two decades after it was first released! It’s a classic and I honestly cannot tell you how much I LOVE it. Like LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it! In fact, I can still remember exactly where I was when I first saw it seventeen years ago. It was the summer of 1993, I was sixteen years old, and my parents and I were vacationing in Santa Barbara. While shopping on State Street, we stumbled upon Paseo Nuevo Cinemas, saw Sleepless on the marquee, and decided to buy tickets. I actually still have my ticket from that day, in fact, in a shoebox somewhere in my closet. In the years since, I’ve walked by that same movie theatre countless times while visiting the Santa Barbara area and each time I do the memories from that day never fail to bring a smile to my face. So, when Kerry mentioned that she was going to stalk the Sleepless houseboat, I just about died. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to see that place in person! So, I decided that, even though I have yet to stalk the house myself yet, I just had to blog about it. Thank you, Kerry!

In Sleepless in Seattle, Sam and Jonah Baldwin leave their home in Chicago and move into the Seattle area houseboat pictured above in order to make a fresh start after losing their wife and mother, respectively, a few months prior.

In real life, the Sleepless in Seattle houseboat is located in a gated community of sorts in the Lake Union area of Seattle, Washington (actual gates are pictured above) and is, sadly, not at all visible from the street. Typically, the only way to catch a glimpse of the place is if you travel by it by boat. Thankfully, though, as I’ve mentioned before on my blog, Kerry isn’t one to be easily deterred. As luck would have it, there was an open house in the neighborhood on the day Kerry stalked the place and so she was allowed to wander right in past the main gate! YAY!

As you can in the above screen captures and photographs, the houseboat looks almost EXACTLY the same today as it did when Sleepless was filmed over 17 years ago! In fact, the only differences I noticed were that the front door is currently painted a bright red color and that the fencing around the back patio has been changed from metal to wood.

The four bedroom, two bath houseboat, which was first built in 1978, was apparently for sale in 2008 for a whopping $2.5 million, but I was unable to discern if it was ever actually purchased by someone or if it is still currently up for grabs. If you look at the home’s interior photographs on its real estate website, though, you can see that the inside was not used in the filming of Sleepless. Although the interior of the real life home and its onscreen counterpart bear a striking resemblance to each other, you can tell by the location of both the kitchen and the stairway leading up to the second level that they are not the same place. In real life, the inside of the houseboat, which measures 2,075 square feet, is also much larger than it was made to look onscreen. I am guessing that the entire interior that appeared in the movie was just a set that producers had built on a soundstage somewhere.

If you’ll notice in the above picture, though, the little bench that Sam sits on at night in the movie is there in real life, too. So LOVE it!

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I am happy to report, too, that the mailboxes seen in the flick are in fact the community’s real life mailboxes and that they look very much the same today as they did back in 1993 when Sleepless was filmed. YAY!

Big THANK YOU to Kerry for stalking this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Sleepless in Seattle houseboat is located at 2460 Westlake Avenue North in the Lake Union area of Seattle, Washington, right next to Boatworld Marinas. Please remember that the home is located in a private community and do not trespass.