West Hollywood buildings – IAMNOTASTALKER

April 13, 2012April 12, 2012

The Harper House from “Scream 3”

Last Thursday afternoon, before grabbing lunch at Pinches Tacos from The Hills which I blogged about on Tuesday, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, took me by a famous apartment complex in West Hollywood named the Harper House. Because the Spanish Baroque-style building was featured in Scream 3 (as well as countless other productions), Mike thought that I might be interested in blogging about it during my annual Haunted Hollywood month this upcoming October (and yes, I am already gathering locations for that!). After seeing the place in person, though, I became just a wee bit intrigued by it and started doing research immediately. So I figured that now was as good a time as any to do a post on the historic building.

The Harper House, which was built in 1929, was designed by Leland Bryant, the very same architect who also gave us the art deco-style Sunset Tower Hotel, one of my very favorite places in all of Los Angeles that I blogged about way back in September of 2008. The complex was originally constructed to provide housing for show business and studio professionals and such luminaries as silent film actress Norma Talmadge and silent film actor Gilbert Roland once called the place home. The four-story, 21-unit, L-shaped building, as well as the entire block that it is located on which is known as the North Harper Avenue Historic District, was added to the National Register of Historic Places on June 28, 1996.

Mike had actually just recently scouted the Harper House a few weeks before taking me there and was nice enough to share the above photographs that he snapped of the building’s elevated central courtyard area, which is absolutely idyllic. It is no wonder that so many movies have been filmed on the premises!

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The Harper House pops up twice in Scream 3. It first shows up at the very beginning of the movie as the building where Cotton Weary (Liev Schreiber) and his girlfriend, Christine Hamilton (Gossip Girl’s Kelly Rutherford), are murdered.

I am fairly certain that the real life interior of one of the apartments was also used in that scene. As you can see in these CurbedLA pictures of the inside of an actual Harper House apartment, the fireplace, doors, windows, and stairway railings all match up to what appeared onscreen.

The exterior of the Harper House next pops up in the scene in which Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) watches the news about Cotton’s murder on TV.

In the 1988 flick Cop, the Harper House was where Lloyd Hopkins (James Woods) investigated a murder at the very beginning of the movie.

The real life interior of one of the apartments was also used in the filming of that scene.

In 1989’s The Big Picture (which is a FABULOUS movie, by the way), the interior and the exterior of the Harper House stood in for the building where up-and-coming film director Nick Chapman (cutie Kevin Bacon – sigh!) moved after breaking up with his longtime girlfriend, Susan Rawlings (Emily Longstreth).

In 1991’s The Last Boy Scout, the Harper House is where murdered stripper Cory (Halle Berry) lived and where Joe Hallenbeck (Bruce Willis) and Jimmy Dix (Damon Wayans) go to investigate her killing.

Oddly enough, though, the interior of Cory’s apartment and her balcony were a different location entirely. As you can see in the above screen shots, the windows of Cory’s bedroom and the railings of her balcony do not match up with the actual building.

In the pilot episode of Murder One, which was titled “Chapter One”, the Harper House was where Jessica Costello (Collette White) was killed. Solving her case became the central storyline of the series’ first season, but the exterior of the building was actually only shown once, in the brief scene in which Ted Hoffman (Daniel Benzali) watched a news story about the murder while at home with his wife, Annie (Patricia Clarkson), and his daughter, Elizabeth (Vanessa Zima).

The real life interior of one of the units also appeared in that episode in the flash back scene in which Richard Cross (Stanley Tucci) recounts how he discovered the body.

And brief glimpses of the Harper House were also shown each week during the Murder One opening credits.

The Harper House was also featured in 1978’s The Big Fix, 1982’s Partners, and as the building where Alice Pieszecki (Leisha Hailey) lived on the Showtime series The L Word, but, unfortunately, I could not find copies of any of those productions with which to make screen captures for this post.

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for telling me about this location, for the photographs of the building’s courtyard and for making the Cop screen captures which appear in this post! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Harper House, from Scream 3, is located at 1334/1336 North Harper Avenue in West Hollywood. Pink Taco, aka the former site of the Roxbury, is located just up the street at 8225 West Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood. You can visit the official Pink Taco website here. And Pinches Tacos, from the “It’s On Bitch” episode of The Hills, is located just around the corner at 8200 West Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood. You can visit the official Pinches Taco website here.

April 12, 2012April 11, 2012

Franck’s Wedding Coordinator Shop from “Father of the Bride”

When the Grim Cheaper and I first showed up to stalk Fig & Olive restaurant, from the 2012 “Matthew’s Day Off” Honda CR-V Super Bowl commercial which I blogged about last week, I became absolutely enchanted with Melrose Place, the tiny tree-lined street on which the eatery is located. Even though I had been a fan of the series Melrose Place back in the 90s, before tracking down Fig & Olive earlier this year I had no idea that the charming and idyllic little street, which runs a scant three blocks and is made up of mostly high-end boutiques, even existed. In a recent About.com Los Angeles article, author Shana Ting Lipton calls Melrose Place a “hidden gem” and she could not be more right! Because its name so closely resembles that of the neighboring, and far more well-known, Melrose Avenue, I believe Melrose Place often gets lost in the shuffle, which explains why this stalker had never before heard of it. Needless to say, I absolutely fell in love with the picturesque little thoroughfare on the spot, as did the GC.

While we were there, I happened to notice that the sidewalks on Melrose Place were extremely wide with brick ornamentation and my mind immediately flashed upon the shop where wedding coordinator Franck Eggelhoffer (Martin Short) and his assistant, Howard Weinstein (BD Wong), worked in fave movie Father of the Bride – a location that I had long been trying to track down. For some odd reason, I had remembered that the sidewalk in front of Franck’s shop was also quite wide and lined with brick (I know, I know – my mind retains the oddest of information), so I snapped a quick pic of the Melrose Place sidewalk so that I could compare the two when I returned home. Well, lo and behold, when I popped in my DVD later that night, I was able to confirm that the sidewalks were one and the same. Yay!

From that point, all I had to do was pinpoint the exact storefront where Franck worked and, being that Melrose Place is only three blocks long, the venture was an easy one. Then, last Thursday, after I had figured out the correct spot, I dragged Mike, from MovieShotsLA, right on back out there to do some stalking of it.

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Franck’s shop shows up only once in Father of the Bride, in the scene in which George Banks (Steve Martin) begrudgingly accompanies his wife, Nina (Diane Keaton), and daughter, Annie (Kimberly Williams-Paisley), to meet the hard-to-understand wedding coordinator for the first time. One of my very favorite lines in the movie is actually uttered during that scene – when George laments over the high price of the wedding cake, he says, “My first car didn’t cost $1,200!”, to which Franck responds, “Well, welcome to the ‘90s, Mr. Banks!” Love it!

In the scene, George, Nina and Annie are shown walking east on Melrose Place in front of the building numbered 8420.

And I, of course, just had to imitate them by posing for an action walking shot while I was there. Smile

I believe that the green “Antiques” awning that was visible in the background behind the trio was once attached to the building pictured above, which is located at 8422/8424 Melrose Place. Fellow stalker Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, came across an article about the vacant property which mentions that it did, in fact, once house an antique store. And, as fate would have it, back in 2007 the very same building was also the site of a Hanes Comfortique Event hosted by none other than Owen’s main squeeze, Jennifer Love Hewitt. Talk about synchronicity!

The building that stood in for Franck’s shop, which was also an antique store at the time of the filming, is now home to the Zero + Maria Cornejo boutique. According to the About.com Los Angeles article that I mentioned earlier, Melrose Place actually used to be known as “the antiquing street” thanks to the myriad of antique shops that were located there once upon a time.

And while the full exterior of the property was not shown in Father of the Bride, the door that Annie, George and Nina walked through still looks exactly the same today as it did back in 1991 when the movie was filmed! Love it!

The real life interior of the store was also featured in Father of the Bride. As you can see in these pictures, while that interior has since been remodeled, it is still set up in the same basic three-room configuration that it was during the filming.

Even the ribbed pillars that were visible in the background of the scene are still there, as you can see in the main photograph featured in this RackedLA post.

In the scene, George, Nina, Annie, and Franck sat on a couch in front of the store’s eastern-most window.

That window is pictured above.

It is thanks to that portion of the scene that I was able to pinpoint exactly where Franck’s shop was situated. While looking for clues, I had noticed a few distinct architectural elements on the building located across the street, which was visible through Franck’s window. From there I used Google Street View to search for those elements and, thankfully, it was not long before I found them. As you can see in the screen shot and Street View image above, the arched window (denoted with a pink arrow), horizontal lip (denoted with a yellow arrow) and rectangular-shaped cutout (denoted with a blue arrow) of the building located at 8417 Melrose Place all match up to what appeared onscreen.

Sadly, as you can see above, those elements are now covered over with large awnings and are no longer visible. Thank God for Street View!

I had also spotted a center island and a “Keep Right” sign through the window in the scene and, looking at aerial views, saw that that same island was located just east of the Zero + Maria Cornejo boutique. And while the island still exists to this day, the “Keep Right” sign has since been removed.

The Zero + Maria Cornejo employee that we spoke with while there could NOT have been nicer and was not only floored to learn that he worked in such a cinematically significant location, but also allowed Mike and me to snap some pics through the same window that Annie, Nina, George, and Franck sat in front of.

On a Father of the Bride side note – I just learned that the character of Franck Eggelhoffer was inspired by real life wedding planner Kevin Lee, who appeared on this past season of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills as the wedding coordinator hired by Lisa Vanderpump. You can watch a video clip of the “real Franck” by clicking above. And yes, Martin Short had the guy down to a T!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Zero + Maria Cornejo, aka Franck’s wedding planning shop from Father of the Bride, is located at 8408 Melrose Place in West Hollywood. Fig & Olive restaurant, from the 2012 “Matthew’s Day Off” Honda CR-V Super Bowl commercial, is located just down the street at 8490 Melrose Place in West Hollywood. You can visit Fig & Olive’s official website here.

April 2, 2012April 1, 2012

The Former Site of the Roxbury

In honor of my girl Shannen Doherty’s new reality series, Shannen Says, which premieres next Tuesday (can’t wait!), I thought I would blog today about one of the actress’ famed hangouts from her Beverly Hills, 90210 days – the Roxbury in West Hollywood. Back when I was a teenager and knee-deep in my 90210 obsession (ah, who am I kidding, I am still knee-deep in it!), I clamored for any and all magazines featuring the show’s stars. I would practically drool while reading of their various comings and goings, especially Shannen’s, and as her name became more and more synonymous with the Roxbury, the legendary Sunset Strip club became seared into my memory. I, sadly, never had the opportunity to stalk the place, though, as it closed its doors in 1997, long before I moved to Los Angeles. But back in 2002, after an acting class, one of my friends invited me to grab some drinks at a hot spot named Miyagi’s. Not being a nightclub kinda girl myself, I turned down the offer, to which my friend said, “Are you sure? Miyagi’s used to be the Roxbury, where your girl Shannen Doherty hung out.” Well, believe you me, once I heard those words, I was in! In true Hollywood fashion, not even Miyagi’s stood the test of time, though, and, as you can see above, today the location houses a newly-opened Pink Taco. But I figured since the site was hallowed ground for any 90210 fan, it was definitely blog-worthy.

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The building that stands at the corner of Roxbury Road and West Sunset Boulevard has long been the darling of the Sunset Strip. The spot’s first incarnation was a celebrity supper club named The Players, or The Players Club, that was founded in 1940 by Academy Award-winning screenwriter Preston Sturges. During its Players days, such luminaries as Humphrey Bogart, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Dorothy Parker, Barbara Stanwyck, Joel McCrea, Rudy Vallee, William Faulkner, George S. Kaufman, Charlie Chaplin, Orson Welles and Howard Hughes all hung out there. Despite its popularity, the club started to falter by the early 1950s, though, most likely due to the fact that Preston often closed the three-story, 12,000-square-foot venue, which included a barber shop, a hydraulic stage, a burger stand, and three different restaurants, in order to host private parties for his famous friends. In 1953, his creditors sold the place to new owners who opened a Japanese restaurant named Imperial Gardens on the site. That eatery also proved to be quite popular with the Hollywood set and catered to such stars as John Savage, James Woods, John Travolta, and Olivia Newton-John.

In 1989, after an amazing 36-year run, Imperial Gardens closed and partners Brad Johnson and Elie Samaha purchased the establishment and transformed it into the Roxbury. Virtually overnight, the club became the place to see and be seen in Hollywood. The stars of 90210 flocked there like moths to a flame and were spotted partying on the premises virtually every night. Oh, what I wouldn’t have given to have been 21 and living in Hollywood at that time. Winking smile Besides Tori Spelling, Brian Austin Green, Shannen Doherty and Mark Wahlberg (pictured at the club in a November 1992 People Magazine article), other celebrities that spent time at the Roxbury during its almost decade-long reign on the Sunset Strip include Cher, John Travolta, Madonna, Tom Cruise, Prince, Sylvester Stallone, River Phoenix, Christina Applegate, Eddie Murphy, and, of all people, Geraldo Rivera. The club was so popular that it even inspired the movie A Night at the Roxbury, although no actual filming took place on site. And Eric Huerta, the Roxbury’s longtime bouncer, became so well-known himself that a Los Angeles Times article was written about him in November of 1993. As usually happens with hotspots in Los Angeles, though, the Roxbury’s star began to fade and eventually closed in 1997. Shortly thereafter, Miyagi’s, a Japanese-inspired club/restaurant, opened in its place. I do not remember much of what Miyagi’s was like from my one visit there back in 2002, aside from the fact that the place was huge, the food was good, and, as I danced, all I could think about was that Shannen Doherty herself had one danced in the very same spot. I was practically pinching myself all night.

Miyagi’s closed its doors sometime in 2008 and was purchased by Harry Morton, owner of the Pink Taco restaurant chain and son of Hard Rock Café founder Peter Morton. The young restaurateur immediately set about gutting the interior of the place and wound up discovering some traces of the historic Players Club in the process – including the entrance to a former underground (now sealed) tunnel that once connected the hotspot to the Chateau Marmont and was used by celebrities who wanted to escape prying eyes. And while Pink Taco did not officially open until yesterday, a private birthday bash was held there on March 23rd in honor of Jared Eng, the blogger behind the JustJared website. Some of the stars who attended that soiree include Fergie, Rumer Willis, Kellan Lutz, Lance Bass, Natasha Bedingfield, Seth MacFarlane, Avril Lavigne, and a few of this generation’s 90210-ers including Shenae Grimes, Jessica Stroup, and my love Matt Lanter (sigh!).

Thankfully, the exterior of the Sunset Boulevard hotspot hasn’t changed much over the years and despite the fact that it is now painted a bright pink (and yes, that is a whole lotta pink!), it still looks much the same as it did in the 1940s. You can see what The Players used to look like here, Imperial Gardens here, the Roxbury here, and Miyagi’s here. And you can check out some interior pictures of the new Pink Taco on fave website EaterLA here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Pink Taco, aka the former site of the Roxbury, is located at 8225 West Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood. You can visit the restaurant chain’s official website here.

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.

October 24, 2011September 29, 2017

Villa Primavera – The “In a Lonely Place” Apartment Building

While doing research on the Double Indemnity house, which I blogged about a couple of weeks ago, I came across some information about Villa Primavera – a courtyard-style apartment building that was featured in the 1950 film noir classic In a Lonely Place. I immediately became intrigued with the West-Hollywood-area building due to an anecdote that was listed on the movie’s IMDB trivia page. Apparently, In a Lonely Place director Nicholas Ray had lived at Villa Primavera upon first moving to Southern California in the 1940s and was so enamored with the place that he decided to build a replica of the entire complex, courtyard and all, on a soundstage at Columbia Studios (now Sunset-Gower Studios) in Hollywood to be used as Humphrey Bogart’s bachelor pad in the flick. At some point during the shoot, Nicholas walked in on his wife, Gloria Grahame, who also starred in the movie, in bed with his 13-year-old son from a previous marriage. Nicholas immediately moved out of the home he shared with Gloria and into the Villa Primavera apartment set, where he ended up living – in what was essentially an exact replica of his former apartment – until filming wrapped. Because the building was so inextricably linked with both In a Lonely Place and the behind-the-scenes turmoil that marked the shoot, I was absolutely dying to see the place in person and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to do just that a few days later.

Villa Primavera was constructed by legendary husband and wife architecture team Arthur and Nina Zwebell in 1923 and was the couple’s very first Spanish-Revival-style building. The charming complex features red-tile roofs, white adobe walls, and a central courtyard with a large tiled fountain, an outdoor fireplace, lush foliage, and wandering brick pathways. The individual apartment units boast corner fireplaces, exposed wood ceilings, and tile floors. The Zwebells loved the design so much that they eventually moved into the Hacienda-like property for a time and legend has it that James Dean and Katharine Hepburn also once called the place home. Sadly though, as you can see above, the ten-unit complex is gated and not much of it can be viewed from the street.

I did manage to catch a brief glimpse of the interior courtyard and central fountain through the front gate, though, and they both looked absolutely beautiful.

Amazingly enough, when the GC and I first arrived at Villa Primavera, this little guy ran up to greet us.

And I just about died when I realized that he was a polydactyl cat, aka a “Hemingway cat”, aka a cat with more than five toes on one or more of its paws! I had watched a television special on the unusual felines a little over ten years ago and have been absolutely obsessed with them ever since. I cannot tell you how incredibly fitting it was that we ran into a so-called “Hemingway cat” while visiting an apartment building with such a storied Old Hollywood history! Love it!

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In In a Lonely Place, Villa Primavera stood in for the supposed-Beverly-Hills-area “Beverly Patio” apartments where frustrated Hollywood screenwriter Dixon Steele (aka Humphrey Bogart) and his beautiful new neighbor, Laurel Gray (aka Gloria Grahame), lived.

The location was such an integral part of the murder mystery – which was fabulous by the way – that it led Roger Ebert to write in an August 13th, 2009 review, “The courtyard of the Hollywood building occupied by Humphrey Bogart in In a Lonely Place is one of the most evocative spaces I’ve seen in a movie. Small apartments are lined up around a Spanish-style courtyard with a fountain. Each flat is occupied by a single person. If you look across from your window, you can see into the life of your neighbor.” It is thanks to that interior view of neighboring units that Laurel is able to provide an alibi for Dixon after he is accused of murdering a young woman whom he had been seen with the night before. And while the courtyard area that is pictured above;

and the interior of both Dixon and Laurel’s individual apartments were recreations built at Columbia Studios, some actual filming did take place on location at Villa Primavera.

In the beginning of In a Lonely Place, Dixon returns home from the Beverly Hills police station after being questioned about the murdered woman and walks across the lawn of the real life apartment building. As you can see, a fake sign reading “Beverly Patio Apartments” was installed for that scene.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Villa Primavera, the In a Lonely Place apartment building, is located at 1300-1308 North Harper Avenue in West Hollywood.