Westlake – IAMNOTASTALKER

December 2, 2015February 23, 2018

Carondelet House from Maroon 5’s “Sugar” Music Video

I am a sucker for any kind of choreographed dance, especially if a wedding is involved. So when my mom sent me a link to this video of an epic seven-minute wedding dance, in which all 250 guests were included in on the action, I was all over it! In one portion of the video, a white curtain was lowered to reveal the groom, accompanied by a microphone and back-up band, lip-syncing a rather catchy song that I surmised was named “Sugar.” I had never heard the song before (I know, I know – my musical knowledge is limited at best), but immediately loved it and got to Googling so that I could download it. Turns out, the song, which is indeed titled “Sugar,” is by Maroon 5 and, when I came across the music video during my online search, I practically started drooling. In it, Adam Levine and the rest of the group crash several weddings in one evening in order to perform “Sugar” live. While watching, I happened to recognize Carondelet House, one of the wedding venues Adam crashed, which had me even more floored. I had walked by the location last October while on my way to stalk the American Cement Building and thought it was one of the prettiest facades I had ever seen. Even though I had no idea at the time what the property was or what it housed, I figured it had to have been used in a production at some point. Little did I know that I would later spot it in what has now become one of my favorite music videos of all time.

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Carondelet House was originally constructed in 1928 as a private residence.

The 7,683-square-foot site, which boasts Spanish and Italian design elements, also once served as the administration building of the prestigious Otis College of Art and Design.

In 2011, Alan Dunn, owner of the Tres L.A. catering company, toured the property and, figuring it would make a beautiful event space, purchased it and transformed it into Carondelet House.

The site features two courtyards, brick detailing throughout, a fireplace, hand-painted vaulted ceilings, exposed beams and ductwork, and hardwood flooring. You can check out some interior photographs of it here. It is easily one of the prettiest properties I have ever laid eyes on, both inside and out.

Its picturesque brick façade stands out from all of the other buildings on the street.

Though Carondelet House has hosted everything from fashion shows to celebrity events, it is most often used as a wedding venue – which made it the perfect spot to film “Sugar.”

A wedding was actually taking place when we showed up to stalk it. I love the below image of guests arriving at the nuptials.

In the “Sugar” music video, which was shot on December 6th, 2014, Adam and his bandmates crash several weddings at a string of venues around L.A., surprising guests with a spontaneous performance. The video opens with Maroon 5 leaving the Carondelet House and hopping into Adam’s convertible to drive to the first venue.

One of the weddings that was crashed also took place at Carondelet House, so the property’s interior was featured in the video, as well.

I am not typically cynical by nature, but I was a little skeptical about Maroon 5’s performances being a surprise. So much goes into a film shoot, like securing a permit, paying location fees, shutting down traffic, hiring police officers, etc., etc., etc., that I just found it very hard to believe that the production was done on the sly, without the knowledge of anyone associated with the various weddings. But it pretty much was! While researching the video, I came across a blog post about the December 4th wedding of Ryan and Melanie, which took place at the Carondelet House. As it turns out, Maroon 5 coordinated with each venue prior to the shoot and, in this particular case, Ryan knew about the performance ahead of time, though no one else did – not the bride, not the wedding planner, not the photographer, not the videographer, not the guests. So outside of the groom, the performance was a complete surprise to all involved! Such a cool idea for a video! And can we just take a moment to talk about how beautiful Ryan and Melanie’s wedding was? Love the wine bottle “guest book.” Love the rustic place settings. LOVE the guest seating “game.” And those Edison bulbs strung against the brick wall are uh-ma-zing! I would like to do that in my home! Two thumbs up on all of it!

You can watch the “Sugar” video by clicking below. It has such a feel-good vibe, not to mention that Adam Levine just seems like the coolest, most down-to-earth guy ever in it! I could watch it on repeat all day, every day.

Carondelet House portrays the Baltimore Blade newspaper offices, where Mary (Drew Barrymore) works, in the 2009 romcom He’s Just Not That Into You.

One of the property’s courtyards also appears in the ending scene in which Conor (Kevin Connolly) announces that he loves Mary.

Jess Day (Zooey Deschanel) and Winston Bishop (Lamorne Morris) unload Jess’ car in front of Carondelet House in the Season 1 episode of New Girl titled “Bells,” which aired in 2011.

It is never stated what the property is supposed to be in the episode, but I believe it is intended to mask as the exterior of Jess and the gang’s loft. The building that typically serves as the loft on the series is located about three miles to the east, but because the “Bells” episode also made use of MacArthur Park, which is less than a block away from Carondelet House, I am guessing it was more economical to shoot there on that one occasion.

Carondelet House is the site of a wedding in the Season 3 episode of You’re the Worst titled “The Inherent, Unsullied Qualitative Value of Anything,” which aired in 2016. (Thanks to Molly, from Almost Makes Perfect, for telling me about this one!)

Nick Viall took some of his girls to Carondelet House during a group date – the best group date ever, in my opinion (hello, Backstreet Boys!) – on the Season 21 episode of The Bachelor titled “Week 3,” which aired in 2017.

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Carondelet House, from Maroon 5’s “Sugar” music video, is located at 627 South Carondelet Street in Westlake. You can visit the venue’s official website here.

May 22, 2015May 21, 2015

The Frederick Mitchell Mooers House from “Mod Squad”

As I’ve said before, stalking begets stalking. Back in January, I wrote a post about a spectacular abandoned residence that had been featured in recent episodes of both Major Crimes and Parks and Recreation. A longtime reader (a veeeery longtime reader, pretty sure he’s been with me since the beginning!) named John was intrigued by the property and started exploring the surrounding neighborhood via Google Street View. In doing so, he stumbled upon the Frederick Mitchell Mooers House, an absolutely stunning Victorian located just a couple of blocks away, and posted a comment about it on my site. I was stoked over his find and even more thrilled to discover, after doing a bit of online research, that the pad had been featured in two episodes of the 1960s television series Mod Squad. So I ran right out to stalk it shortly thereafter. Thanks, John!

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The Frederick Mitchell Mooers House was designed by the Bradbeer & Ferris architecture firm in 1894. The 4,617-square-foot, 5-bedroom, 2-bath dwelling was built for a contractor named Frank Wright and his wife, May Gertrude Wright. Just four years after its construction, the Wrights sold the residence to gold miner Frederick Mitchell Mooers (hence the reason the home is sometimes referred to as the Wright-Mooers House). Upon Frederick’s death, the property was deeded to his mother, Eliza A.R. Mooers, though, according to Wikipedia, there was quite a bit of contention and drama over his will.

The sensational property, which mixes the Queen Anne style with Richardsonian Romanesque and Moorish design elements, features ornamental woodwork, asymmetrical detailing and a three-story tower with a unique roofline that is referred to as an “onion dome” in architectural circles. You can check out a historic image of the house from around the time that it was originally built here.

The Frederick Mitchell Mooers House was named a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument in 1967 and was cited for being “a prototype of distinctive architecture of the boom of the 80’s,” though it was not actually built until the 1890s.

The pad was featured twice on the television series Mod Squad. It first appeared in Season 1’s “Child of Sorrow, Child of Light” as the home/illegal adoption agency belonging to Iris Potter (Ida Lupino). At the time of the filming, the house did not have a fence surrounding it – a look I much prefer.

I believe that the real life interior of the Frederick Mitchell Mooers House was also utilized in the episode, but, surprisingly, I could not find any photographs of the inside of the home with which to compare to screen captures. While I was stalking the property, I happened to meet one of its residents, a very nice man who invited me inside to snap some pictures. Sadly though, I was alone at the time, so I did not accept his offer. If only the Grim Cheaper had been with me! What I wouldn’t give to see the interior of that place!

During Season 2 of Mod Squad, the house masked as the office of shady doctor Asa Lorimer (Paul Richards) in the episode titled “The Healer.”

A different, but extremely similar interior was shown in “The Healer.”

As you can see below, the front doors and wooden paneling of the anteroom shown in the two episodes are a perfect match.

The staircase, though in differing locations, is also a match in appearance and structure.

The stained glass windows and doors leading to an interior office are also a match. All of this leads me to believe that the real life interior of the home was utilized in “Child of Sorrow, Child of Light,” and then a set modeled after it was created for use in “The Healer.”

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker John for telling me about this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Frederick Mitchell Mooers House, from Mod Squad, is located at 818 South Bonnie Brae Street in Westlake.

April 6, 2015January 22, 2020

Dennis Feinstein Headquarters from “Parks and Recreation”

Though I chronicled the main locations used on Parks and Recreation pretty extensively for Los Angeles magazine in March, I still have a few of the series’ less prominent locales stockpiled in my backlog and figured it was about time that I covered them. While watching the Season 7 episode titled “Save JJ’s,” I became just a wee bit obsessed with the building that portrayed the offices of Dennis Feinstein (Jason Mantzoukas), due to the fact that it bore such a strong resemblance to the Dr. Dianne G. Van Hook University Center at the College of the Canyons, aka the Austin FBI Headquarters from The Mentalist. I figured the two structures were probably designed by the same architect and that the Feinstein building was most likely part of a college campus. Though I did find the place fairly quickly, both of my hunches turned out to be wrong.

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Dennis Feinstein Headquarters is actually the Wallis Annenberg Research Center at the House Research Institute, which is located at 2100 West 3rd Street in Westlake, just north of MacArthur Park. The architecturally stunning site was designed by Nick Seierup of the Perkins+Will architecture firm in 2007. Construction of the building was made possible thanks to a $10 million donation from the Annenberg Foundation.

According to its Facebook page, the House Research Institute, which was established in 1946 by ear specialist Howard P. House, was “a non-profit organization dedicated to improving the quality of life for people with hearing loss and related disorders through research, patient care and the sharing of knowledge.” Sadly, the facility started to lose funding during the economic downturn in 2008 and eventually closed its doors in 2014. The House Ear Clinic portion of the organization, which treats about 30,000 patients each year, remains open, though.

According to the Perkins+Will eBook, Nick Seierup incorporated the function of the building into its design by modeling its frame after “the curvilinear shape of the cochlea of the inner ear.”

In 2008, the structure won the “New Buildings: Commercial” award from the the Los Angeles Business Council.

Though the exterior gates were open when I showed up to stalk the place, being that it is an active medical center, I felt uncomfortable venturing onto the property to take any photographs. Quite a lot of it is visible from the street, though, and you can check out some interior photos of the building here.

In Parks and Recreations’ “Save J.J.’s” episode, Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler), Ron Swanson (Nick Offerman) and the rest of the Pawnee Parks gang hold a rally at Feinstein’s head offices after learning that the cologne magnate is planning to demolish the beloved J.J.’s Diner (you can check out that location here) in order to make room for an elbow art salon (and no, that is not a typo).

I am fairly certain that the real life interior of the House Research Institute was also used in the filming.

A few other productions have also made use of the unique structure over the years. The 2009 television series Three Rivers was set in Pittsburgh, but was actually lensed in L.A. Production took place mainly at The Studios at Paramount and the House Research Institute, which stood in for the William H. Foster Transplant Institute and the Three Rivers Regional Medical Center on the series.

Ironically, while the exterior and lobby area of Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank (another Parks and Rec locale that I blogged about here) were used as the hospital where Sarah Highman (Michelle Monaghan) gave birth at the end of the 2010 comedy Due Date . . .

. . . other interiors were shot at the House Research Institute.

In 2013, the exterior of the House Research Institute made a brief appearance as a hospital entrance in the Season 5 episode of Castle titled “The Fast and the Furriest.”

In the 2015 Entourage movie, Eric (Kevin Connolly) and Sloane (Emmanuelle Chriqui) have their baby at the House Research Institute.

And it is the hospital where Howie ‘Chimney’ Han (Kenneth Choi) is taken after his car accident in the Season 1 episode of 9-1-1 titled “Next of Kin,” which aired in 2018.

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Dennis Feinstein Headquarters from Parks and Recreation, aka the House Research Institute, is located at 2100 West 3rd Street in Westlake.

December 8, 2014December 7, 2014

Langer’s Delicatessen-Restaurant from “Black Widow”

Sorry to have been a bit M.I.A. lately – my personal life has been rather hectic. This week will be a little light on columns, too, as both of my parents have doctor appointments in L.A. that I have to take them, too. So please bear with me. Smile And now, on with the the post! Another day, another Iggy Azalea location. Because my good friends Kim and Lavonna are such Iggy fans, before their recent visit, I did some research on locales from the Australian rapper’s “Black Widow” music video. The place that I was most excited about tracking down was the restaurant that appeared in both the video’s opening and closing scenes. As it turns out, the eatery is none other than Langer’s Delicatessen-Restaurant, an L.A. staple that was originally founded in 1947. So the girls and I headed right on out to Westlake to stalk it while they were in town last month.

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Langer’s was originally founded by New Jersey native Al Langer. Al started in the restaurant business early in life, getting a job as a busboy in a delicatessen at the age of 11. During those years he learned how to hand-slice pastrami, a rare skill that served him well as he ventured out on his own. Al’s family moved to Los Angeles in 1936 and he continued to work in the restaurant business. That same year, he opened a deli in Palm Springs. The deli only lasted one short season and Al subsequently returned to L.A. He worked again in a café, before serving in World War II. When the war ended, Al purchased a small eatery in Los Angeles, which he owned for a year. He then bought a 12-seat restaurant on the corner of 7th and Alvarado Streets known as The Famous Deli and renamed it Langer’s. The place was popular from the get-go and Al wound up expanding it twice. Today, Al’s son, Norm, still serves his father’s famous pastrami sandwiches from that very same location, which can now seat 135 patrons.

Sadly, we showed up to stalk Langer’s in the early evening and it was no longer open (it closes at 4 p.m. each afternoon), so we were only able to snap photographs of the interior through the windows. (A BIG thank you to Lavonna for taking all of the pictures that appear in this post!)

In “Black Widow,” Langer’s masks as “Big Wanda’s Killer Burgers,” where Iggy Azalea works and where Michael Madsen and Rita Ora stop by for a bacon sandwich with cheese – “like a lotta cheese, OK, like melted cheese, like dripping off of it.”

Only the interior of Langer’s was featured in the video and, as you can see, it looks exactly the same in person as it does onscreen.

You can watch the “Black Widow” video by clicking below.

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Langer’s Delicatessen-Restaurant, from Iggy Azalea’s “Black Widow” music video, is located at 704 South Alvarado Street in Westlake. Langer’s is open Monday through Saturday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. You can visit the eatery’s official website here.

October 24, 2014September 29, 2017

William Desmond Taylor’s Former House

Last Saturday, my mom, the Grim Cheaper and I attended a book signing for William J. Mann’s latest tome, Tinseltown: Murder, Morphine and Madness at the Dawn of Hollywood. My mom had heard about the event on our favorite desert radio show, The Bill Feingold Show Featuring Kevin Holmes, and thought I would be interested in the book as it is about the 1922 murder of silent film director William Desmond Taylor, which remains unsolved. Ironically enough, I had just stalked Taylor’s former home two weeks beforehand, though at the time I knew little about his killing and the ensuing scandal. The signing, which featured a talk by Mann (that’s him in the rather blurry pic above), turned out to be intriguing and I cannot wait to delve into Tinseltown – and hopefully discover some new stalking locations along the way.

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William Desmond Taylor was born William Cunningham Deane-Tanner in County Carlow, Ireland on April 26th, 1872. He began acting in school productions as a youngster and then, in 1890, headed to America, first to Kansas and then to the Big Apple, with dreams of becoming an actor. His marriage to Ethel May Hamilton, the child of a wealthy broker, in 1901, and the birth of their daughter two years later put his acting plans on hold. Things appeared to be going well for the family, though. William opened up an antiques store and he and Ethel became well-known members of New York society. Then, on October 23rd, 1908, Taylor disappeared. While his wife surmised that he might have gotten lost during a bout of amnesia, the truth was that William had simply abandoned his family. Upon leaving New York, he traveled with an acting troupe around Canada and parts of the U.S and decided to try his hand at directing. He arrived in Hollywood in late 1912, armed with a new passion and a new name, William Desmond Taylor. He directed his first movie in 1914 and became wildly successful after that, going on to direct over 60 films.

In 1922, William was living at the Alvarado Court Apartments in Westlake. The upscale complex was comprised of eight, two-unit Spanish-style bungalows situated in a U-shape around a central garden. A 1948 view of Alvarado Court is pictured below.

William’s bungalow is denoted with the orange arrow below. He lived in the eastern side of the structure, in Apartment B.

Sadly, the Alvarado Court Apartments were bulldozed in the 1950s. Today, the site where they once stood is a parking lot for a Ross Dress for Less store.

Taylor’s apartment was located in what is now the northeastern portion of the parking lot . . .

. . . in the area pictured below.

On the morning of February 2nd, 1922, William’s butler, Henry Peavey, arrived at the bungalow and discovered his boss laying dead on the living room floor. Police were called, but before they appeared, Charles Eyton, the General Manager of Paramount Pictures, entered the home, went into Taylor’s bedroom and removed several letters and documents. The papers were never to be seen again and what was contained within them is anyone’s guess. William’s death had occurred during the midst of the Fatty Arbuckle rape trial, the fallout from which had hit Hollywood hard financially. It was a perilous time for the industry and the last thing studio executives wanted was another scandal, so they had come to “clean up.”

The first doctor to arrive on the scene surmised that Taylor had died of natural causes. It was not until the body was later turned over by the coroner that a bullet hole was discovered. It is believed that Desmond was killed at around 8 p.m. the evening prior. He suffered a single gunshot to the back. Though suspects were plentiful, his death remains unsolved to this day. One commonly-held theory is that William was killed by Charlotte Shelby, the mother/manager of actress Mary Miles Minter, with whom the director was romantically involved. Williams was almost thirty years older than the 20-year-old ingénue and if rumors of the illicit affair were to get out, it would have derailed Minter’s career. Being that Mary was Shelby’s very-valuable meal ticket, the momager was against the romance from the start. Some believe she killed William to put an end to it once and for all. (As it turns out, Shelby had been correct in her fears. Word of the affair quickly got out after Taylor’s murder and Mary’s career did not recover from the fallout.) While we may never know for sure who killed Taylor, William J. Mann claims to have solved the case during his research for Tinseltown and I am chomping at the bit to read his theory.

On a side-note – I also had the pleasure of meeting legendary Hollywood photographer Michael Childers at the Tinseltown signing. He and William J. Mann are close friends and when Mann mentioned his name, I recognized it immediately and raced over to get a picture as soon as the reading was over.

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: William Desmond Taylor’s former home was located at 404-B South Alvarado Street, in the Alvarado Court Apartments, in Westlake. Today, the site is a parking lot for a Ross Dress for Less store.

October 3, 2014September 29, 2017

The American Cement Building from “Scream 3”

While I am admittedly not a fan of MacArthur Park, there is a property situated on the border of it that I would absolutely LOVE to live in – The American Cement Building. Mike from, MovieShotsLA, pointed out the dramatically stunning structure many moons ago during one of our very first stalks together and I have been obsessed with it ever since. And while Mike also informed me that the edifice had appeared in the 2000 horror flick Scream 3, for some reason I never thought to blog about the place during my Haunted Hollywood postings. That changes today!

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The American Cement Building was constructed in 1964 and originally served as the American Cement Company’s headquarters. The Daniel, Mann, Johnson and Mendenhall (DMJM) architecture firm designed the 13-story structure, which was, fittingly, manufactured out of reinforced concrete.

The north and south sides of the building are covered in latticework comprised of 450 X-shaped pieces of precast concrete. While the design adds beauty to the structure’s façade and is striking to look at, it serves a functional objective, as well. According to the Los Angeles Conservancy website, “The primary purpose of the latticework is to provide external support for the structural system so the building’s interior can be free of columns.”

The American Cement Building underwent a multi-million dollar renovation in 2002 during which time the office spaces were transformed into 71 live/work lofts. You can check out some great interior photographs of the property here. The units – and their views – are breathtaking!

In Scream 3, The American Cement Building housed the office of horror movie producer John Milton (Lance Henriksen).

At the time of the filming, the interior of the building was far less modern than it is today.

I absolutely LOVE the fact that Milton had a diving board attached to his window in the flick. Anyone care for a swim? Winking smile

The American Cement Building also appeared in Pharrell Williams’ music video “Come Get It Bae,” which featured Miley Cyrus.

The building’s parking garage was where The Bride (Uma Thurman) learned how to wiggle her toe again in Kill Bill: Vol. 1.

The Entourage movie also apparently did some filming at the building in March of this year.

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.

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for telling me about this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The American Cement Building, from Scream 3, is located at 2404 Wilshire Boulevard in Westlake. You can visit the building’s official website here.