Movie Shots LA

Home sweet home.

Even the handiest of set designers would be hard-pressed to recreate the years of organic decay that have made Linda Vista Community Hospital into the ultimate film set -- streaks on the walls, peeling paint, broken pipes, the occasional stray syringe. (Mixed in with some Hollywood props, left behind.) It's a real live 19th century-era hospital for railroad workers, and its abandoned halls give an inimitable chill to the hundreds of movies, TV shows and music videos shot there.

But the industry might need to start looking for a new haunted house:

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Kamala.

So did she cave in to the Big Banks, or secure a good deal for the people of California?

After holding out for a year, Attorney General Kamala Harris today announced that the Golden State is singing on to the nationwide settlement with the banks over their bungling of its loans to people who couldn't really afford them. (Banks blindly "robo-signed" flimsy loan applications, setting America up for mass foreclosure which, arguably, affected California the most).

Activists wanted the banks to be held criminally liable for the misdeeds that helped plunge the country into its worst economic situation since the Great Depression. This deal ...

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Redfin

Casa Trump.

Occupiers, you have no heart.

The 1 percent are suffering through this economy too. Take Donald Trump, who just sold his house overlooking his Trump National Golf Course in Rancho Palos Verdes for a measly $7.15 million.

Hold on while we wipe the tears from our eyes and play the world's smallest violin, because ...

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boobsandbotox.info

Nothing lures the 90210 real-estate sharks like free Botox.

Times are tough -- even for the 1 percent. Apparently, $8.5 million mansions in Beverly Hills aren't exactly going like hotcakes these days.

So when the hopeful seller of one such estate approached real-estate agent Michael Gardner with her dilemma -- "Freshen up my listing," he says she told him -- Gardner decided to give all those other sleazy Westside agents what they really wanted out of another Tuesday-afternoon open house: eternal youth.

Or, to be exact, a $300 giveaway of 27 Botox units. "Enough to deal with the 11s between your eyes," says Gardner --

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Redfin

The Vickers estate.

Former Playmate and B-list actress Yvette Vickers' bedroom death last year -- and subsequent mummification, after many months of no one coming to check on her -- was the freakiest, and downright saddest, horror story ever to play out in the spooky outskirts of Beverly Hills.

Making her $499,000 haunts, now on the market, a total find for L.A. noire-o-philes. (And, of course, daring youngins in search of a Boo Radley-style doorbell ditching adventure. Or do they even make kids that cool anymore?)

LA Curbed found a listing on Redfin for Vickers' former place of residence at 10021 Westwanda Drive (shudder), complete with some very familiar details:

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Oh, the memories at 1935 Lake Street.

Unsurprisingly, Robert Rizzo, the slimy Bell politician who was (allegedly; LOL) paying himself $800,000 per year with a $1 million pension, didn't think it wise to live among his duped constituents. So he settled for a $1.13 million mansion in Huntington Beach circa June 2007 -- no doubt comped by taxpayers -- where he could float his lardy ratlike corpse in a lavish granite tub and scheme up some more evils on the backs of the citizens. Muahaha...

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SavePhonehengeWest.org

Fahey with his masterpiece

[Update: A friend of Fahey's named Cristina Warren tells us that his entire estate was raided today -- his entire extended family allegedly kicked out, their farm animals impounded (turkeys, dogs, cats, the works) and electricity cut off to Phonehenge. Posts on the "Save Phonehenge West" Facebook page confirm. The Associated Press also released a short, confusing piece on the raid, saying Fahey has "been told to start packing" by the L.A. County District Attorney.

The only (unconfirmed) good news: Warren says the org Spaces, which crusades for the preservation of architectural oddities like L.A.'s Watts Towers, has promised her that they're going to take on Fahey's case. We certainly hope so. "If they can protect Kim, he can advocate for a lot of people," says Warren. "A lot of hearts are going to break if his place is affected."]

Originally posted July 11 at 9 a.m.

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Kevin Scanlon

In this week's print feature, Mars Melnicoff looks at Los Angeles County's war on desert rats in the Antelope Valley. Here we present a video from photographer Kevin Scanlon to complement her reporting. All interviews by Mars Melnicoff.

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MLS / Redfin / Irene Dazzan-Palmer, Coldwell Banker-Malibu ColonyS

Smokin' view.

It's the house that cannabis culture helped to build.

But unfortunately for you fans of Up In Smoke it wasn't built out of actual weed. (If that were the case surfers would have plundered the last stem a long time ago).Cheech Marin's Malibu home is on the market for $5.9 million.

The nearly one-acre property features a four-bedroom main house and three-bedroom guest house, both apparently done in Craftsman-style architecture (which would be modest by 'bu standards).

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joycerey.com

Armand Marciano's house.

You could say it's the house that Anna Nicole Smith built. The 30,000-square foot Mediterranean villa in Benedict Canyon has a 90210 zip code, seven bedrooms, 18 bathrooms, a chef-worth kitchen, a 17-car garage, a wine cellar and an elevator.

And, apparently, it was just built. Is Guess clothing co-founder and the property's owner, Armand Marciano, trying to flip this house?

Maybe. It comes with nearly 20 acres of prime, Golden Triangle land (a nearly unheard of amount), but the price is more Galliano than Guess:

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MLS / Redfin

Casa Estevez.

If you're looking for a home with history, notoriety and layers of patina (genetic patina), look no further than the infamous casa Sheen, which has been put on the market for $7.2 million, according to Redfin (via Curbed LA).

Just don't buy it for mama. She'd be washing those walls for days. Not a nice gift.

So is Sheen hurting for cash so soon after his $1.8 million per-show run on CBS' Two and a Half Men was shut down by what appears to everyone in the thirty mile zone as a cocaine-fueled, hooker-aided meltdown?

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Captain Fromage: Christian Audigier.

It would be fitting that the purveyor of the cheesiest fashion to hit the world since Hammer pants would be putting his Hancock Park home back on the market at a discount.

After all, Christian Audigier's Von Dutch, Ed Hardy and eponymous labels are widely available, often at more than half-off their original prices, at your local discount clothier (Marshall's, Ross, TJ Maxx).

That's why we were a little disappointed the French master of tattoo script, glued-on rhinestones and thorny-rose imagery didn't cut deeper into his price and just mark his casa with a "clearance" tag.

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BanBillboardBlight.org

Measure A: the Trojan Horse of tall wall billboards for WeHo

Originally posted 3/2/11: See update at the end of the post: Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky and Congressman Henry Waxman both oppose Measure A.
Measure A is expected to bring several hundred new voters out to the polls in West Hollywood on March 8.

If adopted, Measure A will allow tall wall billboards throughout the city, where they are currently prohibited.

The disturbing thing: the campaign for Measure A is quite misleading. Glossy mailers harp that this is the time to stick it to billboard co.'s -- and tax those billboards.

REALITY CHECK: Measure A is being fully funded by one supergraphic tall wall billboard company, SKY TAG.

One word to describe the feel of SKY TAG's vision? Vegas.

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TMZ

The Gabor house.

Prince Frederic von Anhalt has been laying the groundwork for the possible sale of his and wife Zsa Zsa Gabor's Bel Air mansion with tours for the press and, some might say, some pretty lofty Hollywood namedropping. Among his claims: Elvis once lived there. And Gabor bought the home from Howard Hughes, who allegedly built it.

Both tidbits aren't true, says Barbara Yobs, an area mortgage banker who tells the Weekly her grandparents built the place and sold it directly to Gabor in 1973. "Having him say all of these things, it just got me," she said.

In fact, the 47-year-old says, even the early '70s price being touted is wrong. It wasn't $600,000; it was $250,000. Yobs sent us the grant deed from grandma and gramps to Gabor:

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Beverly Hills City Manager Jeff Kolin

Beverly Hills City Manager Jeff Kolin must feel as if he's won the lottery -- on Thursday, nearly all of his bosses on the Beverly Hills City Council decided to give him a $1.6 million housing loan at an interest rate that hovers around 3 percent, reports Beverly Hills Patch.

Ca-ching!!!

Beverly Hills Councilwoman Nancy Krasne said wishfully about the sweet deal, according to BH Patch, "It's up to $1.6 million. I'm sure (Kolin) would not spend that much if he could. We said that was the upper limit." Good luck with that, Nancy.

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​Ken Roberts, founder of KROQ and the guy who brought modern rock to L.A., has been ordered by a judge to pay a greasy Connecticut hedge fund $27.5 million. Because he can't pay, he's losing his 112-acre Brentwood estate, aka The Robert Taylor Ranch, Forbes blogger Teri Buhl reports.

It seems sometimes the rich are like us. This hedge fund got its claws into Roberts with a high-interest loan, something like our own arrangements with, say, Capital One.

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Dave Fratello, the un-anonymous blogger behind MB Confidential

​For the last three years, real estate agents in Manhattan Beach have been vexed by an anonymous blogger.

MB Confidential has become a must-read for prospective homebuyers by ridiculing overpriced listings and exposing deceptive real estate industry practices. Among the city's agents, the blogger's identity has been a subject of intense speculation.

The guessing ends today. Political consultant Dave Fratello has outed himself as the writer behind MB Confidential.
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Harry Warner's former estate located at 501 South Rossmore Ave.

The late Harry Warner's Hancock Park manor was recently sold for $2.9 million by a bank, the real estate firm that handled the transaction announced this week.

The structure was built in 1923 by Warner, the movie mogul who cofounded the Warner Bros. studio. The 5,555 square foot Georgian colonial estate boasts seven bedrooms and five and a half baths as well as a tennis court, pool, and marble staircase. Located at 501 S. Rossmore Ave, the estate was originally priced at $4.75 million.

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The 'Bu.

It's amazing what backyard sand, water and storm-vulnerability can do for home values. PropertyShark (via Curbed LA) crunched some numbers and discovered that beachfront property in Malibu is worth an average 122 percent more than that on the inland side of Pacific Coast Highway.

We always thought the billionaires (like Patron tequila's John Paul DeJoria) lived on the bigger lots in them there hills above the coast but, yeah, a lot of folks (David Geffen) love the smell of Nautilus in the morning. Beachside residences even do an average 51 percent better than properties also on the coastal side of PCH but without Pacific frontage.

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