The Smiley Smile Message Board

Sorry if this seems a tad voyeur-ish, but is this really Brian's old house?

http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&cp=ppd4xj53x2yv&style=o&lvl=2&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&scene=6914066&rtp=null~null&encType=1 (http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&cp=ppd4xj53x2yv&style=o&lvl=2&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&scene=6914066&rtp=null~null&encType=1)

Google Streetview may be a bit creepy, but at times also useful.

Not voyeur-ish at all this is a really cool site. I made some holiday decisions based on what I could see on here!
Check out all those big LA mansions!

Nice houses!
It's amazing how close you can get on that map. I wonder what my house looks like...

Looks like there's water in the echo chamber. In which house lived the Phillips?

The house that is right in the center of the link doesn't look right to me.  I thought the pool was closer to the house with a stone surround.  Roof line doesn't look right.

I know things change....but I'm not so sure this is THE house.

See, that's what I thought too. I hope I got it right when searching for it. I entered in '10452 Bellagio Road Bel Air, California' and it sent me to that house.
The pool area looks different from how it looked in the 'Sloop John B.' promo video. But then, that was 41 years ago....

Anyone have a good picture(s) of Bellagio from way back when?

Sloop John B was from the Laurel Way house not Bellagio.  Not that I'm any more confidant that the house in question was ever Brian's.

spelling edit

This has puzzled me for a couple of years too, ever since I did a bus tour of the stars' homes in LA. When the driver started telling a story about a house in Bel Air that was painted a bright, garish colour and the residents demanded it be repainted, I nearly fell off my seat. He then mentioned the magic words (BW) and pointed out a house, open to the road, on the right hand side (as you drive up Bellagio from the Bel Air gates). But when I went back the next day to have a longer look, the house number painted outside wasn't 10452. I suspect that the REAL 10452 is actually the house opposite, that is mostly hidden from the road by huge bushes/trees. That house looks very Spanish, whereas the one the bus driver pointed out looked like a typical LA mansion, with a huge front lawn. Can anyone say for certain?

Oh yeah. My bad. Memory faulty.  Brian and Marylin moved into the Bellagio in March of 1967, as Brian said in the Sunflower /Surf's Up liner notes, talking about writing 'Cool, Cool Water'.
 

Just follow the lyrics in 'Busy Doing Nothin'' and you'll find it!

I remember that the Bellagio house was originally built for Edgar Rice Burroughs, author of the Tarzan stories.

 8)

Provided you knew where to start!



I noticed that when I Googled that address. Thought I got it wrong, but yeah, it's the same house.
There are some pictures of the Bellagio at a Burroughs website I saw, but they were really old. Lemme go look again and compare....

I'm pretty sure the starting point of "Busy Doin' Nothing" is the East Gate in Bel Air.

Does anyone know if they used the same house to re-create the Sloop John B video in Love and Mercy?  It looked very similar to the original house.

The house Brian lived in at 10452 has been entirely demolished in the last five years or so. Certainly, in fall 2010 the site was a large hole in the ground.

BTW, the house was not, as is often stated, formerly the home of Edgar Rice Burroughs. Rather, he had it built for his ex-wife. I think she lived there six months.

What house did they use in Love and Mercy? That is some view from high up on the hills overlooking some kind of reservoir or lake.

According to the Google Earth Time Machine, the house at 10452 was demolished between July 2008 and June 2009.

1440 Laurel Way was the Pet Sounds/Smile house: Brian didn't move to 10452 until the latter was essentially over.

Did they use the actual Laurel Way house for filming?

Not a clue - not seen the movie yet.

Hmmm, an article regarding the "Sloop..." pool promo in the August 1966 edition of Tiger Beat suggests that it was filmed at Carl Wilson's Coldwater Canyon house.

1448 Laurel Way is still there- sure does look like it could have been used in the movie...

https://www.google.com/maps/place/1448+Laurel+Way,+Beverly+Hills,+CA+90210/@34.0986568,-118.4175666,93m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x80c2bc4834c941fd:0x20bfe9a90ca680bd!6m1!1e1

Yip, it looks like Franklin Canyon Reservoir is the one I was talking about from Google.  Interestingly on Google Earth the Canyon looks all dried up.  Maybe some CGI was used!  What a view. Looking at that house ans having seen the film it really does take you back in time to a certain degree.

The current owners of the Laurel Way house are well aware of who used to live there.

Maybe that explains the restraining order.

 ;D

I've been on a tour that stopped at the Laurel Way house. Ron Swallow met our bus there and told us about building the legendary sandbox. The owner stepped out of the house, wondering what all these people were doing there. Billy Hinsche, one of our guides, explained what was going on and the owner was cool about it.

I don't think it's the same house used in the movie, tho. The view of L.A. in the distance is right, but when you look at the configuration of the swimming pool on Google, it's not the same as in the movie. Different house, located nearby.

The current Holy Grails of BB researchers:

1 - the "Good Vibrations" vocal multi-track...

2 - the publicity photos of the 1961 Beach Boys mentioned by Alan's mom...

3 - a single photo of the sandbox.

Thing is, 1 & 2 are known to have existed...  :(

Maybe the home movie footage Brian shot would shed some light on the sandbox if they ever surfaced.

It seems a stretch that there would be no photographic evidence of it.  That means off course some participants have not be totally truthful over the years about it's existence.

I always felt it strange that a reason given for the sandbox was so that Brian could feel the sand between his toes when he composed to remind him of the beach.  One of the things Brian didn't like about the beach was the sand in his shoes.  Maybe he didn't mind it in the house when he got out of the sandbox etc. Having sand in the living room would have been a bit messy!

Andrew, have you ever asked Mike about about it?

Oh, the sandbox existed sure enough... unless Van Dyke, Marilyn and Billy have all been in cahoots and telling porkies down the years.  :)

And... that's a damn fine idea. I'll ask next time we do lunch.

My hunch is that unless CGI was employed, the house used for the panoramic canyon view is not Laurel/Beverly Hills, but a similarly oriented hillside home in up in Bel Air. The reservoir in the movie looked a lot like Stone Canyon Reservoir. If that's the case, then current map technology should give you a pretty good idea of where that house is located in real life. Whether it was an actual location or CGI trickery, the effect worked well in the movie. (If you ever want to see the actual Laurel Way - the street itself, not Brian's old house -  in a movie (and whose life would be complete without that experience), it was used for a scene in a film called Wonderland)

Coincidently I just purchased Wonderland on iTunes to watch. I'll have to keep an eye out for that scene.  I drove up to the Laurel Way house a few years ago. You really felt like you were on top of the world up there. Spectacular views. I can only imagine what a young man in his early 20's, at the peak of his career must have felt like living there.

The Laurel Way house would have a view of the Franklin Canyon reservoir.

Looking at GOOGLE Earth Stone Canyon Reservoir still has water in it as per the film so that is a possibility.  I wish I had asked Bill Pohlad at the QandA in Edinburgh last week!

My educated guess is the house they used for the movie is at 2014 Stradella Rd. in Bel Air. With the aid of privacy-busting satellite technology, you can see that the layout and style of the house matches that of the house in the film in various ways. You can see the deck, and the outdoor stairs that feature in that oft-used still photo of Paul Dano looking mopey. Still, it's just a guess.