![]() ![]() When Betty and Rita first arrive at Sierra Bonita, their taxi drives past the front of the complex, down a side alley located just north of the complex, and then drops them off in the rear of the property where the carports are located. In Mulholland Dr., the Sierra Bonita Apartments are where budding actress Betty Elms (aka Naomi Watts) and her amnesiac new friend Rita (aka Laura Harring) search for a mysterious stranger named Diane Selwyn. He also somehow managed to make the property look huge on film, when, in reality, it is incredibly small and sits on a plot of land that measures less than two-tenths of an acre. The fact that David Lynch even thought to transform such a picturesque spot into a place so sinister and foreboding – solely using camera angles, a few set pieces, and some carefully timed bars of music, mind you – speaks volumes about the director’s massive creative genius. Thanks to the Snow White lore, the bungalows have come to be known as the “Snow White Cottages” or the “Disney Cottages”, although they have no official name. ![]() Because the apartments do bear a strong resemblance to the Seven Dwarf’s cottage, Chris suggests that the animators “might have taken their home to work with them”. According to the “Ask Chris” column which appeared in the December 2006 issue of Los Angeles Magazine, Walt Disney Archive founder Dave Smith confirmed that director Hamilton Luske and animators Dick Lundy, Lee Morehouse, and Fred Moore all did occupy the complex once upon a time, which makes sense being that the original Walt Disney Studios was located a stone’s throw away on Hyperion Boulevard, where Gelson’s Market now stands. Legend has it, in fact, that the bungalows were once occupied by Walt Disney Studios animators and that the storybook-like architecture served as the inspiration for the Seven Dwarf’s cottage in the very first full-length animated feature film, 1937’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. On the contrary, the bungalow court is actually quite charming and idyllic in person and seems far more Disney-esque than “Lynchian”, as David Lynch’s movies have come to be described. Ironically enough, as you can see above, in real life there is nothing whatsoever spooky or macabre about the location. The complex, which consists of eight small, wood-shingled bungalows built around a central courtyard, was originally designed by Ben Sherwood in 1931. Brad had posted a brief write-up of the unique Silverlake-area site just last week and, because I had stalked and blogged about Le Borghese, the other apartment building featured in the flick, way back in February of 2009, I immediately added the place to my “To-Stalk” list and dragged the Grim Cheaper out there to see it just a few days later. Another Haunted-Hollywood-type location that I found thanks to fellow stalker/David Lynch aficionado Brad, from the Brad D Studios website, was the fictionally-named “Sierra Bonita” apartment complex – the fairy-tale-style property that was featured in one of the more intense and terrifying scenes from the surrealist director’s incredibly odd 2001 thriller Mulholland Dr. ![]()
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