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Sunday, October 15, 2006

The Neptune Reality Tour

Seeing Jen and Shaun get married was more than enough motivation to see San Diego. Really — a Nexus wedding, sure to one day create little Nexus babies. Furthermore, it’s a union between two co-workers that I don’t hate and, more importantly, don’t hate together. But that’s a different entry.

This post concerns the trip to San Diego, but strictly from the viewpoint that this city serves as the setting for Neptune, the fictional hometown of one Veronica Mars. Since Spencer is a San Diego native, more or less, he came along for the ride and showed pointed out various points of interest — ostensibly those relating to himself, and not to the spunky teenaged detective. However, one leg of this journey took us through Rancho Santa Fe, his old neighborhood, and directly by a yellow cardboard sign that read “V. Mars.” Now, this being election time, it’s not uncommon to see various strangers’ names on signs posted along the roadside. We noted the “V. Mars” and continued up El Montevideo — the road’s official name, sans “Rd.” or “Dr.” or anything, like all the byways in the area — and came to another “V. Mars.” sign, this time directing related crew to park in a dirt lot.

Spencer explained that the area was in very close proximity to the house that serves as the Kane mansion, inside which much of the show’s first season drama unfolded. (Spencer also points out that Casa de Kane is a “mere chip shot away” from his family’s former digs in Rancho Santa Fe. El Montevideo runs so close to the house, in fact, that you can recognize it on this Google Maps close-up.


I darkened the unimportant areas on the map. The bright line crossing over the image’s bottom left-hand corner is El Montevideo. The dirt lot where the "Veronica Mars" crew was parking is just south of here. The house in the top right corner with is the Kane House, better known as 6658 El Montevideo. See that light circle with the diagonal rectangle in the middle? That’s the Kane family pool — or the place where sweet little Lily Kane got her head bashed in.

Perhaps the most interesting part of this cyber-real estate-voyeurism is that the house is currently for sale — for the very affordable price of $7.6 million. So if you want to film your “Veronica Mars” fan scripts, you’d better be prepared to cough up the money. This Del Mar real estate website features some better photos of the Kane mansion.

Here, again, is the death pool.


And here is a photo of what I’m guessing is one of the complex’s kitchens. If you look in back, you can note the door has those strange translucent horizontal panels that appeared in many of the shots inside the home.


And here’s another shot of the home, from a better angle than the one Google Maps provides.


The upside of all this — other than the fact that I was potentially within earshot of my favorite TV show as it was being filmed — is that the crew’s presence means the old, upper-crust Neptune crowd may soon be making a re-appearance on the show. My guess is that Duncan Kane — now excised from the show’s opening credits — could show up again, though Spencer tells me that the house used as the Goodman home is also in the area. That’s fine. I’d rather see Gia again anyway.

More goodies: Wayfaring.com keeps track of these kinds of things. They give you a street number for a lot of "Veronica Mars" shooting locations, as well as for other shows.
[ link: be a snoop ]

4 comments:

  1. Too, too cool. FYI: Neptune High is actually Oceanside High School. I recognized it while watching the first season, my grandparents live there.
    I don't think Duncan's going to come back, personally, but I would like to see Gia again.
    What do you think of the latest Kendall stuff? You think she's coming back?

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  2. There's no way Kendall's dead, I'm betting. The show has never shied away from showing graphic death or dead bodies -- Lily's, Amelia's, Aaron's -- so I don't see why they'd not show Kendall's death, especially since she's kind of a minorly villainous character. Same deal with "Lost." Until I see a body, I'm not convinced anybody's dead.

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  3. I am wildly jealous of your V.Mars trip. Though tonight, at a business dinner, I sat with someone named Josh Kane (whom I wrote about, not so coincidentally) and at the end of the evening my coworker (whom I recently introduced to the wonderful world of persnickety Veronica Mars) goes . . . "Dude. We just had dinner with the CEO of Kane Software." "No, we had dinner with a partner at the Apartment Specialists whose name is Josh Kane. Duncan's dad is Jake Kane." "Damn. That explains why he wasn't kind of evil."

    I want Duncan to return. He's dreamy.

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  4. I turned on The CW a bit early for tonight's episode and GIA GOODMAN was on! Well... not the character, but the actress. On Gilmore Girls. I don't know if she's a regular or what, but it's definitely her.

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