A. An apartment house.

Q. Where is it supposed to be on the show?

A. In Miami.

Q. When did we see it on the show?

A. It is the apartment belonging to Anton Briggs, a pot-smoking musician turned police informant who becomes romantically involved with Debra.

We see the apartment house several times in Season 3, including:

• Episode 5, "Turning Biminese" - where we see Debra climbing the stairs to the
  second floor of the apartment house. But when she knocks on Anton's door, she's surprised to see a strange girl answer, who tells her Anton is in the shower, and implies that she and Anton had been showering together. Debra is clearly flustered, and leaves.  On her way down the stairs, she gets a cell phone call from Miguel Prado, who tells her he is looking for Dexter because Rita is in the hospital.
  
  
• Episode 6 - "Si Se Puede", briefly, where Debra visits Anton to ask about Wendell's murder.
  
  
• Episode 8 - "The Damage a Man Can Do" - where  Debra (having learned that Anton didn't show up for a band performance, and isn't answering his phone), hurries to his place to check up on him. When he doesn't answer, she goes inside and finds his apartment empty. We then see Debra standing on the second floor balcony, looking out at the tall palm trees nearby, when she realizes the palms have been trimmed, and that the Skinner has been there.
  
  
• Episode 9 - "About Last Night" - where Angel, Quinn, Debra and other cops search the back yard of Anton's apartment house, looking for evidence about what might have happened to the missing Anton. They find evidence that he was attacked while taking out the trash, then thrown into a car and abducted by the Skinner.
  
  

Q. What is it actually in real life?

A. An apartment house, but not in Miami.

Q. Where can I find it in real life?

A. The apartment house is directly across the street from the Sunset-Gower studio where "Dexter" is filmed, at 1332 Gordon Street, in Hollywood.

There are actually two (virtual twin) apartment houses there, side by side. The one used in the scene is the one to the north.

Those palm trees (which Debra spots) aren't really there.  In fact, for that shot where Debra is up on the balcony, the apartment house was re-created in the studio.

The scenes of the police search of the back yard appear to have also been shot at the same apartment house on Gordon St.

( Oddly enough, after using this apartment building for multiple scenes, in some later episodes (such as Episode 8), they started using an establishing exterior shot of a completely different - yellow - building. I have no idea where that yellow building is, but it's definitely not the same one seen in the other the Anton apartment scenes. )




I shot the photos below in 2009







[ Warning: These are private apartments.  Do not knock on their doors, trespass on their property,
or do anything else that might disturb the residents. ]




Here is an aerial photo of the house . And here is a map link.


It's just a few doors south of Teegan's house.
And it's also is near several other "Dexter" third-season locations, including the tailor shop (where Dexter is grabbed by the Skinner), the school where he picks up Rita's kids, the traffic accident scene, the hooker motel, as well as the homes of Wendell Owens and Ramon Prado.

Q. How the heck did you figure out where it was?

A. I had a hunch that this one was probably in the Hollywood area, but I made the mistake of looking in the neighborhoods west and north of the Sunset-Gower Studio, when in fact, it was hiding in plain sight, just one street east of the studio.

Fortunately, I received a tip that it was on Gordon Street, and was able to pinpoint it by matching aerial photos to the screencaps. A visit in person to shoot the photos (above) left no doubt.