A. A residential home.

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

A. 413 W. Ketterson St, in Miami.

Q. When did we see it on the show?

A. In Episode 3 (of Season 3), "The Lion Sleeps Tonight".

It is the home of photographer Nathan Marten, a convicted child molester who is stalking Rita's young daughter, Astor.

Astor refers to him as "The Cheerios Man", because when he first approached her in a supermarket, he said he was trying to find the Cheerios section.

Marten later shows up a beach where Rita and her children are having an outing, and uses a long lens to shoots photos of young Astor from a distance. Dexter spots him lurking there, and later confronts him at a boardwalk restaurant, warning him to stay away.

We see the house twice.

The first time, right after the café confrontation, Dexter visits the house after dark, and watches Marten through a window, but decides that he can't kill him, because he doesn't fit his code (since Marten has never actually murdered someone).

The second time, in the same episode, Dexter finds himself drawn back to the house, despite the fact that Marten doesn't meet his code.

Entering the house, Dexter finds Marten sitting at his computer, looking at photos he has shot of Astor. Dexter strangles him, modifying his code to include those who "step uninvited into my world" - declaring "Nobody hurts my children."

On his way out, Dexter remembers that Rita has asked him to pick up some milk, and takes a carton of milk from Marten's refrigerator.

Q. What is it actually in real life?

A. A residential home, but not in Miami.

Q. Where can I find it in real life?

A. They shot the scene at 7001 W. 83rd Street, in the Westchester/Playa Del Rey section of Los Angeles.

It's on the northwest corner of Georgetown Ave and 83rd St, just south of Loyola-Marymount University (where they filmed a campus scene between Debra & Dexter).

The area is about a mile north of LAX, and about two miles southeast of Marina del Rey, where the show has filmed a number of scenes, including Dexter & Rita's wedding, the boating store and the arrest of Mario.





I shot the photos below in 2009






[ Warning: This is a private home.  Do not trespass on their property, knock on their door,
or do anything else that might disturb the residents. ]




Here is an aerial photo of the area, with the location marked. And here is a map link.

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

A. When I began my search, I was looking for a few key features: the large palm tree at the corner, the distinct chimney (which runs through second-floor roof), the power pole visible behind the house, and the fact that it was on the left side of a street corner.

I thought at first that the house might be in the old "Dexter Neighborhood", where they filmed Rita's house and several others in earlier seasons.  When a search of that area failed, I moved on to nearby Long Beach neighborhoods, but that was also a waste of time. Knowing they had also filmed near the studio in Hollywood, I checked there as well, to no avail.

But I knew that the show has always had a tendency to "cluster shoot" (that is, to shoot more than one scene in the same general vicinity - probably as a cost-cutting method). And for this same episode, they were out shooting the college campus scene of Dexter talking to Debra about his baby. So when I discovered that they had filmed that college scene at Loyola University (thanks to a tip from a departed artist), I wasn't surprised to learn that the house was just south of that campus. So I searched that area. There were no Google StreetView photos of those neighborhoods, but Bing aerial photos proved sufficient to find it. (Thanks, D.A.)