Dexter Filming Locations: Saxon's Lair

DEXTER Filming Locations - hundreds of actual places where the TV show Dexter was filmed.


The location: Saxon's Lair







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

    Rendall Psychiatric Hospital.

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

    A. 1215 W. Clarendon Ave, in Miami.

Q. When did we see it on the show?

    A. We first see the building in Episode 10, of the final Season 8, "Goodbye Miami".

    Oliver Saxon, the Brain Surgeon Killer, uses this former mental asylum as his lair and kill room.

    When he was just 14, Saxon (AKA Daniel Vogel) killed his brother.

    Realizing he was a psychopath, his mother, Dr. Elizabeth Vogel, had him institutionalized him at a similar asylum.

    A few years later, he set fire to the asylum, killing several patients, and then assumed the false identity of Oliver Saxon.

    We first see the place when Saxon takes his mother (Dr. Vogel) here, and shows her his kill room, with a restraint chair.

    He tells her it he has made it look just like the "treatment room" at his childhood asylum, where they would strap him down and force-fed him meds.

    When she offers to put him in a better facility, he tells her that he wants her to do for him what she did for Dexter: to teach him how to survive free in the world as a killer.

    At first, she tells him that she can't help him kill innocent people.  But them feeling menaced by the lunatic, she tells him she will do whatever is necessary to help him.

    In the next episode (11, "Monkey in a Box"), this is where Dexter ties up Saxon and decides not to kill him.  It's where Marshal Clayton accidentally lets Saxon go, and is killed as a result.  And it's where Debra is shot in the final second of the episode.


Q. What is it actually in real life?

    A. The old Hollywood Studio Club building.

Q. Where can I find it in real life?






    This is 1215 Lodi Place, in Hollywood, between Fountain & Lexington.

    The distinctive building has a very colorful Hollywood history, dating back to the Roaring '20s and the early days of Tinseltown.

    It is the former YWCA Hollywood Studio Club, a 1926 local historical landmark which once offered low-cost lodgings to aspiring young actresses, including Marilyn Monroe, Donna Reed, Kim Novak, Rita Moreno, Ayn Rand and Barbara Eden.

    It was, in effect, a chaperoned dormitory for young women trying to make it in Hollywood, offering low rents and a safe environment.

    (You can read more about the history of the Studio club here.
    )

    It is just a block southwest of the Sunset-Gower studio where Dexter is filmed.

    It's also just a block west of both Lyle Sussman's house and Arlene's house.
      It's two blocks west of Norma Rivera's house, the apartment where Dexter stalked Yates, and the spot where Debra was busted on a DUI early in the season.

    They filmed here once before, or at least on the street right in front of the Studio Club.  It was the scene in Season 7, where Miami Metro found the burned remains of an arson victim in his car.

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


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

      A.  In the early seasons, I usually had to hunt down the locations after viewing the episodes, using clues from the various scenes.  By the now, though, I've developed a small group of fans, spies & tipsters who kept an eye out for Dexter filming in their neighborhoods, and let me know in advance when something is about to film there.

      Between those reports, my own personal reconnaissance around town, and a few new resources I discovered, by the time the new first episode airs, I already know most (but not all) of the filming locations, and only need to watch the episodes and match up the scenes with the correct locations.

      This group of helpful fans includes Rick, Ellen, Suzi, Elaine, Mia, Julie, Kerry, Joel, Eric, Jeff, & others. My thanks to all of them.

      This tip came from Rick.  (Thanks, Rick!)


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