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

A.  A balcony overlooking the Mesa Gold Resort, a modern bar and entertainment area where Westworld guests can relax before and after their adventures in the faux Western theme park.

Q. When do we see it?

A.  Twice. 

First, in Episode 1, where Theresa (the head of Quality Assurance for Devos) has a conversation with Lee Sizemore, in which he tells her that it's a bad idea to keep making the 'hosts' more lifelike, because Westworld only works because guests know that the hosts aren't real.  He suggests even rolling back recent upgrades to make the robots more manageable, something that doesn't seem to please Theresa.

We see this Mesa Resort again in Episode 6, where author Lee Sizemore is lounging by the resort pool bar, getting drunk, when he spots an attractive female guest and hits on her, revealing that he writes the scenarios for Westworld (while trying to impress her), and criticizing Devos management for screwing things up.

(Unfortunately, he finds out later that the 'guest' is actually a major management honcho.)

Q. What is it in real life?

A.  A courtyard at a local museum.

Q. Where can I find it in real life?

A.  This was shot at the Skirball Cultural Center, a Jewish museum and cultural center located next to the 405 Freeway just before it emerges from the Sepulveda Pass into the Valley, at 2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles.

A That balcony where Teresa and Lee Sizemore are standing overlooks the center's Taper Courtyard (see the photo below), which is the scene of many weddings and other special events at the Center.

And it's in that courtyard below  where they shot the Mesa Gold resort scenes, where a drunk Sizemore made the mistake of hitting on a Devos corporate honcho.

While there seems to be a swimming pool at the Mesa resort, in real life there is a pool, but it's a shallow reflecting pool, with water lilies, not swimmers.


On the show, the Mesa Bar is located on top of (and at the edge of) the giant mesa that houses all of the Devos/Westworld underground corporate headquarters,

So the producers faked the background in these Mesa Gold scenes, inserting the natural background of Utah where, in real life, there is just a bushy California hillside.

Rather than use CGI for that balcony conversation scene, they instead took a replica of the Skirball railing to Utah, and filmed some of the reaction shots there, with the actual Utah buttes and canyons in the background, then intercut those Utah scenes with the shots actually filmed on the Skirball balcony, giving the impression that the balcony overlooked the more colorful Utah scenery. 

They provided a photo of them shooting that scene in Utah, complete with the partial balcony:

Here is a map link to Skirball Center.

Here is a Google Earth aerial view of the balcony area.

And here is a Google StreetView of the Center's entrance.