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

A. The residential home where Sandy & Kirsten Cohen stayed in their younger years.

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

A. In Berkeley, California.

Q. When did we see it on the show?

A. The house made its one and only appearance in the very final episode of the show: Episode 16 of Season 4: "The End's Not Near, It's Here".

When the Cohen home in Newport Beach is destroyed by an earthquake, Seth and Ryan get the idea of trying to buy the old house in Berkeley where the Cohens spent their happiest years.

But when they find the home, they also find that a gay couple are living there, and have no intention of selling the house to them.

After much pleading to no avail, eventually the pregnant Kirsten asks to use the bathroom in the house, and while she's in the house, she goes into labor and gives birth to her baby. The couple living there conclude that it must be fate, and agree to sell the house to the Cohens.

The house is also the location of Julie and Bullit's (attempted) marriage.

And we see the house again, years later, at the end of the episode, when we see Summer & Seth get married in the back yard, next to the pool.

Q. What is it actually in real life?

A. A private home - but not in Berkeley (or Newport Beach).

Q. Where can I find it in real life?

A. At 1617 Marengo Avenue, in the city of South Pasadena.

That's on the west side of Marengo Ave., between Oak Street (on the north) and Laurel Street (on the south), 2 1/2 blocks north of Huntington Drive.

(It's about five miles of another OC location: Cal-Tech, which was used as the Berkeley campus in the final episode.)

Here is a map link. And here is an aerial photo from Live Local.


[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.]

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

A. I didn't. I knew the street number of the house (1617) because it was visible in one of the shots. And the producer said (in his DVD commentary) that the house was in Pasadena.

It wasn't, it was in South Pasadena, which is an entirely different city. But I know that people tend to confuse the two, so I went to Live Local's aerial maps and began methodically looking at every 1617 address in Pasadena, South Pasadena and Altadena, focusing on the east-west streets.

I still didn't find it.

Fortunately, a fan, Jonathan Torres, found it (apparently, he was present when they filmed the scene) and he emailed me to let me know where it was. Thanks Jonathan!

It turns out it was on a north/south street, Marengo Avenue (just two blocks east of where I had been looking). Jonathan knew the street and the nearest cross street, but not the exact street number. I knew the street number, so I simply checked a Live Local aerial photo of 1617 Marengo, and there it was, as big as life.