Go On Location: "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" Filming Locations in Los Angeles

What area of the Long Beach house that starred as the Bueller home was re-created on a soundstage for the shoot? Anyone? Anyone? Ferris’ bedroom (as well as the rest of the upstairs) was a set built on Stage 16 at Paramount Pictures in Hollywood. Production designers modeled the space after both the actual bedroom of one of the teenage boys who lived in the house and the teenage bedroom of director John Hughes himself. Cameron’s room was also a set built on Stage 16, as was the interior of Katie Bueller’s (Cindy Pickett) real estate office, Ben Stein’s economics classroom, and the Chez Quis bathroom. Close-up shots of the infamous beating of Cameron’s father’s 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California were lensed on the soundstage, as well. Stage 16 was also utilized in a couple of other Hughes’ productions, including Pretty in Pink and She’s Having a Baby.

Ferris’ dad, Tom (Lyman Ward), councils his son on the best way to cure the flu – “take a hot bath and then wrap a hot towel around your head” – from a corner office at Downtown L.A.’s Manulife Plaza. It is from the building that Tom also later watches Ferris’ parade performance in the streets below – and breaks out into a spontaneous twist – during the famous “Twist and Shout” sequence. (The actual parade scenes were shot on Dearborn Street in Downtown Chicago.) The 20-story steel frame and glass skyscraper was designed in 1982 by the prolific Albert C. Martin and Associates architecture firm, now AC Martin. The square-windowed building visible across from Tom’s office in the scenes is the north tower of City National Plaza, another AC Martin creation.

The police station where Jeanie is taken after being picked up for making a phony 911 call – and where she gives Charlie Sheen some choice advice on what he should do with his thumb – is an oft-filmed building located in the Arts District of Downtown L.A. The picturesque brick structure was originally designed as the Los Angeles headquarters of Hills Bros. Coffee in 1929 and is comprised of a warehouse and second-story offices. It is those offices that were transformed into an Illinois police station for Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Today, the property belongs to the Southwestern Bag Company and is utilized for filming on a regular basis. The same space masked as the Detroit police station where Axel Foley (Eddie Murphy) worked in both Beverly Hills Cop and Beverly Hills Cop II and has also appeared in Child’s Play 2, Divergent, The Negotiator, Brothers & Sisters, The Muppets and How to Get Away with Murder.

The exterior of the fictional Chez Quis restaurant, where Ferris secured a table by pretending to be Abe Froman, the Sausage King of Chicago, is actually a private home located in the Windy City at 22 West Schiller Street. Interiors, though, were filmed at L’Orangerie, which was renowned as one of L.A.'s premier eateries. The upscale French bistro was founded in 1978 and was one of only two Los Angeles restaurants that counted itself as a member of the exclusive Relais & Châteaux group. The picturesque space, which bore the look of a conservatory garden, was an onscreen giant in its day, having appeared in everything from 80s favorites like The Colbys, St. Elmo’s Fire and Brewster’s Millions to more recent productions such as The Closer and Intolerable Cruelty.

In 2006, L’Orangerie was sold to the Nobu Group. After a significant remodel, Nobu Los Angeles opened at the site in spring 2008. Though the décor is significantly different – gone are the arched French doors and painted murals visible in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off – the layout of the restaurant remains the same and should be somewhat recognizable to fans.

The Colonial Revival-style pad where Ferris bids goodbye to Sloane at the end of the movie can be found on a quiet street in Brentwood. The dwelling was designed in 1925 by architect Paul Revere Williams and is known as the Preminger House in real life, named in honor of one of its early owners, film producer Ingwald “Ingo” Preminger. The residence also once belonged to another prominent Hollywood producer, Harold Hecht. The Preminger House appeared in another scene in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. It was there that Sloane, Ferris and Cameron went swimming – and where Ferris “saved” Cameron’s life. Interestingly, though both segments were shot at the same property, Hughes mentions in the DVD commentary that the pool scene was not actually meant to take place at Sloane’s house, but at a random residence that the trio snuck into to make use of the Jacuzzi.

“Le jeux sont faits. The game is up.” So announces Ed Rooney to a pizza parlor full of teens upon spotting someone he believes is Ferris playing video games. However the gamer is not Ferris at all; it's a woman who winds up gifting Rooney with a straw-full of soda to the face. That scene was lensed at Regular Jon’s Pizza in Brentwood, which Hughes’ mentions in the movie’s DVD commentary was a place he would often take his children to in real life. The pizzeria was a Westside staple from its founding in 1971 through 1991, when a rent hike forced owner Jon Persoff to close up shop, causing regulars to mourn the loss of his signature thin crust pies. The original Regular Jon’s Pizza site currently houses Coral Tree Café.

When Persoff passed away in 2010, a former employee named Steve Goldberg decided to make a pizza in the Regular Jon’s style in his honor. He spent weeks trying to replicate the recipe that generations of Angelenos had fallen in love with over four decades prior. He finally nailed it and posted a comment about his endeavor on Facebook. The reaction was overwhelming and it wasn’t long before he opened a replica parlor, dubbed “Steve’s Un-Original Pizza,” in Newbury Park. Though the location faltered, he is set to be spinning pies in a new space in the next six months.

Ferris may be late and at risk of getting caught cutting school by his parents, but that doesn’t stop him from briefly pausing to introduce himself to two sunbathing beauties that he happens past during the classic running-home scene at the end of the movie. The chase sequence was shot in a myriad of locations across Illinois and California, including Winnetka, Northbrook, Long Beach and South Pasadena. The backyard where the women sunbathed can be found on Milan Avenue, an oft-filmed South Pasadena street that has been home to such productions as Beethoven, The Girl Next Door, Four Christmases and American Pie 2. The sunbathers’ pad also made a second appearance in the chase sequence – the southern side of the property was where Ferris comically skidded around a corner during his run home.

The chase scene comes to a rousing conclusion when Ferris runs up the slide of a neighbor’s jungle gym and then jumps onto a trampoline which catapults him into his own backyard. The trampoline house is not located next door to the Bueller home in Long Beach, but a good 20 miles north. The house can be found on Milan Avenue just two doors away from the residence where Ferris met the sunbathers. Though there’s no trampoline there in real life, the picturesque blue-shingled property does boast 4 bedrooms, 4 baths, 4,120 square feet of living space, and a 0.55-acre plot of land. The dwelling has long been a location manager favorite. It was most famously used as the Lawrence home on the 1976 television series Family, but has also been featured in the movies Bringing Down the House, Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves, xXx: State of the Union, and Jurassic Park III, as well as in episodes of The Mentalist and The Whispers.

Though many of the movie’s school scenes were lensed in Illinois at Glenbrook North High School in Northbrook (John Hughes’ real life alma mater) and Maine North High School in Des Plaines, the office of Principal Edward R. Rooney (Jeffrey Jones) can be found in the San Fernando Valley. For the shoot, producers transformed the Assistant Principal’s office at El Camino Real Charter High in Woodland Hills into Rooney’s blue-hued workspace. The rear wall of the office was sandblasted prior to filming to reveal a natural red brick which more closely resembled the look of both Glenbrook North and Maine North. That rear wall was never repainted and the space remains virtually the same today as it appeared onscreen thirty years ago. The office’s large anteroom was also utilized in the filming as the workspace of Ed’s pencil-hoarding pinhead secretary, Grace (Edie McClurg). Bonus – some hallways at Cal State Long Beach were featured in the film, as well.

The stately Colonial-style residence Ferris calls home in the movie can be found in the tony Los Cerritos neighborhood of Long Beach. Both the exterior and interior of the property, most notably the kitchen, were utilized during the filming, though the exterior had to be altered a bit. Because the house was supposed to be located in a Windy City suburb, several of the eucalyptus and palm trees on the premises were covered over and made to appear as pine trees, which are indigenous to the Midwest. The Bueller home has been featured onscreen numerous times over the years. It was also where Preston Wasserstein (Rob Benedict) threw his raucous party in the 2001 comedy Not Another Teen Movie and served as the Atlanta, Georgia dwelling where the Leeds family was murdered in the 2002 thriller Red Dragon.

In the hopes of catching her brother cutting school, Jeanie Bueller (Jennifer Grey) cuts school herself and heads home. On the way there, she spots a large water tower with the words “Save Ferris” painted on it. Though the actual water tower used in the production is located directly behind the Northbrook Public Library in Northbrook, Illinois (where John Hughes grew up), the spot where Jeanie noticed it can be found much closer to home. In the scene, Jeanie’s car is pulled over across from a picturesque two-story brick pad at 531 W. Mesa Way in Long Beach, a scant 0.1 miles northwest of the Bueller residence.

After getting his car towed, losing his wallet on Ferris’ kitchen floor, receiving several speed-kicks to the face from Jeanie, and being outsmarted by Ferris (ultimately proving that, despite his position in life, a snot-nosed punk can leave Ed’s cheese out in the wind), Rooney begins his walk of shame home. He doesn’t get very far before he is spotted by a school bus driver who picks him up. That segment was shot a short distance away from the Bueller home on the 3800 block of Country Club Drive, just south of where it intersects with West San Antonio Drive, in Long Beach.