Check Out the Sunny Long Beach, California, Locations From AMC’s ‘Lodge 49’
Ahead of the season two premiere of Lodge 49 on AMC, location manager Debbie Page talked to Culture Trip about the show’s picturesque locations near Long Beach, California – many of which you can visit.
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Debbie Page, the Long Beach location manager of AMC’s Lodge 49, has been scouting out locations for television shows and films for 27 years. Page lives in the Westchester neighborhood of Los Angeles and knows a lot about the city, especially since her career revolves around hunting down hard-to-find gems, like the plastics building that serves as the exterior of Lodge 49 in the show.
“It certainly helps me know more about Los Angeles than some natives,” Page says.
Lodge 49 centers around an ex-surfer named Sean ‘Dud’ Dudley who’s had a really hard year. Dud finds himself deposited by fate at the doorstep of a fraternal order – called Lodge 49 of the Ancient and Benevolent Order of the Lynx – and begins to put his life back together with the help of his twin sister and the rest of the characters of the Order.
“Jim Gavin, who created the show, grew up in the Long Beach area and wanted to set the show there,” Page says. “Long Beach had a lot of open sky, and that was important to him in terms of finding locations. The show is supposed to feel everyday, in terms of locations. He wanted it to be more like what you would see driving through middle-class types of neighborhoods.”
Page shared some of the Long Beach locations you can see in Lodge 49, which returns for a second season on AMC on August 12, and told us more about the surrounding neighborhoods and what you can see and do there.
Bluff Park
“One of the places we shot [for the first season] also is Bluff Park, which is also on Ocean Boulevard,” Page says. “It is a long sort of green belt that is elevated above the beach down below, and it’s a nice jogging and walking path. There’s stairs that run down toward the beach which you can use for exercise. We shot some walk and talk scenes, and it’s a nice park to visit.”
Veterans Memorial Stadium
“We shot a place called Veterans Memorial Stadium as part of [the show’s character] Scott’s walk in his robe,” Page says. “The stadium is connected to Long Beach City College, but they also have a fairly popular Long Beach Antique Market [the third Sunday of every month].”
Bixby Village Golf Course
“At Bixby Village Golf we were able to control the course during our filming,” Page says. “It’s a popular 18-hole course, but it’s not particularly huge, so it has more of a feeling of a city municipal course that’s not super fancy. Last year we donated the benches that we had made for the show, so all we had to do this time was move them back into place and shoot away.”
Point Fermin Park
“Outside of Long Beach, we shot at Point Fermin Park, which is in San Pedro,” Page says. “It’s just below the very iconic Korean Bell of Friendship. They do quite a bit of filming up there for commercials. There’s a basketball court that looks right into the ocean. It’s got a bandshell, and the lighthouse does little tours on certain days of the week. There’s tide pools down at White Point Beach, and you can visit the Battleship USS Iowa Museum.”
Cabrillo Beach
“We did quite a bit of work where Dud goes surfing,” Page says. “It’s a nice beach, and they also have a historic bathhouse there. It has a ballroom, and the building has been there for probably 100 years. Cabrillo Marine Aquarium is also right in the same parking lot.”
Lakewood Village
“We shot almost all of the houses in an area called Lakewood Village,” Page says. “It has a very specific open-sky feel without feeling too posh. A lot of what goes into making a day of production is pairing [locations] together to have enough work to do without it being too spread out.”
Falcon Liquor
“We shot a place called Falcon Liquor, which is on Broadway in sort of what’s considered the East Village of Long Beach, an up-and-coming area that’s got a lot of good restaurants and some new shops,” Page says. “Long Beach had the Pride parade the weekend before we shot at the liquor store, and they had just painted the crosswalks in rainbow.”
The new season of Lodge 49 returns August 12 at 10pm ET/9pm CT on AMC. Watch the trailer below, and catch up on the first season now on amc.com.
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