Drake Bell pays 'Drake & Josh' house a visit, only to find it demolished
Dan Schneider's sitcom 'Drake and Josh' is something quite a few millennials grew up watching and have come to adore, with the stepbrothers' house, in particular, holding a kind of nostalgic value that's difficult to put a price on. Or so fans would have thought. Drake Bell, who portrayed popular but immature musician Drake Parker on the show, decided to pay a visit to the home where the cast and crew spent four years filming but, to his dismay, realized it was no longer there.
Bell visited the location of the Encino, California, house — which was only used for exterior shots of his on-screen home — and found an empty lot. The actor tweeted out his reaction to his discovery to his 3.56 million followers. In the video, posted with the caption of 'The Drake & Joke house is GONE!!' he can be heard exclaiming: "What's up everybody. I came to check out the Drake & Josh house and it is gone! All that remains is this mailbox."
According to EOnline, the 4,000-square-foot, five-bedroom home was put on the market last summer and was eventually sold in February for a princely sum of $1.55 million. It was reportedly built in 1976 and had since undergone minor renovations over the years — it is not uncommon for house-flippers and investors to buy homes, tear them down and rebuild properties from the ground-up in such expensive real estate regions.
The development should not have come as too much of a surprise to Bell. He had visited the location at the beginning of May, only to find that the house had already been cordoned off as a construction site and was off limits to any visitors. He had expressed a similar sentiment at that time as well, taking to Twitter and posting "Nooooooo!!!!!!" along with a picture of the home.
An emotional attachment is understandable, but the interior home scenes in 'Drake and Josh' were, in fact, filmed inside a soundstage at the Nickelodeon on Sunset studio, which also housed the West Coast production of live-action original series produced at the cable channel.
Besides Bell's show, 11 other television series, including 'Keenan & Kel,' 'The Nick Cannon Show,' 'iCarly,' 'Unfabulous,' and 'Bell and the Bulldogs' were taped at the location. The City of Los Angeles Historic Preservation Board decreed that the studio is to be protected, but it was demolished last year.