Here's an interesting new challenge...

Where is the Big Brother house located ? With Google Earth to search with and other clues it should be possible to locate it.

Let's look at the clues:

The main part of the house, indoors, would be difficult to identify, it could look like any warehouse from the air.

But the back yard is open to the sky, the dimensions look to be about ~100 ft. by ~ 60-70 ft., they say it looks smaller in person than on TV. There is a small, kidney shaped pool near one side, closest to the house. It is a permanent, in-ground pool with steps, plumbing, etc. Regardless of how "plain" they make the rest of the yard look during the off season, no grass, bare dirt, etc., the pool should be a permanent identifier.

Given all that now let us narrow down the possible locations. There are two CBS studio locations in LA. The main studios on Beverly Blvd in west LA, and a smaller facility in Studio City on Radnor Blvd. We can rule out the Beverly location because there are too many other tourist attractions in the area, Farmers Market is directly south, and there are other attractions nearby, "The Grove", etc. There aren't any other structures suitable for the house or the open yard visible with Google Earth on the CBS property.

An "audible" clue is that it is near the flight path of a major airport, jets going over often. The flight path of LAX wouldn't be over Beverly Blvd, and it is too far north for them to be that loud if we are hearing them on their direct east/west paths which they take in/out of LAX.

So that leaves Studio City which isn't that far from the Burbank airport which has major airline/jet service. I'm not familiar with the exact flight paths in/out of Burbank but looking at Google Earth it's close enough to hear them plainly from most of Studio City regardless of their direction.

There is one pic online from Google Earth claiming to show the BB house. It is close to the address of the CBS studios in Studio City. It shows a vacant, green lawn, about the right size, surrounded by a wall and abutting a large warehouse or sound stage type structure. The pic was taken in March 2011. The empty "lawn" could be because they don't have any of the set built in the yard yet. The only problem with this hypothesis is that there isn't a pool visible and the angle of the pic is such that it couldn't be hidden along the side of the building. I can't imagine that they would take out and reinstall an in-ground pool between seasons. It's always the same pool every season.

I will take a pic off on Google Earth and post it here, you can make your own judgment.


Here we see the whole CBS complex. The white building in the center with the green yard at the end, right along side the drainage channel, is said to be the BB house and yard.





By using Google Earths zoom and pan function we can come in from the west end and peer into the yard. Over on the upper right, in the shadow is where the pool would be. Given that the zoomed pic quality isn't good and it's in shadow, and it could be covered with a tarp, it's possible that there is a pool. But there is one other problem....in the live feeds when seeing the view from a camera mounted on top of the wall surrounding the yard, a large warehouse or studio set building is clearly visible beyond the yard far wall. Probably within 100 ft. of the yard wall. In this view the live feed camera would be shooting toward the Google camera. Zooming around from all angles no such large building is visible near the yard. I'm not convinced we've solved this thing yet...

The show is filmed at CBS Radford. I forget which soundstage they use, but I remember hearing years ago that when they redesigned the BB house between seasons 1 & 2 that the lagoon from Gilligan's Island (and "the Creature From the Black Lagoon") was drained and filled in to make make room for the expansion of the soundstage to include the backyard area and everything around it.

Thanks CG for the info. The interior of the house has remained the same for as long as I've been watching BB. They change the decor somewhat from one season to the next, different beds, kitchen table , chairs, lamps, etc. Kitchen appliances stay the same. Back yard equipment stays the same, weight lifting set, pool table, etc. Of course massive set props are put in place for the various competitions, and then removed afterward. The house guests can't go outside during that time and during the set up process they cover the back door to the yard so they can't see what's being done.

I suspect that those pics from Google Earth are the real back yard. The house would be set up inside the big white building allowing them to do all production jobs without having to go outside. I'll have to watch for more high angle camera shots in the yard to see if I can figure out what that building is across the way...

to see if I can figure out what that building is across the way...

If you're referring to the long narrow building, it is an office building used as production offices and I believe a few executive offices (I don't remember exactly since it has been many years since I have been on that lot) and all of the large buildings are soundstages. As I remember, there is also a parking lot near the office building.

You're correct that they don't do any major structural changes to the house (although I am very sure that they break it down and store it between seasons) because I doubt that they want to mess with the camera layout that works so well for them. I believe that the BB house (including the camera wells/observation areas) takes up somewhere between 1/2 & 2/3 of the soundstage and the rest is the "front" of the house and Julie's area.

If the green area is the backyard, then the long narrow building wouldn't be visible from the camera angle I'm referring to. But it's interesting that they would break down the house between seasons. What I thought is that the large white roofed building directly on the "rear" of the yard is the sound stage where the house is located.
I guess the "key" is if that green area is really the back yard. If it isn't then I don't see anything else in the area that could be the yard. I'll go back to Google Earth and look some more....but...

Oh-oh....on the live feed the intercom guy just told them that it's a "lock down" and everyone has to go inside. That's usually a signal that the props crews are going to convert the back yard into competition mode.

Meanwhile, there will be a "trial" of Rachel tonight, 9 pm PDT, for her alleged murder of Franklin the turtle who got sucked up into the vacuum cleaner. They have picked "lawyers", "jury", etc. I might stay up late enough to watch.....no one said this was an easy job....fan-wise...