HOW TO VISIT The Rest Home SET From Bubba Ho-Tep (It Burned Down)

FLASBACK to 2017. In a tragic case of life imitating art, the building that served as the Shady Rest Retirement Home in Bubba Ho-Tep met a fiery end that eerily mirrors the film's themes of abandonment and institutional decay. The structure that once housed Bruce Campbell's Elvis and Ossie Davis's JFK in their battle against an ancient mummy was destroyed by suspected arson in 2017, bringing an unexpected and somber conclusion to the location's cinematic legacy.

Extra special thanks to the website Film Oblivion for lots of great info on the history of the location and Bubba. Find it here.

Also, extra special thanks to the Grimm Life Collective for documenting the before and after.

From Hospital to Horror Set

The building that became the fictional Shady Rest wasn't actually a retirement home at all. Located on the grounds of the former Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center in Downey, California, it was part of a sprawling medical complex with roots stretching back to the late 1800s. When the hospital upgraded to newer facilities nearby, ownership of the older buildings transferred to Los Angeles County, leaving them vacant and forgotten.

This abandonment made the location perfect for Don Coscarelli's vision of institutional neglect. The empty halls and sterile rooms needed little dressing to convey the sense of isolation and decay that permeates the film. What production designer couldn't have imagined was how prophetic this choice would prove to be.

The 2017 Fire

Fifteen years after the film's release, two buildings on the former hospital grounds were consumed by fire, including the structure that served as the Shady Rest. According to Film Oblivion, which documented the location, the suspected cause was arson. The building, located near the intersection of Consuelo Street and Esperanza Street, suffered significant damage though it wasn't completely destroyed in the initial blaze.

The irony is impossible to ignore. In Bubba Ho-Tep, the nursing home faces a supernatural threat that feeds on forgotten souls, draining the life from residents that society has already written off. The real building's destruction by fire carries similar overtones of abandonment and neglect, a physical manifestation of what happens when communities turn their backs on aging infrastructure and vulnerable populations.

Security and Demolition

Following the fire, access to the area became heavily restricted. Where once some roads remained open to the public and the site was only casually patrolled by security, double fencing now blocks all streets leading to the building. The damaged structure was eventually demolished entirely, along with most of the surrounding buildings.

This progression from casual abandonment to active restriction mirrors broader patterns in how society deals with uncomfortable reminders of institutional failure. Rather than rehabilitation or repurposing, the solution became complete erasure.

Symbolic Destruction

The fire adds an unintended but powerful coda to the film's commentary on elder care and institutional neglect. The building's destruction feels like a real world echo of the mummy's soul-draining presence, consuming what remained of a place already forgotten by time and progress.

Film Oblivion captured aerial footage of the damage, showing the building's skeletal remains before final demolition. The images reveal a structure gutted but not completely destroyed, much like the dignity of the residents in Coscarelli's film who retain their humanity despite systematic dehumanization.

Legacy in Ashes

For fans making pilgrimages to filming locations, the Shady Rest site now exists only in memory and Google Earth archives. The GPS coordinates (33°55'20.4″N, 118°09'43.5″W) mark an empty lot where Bruce Campbell once battled ancient evil with a walker and determination.

The building's fate serves as an unexpected epilogue to Bubba Ho-Tep's themes. Just as the film's elderly protagonists face abandonment and invisibility, the structure that housed their story was itself abandoned, forgotten, and ultimately consumed. The parallel between fictional neglect and real-world destruction creates a haunting symmetry that even Coscarelli couldn't have scripted.

THE ROGER AVARY CONNECTION

The abandoned Rancho Los Amigos facility became something of a cult filmmaker's shared resource during the early 2000s. Roger Avary, who won the Oscar with Quentin Tarantino on Pulp Fiction, visited the Bubba Ho-Tep set during production and was struck by the location's cinematic potential. The decaying hospital buildings and institutional atmosphere perfectly matched his vision for scenes in The Rules of Attraction, his adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis's novel about privileged college students spiraling into moral decay. Avary would later film portions of his own project at the same location, creating an unlikely connection between Bruce Campbell's elderly Elvis and James Van Der Beek's nihilistic college student.

Visit Set Jetter for all the Rules of Attraction filming locations! Screenshot from the website below:

Documentation and Memory

Thanks to location scouts like Film Oblivion, the building's existence and destruction are preserved in digital archives. These photos and coordinates serve as the only remaining evidence of where Elvis fought his final battle, a virtual tombstone for a place that never really existed but somehow perfectly captured the reality of institutional abandonment.

The legendary Adam The Woo documented the Bubba Ho-tep structure pre-fire here:

The fire that claimed the Shady Rest building reminds us that the horrors depicted in Bubba Ho-Tep weren't purely fictional. Real buildings decay, real institutions fail, and real people are forgotten. The film's monster may have been imaginary, but the conditions that created its hunting ground remain all too real.

In the end, the building's destruction by fire feels like a final scene that was never filmed, a postscript written by reality itself. The Shady Rest Retirement Home, fictional though it was, has joined the ranks of the forgotten and abandoned, its ashes scattered to the California winds.