Construction In October 1917, Charlie Chaplin announced plans to build his own film studio at the southeast corner of La Brea and Sunset Boulevard. In his autobiography, Chaplin described the decision as follows: At the end of the Mutual contract, I was anxious to get started with
First National, but we had no studio. I decided to buy land in Hollywood and build one. The site was the corner of Sunset and La Brea and had a very fine ten-room house and five acres of lemon, orange and peach trees. We built a perfect unit, complete with developing plant, cutting room, and offices. Chaplin purchased the site from R.S. McClellan, who lived on the site and had a large grove of orange trees on the property. Another writer has described the style as "eccentric Peter Pan architecture." The location was at that time a residential neighborhood, and Chaplin's application for a building permit was opposed by area residents, some of whom complained that it was too near the
Hollywood High School. However, the City Council voted 8–1 to approve Chaplin's permit. Chaplin reportedly built his "
English cottage-style studio" in three months beginning in November 1917, at a reported cost of only $35,000. The DVD collection titled "Chaplin Collection" includes Chaplin's 1918 film
How to Make Movies, which depicts the studio's construction in
time-lapse photography. Construction of the studios was completed in approximately 1919. Chaplin preserved a large existing residence on the northern (Sunset Boulevard) end of the property, and planned to live there, but never in fact did. Various studio personnel lived there over the years, including his brother
Sydney Chaplin. The "English cottages" along La Brea served as the facade for offices, a screening room, and a film laboratory. The grounds included stables, a swimming pool and tennis courts. Chaplin also filmed many famous visitors at his studios on La Brea, including
Winston Churchill,
Helen Keller,
Lord Mountbatten, and
Harry Lauder. In 1942, Chaplin sold the northern portion of the property, the portion containing the residence, tennis courts, and a portion of his backlot, to
Safeway Stores. and a shopping center was built in its place. In October 1943, Chaplin's studios were opened up for the first time to be used to shoot an outside production,
My Client Curly, released as
Once Upon a Time (1944), produced by
Columbia Pictures. The
Los Angeles Times reported at the time that the Chaplin Studio "has been more or less sacrosanct, in the sense that outsiders were practically never permitted to work there." In 1955, it was used to shoot the
Adventures of Superman television series starring
George Reeves. From behind a desk in the office once occupied by Chaplin, Skelton said: I'm not the head of the studio. I'll be president and just own the joint. ... Seriously, I couldn't be a studio executive because I'm not qualified. ... I've got a nice enough racket trying to make people laugh and don't intend to foul that up. And, besides, that's harder than running a studio. Skelton purchased three large mobile units for taping color television shows, making a total investment estimated at $3.5 million. Skelton sold the studio to
CBS in 1962, and CBS shot the
Perry Mason television series there from 1962 to 1966. Chaplin Studios were designated as a
Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument in February 1969. At the time,
Carl Dentzel, the President of the Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Board, said the property was one of the few locations from old Hollywood that retained a complete early-day production layout. Dentzel also noted Chaplin's "studio was one of the first to be established here and by some quirk of fate continuity from the movies' earliest times to today's television and recordings demands has persevered." The studio was only the second entertainment-related building to receive the Historic-Cultural Monument designation after
Grauman's Chinese Theatre. In April 1989, the organization "Hollywood Heritage" celebrated the 100th anniversary of Chaplin's birth with a rare screening of Chaplin's 1918 documentary
How to Make Movies and
The Kid, both shown at the Chaplin Stage at A&M Records. Chaplin's son, Sydney, received a plaque at the screening honoring his father's achievements. For the 1992 biopic
Chaplin, an exterior set of the studio office buildings was constructed among the orange groves north of Los Angeles at Fillmore, Route 126 between Ventura and Valencia. The actual studio is shown near the end of the film, where Chaplin's limousine is depicted stopping at the gates in 1972.
A&M Records (1967–1999) with studio badge and photographer Glenn Francis with sweatshirt given to all attendees at A&M Studios on January 28, 1985 In 1966,
Herb Alpert and
Jerry Moss purchased Chaplin's studios from CBS to serve as a headquarters for
A&M Records. The first recording session at the new studios was
Sérgio Mendes and
Brasil '66 for the album
Fool on the Hill (1968). Other artists recording at A&M Studios in its early years included
Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass, and
Burt Bacharach. In 1969 A&M signed
the Carpenters, and the duo recorded almost exclusively at A&M Studios over the course of their career. The studio attracted non-A&M Records clients as well, like
Joni Mitchell, who recorded her sophomore studio album
Clouds at the studio in 1969, and would go on to record 13 of her 19 studio albums there. The studio hired
Bernie Grundman as an in-house
mastering engineer, and he worked at A&M Studios until establishing his own mastering studio in 1984. During Grundman's tenure, numerous albums were mixed or mastered at A&M, including
U2's
Rattle and Hum and
Prince's
Controversy. The final mix of the live recordings for
George Harrison & Friends'
The Concert for Bangladesh album and corresponding
documentary film was carried out in
A&M Studios by A&M engineers Norman Kinney and Steve Mitchell. by
A&M Studios engineers Norman Kinney and Steve Mitchell. Other artists recording at A&M Studios in the 1970s included
England Dan & John Ford Coley,
John Lennon,
Billy Preston,
Supertramp,
the Tubes,
George Harrison,
Johnny Mathis,
Quincy Jones,
Barbra Streisand, and
Captain & Tennille. Participants included Richie,
Stevie Wonder,
Kenny Rogers,
Tina Turner,
Billy Joel,
Michael Jackson,
Diana Ross,
Dionne Warwick,
Bruce Springsteen,
Huey Lewis,
Cyndi Lauper,
Bob Dylan, and
Ray Charles among many others. Many of the participants came from an
American Music Awards
ceremony held that night, with the recording session not finishing until 8 a.m. the next morning. In 1986, A&M installed the magnificent
AIR Montserrat Neve mixing console in Studio A. The console, custom-built for
George Martin's recording studio, is believed to be the last original desk ever built by Rupert Neve. Henson's daughter,
Lisa Henson, said, "The buildings are a lovable hodge-podge of quirky, unusual spaces. There are unexpected elements in some of the offices like original vaults and fish tank-like bathrooms. It's not your typical corporate space, but it's ideal for
the Muppets." In 2007, the
Sci-Fi Channel series
Ghost Hunters shot an episode at the studios, reporting on ghost stories told for years by employees working on the lot. On February 1, 2010, "We Are the World" was re-recorded at the studios for "
We Are the World 25 for Haiti" to benefit victims of the Haiti earthquake. The lot was used as the set for the abandoned Muppet Studios in the 2011 film
The Muppets. The same year,
Van Halen's comeback (and ultimately final) album,
A Different Kind of Truth, was recorded in Studio C with producer
John Shanks. On February 1, 2012, they performed live at Henson Studios to a celebrity-packed crowd, adding to the performance legend of the studio. Henson Recording Studios was also one of the places where punk rock band
the Offspring recorded their ninth studio album,
Days Go By (2012), with producer
Bob Rock.
Alice in Chains recorded three albums at the studios: 2009's
Black Gives Way To Blue, 2013's
The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here and 2018's
Rainier Fog.
Seether also recorded their 2014 album
Isolate and Medicate at Henson Recording Studios. Other recording artists recording at Henson Studios in the 2000s and 2010s included
Lindsay Lohan,
David Lee Roth,
Avenged Sevenfold,
Westlife,
Daft Punk,
Paul McCartney, the
Eagles,
Alicia Keys,
Mariah Carey,
Justin Timberlake, and
Pearl Jam. On June 20, 2024, The Jim Henson Company announced they were planning to sell the Jim Henson Company Lot as "part of a much longer-term strategy to have The Jim Henson Company and our renowned Burbank-based Jim Henson's Creature Shop under one roof, which is not feasible in Hollywood due to the space the Shop requires." That November, it was announced that musician
John Mayer and film/TV producer
McG had purchased the property; the purchase was finalized in 2026. The Kermit the Frog statue will be donated to the
Center for Puppetry Arts.
Return to Chaplin Studios (2026) In January 2026, following the finalization of the purchase by Mayer and McG, the studio's name was restored to its original name, Chaplin. In a statement, they referred to their partnership an "arranged marriage" and felt that restoring the Chaplin name was giving it a "second life". Two months later, it was revealed they both invested million into the property, with those hopes of those visiting and occupying the lot would collaborate in an authentic way. == Facilities ==