gower studios is a 14 acre 57 000 m2 television and movie studio at the corner of sunset boulevard and gower street in hollywood los angeles california . established in 1912 it continues today as hollywood s largest independent studio and an active facility for television and film production on its twelve soundstages . history edit the studios were originally founded by columbia pictures studios movie mogul harry cohn in 1918 1 in the poverty row area of hollywood . poverty row was the area bounded by sunset boulevard on the north gower street on the west and beachwood drive on the east . poverty row was a collection of small warehouses and offices where independent film makers gathered to buy short ends of film from the major studios in order to create their great american dreams . on january 10 1924 columbia pictures corporation was born . by 1929 the familiar image of the lady with the torch was beginning to make an impact on the hollywood scene . the sunset gower studios lot the home of such classics as frank capra s it happened one night in 1934 mr. smith goes to washington in 1939 funny girl and the caine mutiny has continued to host productions of top new films such as the good shepherd and the good german . television programs which have occupied several sound stages most notably include current series scandal and how to get away with murder and ended series heroes dexter newsradio the amanda show deal or no deal city guys six feet under jag married ... with children soap that s so raven the donna reed show father knows best i dream of jeannie which also used the father knows best exterior house and donna reed show interior living room bewitched the first four seasons of the golden girls 1 the final three seasons of the facts of life and the final two seasons of silver spoons . in 1958 at age 66 harry cohn died . his memorial service was held on stages 12 and 14 at the studios there is no stage 13 . without the guidance of the cohn brothers columbia pictures corporation was not the profit making company it once was . between 1970 and 1972 columbia moved from the 14 acre 57 000 m2 lot and joined forces with warner bros. in burbank . its back lot on which all the great columbia westerns were made on hollywood way in burbank became the property of warner bros. columbia pictures corporation renamed columbia pictures industries incorporated after merging with its subsidiary screen gems in 1968 2 became a film entity without real estate . a large list of successful films were produced during this time and in 1982 columbia pictures industries inc. was sold to the coca cola company for 750 million . 3 the lot in the meantime sat fallow . in 1977 the property was purchased by the pick vanoff company for 6.2 million . the name was changed to sunset gower studios and the lot became a rental facility for independent film companies . it was also used in the seventies as a music rehearsal facility catering to such music greats as elton john fleetwood mac the eagles led zeppelin ringo starr frank zappa and olivia newton john . for a time stages 12 and 14 became indoor tennis courts . in november 2004 sunset gower studios was purchased by gi partners for an estimated 105 million and in 2006 began construction on a six story building for technicolor sa . in august 2007 sunset gower studios was bought by hudson capital . the technicolor building opened its doors in 2008 . since 2007 the studio has been undergoing both interior and exterior improvements on the lot . sunset gower studios is now working closely with its sister company sunset bronson studios located just a couple of blocks west on the site of the original warner bros. lot 1923 37 formerly owned by tribune broadcasting . references edit a b susan king october 15 2012 . sunset gower studios former home of columbia marks 100 years . los angeles times . retrieved march 6 2013 . columbia sg complete 24.5 million merger . broadcasting 53 . 1968 12 23 . access date requires url help coke completes columbia merger . the new york times . june 23 1982 . retrieved march 14 2010 . porter gerald march 6 2007 . hollywood s legendary sunset gower studios is reborn multi million dollar remodeling and new construction underway . retrieved 2015 09 13 . wooley peter 2006 . a thumbnail history of sunset gower studios . retrieved 2015 09 13 . fritz ben december 2004 . sunset gower indie studio space sold . . daily variety . fixmer andy october 4 2004 . investor nears deal to purchase sunset gower studios . los angeles business journal . external links edit wikimedia commons has media related to sunset gower studios . sunset gower studios website sunset gower studios at the internet movie database coordinates 34 5 46 n 118 19 16 w 34.09611 n 118.32111 w 34.09611 ; 118.32111 retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title sunset gower studios & oldid 743513251 categories american film studiosbuildings and structures in hollywoodfilm production companies of the united statestelevision studios in the united statesentertainment companies based in californiahollywood history and culturesunset boulevard los angeles cinema of southern californiaculture of los angelescompanies based in los angelesentertainment companies established in 1912media companies established in 19121912 establishments in californiahidden categories pages using citations with accessdate and no urlcommons category with local link same as on wikidatacoordinates not on wikidata navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version in other projects wikimedia commons languages fran ais edit links this page was last modified on 10 october 2016 at 00 34 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; 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