Glaucus' studio
"Poor Glaucus occasionally needs his memory refreshed as to the contours of the female form."
This is the artist's studio where Harold goes to meet Maude, and he is shocked to find her posing nude for Glaucus.
The only intelligence I had about this location was that it was on the site of the old Southern Pacific rail yard in Bayshore, an area of several hundred acres. However, starting with this image of Harold walking toward the studio, I used Google Street View (which would prove to be invaluable throughout the Project). Based on the electrical towers and the hillscape beyond, I set the location as very close to the intersection of Bayshore Boulevard and Industrial Way:
The area is privately owned and fenced-off. (I know, I should have scaled the barbed-wire-topped fence. Attribute my failure to old age and lack of athleticism, not to lack of passion.) But we were pretty sure that this is the right building. It's a brick building of about the right scale, and notice the size and distinctive tombtone-shape of the windows. I'm pretty sure that either this building is the one used for Glaucus' studio, or the building that was used no longer exists.
Here's a view of the building in Google Maps. It looks like it's just the partial remnant of a once-spectacular railroad roundhouse:
Update:
Glaucus' Studio was actually in the building next to this roundhouse,
the Erecting and Machine Shop, a.k.a. the Backshop, which had a similar
architecture, and which was demolished in the mid-80s. Its Harold and
Maude connection is mentioned in this Wikipedia article (scroll about
3/4 of the way down to the section entitled "Other Structures", or just
search for "Glaucus"):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayshore_Cutoff
This is further confirmed from an email
I received from Walter Boland, a member of a non-profit attempting to
restored the roundhouse. He writes:
"In my
research on the site, I came across The Harold and Maude Project.
Glaucus' Studio was filmed in the the closed Southern Pacific
Railroad's Bayshore backshop. You were close in finding the old
roundhouse, part of the whole facility. The backshop was about 100
yards north of the roundhouse. It was torn down around 1983. My father
worked at the Bayshore facility for several decades - and he was there
during filming - not a part of the film crew, of course, just a
railroad employee."
Fun fact: Cyril Cusack, who plays Glaucus, is the father-in-law of actor Jeremy Irons.