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Here’s the story — of how a modest mid-century home became a Los Angeles landmark.
L.A. City Council voted unanimously on Wednesday to designate the Brady Bunch house in the San Fernando Valley a historic-cultural monument.
The vote grants landmark protections to the house on Dilling Avenue, which was used for exterior shots of the TV sitcom that ran from 1969 to 1974.
Interior scenes were shot on a soundstage, with sets that bore no resemblance to the property that’s become a photo-op magnet for Brady Bunch fans.
The show, which lived on for decades in syndication, featured the comic travails of six blended-family siblings — “the youngest one in curls,” as the theme song explained.
The shingle-and-stone home with a peaked roof also appeared in the 1995 big-screen film The Brady Bunch Movie and its sequel.
The landmark status protects the home, built in 1959, from demolition or major renovations — but doesn’t prohibit them. If owners ever decide to make big changes, they would be subject to a design review and the Cultural Heritage Commission can delay the process to find preservation solutions.
The non-profit LA Conservancy pushed for the landmark status and CEO Adrian Scott Fine said he was thrilled it was approved. He said fans of the show have a personal connection to the property.
“If you watched the Brady Bunch, you knew this house. People make a pilgrimage to see it,” Fine said Wednesday. “To have it designated like this, it makes it all the sweeter.”
When the house went on the market in 2018, the cable network HGTV won a bidding war that drove the price up to $3.5 million US — or $1.6 million over the listing price for the then-2,400-square-foot (223-square-metre) residence.
The house was expanded, remodelled and redecorated to give it trademark elements of the set version, including the wood-panelled living room with a floating staircase and an orange-and-green kitchen.
The process was documented in a four-part HGTV miniseries called A Very Brady Renovation.
