The former Brentwood home of Hollywood icon Marilyn Monroe was recently given a historical designation during a city council vote, effectively preventing its current owners from demolishing the property.
The Los Angeles City Council this week voted unanimously in a 12-0 vote to designate Monroe's Brentwood home a local historical cultural monument.
"There is no other person or place in the city of Los Angeles as iconic as Marilyn Monroe and her Brentwood home," Traci Park, the City Council member who introduced the proposal to make the home a landmark, said in an assembly. "To lose this piece of history, the only home that Marilyn Monroe ever owned, would be a devastating blow for historic preservation and for a city where less than 3 percent of historic designations are associated with women's heritage."
The city council's vote came weeks after a judge in the Los Angeles Superior Court denied an injunction request from the property's owners Brinah Milstein and Roy Bank to stop the historic designation. The owners' lawsuit also accused the city of "backroom machinations," adding that they conspired with third parties to secure the historical designation.
Furthermore, the owners claimed the historical designation would lead to an increase in visitors to the property.
Behind Monroe's Brentwood Home
Monroe, who was a pop culture icon in the 1950s, purchased the one-story home on Helena Drive for $75,000 in 1962 following her divorce from playwright Arthur Miller and just near the end of her filming schedule for "Something's Got to Give," her final project. She died of a drug overdose six months following the purchase of the property.
Believed to have been built in 1929, the house was filled with furniture and decor from Mexican artists, as well as a variety of painted ceramic tiles that Monroe bought in Mexico.
The 2,900-square-foot estate features four bedrooms and three bathrooms. It also features beamed ceilings and a large backyard pool lined by citrus trees.
"We have an opportunity to do something today that should have been done 60 years ago," Park said prior to the vote, as quoted by Fox 11. "There is no other person or place in the city of Los Angeles as iconic as Marilyn Monroe and her Brentwood home."
Bank and Milstein bought the Brentwood estate for $8.35 million last July through a limited liability corporation.
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