Councilmember Traci Park jumped into action after she said her office received hundreds of emails and phone calls, issuing an urgent motion to The Los Angeles City Council to initiate consideration of the home as a city historic cultural monument.
It is not a historic cultural monument
The council unanimously voted to kick-start the landmark consideration process, and the Department of Building and Safety revoked the owner’s demolition permits.
In August, the Brentwood home sold for US$8.35 million to billionaire heiress Brinah Milstein and her husband, Roy Bank – a former reality television producer.
Milstein and Bank, along with their legal counsel, addressed the Cultural Heritage Commission in mid-January, suggesting the house be relocated rather than designated a landmark.
They further argued that her main residence was a New York apartment she once shared with a former husband, playwright Arthur Miller.
“In the eight years that we have lived next door, we have seen the property change owners two times,” Milstein said. “We have watched it go unmaintained and unkept.
“We purchased the property because it is within feet of ours. And it is not a historic cultural monument,” she said. “The home has undergone extensive remodels and additions several times with the previous owners.”
“We’ve offered to relocate the home and make it accessible to the fans that want to see it, let them visit, celebrate, remember Marilyn and even take pictures of a house that they will otherwise never have access to as long as it’s a private residence.”
Bank said relocating the home would avoid “an exponential increase in tourism, tour buses, people, disturbance that is sure on a calm, quiet, private, narrow residential street in Brentwood”.
Architecture historian Heather Goers spoke passionately at the meeting in support of bestowing landmark status. Goers said Monroe’s Brentwood home was largely unfurnished while the actor lived there because custom couches, tables and lamps she’d ordered had not yet been delivered at the time of her death.
Destroying the only place she owned while alive would be a shame
Monroe had taken great care in selecting pieces for the first and only home she ever owned, the historian said.
Among Monroe fans who emailed the commission, or joined the meeting in person or online via Zoom, were actors, art historians, preservationists and a former resident of the neighbourhood.
“I’m a Los Angeles resident and I grew up just a couple of houses away from this home,” said Isabelle Edwards. “I’m very much in support of this property becoming a landmark. As long as I can remember, this property has been known as Marilyn Monroe’s home.”
Edwards, who said she’d been inside the home, described it as “very much intact”.
“The authentic character, charm and architecture have not changed … The floor plan is pretty much the same.”
Parisian art historian Jacques Le Roux emailed the commission calling Monroe a “sacred figure”.
Le Roux wrote: “It is the only physical reminder that remains of the life and death of an extraordinary human being.
“Destroying the only place she owned while alive would be a shame, [an] irreparable error, an ignorant act against culture and history.”
The city council’s Planning and Land Use Management Committee will now consider the matter. The vote from the Cultural Heritage Commission was a recommendation, but still needs to be approved by the council before the property is considered designated.