The Los Angeles home where Marilyn Monroe died in 1962 lives to see another day after another thwarted demolition attempt.
It’s the second time in roughly as many years that the four-bedroom, three-bathroom house in Brentwood has escaped destruction.
Last summer, the property was designated a historic cultural monument after a unanimous city council vote. Now, the home has been saved by L.A. Superior Court Judge James Chalfant, who on Sept. 2 denied a petition from the property’s current owners claiming that the city’s designation had imposed on their right to raze the home.
The actress and model — known for movies including “Some Like It Hot” and “The Misfits” — purchased the property in February 1962 and moved in the following month. It was the first and only home Monroe ever owned by herself, according to the Los Angeles Department of City Planning. She was found dead in the house in August of that same year. She was 36.
While living at the residence, Monroe was photographed at the house in preparation for an interview for LIFE magazine. She also traveled to New York to sing at then-President John F. Kennedy’s birthday gala during the time she lived at the property.
Saving Marilyn Monroe's house from destruction
The ruling marks the latest update in a years-long saga surrounding the preservation of the home at 12305 Fifth Helena Drive that started after Brinah Milstein and Roy Bank purchased the home for roughly $8.4 million in July 2023. The husband-wife duo owns the adjacent property and had plans to combine the two lots.
In the months following their purchase, Milstein and Bank received a permit to demolish the home. But when word of those plans got out, Angelenos, history buffs and Monroe fans alike were swift with their backlash, prompting city leadership to launch efforts to name the property a monument.
Councilwoman Traci Park, who represents the district where the residence is located, spoke at the city council meeting last June in support of the move to name the house a landmark.
“There is no other person or place in the city of Los Angeles as iconic as Marilyn Monroe and her Brentwood home,” she said at the time. “Some of the most world-famous images ever taken of her were in that home, on those grounds, near her pool. And that Marilyn tragically died there forever ties her in time and place to this very home.”
In May 2024, Milstein and Bank filed a lawsuit claiming that the city had infringed on their rights as property owners to demolish the property.
“There is not a single piece of the house that includes any physical evidence that Ms. Monroe ever spent a day at the house, not a piece of furniture, not a paint chip, not a carpet, nothing,” they wrote in their suit, noting that the home has had some 14 owners and undergone various remodels since Monroe’s death.
Despite those claims, the property is protected, for now, after Chalfant’s ruling last week. The owners, who previously offered to move the home to fulfill their expansion, could appeal the ruling.
