Here’s the story… of how a modest mid-century home became a Los Angeles landmark.
The Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously Wednesday to designate the Brady Bunch home in the San Fernando Valley as a historical-cultural monument.
The vote grants historic protections to the house on Dilling Avenue that was used for exterior shots of the television sitcom that aired from 1969 to 1974.
The interior scenes were filmed on a soundstage, with sets that looked nothing like the property and became a photo magnet for Brady Bunch fans.
The show, which aired for decades, featured the comical travails of a family of six siblings from mixed-race families, “the youngest with curls,” as the theme song explained.
The pointed-roofed tile-and-stone house also appeared in the 1995 big-screen film The Brady Bunch Movie and its sequel.
Landmark status protects the house, built in 1959, from demolition or major renovations, but does not prohibit them. If the 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 nonprofit LA Conservancy lobbied for the landmark status, and executive director Adrian Scott Fine said he was delighted 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. “Having it designated like that makes it even sweeter.”
When the home went on the market in 2018, cable network HGTV won a bidding war that raised the price to $3.5 million, or $1.6 million above the listing price of the then-2,400-square-foot residence.
The house was expanded, remodeled and redecorated to give it characteristic elements of the set version, including the wood-paneled living room with a floating staircase and an orange and green kitchen.
The process was documented in a four-part HGTV miniseries, A Very Brady Renovation.
