The Studio City home, built in 1959, cannot be modified without approval
Here’s the story of a house named Brady…whose façade is so beloved by couch potatoes over the decades that it’s now a Los Angeles landmark. The L.A. city council voted unanimously on Wednesday to protect the San Fernando Valley home used in exterior shots for The Brady Bunch, the Associated Press reports. The show originally aired between 1969 and 1974 and has been rerun in syndication ever since. The recognition prevents the home from being demolished or renovated except in special circumstances.
Although nobody threw a football in Marcia Brady’s face in the yard and nobody broke mom’s favorite vase at the bottom of the stairs (that was all shot on a soundstage), B-roll shots of the home became iconic with time, the same way San Francisco’s “Painted Ladies” are associated with Full House and Tom’s Restaurant is recognizable to Seinfeld fans. In addition to the original TV show, the home, built in 1959, also featured in the ultra-ironic Brady Bunch Movie and its sequel in the Nineties.
“I’m delighted to hear the Brady House has been designated a historic and cultural landmark by the City of Los Angeles,” actor Christopher Knight, who played Peter Brady, told The California Post (via New York Post). “Though a television creation, The Brady Bunch has manifested the American family to multiple generations and to the world.”
A nonprofit called the LA Conservancy advocated for the house’s landmark status. “If you watched The Brady Bunch, you knew this house,” the organization’s CEO, Adrian Scott, told the AP. “People make a pilgrimage to see it. To have it designated like this, it makes it all the sweeter.”
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All that said, the home isn’t what it used to be; it’s in better shape. HGTV bought the 2,400-square-foot domicile at 11222 West Dilling Street in Studio City for $3.5 million, according to the AP, and expanded and remodeled it to make the interior look more like the studio sets on the TV show for a miniseries called A Very Brady Renovation.
Now that the home is a landmark, any further changes to the property must be run by the city’s Cultural Heritage Commission, which would explore ways to preserve it.