Owners of Marilyn Monroe’s former LA home sue city over historic designation

LOS ANGELES (CN) — The owners of the Los Angeles house briefly owned by Marilyn Monroe in 1962, where she died that year, sued the city over belatedly designating the property a historic-cultural monument and preventing them from tearing down the home.

“For more than 60 years, although keenly aware of the property’s brief association with Ms. Monroe, the city had taken no action to designate the house as a historic monument, until plaintiffs sought to exercise their rights under lawfully issued city permits to demolish the house in 2023,” Brinah Milstein and Roy Bank said in their complaint filed in LA federal court.

The house is located at the end of a small cul-de-sac in the upscale Brentwood neighborhood on LA’s westside. The owners, who live in an adjacent property, argue Monroe owned the place for just six months and only stayed there temporarily while shooting movies in Southern California since her main residence was in New York.

As such, they argue, the 2,300-square-foot Spanish bungalow that isn’t viewable from the street has no historic value.

The house retains no trace of Monroe’s use of it more than 60 years ago, they said. A reporter who interviewed the actress at the property noted it appeared as if she was camping in the house because the rooms appeared bare and makeshift, according to the current owners.

“All décor associated with her brief tenure at the house has long been stripped by a succession of no less than fourteen owners since her death,” they claim. “And the house and the property have been substantially altered, including major additions to the house and new outbuildings.”

The owners say they had bought the property for more than $8 million with the intention to demolish the dilapidated structures. However, the local city councilmember, preservationists and tour operators joined forces in 2023 to make the city designate the property a historic-cultural monument, which makes it impossible for the owners to tear it down without going through a lengthy and costly legal process.

Instead, they say in their complaint that they and their neighborhoods have to deal with tour buses clogging up the narrow streets and people trying to climb over the walls to get a look at the house.

“The designation has created public burdens instead of benefits,” the owners argue. “The designation and resultant public disturbance have created traffic congestion and community nuisance — on a street not meant to handle excessive traffic of tour buses or trespassers, let alone the actual residents of that street and their guests.”

The owners accuse the city of violating the takings clause of the Fifth Amendment because the deteriorating property has no public use, and they can’t sell it or redevelop it. Moreover, they said, the city has failed to compensate them.

Representatives of the LA city attorney’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit.

The plaintiffs seek a court ruling that their constitutional rights have been violated and an order to allow them to demolish the property.

The plaintiffs are represented by attorneys from Latham & Watkins LLP and from Glaser Weil Fink Howard Jordan & Shapiro LLP.

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