Demolition of the Los Angeles area home where Marilyn Monroe spent her last months has been put on hold by Los Angeles City Council, following a last-minute motion aimed at designating the house a Historic-Cultural Monument.
Councilmember Traci Park, whose district includes Brentwood, where the legendary actress’s former home is located, said the house was sold in July and the new owners recently filed a request to have it demolished.
“Unfortunately, the Department of Building and Safety issued a demolition permit before my team and I could fully intervene and get this issue resolved,” Park said in a news conference on Friday.
When word of its looming demise broke on Wednesday, Park’s offices were inundated with calls to save the fabled bungalow that once belonged to the pop culture icon.
“At this point, it may be into the thousands,” Park said of the volume of phone calls. “All of our phones in city hall and the field office have been ringing off the hook for the last 48 hours.”
On Friday, the city council unanimously approved Park’s emergency motion to begin the process to designate the house a historic building.
Demolition is on hold until the city’s Office of Historic Resources conducts a study and analysis of the home, according to Park.
It remains unclear who the new homeowners are as the purchase was made under a limited liability company (LLC), which then sold the house to a trust in July.
“We have not been contacted at all by the property owner,” Park told CNN. “Most certainly they were aware of who owned the home previously and who lived and died there.”
Built in 1929, the Brentwood bungalow is currently valued at about US$8 million, according to property records. Monroe lived there for just months before her death in 1962 at age 36, Park said. She died at home after overdosing on barbiturates.