The Los Angeles City Council yesterday classified the last home of actress Marilyn Monroe as a historic monument, in order to avoid its destruction.
She took her last breath there. The final resting place of Marilyn Monroe, located in Los Angeles in the Brentwood district, was classified as a historic monument on Wednesday, June 26, by the city council.
The decision is intended to allow the city to protect the building, which was acquired by wealthy Americans who want to raze it.
A house at the heart of a recent controversy
Purchased last year for $8.35 million by Brinah Milstein, a wealthy heiress, and Roy Bank, a reality TV producer, the house is at the center of a conflict between the city and the new owners.
The latter, who occupy the neighboring house, acquired Marilyn Monroe’s house with the ambition of destroying it and expanding.
Faced with the historic stakes, their demolition permit was quickly canceled by the city.
The case was taken to court by the new owners. The couple offered to move the house, so that it could be open to the star’s fans.
An option still under study, according to municipal councilor Traci Park, for whom: “Some of the most famous images of her were taken in this house, on this land and near her swimming pool. Marilyn died there tragically, which links her forever, in time and space, to this place,” recalled the latter.
If the classification of the house as a historic monument by the city does not prohibit its demolition, it does however require a more rigorous examination.
This 270 square meter single-storey hacienda was purchased by the actress in 1962, just after her divorce from the writer Arthur Miller. She died there a few months later, in August, of a drug overdose.
