Race against time: Efforts to preserve Marilyn Monroe’s iconic Los Angeles home face demolition threat

Race against time: Efforts to preserve Marilyn Monroe’s iconic Los Angeles home face demolition threat. Los Angeles is fighting against time to save Marilyn Monroe’s house 180 days before its demolition: “it is an example of what it means to overcome adversity.

By Megan Sauer

“Sometimes things go wrong so that better things can happen ,” said Marilyn Monroe , the woman who revolutionized the world in the mid-20th century and who remains in the collective imagination as an indelible icon six decades after her death in 1962.

The same thing is currently happening in Los Angeles, the city that gave permission to Glory of the Snow Trust, current owner of the Brentwood house where the actress lived and died, to demolish the building in September 2023 (just one year after the arrival of ‘ Blonde ‘ to the Netflix movie catalog ).

Luckily, according to People , the city council quickly voted to suspend said permit and delay construction plans on the land where the protagonist of some of Billy Wilder’s best films spent her last days .

In an attempt to permanently preserve the space, the Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission voted unanimously this Thursday to declare the Spanish-style house at 12305 W. 5th Helena Drive, the only house the actress bought, historic property.

Although this move delays potential demolition another 180 days, the house will not be permanently protected until the Los Angeles Planning and Use Committee and City Council review its nomination.

To do this, we have also had the help of historian Scott Fortner who, working alongside the Monroe Preservation Group, has researched and documented the history of the property , discovering that “the famous historic architect of Los Angeles, Harbin Hunter, not only lived also in the house, but he was probably the one who designed it.

Built in 1929, Monroe purchased the house for $77,500 in February 1962 after divorcing Arthur Miller and spent approximately $51,000 renovating and remodeling it before, in August of that same year, she died there at age 36.

In an interview with Life magazine shortly before that terrible news, Marilyn described the property (specifically an apartment attached to her garage) as “a place for any friend of mine who is in some kind of trouble.

Maybe they want to live here where they can’t bother them until everything goes well for them.

She was discovered by her housekeeper, Eunice Murray, after noticing that the light in Monroe’s bedroom was on in the early hours of the morning.

A coroner’s toxicology report officially listed her cause of death as acute barbiturate poisoning after ingesting a lethal amount of Nembutal, which is often used to treat anxiety, and a sedative called chloral hydrate. Her death was ruled an overdose and a “probable suicide.”

” For people around the world, Marilyn Monroe was more than just a cinematic icon ,” Traci Park said from City Hall at a press conference in September.