The owners of the Los Angeles home where Marilyn Monroe died have launched a legal battle against Mayor Karen Bass and the City of Los Angeles.
Brinah Milstein and Roy Bank purchased the infamous Brentwood property for just over $US8 million ($A11 million) in 2023.
Soon after, they applied for — and received — city approval to demolish the home and begin new construction, according to a lawsuit obtained by The California Post.
That is when problems started for the homeowners, who say the city swooped in to designate the home a “Historical-Cultural Monument” in 2024 — after the permits were already approved.
“In doing so, the city has turned the property into a tourist attraction, attracting (as the city wanted and expected) traffic congestion on the short, narrow dead-end street adjacent to the property along with numerous trespassers leaping over and onto property walls to get into the ‘designated’ house (which cannot be seen from the public realm due to the property wall and landscaping),” the documents state.
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The owners of the Los Angeles home where Marilyn Monroe died have launched a legal battle. Picture: Getty Images
Monroe died at the home in August 1962. Picture: Getty Images
Brinah Milstein and Roy Bank purchased the infamous Brentwood property for just over $US8 million in 2023. Picture: Getty Images
The new attention on the home has also allegedly forced the homeowners to hire their own private security to police the property. They claim burglars broke in back in November looking for memorabilia.
The Spanish-style bungalow with a pool, situated on a tiny dead end street in the heart of a multimillion-dollar neighbourhood, has been a tourist attraction ever since Monroe’s naked body was wheeled out of the home on a gurney in August of 1962.
According to the lawsuit, the property “was owned for about six months in 1962 by Marilyn Monroe — she occasionally occupied a small house that sits on the property — while travelling extensively during her brief ownership to her permanent home in New York City and elsewhere — before she died at the property in August 1962”.
Marilyn Monroe owned the home for about six months in 1962. Picture: Getty Images
The new attention on the home has also allegedly forced the homeowners to hire their own private security to police the property. Picture: US District Court, California
The owners claim burglars broke in back in November looking for memorabilia. Picture: US District Court, California
Monroe’s body was found in the home’s master bedroom, surrounded by prescription pills. She died of a barbiturate overdose which was suspected to be a probable suicide.
Milstein and Bank argue in their lawsuit that the city never took interest in the home in the 60 years after Monroe died, and it went through multiple renovations and had multiple owners.
They claim the historical designation has now “rendered the property useless” and has totally prohibited their ability to capitalise on the $US8.3 million ($A11.7 million) they put into purchasing the home.
The couple is asking the court to either allow them to go ahead with their plans to demolish the home or to force the city to pay the value of the home.
Parts of this story first appeared in TheCalifornia Post and was republished with permission.
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