Heiress and TV Producer Hubby Sue for the Right to Tear Down Marilyn Monroe’s Home
A wealthy heiress and her reality TV producer husband, who own a California home once belonging to Marilyn Monroe, on Monday filed a lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles in an effort to stop the house being designated a landmark—which would prevent them from demolishing it.
Brinah Milstein and Roy Bank, who bought the Brentwood property for $8.35 million last summer, were granted a demolition permit from the city, but their plans to tear down the building were temporarily halted by the council in September before the Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission recommended historic cultural monument status in January. Milstein and Bank are now attempting to stop the status from going through.
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In their lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, the plaintiffs accused city officials of “illegal and unconstitutional conduct” with respect to the “house where Marilyn Monroe occasionally lived for a mere six months before she tragically committed suicide 61 years ago,” according to KCAL-TV. They also accuse officials of “backdoor machinations” in order to preserve “a house which in no way meets any of the criteria” for a historic cultural monument.
The suit also makes clear that the couple owned the house next to the Monroe home and had plans to combine the properties, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Monroe bought the home for $75,000 in 1962. She died at the property six months later at the age of 36 in an apparent overdose. Although fans have argued the house remains an important part of Hollywood history, Milstein and Bank argue in their lawsuit that the property has been significantly altered since Monroe’s death, in which time it has changed hands between 14 owners.
“There is not a single piece of the house that includes any physical evidence that Ms. Monroe ever spent a day at the house, not a piece of furniture, not a paint chip, not a carpet, nothing,” the filing alleges.
The lawsuit seeks to scrap an upcoming council vote on the house’s preservation status and restore the plaintiff’s right to demolition.
Milstein is the daughter of the late Carl Milstein, a prominent Cleveland real estate developer. A company he founded, Associated Estates (AEC), sold for $2.5 billion in 2015. According to the Robb Report, some of Brinah Milstein’s siblings are now executives at a single-family asset management company which reportedly controls a portfolio worth billions.
Bank, on the other hand, was once the head of development at the company that made TV shows including The Apprentice and Survivor, according to the Times.
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