The Los Angeles house that stood in the place of the home from The Brady Bunch has sold for US$3.2m (PS2.55m, A$4.97m), which is 42% lower than the $5.5m asking price.
In 1959, the Studio City property was used as the exterior of the Brady family’s home from 1969, when the sitcom started before it ended in 1974, and all of the interiors were filmed on a sound stage.
The home was originally single-story and had another floor to match what was inside of Brady Bunch’s home. Brady Bunch house. Photograph: Marcy Roth and Fredrik Eklund
After the owner’s death after living in the property for over 50 years, the house went on sale in the year 2018 at $3.5m to the television network HGTV, which had outbid former NSync participant Lance Bass by paying more than double the asking price.
To promote a television show called A Very Brady Renovation, the network upgraded the interiors of the house to appear exactly similar to the Brady home. There were actors from the show, as well as the six Brady children, helping in the renovation. The renovations were huge, considering that they were huge, as the Studio City house was single-story and the Brady house had two floors.
The retailer HGTV recorded the renovations on the television program A Very Brady Renovation. Photograph: Marcy Roth and Fredrik Eklund
The refurbishments, comprised of adding the famed staircase that rises to a completely new second story, were estimated to cost $2m, which is much higher than the initial estimate of $350,000, according to city reports discovered by People magazine.
One of the property’s five bedrooms. Photograph: Marcy Roth and Fredrik Eklund
The property’s new owner, Brady Bunch fan Tina Trahan Tina Trahan, told The Wall Street Journal that the house had been “the worst investment ever.” however she stated that she plans to utilize it to raise money for charitable events, as well as to rent it out as a luxury property.
She claimed that she was of the opinion that HGTV paid excessively for the house since it didn’t have working appliances that could be identical to the Brady home.
“No one is going in there to make pork chops and applesauce in that kitchen,” said Trahan. “Anything you might do to make the house liveable would take away from what I consider artwork.”
There is no one inside to cook pork chops or applesauce from the kitchen. Photo: Marcy Roth and Fredrik Eklund
The real estate agent who represented Trahan, Marcy Roth at Douglas Elliman, spoke to The Wall Street Journal that she was convinced that Trahan was laughing when she claimed she was planning to purchase the property. “She was like, ‘No, I’m not kidding, I’m obsessed,'” Roth remembered.
The Douglas Elliman listing described the home in terms of “reportedly the second most photographed home in the USA after the White House,” featuring replicas of “bright orange formica kitchen counters, to the blue bunk beds and pink twin beds, and let’s not forget about the groovy attic.”
“There’s a lot you can learn from Google Maps and the Instagram accounts of nearby cafes,” she states. “We had some requirements in what we wanted from the house, the same as anyone does. At that time, there were a lot of options in this area and the estate agent had made a video tour of the house. It used to be a B&B, so there was some information on the internet about that. We were fully aware that the estate agent would dress it up, but we had a survey done, too, which was a little more realistic.”
Lorna, who runs a digital marketing company is of the opinion that she, as well as Matthias, who is in the field of education, didn’t make the decision to do the things they took lightly. “We are not rich people,” she adds. “This was a very serious financial commitment, not a glib purchase.”