After a summer on the market, The ‘Brady Bunch’ house sells for $2 million ... under asking price
A split-level home in a Los Angeles, California, neighborhood was on the market for roughly three months — and as the second-most visited house in America (No. 1 is the White House), it undoubtedly generated a lot of interest.
The five-bed, five-bath home in Studio City was the site of “The Brady Bunch,” where the six children’s day-to-day struggles at home and school were happily resolved within a half-hour.
Now, the popular tourist attraction has sold for $3.2 million — more than $2 million under its asking price.
Related
The ‘Brady Bunch’ house sells after a summer on the market
The “Brady Bunch” house is a popular tourist attraction — but it wasn’t actually the filming location for the beloved family sitcom that ran from 1969-1974.
The home was used only for exterior shots, while the actual filming took place on set about 7 miles away. So Mike Lookinland, who played the youngest son, Bobby, told the Deseret News he didn’t actually see the house for the first time until 1990.
“It’s very expensive to gear up and get off the lot and go on location somewhere, and very expensive and the Brady budget, those were two things that did not go together,” Lookinland told the Deseret News in 2019. “So we almost never left the set.”
The 5,140-square-foot home actually went through a major remodel in 2019, thanks to the HGTV show “A Very Brady Renovation.” The interior was transformed to replicate room-for-room what millions across the country have seen on their TV sets — floating staircase and all. HGTV invested $1.9 million in the project, according to Architectural Digest.
Airing just a few weeks before the sitcom’s 50th anniversary, the four-part series saw the reunion of the six Brady kids and gave HGTV its highest rating in years, the Deseret News previously reported.
The house went in on the market for $5.5 million in May — $2 million more than HGTV bought it for in 2018, according to the property’s history. Now, it’s sold for even less than what HGTV paid.
Tina Trahan, a fan of the sitcom, bought the house for $3.2 million earlier this month and said it was “the worst investment ever.”
“No one is going in there to make pork chops and applesauce in that kitchen,” Trahan, who is married to former HBO chief executive Chris Albrecht, told The Wall Street Journal. “Anything you might do to make the house livable would take away from what I consider artwork.
“Nobody is going to live in it,” she added. “It’s almost like a life-size dollhouse.”
Trahan told The Wall Street Journal she plans to use the home for charity events and luxury rental.
The popularity of ‘The Brady Bunch’
Although he didn’t realize it as a child actor, Lookinland said he realized by the time he was 20 that “The Brady Bunch” had staying power.
“It’s like the music you loved when you were 17 or the places you used to go with your family … when you were young,” he told the Deseret News. “Those things that were dear to you are the things that remain dear, moreso I think than new experiences.
“If you’re a parent, you can definitely feel good about sitting your children down and putting on a DVD of ‘The Brady Bunch,’” he added. “There’s nothing bad about that. But I think it’s more the kids that see those values. … It’s a show made for children. The struggles we all face seem big, but we can get through it together, and I think kids just really take to that and know that that’s something to value, so that’s why it’s staying on, is because children keep watching it.”
