Marilyn Monroe’s Former Brentwood Home Listed for $6.9 Million

Marilyn Monroe's Former Brentwood Home Listed $6.9 Million — Courtesy of The Hoyt Organization

The Brentwood home owned by Marilyn Monroe shortly before she died — which was also where the late actress’ dead body was found — is on the market for $6.9 million.

Situated at the end of a cul-de-sac on Helena Drive, the 2,624-square-foot hacienda-style home was originally built in 1929. Monroe had only owned the home for a few months before she was found dead in 1962 of an apparent overdose of barbiturates at the age of 36.

Just weeks before she died, Monroe was interviewed by Life magazine. Her home on Helena featured prominently in that interview.

Here is an excerpt from the interview: “Before starting what was to be no less than a six-hour talk, she wanted to show me her house which she had personally searched out and bought. Describing it earlier she exclaimed, ‘… and it has walls.’ She had refused LIFE any pictures of it, saying, ‘I don’t want everybody to see exactly where I live, what my sofa or my fireplace looks like … ‘ It was a small, three-bedroom house built in Mexican style, the first home entirely her own she had ever had. She exulted in it. On a special trip to Mexico she had carefully searched in roadside stands and shops and even factories to find just the right things to put in it. The large items had not arrived — nor was she ever to see them installed. As she led me through the rooms, bare and makeshift as though someone lived there only temporarily, she described with loving excitement each couch and table and dresser, where it would go and what was special about it.”

Despite the iconic status of the home’s former owner, the house has not been designated a historic landmark, and since Monroe passed away, it has changed hands several times. According to Mercer Vine’s Lisa Optican, who has the listing, certain elements of the home have changed since Monroe lived there. “There are people who just love hacienda-style homes. It is a symbol of California living, and that indoor-outdoor flow is great, and they are hard to find,” she said. As for how she plans to incorporate the home’s history into her sales strategy, she said: “The house has such warmth and such a positive feeling. I like to focus on the fact that she lived there and not that she passed away there.”

The gated home has a pool, a citrus grove and a guesthouse. The home itself has four bedrooms, three bathrooms and sits on the largest land parcel of all of the Helena streets in Brentwood.