The Los Angeles house that stood in for the home in The Brady Bunch has sold for US$3.2m (£2.55m, A$4.97m), 42% below the $5.5m asking price.
The 1959 Studio City property was used as the exterior of the Brady family home from 1969 when the sitcom began until it finished in 1974, with all the interiors filmed on a sound stage.
When the former owner died after living at the property for nearly 50 years, it was sold in 2018 for $3.5m to television network HGTV – having outbid the former ’NSync member Lance Bass by paying almost double the listing price.
For a TV show titled A Very Brady Renovation, the network renovated the interiors to look exactly like the Brady home, with actors from the series, including all six Brady children, assisting with the work. These were extensive, as the Studio City house was single-storey, while the Brady home had two floors.
The renovations, which included adding the famous staircase up to an entirely new second storey, reportedly cost $2m – much more than the initial $350,000 estimate, according to city records obtained by People magazine.
HGTV listed the five-bedroom home for sale in May for $5.5m.
The house’s new owner, Brady Bunch fan Tina Trahan, told the Wall Street Journal that the property was “the worst investment ever” but said she had plans to use it for fundraising and charitable events, and as a luxury rental.
She said she felt HGTV paid too much for the home, as it had no working appliances in order to look 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.”
Trahan’s real estate agent, Marcy Roth at Douglas Elliman, told the Wall Street Journal that she thought Trahan was joking when she said she wanted to buy it. “She was like, ‘No, I’m not kidding, I’m obsessed,’” Roth recalled.
The Douglas Elliman listing described the house as “reportedly the second most photographed home in the USA after the White House”, complete with recreated “bright orange formica kitchen counters, to the blue bunk beds and pink twin beds, and let’s not forget about the groovy attic”.
