Councilwoman Traci Park

11th District

Email:

Traci Park, Councilwoman for the 11th District

councilmember.park@lacity.org 

Phone: 213-473-7011

310-568-8772

310-575-8461

Hi Councilwoman Park,

I’m writing because as you’ve likely heard, the owners of Marilyn Monroe’s Spanish hacienda in Brentwood are planning to demolish the home. This home has been identified in the past as “potentially historic” however it is currently unprotected. The purchaser bought the home with cash and immediately applied for a tear-down permit, which has not officially been approved. Let’s stop this before it is.

I’m asking you to please consider protecting Marilyn’s home by initiating a Historic-Cultural Monument process for her house at 12305 5th Helena Drive. I believe she deserves to have her legacy live within this house, as other popular monuments of her in the area, like her gravesite, have been infiltrated by men who want to gawk at her, even after death — Richard Poncher, who died in 1986, bought the crypt above hers and is positioned “face down” so he could look at Monroe. (The crypt was later sold to pay off Poncher’s widow’s mortgage.) Hugh Hefner is buried next to her — a man who bought her photos and used her as the cover and centerfold to launch Playboy, whom she had never met. She didn’t make a dime from the success.

Marilyn has been done wrong by people even after her death. Let’s please keep this house as a historic monument to preserve what little golden age of Hollywood and Marilyn we have left. There will only be one Marilyn.

Best,

Your Name

CULTURAL HERITAGE COMMISSION

Meeting September 7th, 2023

Open to the public