The Brady Bunch house sells for $US3.2m
The television network HGTV sold the Los Angeles home for roughly 9 per cent less than it paid for the property in 2018
Here’s the story of a lovely lady. The Brady Bunch fan Tina Trahan, 53, has paid $US3.2 million ($4.97m) for the Los Angeles house that served as the exterior of the Brady home on the popular TV show. The price is about 9% less than the seller, the television network HGTV, paid for the home in 2018.
Trahan, a historic home enthusiast and the wife of former HBO chief executive Chris Albrecht, said she is a fan of The Brady Bunch, which ran from 1969 to 1974 on ABC, and 1995’s “The Brady Bunch Movie.” “I thought that was hilarious,” she said.
She said she plans to use the Studio City house for fundraising and charitable events.
“It’s almost like a life-size dollhouse,” she said.
HGTV listed the circa-1959 house in May for $5.5 million. After buying the home for $3.5 million, the network renovated it to match the interiors depicted on the show, documenting the process for the series A Very Brady Renovation. Before HGTV bought it, the home had remained in the same family for nearly 50 years.
While Trahan lives primarily in Bel Air, she is a collector of unusual homes, she said. Among her more unusual holdings is a grand Italian Renaissance mansion known as Stone Manor in Lake Geneva, Wis. Trahan said she has spent millions buying up units in the mansion, which had been subdivided.
Trahan’s real-estate agent, Marcy Roth of the Eklund Gomes team at Douglas Elliman, said when Trahan announced she wanted the “Brady Bunch” house, she thought her client was joking. “She was like, ‘No, I’m not kidding, I’m obsessed,’” Roth recalled.
On “A Very Brady Renovation,” hosts Drew and Jonathan Scott collaborated with original Brady Bunch cast members to make the interior of the home resemble the show’s set. They re-created the floating staircase, the orange and avocado-green Formica kitchen, the “groovy” attic and the stone-covered entryway. They also added about 3,000 square feet to the house in the form of a second story, bringing the total square footage to approximately 5,000 with five bedrooms, according to the listing.
Still, Trahan said she felt the house was overpriced because it doesn’t have modern appliances or conveniences.
“Nobody is going to live in it,” she said. “No one is going in there to make pork chops and applesauce in that kitchen. Anything you might do to make the house livable would take away from what I consider artwork.” She said she believes HGTV overpaid for the house in 2018 amid a bidding war with former NSYNC star Lance Bass. The average home on the block typically trades for $1 million to $3 million, property records show.
Listing agent Danny Brown of Compass said the property was hard to price, and the network debated prices ranging from $3 million to $10 million.
“There’s no normal average family that could move in there and live in it, so it was almost like you were selling a fixer,” Brown said. “What am I going to compare it to, the Freddy Krueger house on Elm Street or the “Home Alone” house?” Ultimately, he said, “we priced it solely based on what they paid and the amount of money they put into it.” Brown said that while HGTV lost money on the sale, it made “a good amount of money on TV shows and events and other ancillary revenue streams” that stemmed from the house.
Even at the price she paid, Trahan said she sees the purchase as “the worst investment ever.” “I can’t even say the word investment -- I’m going to say liability,” she said, since potential buyers drawn by the home’s connection to The Brady Bunch are aging. “I asked my 27-year-old tennis instructor, ‘Have you heard of ‘The Brady Bunch?’ He’s like, ‘Yeah, Wayne Brady?’” I’m like, ‘Noooo.’” Still, the property continues to be popular with tourists. Trahan said three different cars full of people came by to take pictures while she was touring the house.
Roth shared the listing with Fredrik Eklund.