The city of Los Angeles is pushing to dismiss a lawsuit in federal court from the owners of the Los Angeles home where Marilyn Monroe died, calling their legal action baseless and “premature.”
Brinah Milstein and Roy Bank purchased the Brentwood property for just over $8 million in 2023. Soon after, they applied for — and received — city approval to demolish the home and begin new construction, according to a lawsuit obtained by The Post.
However, the homeowners said the city swooped in to designate the home a “Historical-Cultural Monument” in 2024 after the permits were already approved.
So they sued the city, claiming the historical designation “rendered the property useless” and stopped their ability to capitalize on the $8 million they spent to buy it.
Attorneys for the city, in a court document filed Thursday, disputed that narrative.
The homeowners should have already known that the property would become a Historical-Cultural Monument and they were told that tourists would be visiting the property before they made the purchase, the city said.
“Despite the explicit notice that the Property was a known destination for tourists and a candidate for future landmark status, Plaintiffs proceeded with the $8.35 million purchase,” the filing read.
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City attorneys also claimed that the designation is not technically final and therefore, there is no basis for the lawsuit.
There are still avenues for the homeowners to challenge the designation, they said, such as filing for a new demolition permit under the Historical-Cultural Monument designation. The homeowners never pursued that option, the city alleged.
The owners claimed that the Historical-Cultural Monument designation caused a host of problems for them, such as increased tourists and trespassers. City attorneys said that argument makes no sense and that the homeowners can still enforce against trespassers.
“The City’s designation does not encourage, let alone mandate, that Plaintiffs provide members of the public with access to the Property. The City’s action in no way appropriated a right to invade the property,” attorneys wrote.
Neither did the designation force Milstein and Bank to waste their investment, the city argued, because the property can still be used as a home. The owners are to blame for the property being “unrentable,” it said.
“The alleged lack of economic utility is a function of Plaintiffs’ own choice not to maintain the improvements, rather than a restriction imposed by the City,” the case filing said.
The Spanish-style bungalow with a pool, situated on a dead end street in the heart of a multi-million-dollar neighborhood, has been a tourist attraction ever since Monroe’s naked body was wheeled out of the home on a gurney in August of 1962.
The owners want to to force the city to let them demolish the house. A lower state court denied that petition and the homeowners are also currently challenging that decision in the state Court of Appeals.
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