September 3rd, 2025 by thehollywoodhome

UPDATED: Inside Marilyn Monroe’s Dreamy Final Home in Brentwood

Homes Brentwood Celebrity Homes Hollywood Hollywood History Home Marilyn Monroe 14 Comments

September 4, 2025 Update:

According to our friends at the great LA Conservancy, “The Marilyn Monroe Residence has been spared demolition and remains a protected Historic-Cultural Monument (HCM), thanks to a ruling made yesterday.

Following a hearing last week, a judge sided Tuesday with the city of Los Angeles on maintaining the HCM status of Marilyn Monroe’s former home, declining the request of its new owners to halt its designation so they could level the property, Bloomberg reports.

Monroe’s 1929 Spanish Colonial Revival home at 12305 Fifth Helena Drive holds historical significance as the only home the Hollywood icon ever owned by herself, in a time when just 0.1% of single young women owned a home.

This designation is particularly meaningful as only about 2% of designated HCMs in Los Angeles currently represent women’s history. Through the L.A. Women’s Landmarks Project—a partnership with the Where Women Made History initiative of the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the L.A. Conservancy—we’re working to address the significant underrepresentation of women and their contributions to Los Angeles landmarks.”

September 12, 2023 Update:

As most of you know now, Marilyn’s Brentwood home was scheduled for demolition but it has been reported by multiple outlets – The LA Times, Vanity Fair, People, The Guardian – that Marilyn’s final home has been saved. At least for now. Follow The Hollywood Home on Instagram for my latest updates on Marilyn. I will also update this post frequently in the coming weeks as we learn about what we can do to hopefully secure this home protected status as a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument or a Mills Act property. Stay tuned!

Friday, April 21 2017 Update – Marilyn’s final home in Brentwood has returned to the market. Asking price is $6,900,000.

Original September 21, 2016 post below:

It was the first and last home legendary Hollywood bombshell Marilyn Monroe ever owned. 12305 Fifth Helena Drive in Brentwood is a dreamy Spanish hacienda that still stands today. According to Monroe biographers, Marilyn was urged by her psychologist to “put down roots” after three failed marriages to James Dougherty, Joe DiMaggio, and Arthur Miller. It is rumored she fell in love with the garden and would often spend calming afternoons there with her poodle. She bought the home in 1962 for $75,000. It last sold in 2012 for $5.1 million.

Considered a modest home at the time, it was all Monroe could then afford, and, besides, she was enchanted with the vintage hacienda. According to the biography Goddess, Marilyn cried when signing the final papers because she never imagined she’d be purchasing a home without a husband. She paid a $40,000 deposit and began making $320 monthly mortgage payments in March. Eunice Murray, who was Marilyn’s live-in housekeeper, recalled that Monroe studied and memorized every detail of the home, brick by brick. She loved the house’s simplicity and its lived-in aura.

Before her untimely death she made a trip to Mexico to hand-pick authentic Mexican furniture, art, tapestries and tiles for her home. Some of the tiles are still in place today. When Marilyn bought the house, it had three bedrooms and two baths plus a detached guest house. Today, the guest house has been connected to the main house, the kitchen has been expanded and several rooms have been added to the back, expanding the home’s square footage considerably.

As you can see by the photos above and below the gorgeous Spanish tiles have remained while the dark wood paneling and wall-to-wall carpeting has been eliminated.

It is said Marilyn used one bedroom for herself, installed her housekeeper-companion in a second bedroom, and the third bedroom was used as a “telephone room,” a must-have, surely, for all girls in the 1960s.

Marilyn threw herself into making her house a home. Besides the trip to Mexico, she planted an herb garden with lemon trees and flowering plants  and the last check she ever wrote was for a white chest of drawers. She installed a plaque on the doorway of the house with the Latin phrase, “Cursum Perficio” which translates to “My Journey Ends Here.”

Marilyn’s sunroom remains nearly untouched besides an added bookshelf.

Her bedroom opened right onto the backyard and the kidney-shaped swimming pool, which her biographers claim she never used.

Five months after purchasing the home, the Los Angeles Times ran the headline: “Marilyn Monroe Found Dead. Sleeping Pill Overdose Blamed.” Marilyn Monroe was dead at 36. On the day after she died, it is said her estate received a half-dozen offers to purchase the home which resulted in a bidding war. 

Although her life was tragically cut short, Marilyn had at last landed in a place where she could feel at home. Many of the lemon trees and herb gardens Marilyn planted are said to still be thriving on the property.

Marilyn Monroe at home at 12305 Fifth Helena Drive in 1962.

For entertainment purposes only. All photos are in the public domain, used under fair use law, and for non-commercial purposes unless otherwise noted.

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14 Responses to “UPDATED: Inside Marilyn Monroe’s Dreamy Final Home in Brentwood”

1. Andreas Pabey says:

   March 29, 2017 at 11:24 pm

   Pretty! This has been a really wonderful post. Thank you for supplying this info.

   Reply
2. Stephanie says:

   March 11, 2020 at 11:01 pm

   $75,000 in 1962 money translates to $642,435 in 2020 money

   Reply
3. M M says:

   September 19, 2020 at 5:19 pm

   Cursum Perficio was part of the property when she purchased it in 1961.
   She spent a considerable amount of time updating the kitchen, which then had a copper hood, and copper pots and pans.
   The hood on her bedroom fireplace was also copper.
   Her bedroom shower was opposite of the windows where the sink once stood and her door would have been parallel to the showerhead wall.
   The last photo shows her being playful, on the Spanish style chair with the lime green felt, during an interview, she reluctantly agreed to.
   On the morning of her death, she had been planting in the garden.
   When the house was remodeled; circa the 1970s, by Hill Street Blues Actress, “owner at the time”, an elaborate surveillance system was uncovered consisting of devices far advanced for the 1960s, correlation to the governments high tech systems of that time.
   Ms. Monroe was in fact Murdered.
   No evidence of her prints or any prints were ever found in her own home, an indication of CIA cleanup and coverup.
   Thank you for sharing.

   Reply
4. Sheridan Whitney says:

   May 25, 2021 at 6:59 am

   Gorgeous photos! So happy her beautiful, sweet and innocent soul is being remembered for what she always wanted. Which was a home and to be loved. Thrilled to hear her lemon trees and herb garden are thriving today.

   Reply
5. Catherine Roe Gehring says:

   January 26, 2022 at 8:02 pm

   There’s always evidence that they don’t think about. Or else they would open up the house for me to investigate AND get out. They obviously think that the right to bear witness doesn’t apply to them. Gives the plausible cause of felony tresspassing to cover up what’s been solved. Still, there’s who, why, and how still waiting to come out.

   Reply
6. Sally Anne Judd says:

   August 23, 2022 at 5:13 am

   Thank you for showing Marilyn’s last home, a personal look to a cosy perfect Home …She was a amazing complicated person due to her insecurity from her childhood and to see and imagine her in her calm Garden on her last day, is a slight joy! She may have had an intuition of her future as somebody wrote these words above QUOTE … She installed a plaque on the doorway of the house with the Latin phrase, “Cursum Perficio” which translates to “My Journey Ends Here.” So Appt! Marilyn RIP

   Reply
7. Zane Spenser says:

   March 10, 2023 at 5:26 pm

   Monroe was not murdered; she died because of miscommunication between her physician and her psychiatrist. She was never murdered – by anyone – and after 60 years, there is no proof and never will there be proof – of any murder.

   She accidentally overdosed on barbiturates including chloral hydrate which should not have been taken with the Nembutals. She accidentally swallowed too many and died over a period of time.

   Reply
8. Awua says:

   January 14, 2025 at 3:36 pm

   ***There’s always evidence that they don’t think about.***’

   Not in that case.

   **(Or else they would open up the house for me to investigate AND get out.***

   You’re bloody delusional. Who do you mean by ‘they?’ Besides, the property never was or has been public property for over six decades now. It’s had multiple owners who have redone the house multiple times. The chances of an unqualified hack like you finding any ‘clues’ to prove your delusion is effectively zero, you daft git.

   ***They obviously think that the right to bear witness doesn’t apply to them.***

   Again, who is this mysterious they you keep babbling about? Voices in your head? What bearing of witness could someone as useless as you provide, dare we ask.

   *** Gives the plausible cause of felony tresspassing to cover up what’s been solved.***

   Oh shut up. You have absolute ZERO evidence that anyone was on that property uninvited. You only have stupid voices in your otherwise empty skull blathering utter rubbish.

   ***Still, there’s who, why, and how still waiting to come out.***

   No, there isn’t, and there never was any conspiracy, LIAR. The woman OD’d. Happens all the time to those who take too many downers. Only stupid people are incapable of accepting that reality.

   Try growing a brain. It would prevent you from annoying so many of your intellectual and moral betters.

   Reply
9. Jon Fox says:

   August 26, 2025 at 7:30 am

   I agree with the person that said Marilyn was not murdered. These stories never surfaced until 20+ years after she died. Not one shred of “Evidence” was ever presented to prove a murder took place.

   Marilyn was talented but tortured. She was addicted to powerful drugs that never should have been prescribed in the amounts she took. Today, a doctor would never get away with giving any person quantities of drugs in which Marilyn received. The reality of the situation is that Marilyn Doctors should have been charged with malpractice and negligence. However, in those days things like that just were not done.

   Dr Hyman Engelberg clearly lied when he said that Marilyn never obtained a prescription for Chloral Hydrate from him. Dr. Engelberg’s name was clearly typed on the Chloral Hydrate bottle. A copy of the original prescription can be found online. What was he lying? Because he knew it looked like complete negligence on his part.

   I think Marilyn was troubled and just did not want to go on anymore. She hated getting older. She never had children in which she wanted and she ended up completely alone. Plus, we can not forget that Marilyn attempted suicide many times before. Shelly winters was interviewed in the late 1980’s. Shelly said that she had knowledge of former suicide attempts by Marilyn. Ms. Winters became quite angry about all the ridiculous murder theories. I understand why.

   So many people profited from this poor girls death. Let her rest in peace. This Jean carmen claimed to be a friend of Marilyn. I don’t believe it. There is not one shred of evidence Jean Carmen even knew Marilyn? This lady seemed abrasive and she had an agenda. Carmen never surfaced until 1985.

   Carmen originally said she believed Marilyn committed suicide (Marilyn Say Goodbye to the President video). However, as the years went by Carmen became more vocal and then switched to the “Murder Theory”.

   It is strange Carmen never began to discuss the murder theories and those that may be involved until years after those individuals were long dead. Strange? Not really? Because if they are no longer living then no one can openly disputer Carmen’s claims.

   Thank Goodness Barbiturates and some of the older more toxic sedatives are no longer prescribed. They were all addictive and helped many commit suicide successfully. You don’t give a depressed or suicidal person a prescription for Tuinal and Seconal at the same time. That is gross negligence.

   Reply
10. David Mitchell says:

    November 12, 2025 at 5:56 pm

    I don’t think the Kennedy boys were worried about Monroe one bit because when you have the balls to get on TV and tell the Mafia “We’re coming after you” you’re not worried about extramarital affair gossip much. Both the Kennedy’s were murdered but Monroe obviously did it to herself either accidentally or intentionally.

    Reply
11. Marie Bonet' says:

    November 19, 2025 at 6:15 am

    I’m absolutely thrilled the Home was saved from demolition!

    Reply
12. Heather racho says:

    November 19, 2025 at 11:18 am

    I’m so glad that nobody got to tear it down I think that’s gross that there are people in Hollywood who would tear her house down just because they think they’re the main character. I definitely think somebody should make it to where it’s illegal to ever tear the house down it is a national treasure. Places like this need to be protected we have lost so many iconic places in La due to rich people’s greed I thinking that they are more important and I can tell you right now nobody in Hollywood is more important than Marilyn Monroe and never will be. I too believe she was murdered I’ve read all of the biographies about her and yes she was sad and yes she took drugs but she wasn’t that sad and that stupid. I think it was the Kennedy’s the government. I remember going to La and standing on my friend’s car so I could look over the giant concrete fence so I could see her house for myself I even got to grab a flower off one of the trees she planted back in the 60s. Please La make it to where nobody can harm this house it belongs to everyone now.

    Reply
13. Holger says:

    April 15, 2026 at 10:01 pm

    “Her bedroom opened right onto the backyard and the kidney-shaped swimming pool, which her biographers claim she never used.”

    That room is not the one Marilyn Monroe was found in on Aug 5, 1962. She was found in the frontyard bedroom which Eunice Murray designated as Marilyn’s bedroom. Whether that designation was correct or not is unclear, other statements of Mrs Murray smelled a not-so-little bit stale, to say the least.

    However – the room on the picture is where Eunice Murray slept according to her – Eunice’s – statement.

    —

    The big question for me regarding 12305 5th Helena Dr. however is where Marilyn stored her famous 400+ book collection.

    That is a mass of paper not to be missed – 2 m² of book spines at least but due to large formats and hardcovers more likely closer to 4 m². None of the pictures available from inside 12305 5HD of the time Marilyn lived there however show any shelves of that capacity.

    The modern shelves one sees on the color pictures were all installed long after Marilyn’s ownership of the house and pictures showing Marilyn reading in the vicinity of large shelves were all not taken in 12305 5HD as one can easily take from the lack of the hacienda-typical abundance of windows and garden doors.

    Reply
14. Lisa says:

    June 24, 2026 at 6:47 pm

    I bought three of those books at the Christie’s auction in 1999! It was an incredible event. But I’ve definitely wondered if the books were there with her in California when she died. By the way, I’m in the “she was murdered” camp.

    Reply