What makes a building worth saving? Who gets to decide? What happens when there is disagreement about the fate of a historic landmark? These are the questions at the heart of a battle playing out in Los Angeles at 12305 Fifth Helena Drive, where actress Marilyn Monroe lived for the last six months of her life in 1962.

On September 5, 2023, the New York Post reported that the owners of the former Monroe property were preparing to demolish the house. Almost immediately, the Los Angeles Conservancy, along with preservationists and Marilyn Monroe fans all over the world, sprang into action to save it. By September 9, Los Angeles Councilmember Traci Park, who represents the Brentwood neighborhood where the house sits, had initiated the process to designate the Marilyn Monroe residence a Historical-Cultural monument. “To lose this piece of history, the only home that Marilyn Monroe ever owned, would be a devastating blow for historic preservation, and for a city where less than 3 perecent of historic designations are associated with women’s heritage,” she said in a June press conference.

Over the next ten months, the Conservancy worked with local officials, advocates, and the National Trust for Historic Preservation to finalize the designation–but not without pushback from the owners, who say the house bears little resemblance to the one Monroe lived in. Nevertheless, on June 26, the Los Angeles City Council unanimously voted to designate the residence a Historical-Cultural Monument.

Preserving Los Angeles’ Cultural Treasures

The Los Angeles Conservancy is used to fighting these kinds of battles. As the preservation organization with the largest membership base in the United States, they “work through education and advocacy to recognize, preserve, and revitalize the historic, architectural, and cultural resources of Los Angeles County,” offering walking tours, raising awareness of threatened properties, and advocating for the preservation of cultural treasures.

Since their founding in 1978, they have led many preservation efforts that parallel their work on the Monroe residence. In 2021, community advocates and the Conservancy succeeded in designating the Sister Mary Corita Studio a Historic-Cultural Monument. Most recently operating as a dry cleaner’s, in the ‘60s the building was once the artistic home of the “Pop Art Nun,” who used screen prints to raise awareness about poverty, racism, women’s rights, and the Vietnam War. Much as in the case of the Monroe residence, the property owners fought the designation, insisting that the building had changed too much to be worth preserving. The City Council disagreed.

“When we tried to make the case [for saving the building] people had all these questions about its integrity,” said President and CEO Adrian Scott Fine. “Then, in one of the hearings, a Cultural Heritage commissioner said, ‘Would we be having this same argument if it was Andy Warhol’s studio?’ And that sticks with me.”

Today, the Corita Art Center continues to seek ways to preserve Sister Corita’s legacy at her former studio.

Telling Women’s Stories

A 2,900 square foot Spanish Colonial revival house built in 1929, the Monroe residence isn’t architecturally unique, and the actress didn’t live there for long. Its current owners claim that the house has been remodeled so many times since Monroe’s time that it lacks historic integrity . So why is it important to preserve?

“This was the only house that she sought out, bought, and lived on her own. It was a place where she was making a life for herself as a single person,” noted Fine. That put Monroe in a unique position in an era when barely 0.1 percent of single women her age owned homes. She had recently divorced playwright Arthur Miller when she bought the house, and the quiet cul-de-sac served as a bucolic retreat during a time when she was struggling with depression and anxiety, a dependence on barbiturates, and a number of debilitating physical ailments. Many contemporaries noted that she saw the house as a fresh start for her life and career.

The Monroe residence also serves as an example of the challenges faced by those seeking to preserve women’s history. “Marilyn Monroe was someone of enormous privilege,” observed Lindsay Mulcahy, the Conservancy’s Neighborhood Outreach Coordinator. “If it's this hard to designate her house, what about women whose names aren't in the historical record?”

“Telling the story of women’s places is hard because women’s voices aren’t always accessible, even when it comes to someone like Marilyn,” Mulcahy added. That’s because women are less likely to show up in property records, court documents, and other materials that historians use to recreate the past. But that doesn’t mean they weren’t there. “It reminds me of our work on the nomination for the Ozawa boarding houses. All of the documents are in men’s names, and only through oral histories with families did I learn that it was women who were behind running and expanding this economic enterprise.”

In general, preservationists prefer not to move historic buildings because it strips them of context. Given that Monroe chose the house in part based on its location and the privacy it offered, changing the house’s location would change the nature of the story it tells. Additionally, Fine wonders how much of the house can be safely moved, and if an appropriate new location could even be found.

Still, the Conservancy hopes to find a solution that is amenable to everyone. “When we approach this work, we try to be problem solvers,” said Fine. “That doesn’t mean we’re not going to be an advocate for the historic place. But our goal is still to find a win-win that makes the owners happy but ultimately honors the historic place and tells its story.”