Well-known Brady Bunch home awarded Los Angeles landmark standing | Los Angeles

Here’s the story … of how a modest mid-century home became a Los Angeles landmark.

The Los Angeles city council voted unanimously on Wednesday to designate the Brady Bunch house in the San Fernando Valley as a historic-cultural monument.

The vote grants landmark protection to the house on Dilling Avenue that was used for exterior shots of the TV sitcom that ran from 1969 to 1974.

Interior scenes were shot on a soundstage, with sets that bore no resemblance to the property that become a photo-op magnet for Brady Bunch fans.

The show, which lived on for decades in syndication, featured the comic travails of a family of six blended-family siblings – “the youngest one in curls”, as the theme song explained.

The shingle-and-stone home with a peaked roof also appeared in the 1995 big-screen film The Brady Bunch Movie and its sequel.

The landmark status protects the home, built in 1959, from demolition or major renovations – but does not prohibit them. If owners ever decide to make big changes, they would be subject to a design review, and the Cultural Heritage Commission can delay the process to find preservation solutions.

The non-profit LA Conservancy pushed for the landmark status and chief executive, Adrian Scott Fine, said he was thrilled it was approved. He said fans of the show have a personal connection to the property.

“If you watched The Brady Bunch, you knew this house. People make a pilgrimage to see it,” Fine said on Wednesday. “To have it designated like this, it makes it all the sweeter.”

When the house went on the market in 2018, the cable network HGTV won a bidding war that drove the price up to $3.5m – or $1.6m over the listing price for the then-2,400-sq-ft residence.

The house was expanded, remodeled and redecorated to give it trademark elements of the set version, including the wood-paneled living room with a floating staircase and an orange-and-green kitchen.

The process was documented in the four-part HGTV miniseries A Very Brady Renovation.