Marilyn’s final, ‘modest’ home at 12305 Fifth Helena Drive in the Los Angeles suburb of Brentwood – bought less than a year before her death, and the only property she ever owned – is back on the market for $6.9 million, Mark David reports for Variety. (It was last sold in 2010 for $3.8 million. For the definitive account of her time at Fifth Helena, read Cursum Perficio: Marilyn Monroe’s Brentwood Hacienda by Gary Vitacco Robles.)
“The bottle blond bombshell personally searched for and purchased the 1929 Spanish hacienda style home in the coveted and star-studded Helenas district in early 1962. Some reports say she paid $67,000 and others $90,000.
Privately and securely situated at the end of an itty-bitty cul-de-sac behind a high wall, secured gate and canopy of trees on what marketing materials declare as the ‘largest parcel of all the Helena streets,’ the red tile roofed, single-story residence measures in at an extraordinarily modest by today’s celebrity standards 2,624 square feet. Renovated, updated and expanded over the years by the various owners, the residence retains a number of original architectural details such as thick white stucco walls, casement windows, some fitted with wrought iron grills, terra-cotta tile floors, Gothic arch doorways, and vaulted, exposed wood ceilings.
The Helenas, a series of 25 tiny cul-de-sacs that run from San Vicente Boulevard to just above Sunset Boulevard at the eastern edge of the posh Brentwood Park neighborhood, has long been attractive to Tinseltown types.”