Marilyn Monroe’s Former Burbank Apartment Building

Shortly before I headed to Los Angeles for my weeklong birthday celebration with out-of-town friends Kim, Lavonna, Katie and Kaylee (that’s Katie and Kaylee in the above pic), I came across a Curbed post that mapped 43 properties where my girl Marilyn Monroe once lived.  The blurb practically had me foaming at the mouth, obvs.  I immediately sent the link to Lavonna and she added several of the addresses to her To-Stalk list, one of which was an apartment building located directly across the street from Warner Bros. Studio in Burbank.  Since the girls had already scheduled a WB VIP Tour for the trip, this particular locale was quite convenient and we included a stalk of it on that day’s itinerary.

[ad]

Prior to reading the Curbed post, I had no idea that Marilyn had ever called Burbank home.  According to the article, she lived in an apartment building at 131 South Avon Street for a very brief period during the summer of 1947 in what seemed to be some sort of house-sitting arrangement.

Per Realtor.com (and several other websites), the 13,283-square-foot structure (which I believe is comprised of 13 units) was originally built in 1835 – 179 years ago.  Yeah, that seems a bit ridiculous to me, too.  My guess is that the 1835 date is a typo (that somehow got picked up by numerous sources) and that the building was actually constructed in 1935.

  Realtor.com also notes that the property was renovated in 1995.  As you can see below, it definitely seems to have received a facelift at some point because the façade looks rather modern, especially the front doors and windows.

Because the building does look so new, I had originally wondered if Marilyn’s former domicile had been torn down at some point and a different edifice built in its place.  That does not appear to have been the case, though.  Pictured below is a 1972 aerial view of the property, as well as a current one.  As you can see, the structure of the building seems to be the same in both images.  Which means that Marilyn’s former home is actually still standing!  How incredibly cool is that?

A peek inside the front doors – courtesy of Lavonna.  Someone needs to tell the person in 102 that it’s time for the Christmas bow to come down. 

Marilyn’s former Burbank home is located two doors north of the “fake Fendi” building from Sex and the City, so we also did a little stalking of that locale.  And while we didn’t have any Fendi on us at the time, we were packing some Louis Vuitton (none of it fake, mmmkay!), so we just had to pose for a picture with it. 

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online.  And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 

Stalk It: Marilyn Monroe’s former apartment building is located at 131 South Avon Street in Burbank.  The fake Fendi building from Sex and the City is located two doors south at 141 South Avon Street.