The Former Menendez Family Home

Menendez Brothers House (10 of 11)

Just around the corner from Vincente Minnelli’s former abandoned mansion (which I blogged about yesterday) is the palatial Elm Drive residence where on August 20th, 1989, brothers Lyle and Erik Menendez (then 22- and 19-years-old, respectively) shot and killed their parents, entertainment company executive Jose and housewife Mary Louise, aka “Kitty.”  (I honestly cannot believe that the murders took place in 1989!  I would have guessed them to have occurred far more recently.)  The case that followed would become one of the most-famous and most-watched of the century, rivaled only by that of O.J. Simpson – which is ironic, but more on that later.  I first became interested in the Elm Drive house earlier this year while reading the book You’ll Never Make Love in This Town Again, one of the chapters of which was written by actress Robin Greer whose husband, businessman Mark Slotkin, custom-built the property.

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The Mediterranean-style home was originally constructed in 1927, but was completely redesigned by Slotkin in 1974 and became his and Robin’s primary residence.  Slotkin’s rebuild featured six bedrooms, eight baths, 9,063 square feet of living space, a pool, a tennis court, and a two-story guest house with its own sitting room, full bath, bedroom, and two-car garage.  And here’s where the irony comes in.  Greer and Slotkin were longtime friends of O.J. Simpson’s, and Robin reportedly hosted Nicole Brown Simpson’s baby shower, when she was pregnant with Sydney, at the Elm Drive manse in 1985.  How’s that for eerie?  Robin even states in You’ll Never Make Love in This Town Again that Nicole named Sydney after Robin’s character on Ryan’s Hope.  In October 1988, after Mark and Robin decided to divorce, the estate was put on the market and sold to the Menendez family.  They would live in it for less than a year.  (Ironically enough, Robin was also at the center of a very interesting – and heartbreaking – Los Angeles Times story about an autograph collector’s unsuccessful quest that caught my eye this past July.)

Menendez Brothers House (1 of 11)

Menendez Brothers House (11 of 11)

On the evening of August 20th, 1989, Erik and Lyle murdered their parents with shotguns while the couple sat on the couch in their den watching The Spy Who Loved Me.  Jose was shot five times, Kitty nine.  The brothers, feigning grief, claimed that the killings had most likely been conducted by the mob.  Their strange behavior was a red flag to investigators, though.  Just three days after the murders, Lyle and Erik began blowing through their inheritance, going on extensive shopping sprees and ultimately spending over $1 million in six months time.  Their purchases included a $64,000 Porsche, a Rolex watch, $40,000 worth of clothing, and, oddest of all, one of Lyle’s favorite restaurants in Princeton, Chuck’s Spring Street Café.  Erik wound up confessing the crime to his therapist, L. Jerome Oziel, quite fittingly on Halloween day 1989.  When Lyle found out, he became infuriated and threatened Oziel.  The therapist taped some later conversations with the brothers and Oziel’s mistress informed police of the recordings in March 1990.  The brothers were arrested that same month and charged with multiple murder for financial gain.  The first trial, in 1994, resulted in hung juries, but they were both convicted and given life sentences during their retrial in 1996.

Menendez Brothers House (5 of 11)

Menendez Brothers House (7 of 11)

The Elm Drive house has been sold twice since the murders – first in 1993 to mystery television writer William Link and then in 2001 to a telecommunications executive named Sam Delug.  Thinking about a normal family living their day-to-day life on the premises, I am reminded of the following quote by crime novelist Denise Hamilton from her article “Bringing Out the Dead” which was printed in the July 2013 issue of Los Angeles magazine:  “And I wondered, Do bricks and mortar retain memories of crimes committed in airless rooms?  Can violence sear a pattern into walls that no layers of paint can cover?  Is this small patch of earth forever cursed?”  Thankfully though, it looks like the macabre history of the house has not prevented Mr. Delug from celebrating Halloween, as you can see in this photograph on the Find a Death website.

Menendez Brothers House (2 of 11)

Menendez Brothers House (9 of 11)

Some sort of construction took place at the residence in 2002 (as you can also see on Find a Death) and the interior was reportedly gutted, but the exterior still looks pretty much exactly the same today as it did when Jose and Kitty owned it.  Oddly enough, though, a gate that used to surround the property was taken down during the remodel.  With a dwelling as notorious as this one, you’d think the owners would have wanted to put a fence up, not take one down!

Menendez Brothers House (6 of 11)

Menendez Brothers House (8 of 11)

And while there are rumors that Elton John, Michael Jackson, Prince, and members of the band U2 all rented the mansion at different points in time, being that Mark Slotkin sold it directly to Jose and Kitty, I do not see how that could be possible – unless, of course, they were tenants prior to the home’s 1974 rebuild.

Menendez Brothers House (3 of 11)

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

Menendez Brothers House (4 of 11)

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The Menendez Brothers’ former house is located at 722 North Elm Drive in Beverly Hills.

16 Replies to “The Former Menendez Family Home”

  1. These brothers were sick BECAUSE of what their evil parents did to them….FOR YEARS! The parents deserved what they got….although I would’ve made them suffer a hellava lot more. I applaud the brothers. The prosecutors did a piss poor job… they should’ve locked up OJ and let these brothers walk! Hope the parents burned in hell.

  2. While other elements of this are spot-on, you twice mention that the house was remodeled by Slotkin in ’74. It was, in fact, ’84. Slotkin and Robin lived just two blocks away prior to that, at Alpine Dr. and Lomitas. BTW, when Slotkin & Robin lived there, there was no fence/gate. That was added later on.

    1. Let’s set the record straight about a few simple skewed facts.
      1. House remodeled in 1983-4
      2. Fence was constructed during the remodel in 1983.
      3. Mark and Robin lived in the house from 1984-86
      4, Correction on Brian Clark’s mention of Alpine and Lomitas. In fact, it was Foothill and Lomitas. Brian probably didn’t notice the impressive fencing as the gate was always open to him. Mark and Brian played tennis at the house.
      5. Slotkin and Greer were very good friends of the Simpsons; Slotkin since 1976 and Greer Since the early 80’s.

      1. Curious, I read somewhere that the Menendez actually were renting this home while their actual home in Calabasas was having some work done. Was this only be rented at the time?

        1. No, the Menendez family bought the home, they were not renting it. They left the Calabasas area (though they did not sell and still owned the Calabasas house at the time of the murders) after Lyle and Erik were busted for burglarizing their neighbors homes and moved to Beverly Hills.

  3. Wow! The Find A Death post says that after the murder, the brothers tried to buy tickets to the movie, “License to Kill”!

  4. Wow gorgeous house, you’d never know what had gone on in there just by looking at it! Drew once said she was asked out by one of the brothers only a few weeks before the murders. Luckily she turned him down!

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