The city of Los Angeles is urging a judge to deny injunctive relief to the owners of Marilyn Monroe’s former Brentwood home, who want to block the city from making the residence a historic cultural monument and interfering with the couple’s desire to demolish it.
Attorneys for real estate heiress Brinah Milstein and her husband, producer Roy Bank, previously filed court papers with Los Angeles Superior Court Judge James Chalfant in which they say the city is violating the law by trying to give the home historical recognition. The pair bought the residence last July for $8.35 million and have obtained a demolition permit from the city.
The petition seeks a court order blocking the monument designation and allowing the plaintiffs to move forward with their planned razing so they can demolish the Monroe structure to expand their current home, which is adjacent to the property.
But on Tuesday, lawyers for the City Attorney’s Office cited multiple examples of why the couple should not prevail. They say members of the public flooded city phones and emails last Sept. 5 to “express their dismay” at the imminent demolition of the property and express their desire for the city to preserve the property.
According to petitioners’ court papers, they will suffer irreparable harm without a preliminary injunction. In a sworn declaration, Bank says recent publicity about the case has drawn gawkers and traffic to the area’s narrow streets.
“As owners of the property, my wife and I cannot even begin to estimate the damage to us and our rights if the city’s intended designation of the property goes through,” Bank says in a sworn declaration in support of the preliminary injunction. “We will be mired in the heavy burden of owning, perpetually, a tourist magnet creating a circus atmosphere harmful to us and our neighbors.”
But in their court papers, lawyers for the City Attorney’s Office counter that Bank and Milstein cannot show irreparable harm by speculating that tourists will travel to their neighborhood if the City Council is not enjoined from voting on the issue.
“Moreover, the city has no control over members of the public who travel to Helena Drive, which is a right-of-way accessible to the public by right and a preliminary injunction would not block future public trips there,” the lawyers for the city argue.
Bank and Milstein filed the petition May 6, alleging “illegal and unconstitutional conduct” by the city “with respect to the house where Marilyn Monroe occasionally lived for a mere six months before she tragically committed suicide 61 years ago.”
The couple allege the city violated its own codes and procedures in pushing for the monument designation.
“All of these backroom machinations were in the name of preserving a house which in no way meets any of the criteria for an historic cultural monument,” the petition states. “That much is bolstered by the fact, among others, that for 60 years through 14 owners and numerous remodels and building permits issued by the city, the city has taken no action regarding the now-alleged `historic’ or `cultural’ status of the house.”
The monument application has been working its way through the city process, receiving approval in January from the Cultural Heritage Commission and later from the council’s Planning and Land Use Management Committee. A hearing on the preliminary injunction is scheduled for June 4.