Here’s the story … of a house named Brady

This is the story, of a house named Brady. In the real world, just another ordinary house, in another ordinary suburban street of Los Angeles. But in the world of pop culture and 20th-century television nostalgia, however, this is no ordinary house. This is the house from The Brady Bunch.

The story of the house is the story of one of the world’s most beloved sitcoms. It is also the story of one of TV’s greatest illusions: the house itself was only ever used to shoot the exterior. Everything else – the den, the teeter-totter and that orange formica kitchen – only ever existed as a set at Paramount Studios. And in our imaginations.

That changed in 2019, when the actors who played the six Brady kids reunited to renovate the interior, and restore it to a near-perfect replica of the show’s lovingly remembered sets. The resulting transformation turned the Brady house into a real-life architectural and cultural icon.

“People have a very emotional reaction to walking into this house because it’s their childhood,” vintage LA historian Alison Martino said, as she led me on one of the first tours of the house since it was closed to the public in 2019. “Seeing a show that they’ve loved their whole lives and then being able to walk into it is like a dream.”

That’s precisely how it feels. The recreation is breathtaking, down to every ordinary detail: Jan’s locket in the girl’s bedroom, Mike’s plans for Beebe Gallini’s powder puff-shaped cosmetics factory in the den, and all the letters to the Dear Libby column, all of which featured in memorable episodes.

“It is a living museum,” Martino, the daughter of legendary singer Al Martino, said. “But there’s no velvet rope, so you can get up close to everything. Every little detail is exactly like it was on the show, exactly like it was on the set. It is like walking back into 1969.”

Walking up the stairs to the boys’ and girls’ bedrooms, with their connecting bathroom, is terrifyingly familiar. Mike’s den, off the living room, is as pristine as it was when the show’s last episode aired, in March 1974. And the kitchen is a sight to behold: orange formica benchtops, avocado-green cupboards, the double oven and the brick indoor barbecue. The only thing missing? Beloved family housekeeper, Alice.

The real house is smaller in scale than the original sets, so the new staircase is shorter than the original, and a few rooms are in different positions. But ascending those stairs, it’s hard not to imagine you’re back in the late 1960s and early 1970s. I would have launched into a verse or two of Sunshine Day, but good sense prevailed on the day.

Back in 1999, the actors who played Greg, Marcia, Peter, Jan, Bobby and Cindy – Barry Williams, Maureen McCormick, Christopher Knight, Eve Plumb, Mike Lookinland and Susan Olsen – were recruited by the HGTV channel for A Very Brady Renovation, in which they rolled up their sleeves and restored their fictional former home’s interior.

For them, in a sense, it was the final chapter of a life-long journey that began in September 1969, and carried through five seasons of The Brady Bunch (1969-1974), an animated series The Brady Kids (1972-1974), the unforgettably bad The Brady Bunch Variety Hour (1976), The Brady Brides (1981), the telemovie A Very Brady Christmas (1988), and finally The Bradys (1990).

It is a strange place to explore, like stepping into the TV screen. And it is unexpectedly sentimental. Not just because of its connection to the history of television, but because its DNA is written into the fabric of our collective childhoods.

In Australia, it aired originally in prime-time, but was replayed endlessly by the Ten Network through the 1980s and 1990s, in the 5pm-6pm slot, sometimes paired with another iconic sitcom, Get Smart. It played on pay TV, on the TV1 channel. It still airs, on 10Peach and Paramount+.

Martino, a friend of the home’s current owners, has re-opened it to private tours, as a fundraiser for several LA-based charities. She says fans visiting the house are often deeply affected by their stay. Some have even been moved to tears.

It’s easy to understand. The Brady Bunch was sold on laughs, but endures because of its emotional resonance. It was not so much a family sitcom as a thesis on the messy nature of blended families. We related as middle child Jan struggled to work out her place, and Peter was bullied by school thug Buddy Hinton. We teared up when Carol regained her voice in time to sing at Christmas.

And it is, in the end, so much more than just this pile of wood, stucco and stone. As a kid of the right age, it is a temple to my childhood, where a lovely lady, bringing up three very lovely girls, and a man named Brady, busy with three boys of his own, knew that happily ever after was much more than a hunch.

“There’s an idea that there are certain kinds of history that we preserve, but this is the kind of history that many people don’t preserve,” Martino said, referring to the sometimes fleeting relationship we have with iconic film, TV and cultural locations.

The house, which is located in LA’s San Fernando Valley, is currently under consideration for landmark status. “Which will make it a historical structure, even after it’s sold to new owners down the line,” Martino said. “This is a living work of art.”

Private tours of the Brady Bunch house, hosted by Alison Martino, are raising money for Wags & Walks Adoption Centre in Los Angeles and The John Ritter Foundation for Aortic Health. Details here.

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