A Very Brady Neighborhood

In which recognize the strangely familiar in the curiously mundane

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Look familiar... ?


No? Maybe this will jog your memory...

Still nothing? Try this...

Getting the picture? Fact is, I've been cycling past this house on Dilling Street, going to and from the Aroma Coffee House (the best little coffee house in the Valley) for two years now and have often thought, "My but that house does look familiar..." Then, recently, one of my coevals at the office mentioned that Studio City, where I live, is also the home of the Brady Bunch house -- meaning, of course, the house used in the exterior "establishing shots" for the show.

So I did a bit of research on this InterWeb thingy and lo! It turns out that the house I have been passing-by and the Brady Bunch House are indeed one in the same. The central window has mysteriously disappeared, palm trees and a rather ugly wall have sprung up, but it's the same house and no mistake.

Both my photo and the studio publicity pic of the house make it seem quite rural, as if Eichler suddenly went country. In fact the house abuts the L.A. Trench… excuse me… "River." But just beyond the house and over the river is Ventura Boulevard, a Mobil station, a 76, a Ralph's, a 7-11, a number of shopping cart-pushing bums and all manner of concrete flotsam. For the Valley, it's about as urban as it gets. Just goes to show how the camera lies, and camera lies are what Hollywood's built upon.

See the hill behind the house? That's north face of the Hollywood Hills (or the Santa Monica Mountains, depending on how you slice it). I live at the foot of those hills.