15 Fun Facts About the Real Brady House and its Famous TV Family

The actual Brady Bunch house is located at 11222 Dilling Street in Studio City, California, in a residential neighbourhood. Producers at the time figured the house looked modest enough to suit audiences, while at the same time resembling something an architect like Mike Brady might live in. Today, fans from around the world come to the Brady house to photograph it, making it the second-most photographed house in America behind the White House.

The Brady Bunch

was filmed on sound stages, so the young cast members had no idea where the real house was located. Many of them only discovered it well after the series ended, and actor Barry Williams, who played Greg, even had lunch there once without realizing its significance. “I was invited by a mutual friend for a lunch in the Valley. And I went into the house and we’re having lunch and they’re all looking at me and laughing,” he says. “They asked me, ‘Doesn’t this remind you of something?’ And I’m looking around going, ‘No.’ They had to walk me back outside to look at the photograph that we see on television for me to make the connection because the inside [didn’t] resemble it at all.”

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When the home went on the market in the summer of 2018 it was the first time in 50 years that the three-bedroom, three-bath, 2,477-square-foot property was available to purchase. The listing also came with a hefty $1.9 million price tag. Pretty impressive, right? What’s even more impressive is that the winning bid came from HGTV, which paid $3.5 million to own it. That’s nearly double the original asking price but, in our opinion, money well spent!

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When the real Brady Bunch home hit the market there was no shortage of people interested in owning it. Among them was former NSYNC crooner and aspiring astronaut Lance Bass. He made his intentions known to fans and was even convinced he had the winning bid at one point, but in the end it wasn’t meant to be. “I’m a huge Brady fan, so I wanted to turn the house into what we all knew from the television show because all they did was use it for exterior,” he told People at the time. “The inside looks nothing like it, so I was gonna add a lot of square footage, add a second floor and try to turn it into that iconic set.” Looks like he’s going to see his dream realized, at least.

Lance Bass wasn’t the only celeb who was interested in buying the home. The show’s creator Sherwood Schwartz’s granddaughter had a losing bid, while Maureen McCormick, who played Marcia, toyed with the idea of making an offer. But once McCormick saw the frenzied excitement surrounding the listing she stepped aside. One person that was never interested, though, was Susan Olsen, who played Cindy. “I was cool with Lance getting it,” she says. “Everybody was calling me and texting me and going, ‘Don’t you want it?’ I was like, ‘No.’ Why would I want to live in a house that has fans around it a lot of the time?… And when I heard that Lance Bass was interested, I don’t know if you remember, but years ago, he wanted to be an astronaut, and he went to Russia, and he went to cosmonaut school, and I thought ‘This guy is a living Bobby Brady’s fantasy.’ He’s perfect.”

In order for the HGTV crew and the original Brady Bunch kid actors to actually renovate the real house and transform it into the one we all know and love from the series, they had to dig deep. Literally! They dug down in order to recreate a second level. They also added an addition to the back, and we can only assume the iconic bathroom that all six kids originally shared will finally feature a toilet. (Back then, it wasn’t exactly kosher to show such things on television!)

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HGTV called in the big guns, including the Property Brothers, to help transform the home, but all six of the now-grown former child stars were also on hand. Doing the renos was pretty much business as usual for Christopher Knight, who played Peter. He’s built several homes since his time on the show. “I built [one of the] homes that I lived in,” he says. “Luckily, we had some money when we ended our days with The Brady Bunch and I put mine into real estate at the right time. That ultimately led to renovations. And I did my first, my only rental, when I was like 24. I did it all myself with just a little help from my brother, and swore I’d never do it again.”

Christopher Knight isn’t the only one with a reno background. Maureen McCormick admits she’s also done lots of home renovations with her husband, while Mike Lookinland, who played Bobby, reveals that he’s been in the industry for years. “I’ve spent the last 14 years running a small company, and we make concrete countertops, of all things,” he says. “HGTV came and spent a whole day with me for their digital content. We were plugging my concrete business pretty hard and halfway through I was thinking, ‘Man, I don’t know about this, because what I really want do is retire.’ Now it’s going to boom. What am I going to do?”

You could say the Brady kids have always been hands-on in terms of the decorating, at least. McCormick recalls how they were all asked to bring in some personal items to help decorate their rooms, although they they didn’t always get their belongs back once production wrapped. “I brought in a giraffe,” she says. “I don’t know if you guys remember that big giraffe that was in the girls’ bedroom, but I brought that in and, unfortunately, they took it. I never got it back.”

This show is the first time all of the original child actors are back together to do a Brady-related project, and they admit they felt some of that same magic in getting the band back together. Part of the reason was because so many of them are already into HGTV content – especially McCormick. “I’m very addicted to Chip and Joanna Gaines. I mean, oh my gosh, I just love watching,” she reveals. “I want to go in and live with them and learn everything from them. I love the Property Brothers. I love Jasmine Roth, who’s got a show, Hidden Potential. And I love the Fords – the brother and sister.”

When you grow up on a set with a bunch of fake siblings, we imagine things aren’t always peaceful. It seems like that was the case for Maureen McCormick and Eve Plumb, who played Jan. We all know that Jan and “Marcia, Marcia, Marcia” didn’t always get along on the show, but it appears that life does sometimes imitate art. Various sources have reported that the two actresses weren’t exactly friendly growing up, but these days it’s clear their beef has finally been put to rest. Let’s chalk it all up to growing pains, shall we?

If you watch repeats closely enough you can definitely see chemistry between Barry Williams (Greg) and Maureen McCormick (Marcia). That’s because they had a real-life romance while filming the series. Williams revealed as much in his 1992 autobiography, Growing Up Brady: I Was a Teenage Greg. Oddly enough, he also revealed that he once went on a “date” with his TV mom, Florence Henderson. That was innocent enough though, since he was 16 at the time and she was 36, married and had four kids.

Actor Robert Reed (Mike Brady) was one opinionated guy. He and the producers were constantly battling as Reed tried to make the series better, and they just wanted him to play his part. Throughout the series there were threats of recasts and angry words, and it all culminated in Reed completely sitting out from the series finale, which he didn’t agree with. Yup, Mike Brady isn’t in the show’s last-ever episode, folks.

When the series was originally cast, the powers-that-be wanted the kids to have the same hair colour as their onscreen parents. When Henderson was cast as the notable matriarch, producers wanted Olsen’s naturally blonde hair even lighter to match her TV mom. So they bleached it and bleached it, to the point where it started coming out in clumps during the second season. Finally the network decided enough was enough and everyone finally left Cindy’s hair alone.

Remember the Brady family’s loyal dog, Tiger? As eagle-eyed fans may recall, he disappeared from the series midway through the second season. That’s because the real-life dog was accidentally run over by a car on the Paramount lot, and the trainer wasn’t able to find a suitable dog to take his place. Poor pooch! We bet whoever was driving that car felt pretty horrible to have accidentally killed a famous TV mutt.