When my college roommate Mark came to visit me in L.A. for the first time, almost 25 years ago, he had something very specific on his must-visit list. “I want to see ‘The Brady Bunch’ house,” he said.
After a little bit of digging (the information superhighway seemed more like an unpaved one-lane road at the time), he was standing in front of the familiar facade grinning from ear to ear, throwing a thumbs-up sign while I snapped his picture.
We both knew full well that “The Brady Bunch” had actually been filmed on a studio lot and that the house we were standing in front of was a bit of Hollywood magic, appearing only in establishing shots. But it felt special. And more important, it felt accessible. We could drive right up and see a piece of our childhood right through the car window, a few feet off the street.
A few years later, while looking for a parking spot, I happened upon another sitcom scene from my childhood — just two blocks from our apartment: the house the Cunninghams (and for a while, Fonzie) called home on “Happy Days.” I remember feeling the same tingle of accessible nostalgia.
Those two drive-by encounters made me realize that there were probably all kinds of curbside closeups out there to be discovered; instantly recognizable pieces of Hollywood history that could be visited — and even photographed — by car. Once I started digging in, I realized I wasn’t wrong at all.
Thanks to being the epicenter of the entertainment industry, the Greater Los Angeles area is home to so many high-profile homes that the entire Southland is practically a studio backlot.
Because I’m a fan of the comedy genre, I started trying to visit as many sitcom settings as I could. The list here includes some of the most recognizable and street-visible homes and apartment buildings I’ve visited to date.
The first of those criteria is key because, over the years, renovations (and no small amount of hedge growth) have obscured many a once-famous facade: “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” house in Brentwood and the “Three’s Company” apartment building in Santa Monica, to name two I’d hoped to lay eyes on. The second criterion — that these sitcom set pieces be visible from the street — is important because these homes and apartment buildings are private property, so fans paying their respects should take care to do so from the public right of way.
With historic Hollywood writers’ and actors’ strikes now underway, it seems the perfect time to pay homage to the homes of sitcoms past, and it’s reassuring to know that even if the fall TV schedule ends up being a dumpster fire, some of our fan favorites are just around the corner. Literally.
