Here’s the story of a lovely lady … who bought the home featured in The Brady Bunch and meticulously and lovingly re-created it for fans with plans to open it to the public this summer.
Tina Trahan, a historic home enthusiast and the wife of former HBO chief executive Chris Albrecht, purchased the house — used for exterior shots in the beloved series — three years ago and set about re-creating the interior to match the show’s actual sets. Now, she’s partnered with Bucket Listers, described as a media experiences brand that turns“everyday moments into unforgettable adventures,” to open the house for a limited time this summer to raise money for Wags and Walks, a Los Angeles nonprofit dog rescue dedicated to saving at-risk dogs and helping them find loving homes. (This follows on the heels of a sold-out three-day run in November. Dubbed The Brady Experience, fans can buy tickets to tour the property now through July 17.)
The Hollywood Reporter got a look inside the home. When you enter, you feel like you’re not only stepping into the iconic set of the show but also into back in time. There are period-specific details along with Brady Bunch-themed items to discover like handwritten notes, engraved sports trophies and photos of the Brady TV family. Trahan invested a great deal of time meticulously re-creating the look and feel of the house. She set about sourcing decor, furniture and other items to make it appear as authentic as possible and match what was seen on the show as closely as she could. She sometimes was up until 4 a.m. searching online to find the items: “I started to wonder what I was doing with all this time before I started looking for all these things,” she jokes.
The Brady Bunch cast, from left: Susan Olsen, Mike Lookinland, Eve Plumb, Christopher Knight, Maureen McCormick, Barry Williams, Ann B. Davis, Florence Henderson and Robert Reed in season 3.
Courtesy of Everett Collection
The stairs inside the house as they look today.
Courtesy of The Brady Experience
Of course, some items were hard to make out on the screen, and there were some areas of the house that obviously were not part of the set and therefore never seen on TV. For help with this, Trahan turned to the show’s uber-fans. “There are some people who are such Brady Bunch fans — you wouldn’t believe it,” she marvels. “They know the name of every episode. They know everything, and so I consulted with them a lot.” For example, she noticed that the placement of a wall-hanging changed throughout the run of the show, and she sought input on exactly how to hang it.
“There’s no detail missed,” says Derek Berry, president of experiences at Bucket Listers. “Tina sourced items; she had stuff re-created. She has actual items that were on the show. And there’s so many Easter eggs in here. I’ve never seen a level of detail like there is here.”
The house, located in Studio City, California, has been back in the pop culture eye for several years now. In 2018, HGTV bought the property for $3.2 million in a bidding war that also included the likes of Lance Bass. The network invested $1.9 million in the property, adding 2,000 square feet, including a full second story, and the renovation was filmed for the series A Very Brady Renovation. The network put the house up for sale in 2023, when Trahan purchased it for $3.2 million.
“I went to see it when it was for sale, and when I walked in, I was just like, ‘Hold on. What is going on?’ It just felt like I was in my TV after school when I was 10 years old,” Trahan says. “It was crazy. If you could go back right now and walk into your home when you were 10 years old and everything was still in the same place, that’s kind of that’s what it feels like — like your dad’s glasses on the side table — that’s what it feels like to me.”
The outside of the house as it looks today.
Courtesy of The Brady Experience
Christopher Knight, who played Peter Brady on the show, which ran from 1969-74, was a bit wary of who the buyer would turn out to be. He thought there was a chance that someone might be buying it for the wrong reasons. “I thought we would watch fall apart on social media,” he says. “It’d be Airbnb, Brady-style, and that wouldn’t last long. There’d be a lot of fun with that, and then it’d be like watching something degrade that you don’t want to degrade.”
But when he heard about Trahan and her idea of making it a “living museum,” he got on board. “And then we meet her, and she proves that she’s sort of a ‘Brady angel’ for the house.” In fact, Trahan had been working to get the house designated as a historical landmark; her efforts came to fruition in March when the Los Angeles City Councilvoted to designate the house as a Historic-Cultural Monument.
While Trahan is “beyond excited” for fans to get to experience the house, she wants to keep it as a special experience. She has zero plans to list it on Airbnb, citing a desire to be mindful of the neighbors. She also doesn’t want to see it damaged or destroyed. “This is a museum to me,” she says. “I don’t want people dropping meatballs on the sofa.”
In fact, the home is not actually livable. Sure, you could spend a night there and sleep on the beds or play one of the board games lying around, and there’s a working bathroom, but the kitchen and fireplaces are not actually functional.
The Brady Bunch cast, from left: Barry Williams, Christopher Knight, Mike Lookinland and Robert Reed, pictured in the boys’ bedroom in season 2.
The boys’ bedroom inside the house as it looks today.
Courtesy of The Brady Experience
Ironically, when Knight was starring on the show, he says, “I was led to believe as a kid, every time I was suspecting that the Bradys lived in California, I was being told, no, they don’t.” (The show never specified where the family lived.) But now, stepping inside the renovated property, “I have to constantly remind myself, I’m not on the set,” he says. “It’s fantasy become real. You look through the window and you see sky. You open the front door, there’s a street, you have four walls, you have a ceiling, so you have all bits and pieces that were fantasized about not really being there. It feels very real. It wasn’t real, but now it is, and so it lives forever, and it’s nice that others find comfort in that.”
So, why is this a “bucket list” item? “It’s a great question,” says Berry. “We’re in the world of producing events all the time, and we work with a bunch of different studios and IPs. And honestly, every time we announced [a new] one, people were like, ‘You have to do the Brady house,’ and we’re like, it’s a real thing.”
In other words, rather than just re-creating the set, they were able to take the actual house and make it a more meaningful experience. “This show is timeless,” he says. “It’s been around for years and years, and people still love it. People like to come by and check it out. Now, you don’t just get to like drive by. You can actually schedule a tour inside, which is pretty awesome.”
The Brady Bunch cast, from left: Eve Plumb, Ann B. Davis and Florence Henderson, as pictured in the kitchen in season 2.
Courtesy of Everett Collection
The kitchen inside the house as it looks today.
Courtesy of The Brady Experience
The Brady Bunch cast, from left: Christopher Knight, Susan Olsen, Barry Williams, Mike Lookinland, Robert Reed, Florence Henderson, Eve Plumb, Maureen McCormick and Ann B. Davis, as pictured in the living room on the show.
Courtesy of Everett Collection
The living room inside the house as it looks today.
Courtesy of The Brady Experience