Real Estate Heiress Hatched Plan to Demolish Marilyn Monroe Home

A billionaire heiress has been identified as the buyer who planned to bulldoze the Brentwood home once owned by Marilyn Monroe.

Brinah Milstein Bank, wife of former reality TV producer Roy Bank, was behind the trust that filed plans to tear down the home next door at 12305 Fifth Helena Drive, according to Robb Report, which spoke to neighbors who said she has changed her mind.

Last month, her Glory of the Snow 1031 Trust paid $8.35 million in cash for the 2,900-square-foot Spanish hacienda-style home where the Hollywood film star was found dead in 1962. The trust is managed by Andrew Schure of Philadelphia, Roy Bank’s hometown.

It immediately filed plans to raze the house. Fan outrage from around the globe compelled the city of Los Angeles to place a hold on the demolition permit, with a motion to consider historical cultural monument status for the property.

“This is a great win for the time being,” Councilmember Traci Park, who led the preservation effort, said after the unanimous vote.

It was video of the property shared by Los Angeles-based tour company Esotouric that helped sniff out the plot by Milstein Bank to tear down the famous house next door. The drone footage revealed the wall and hedge between Milstein Bank’s larger house and Monroe’s hacienda had been removed, suggesting both properties were being combined into a 1-acre compound.”

She bought her 6,000-square-foot home next door at 12306 6th Helena Drive in 2016 for $8.2 million.

Immediate neighbors of the Monroe house have told Robb Report that they’ve spoken directly to Milstein, who they claim has changed her mind about tearing down the historic home.

Milstein Bank, 42, is a daughter of the late Carl Milstein, one of Cleveland’s most prominent real estate developers who in the 1970s served prison time for bribing a federal housing official. He also founded Associated Estates or AEC, one of the largest apartment owners in Ohio.

In 2015, AEC was sold for $2.5 billion. Some of Brinah Milstein Bank’s siblings are now executives at Milstein Asset Management, a single family office with properties and investments worth “billions of dollars.”

In addition to the side-by-side homes in Brentwood, records indicate Milstein Bank bought a Cape Cod-style home at 1580 East Oceanfront in Newport Beach in early 2021 for $8.2 million.

— Dana Bartholomew