As a general concept, historic preservation is a good thing. After all, once an historic structure is gone, it’s gone forever, and so is the history it embodies. For reasons both aesthetic and, as expressed by George Santayana, practical, remembering history matters. That said, it can also be subject to dumb abuse and be used to unfairly damage unwitting homeowners who are trapped by proponents who demand that historic structures be maintained, but refuse to shoulder the burden of their convictions.

Ilya Somin relates the story of what is very generously claimed to be the Marilyn Monroe house in Los Angeles.

The case began in 2023, when a California couple bought an unoccupied, deteriorating property on a dead-end residential street, intending to demolish and redevelop it after purchase. They applied for the appropriate permits, which the City of Los Angeles granted without objection after a standard 30-day hold. One day later, a local government official filed paperwork to designate the property a historic monument. The City then revoked the permits and approved the historic designation, rendering the property untouchable to its new owners, Brinah Milstein and Roy Bank.

To justify abruptly declaring the property a public monument, Los Angeles cited a former resident. Marilyn Monroe had owned the home for 157 days before her death in 1962. But few traces of the star remain today because the City ignored the property for over 60 years—without once raising a preservation concern—while 14 successive owners freely renovated both the home and grounds, eradicating any trace of Monroe’s time there.

The new historical designation prohibited the homeowners from using their own property—even banning repairs to damaged features without the approval of the City’s historical commission. It also left the homeowners facing a litany of threats to their safety. Although the City had declared the entire property a public monument, there was no way for the public to access the derelict house within its gates. Undeterred, fans flew drones overhead, trespassers scaled the walls, and burglars broke in hunting for traces of the property’s celebrated former tenant.

Initially, it’s borderline nonsensical to characterize the property as a public monument based on Marilyn Monroe owning the joint for 157 days. Monroe is an icon, but not everything she ever touched should be frozen in amber in perpetuity. Had this structure been important, it should have been maintained and cherished. Instead, it was left to rot, but for the fact that two people purchased the dilapidated property before it all came tumbling down. Historic structures need to be truly historic, not just quasi-related to someone whose name is well known.

The City of Angels could have purchased and restored it. It didn’t. The people who cared deeply about preserving the property could have purchased and restored it. They didn’t. The only two people who cared enough to do something with the property were Brinah Milstein and Roy Bank, who took the property free from any claim that it was a public historic monument. Had they known before purchasing that nothing could be done with the property, that would be one thing. They would have bought with their eyes open. But there was no indication of an issue until the day after they received approval to demolish the old structure to rebuild.

This case is a particularly egregious one because the “monument” designation destroys virtually all the property’s economic value, and that site has no genuine historical value, because subsequent owners destroyed virtually all trace of Marilyn Monroe’s brief occupation of the house. As the plaintiffs’ complaint explains, the former circumstance renders the designation a taking requiring payment of compensation under the Supreme Court’s 1992 ruling in Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council, which held that regulations that forbid all economically valuable uses of a property automatically qualify as “per se” takings.

That the claim of historic preservation value is ridiculous is bad enough. But even if there was a legitimate claim that this was a public historic monument, the resolution isn’t to burn good faith buyers who took without notice. LA can still buy the property. Heck, the buyers offered to move the structure, which is far more than they should have had to do to assuage the preservationists’ concerns. By denying any viable use of the property after the buyers paid for it, it is about as much a public taking as could be. And if it’s a public taking, then it should concomitantly be a public burden.

Unlike Ilya, I’m a huge fan of the preservation of historic structures. more so for the beauty of the structure than any association with a celebrity. But the legitimacy of designating a structure historic, and thus prohibiting its demolition or alteration that would undermine historic value depends on its actually being historic. It takes more than a tenuous connection to a well-known name, for 157 days no less, to make a structure historic.

More to the point, if a structure is to be preserved for the future public to enjoy and appreciate, then the burden of maintaining it falls squarely on the public. This is true when a structure is purchased with the understanding that it must be preserved as a public monument, but absolutely mandatory when the designation comes after the purchase by a good faith purchaser who finds out the day after that he’s saddled with an unbearable post facto burden rendering a structure worthless.