Filming location aficionados were crushed to learn last month that the house where Keith Partridge (David Cassidy) and his four siblings lived on the beloved 1970s musical television sitcom “The Partridge Family” had been demolished. Formerly nestled on a curving horseshoe-shaped block known as Blondie Street, the residence was a mainstay of the Warner Bros. Ranch backlot in Burbank, a sister facility to Warner Bros. Studio. Although its façade had been altered considerably in the decades since the series aired, the razing served not only as a heartbreaking blow to fans worldwide but a sad harbinger of the Ranch’s impending redevelopment, which was announced in 2021.
Initially known as Columbia Ranch, the historic 32-acre property was constructed by movie mogul Harry Cohn in 1934 as ancillary production space for his growing Columbia Pictures Corporation. When the company partnered with Warner Bros. in 1972, the name was changed to Burbank Studio Ranch, and it ultimately transitioned to Warner Bros. Ranch following Columbia’s relocation of its main operations to Culver City in 1989.
One of Los Angeles’ most prolific filming sites, the facility is equipped with five soundstages, a multitude of production offices and a charming backlot complete with a park, a stretch of Bostonian-style townhouses, a swimming pool (aka Clark W. Griswold’s dream pool from “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation”) and Blondie Street (named in honor of the “Blondie” films, which were largely lensed at the Ranch).
Easily the most oft-filmed area of the lot, the latter is lined with 10 residential sets, most of them practical (meaning both their interiors and exteriors can be utilized as backdrops) and each boasting a thoroughly idyllic Anywhere, U.S.A. appeal that lends itself beautifully to the screen, especially the small screen. The scant stretch’s boob tube resume is so all-encompassing, Hollywood historian Steven Bingen summarized in his 2014 book Warner Bros.: Hollywood’s Ultimate Backlot, “This facility is the most recognizable of all surviving studio backlots. Not because it is the most photographed, but because the projects that used it were, from the late 1950s onward, primarily domestic-themed American situation comedies. As these series tended to run on television for years, sometimes decades, their standing sets, usually suburban homes, became as familiar to viewers as those viewers’ own suburbs and their own homes within these suburbs.”
-
Image Credit: Lindsay Blake for DIRT Despite its popularity with film crews, Blondie Street, along with the rest of the Ranch, is set to be razed in the coming months as part of a major expansion for Warner Bros., with the Partridge House leading the way. As the Los Angeles Times detailed in late 2021, the studio sold the fabled facility “as part of a previously announced deal but will lease it back from the new owners in 2025 after a more than $500-million makeover that will transform the lot in what will be one of the largest new studio developments in the country.” Jointly owned by the Worthe Real Estate Group and the San Francisco-based investment firm Stockbridge, the rebranded “Ranch Lot” (a rendering of which can be seen here) will feature “926,000 square feet of new construction, including 16 soundstages with connected production support space, a 320,000-square-foot office complex, a commissary, a parking garage and a dedicated set- and prop-building space.”
Jeff Nagler, president of Warner Bros. worldwide studio operations, told the paper, “Continuing to enhance our state-of-the-art studios and full-service offerings for our productions and partners is a key priority for our company, The new Ranch Lot development will certainly fulfill this goal in the Los Angeles area.”
The expansion comes at a high cost, though, considering the massive chunk of Hollywood history that Blondie Street represents.
-
Image Credit: Lindsay Blake for DIRT While each property on the block is noteworthy in its own right, the Partridge House truly stands out as an icon of retro TV. Originally constructed in 1953, its design, according to The Unofficial Columbia Ranch Site, was based upon one of the Sears Modern Homes, a set of 447 pre-fabricated dwellings sold by Sears, Roebuck and Co. via mail order catalog from 1908 through 1940. As the Sears Archives describes, “Sears was not an innovative home designer. Sears was instead a very able follower of popular home designs but with the added advantage of modifying houses and hardware according to buyer tastes. Individuals could even design their own homes and submit the blueprints to Sears, which would then ship off the appropriate precut and fitted materials, putting the homeowner in full creative control.” Thanks to their affordability and ease of construction, the structures began popping up across the U.S. landscape in droves, with Sears ultimately selling between 70,000 to 75,000 of the designs throughout the 32-year period that they were offered.
-
Image Credit: Lindsay Blake for DIRT The Partridge House was most likely inspired by the Glen Falls model, a two-story Dutch colonial charmer measuring just under 3,000 square feet with nine rooms, a gambrel roof and dormer windows. Initially unveiled by Sears in 1926, the pad came with a $4,398 price tag – about $75,000 today. Not a bad deal, especially considering that all supplies were shipped directly to the buyer “via railroad boxcar complete with nails and a 75-page instruction manual,” as the Vince Staten blog details.
-
Image Credit: Lindsay Blake for DIRT Upon its addition to the lot, the structure became a staple of the screen, appearing in a plethora of movies and television shows throughout its seven-decade history. As is typical with studio homes, its façade underwent numerous changes and reimaginings to suit each production’s various needs (including a complete rebuild following a fire in 1970) and, therefore, looked considerably different in recent years than it did when originally designed.
-
Image Credit: Columbia Pictures In its early days, the Partridge House popped up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo portraying the home of mayoral candidate Kevin McCluskey (Charles B. Fitzsimons) in the 1958 political satire “The Last Hurrah.”
-
Image Credit: Columbia Pictures Though only shown briefly in a single scene, a fleeting full view of the property is also visible in the far background of one of the movie’s earlier segments. As evidenced by the shot, at the time of the filming, the residence very closely resembled Sears’ Glen Falls model, with a peaked roof, large dormers and a front porch fashioned on its northern side.
-
Image Credit: CBS Soon after, the Partridge House started appearing regularly (sans front porch) on the 1959 television series “Dennis the Menace” as a rental property belonging to Mrs. Elkins (Irene Tedrow), the show’s resident cat lady.
-
Image Credit: ABC Mrs. Gladys Kravitz (played by both Alice Pearce and Sandra Gold), the nosy neighbor of Samantha Stephens (Elizabeth Montgomery), also lived at the dwelling on the classic 1964 sitcom “Bewitched.”
-
Image Credit: ABC As the name implies, the Partridge House was most prominently featured on “The Partridge Family,” which debuted in 1970. In a twist of bad luck, the home was destroyed in a fire later that same year, after just a handful of episodes had been lensed, and therefore had to be rebuilt in its entirety. Steven Bingen writes, “A tree in the front yard that also burned was not replaced. This second house, different from the first only because of this landscaping error, continued to be used throughout the run of that series, even reprising its role in a TV movie, ‘Come On Get Happy’ (1999), which was, aptly enough, about the making of ‘The Partridge Family.’”
-
Image Credit: ABC -
Image Credit: Lindsay Blake for DIRT According to The Unofficial Columbia Ranch Site, upon being rebuilt, the structure was also given a finished rear side and backyard, both of which appeared several times on the show, including in the season four episode “Maid in San Pueblo.” Aside from its paint color, that area of the property was left largely unchanged over the years and, up until the recent demolition, still closely resembled its “Partridge Family” self, much to the delight of lucky fans who toured the lot.
-
Image Credit: CBS Following a heavy remodel, the residence appeared as the home of Amanda King (Kate Jackson), purported to be at 4247 Maplewood Dr. in Arlington, Va., on the popular 1980s series “Scarecrow and Mrs. King.” Interestingly, in the show’s early seasons, a real property located just about a mile south of the Ranch at 4247 Warner Blvd. was utilized as Kate’s. But filming on location can be costly and inconvenient for both cast and crew, so the Partridge House was eventually reconfigured to match the exterior of the Warner Blvd. pad and all subsequent shooting was then completed in the controlled environment of the studio.
-
Image Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures Pee-Wee Herman (Paul Reubens) rides his prized bike over the back side of the house and straight into the middle of Blondie Street in the 1985 comedy “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure.”
-
Image Credit: TriStar Pictures Sean (Andre Gower) calls the place home in 1987’s “The Monster Squad.”
-
Image Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures Arlo Pear (Richard Pryor) and his family live next to the Partridge House in “Moving,” and, as such, it is seen throughout the 1988 comedic dud.
-
Image Credit: ABC The structure was also featured prominently as the home of the Thatchers on the ABC drama “Life Goes On.” As was the case with “Scarecrow and Mrs. King,” in the series’ early episodes, a real property at 305 N. Bowling Green Way in Los Angeles’ Brentwood area was used to represent the family’s residence, with the Partridge House eventually modified to resemble it for later filming.
-
Image Credit: Warner Bros. Television The dwelling was most recently remodeled in 2017, this time with the addition of a front porch, to serve as the supposed Medford, Texas-area home of Constance “Connie” Tucker (Annie Potts), aka Meemaw, on CBS’ long-running “The Big Bang Theory” spinoff, “Young Sheldon.” Appearing regularly on the show, the abode is purported to be situated right across the street from the spot where Sheldon Cooper (Iain Armitage) lives with his family, but in truth, that residence can be found a good four miles away at 5501 Morella Ave. in Valley Village.
-
Image Credit: Warner Bros. Television -
Image Credit: Courtesy of Alan Maretsky In its very last screen appearance, the Partridge House was leveled by a massive storm in the show’s season six finale, titled “A Tornado, a 10-Hour Flight and a Darn Fine Ring,” which aired last week. As such, it became the first casualty of Warner Bros. Ranch’s impending development. Today, the famed property is nothing more than an empty, fenced-up lot (as pictured above via an image shared with DIRT by frequent Ranch visitor Alan Maretsky), truly marking the end of an era and serving as a sad reminder of the demolition to come.