http://www.latimes.com/news/la-me-carpenters16feb16,0,5014190,full.story

From the Los Angeles Times
Groupies gather to save the Carpenters home
Fans are outraged that owners of the Downey houses
want to remodel.
By Bob Pool
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

February 16, 2008

We've only just begun . . . to learn what is happening
to the Downey family home that was made world-famous
by the pop duo the Carpenters.

The five-bedroom tract house and a smaller next-door
dwelling that was connected to it by an enclosed
walkway was where Richard and Karen Carpenter
fine-tuned their greatest hits in the 1970s.

The pair lived in the main house with their parents.
The adjoining house was something of an annex, where
there was an office, rehearsal studio and recreation
room.

The Newville Avenue compound became a magnet for fans
around the world when it was pictured on the
Carpenters' tri-fold cover for their 1973 hit album
"Now & Then." It is also where an anorexic Karen
Carpenter collapsed in 1983 before dying.

The pair's parents remained in the residence until
Harold Carpenter's death in 1988 and Agnes Carpenter's
in 1996. Richard Carpenter sold the place in mid-1997.

Tiring of a nonstop parade of fans paying hommage to
Karen Carpenter and her and her brother's music, the
compound's current owners have torn down the annex and
begun construction on a larger house. They've also
submitted plans to Downey officials for the
replacement of the 39-year-old main house.



Their 'Graceland'

Fans are outraged.

"This house is our version of Graceland," said
Carpenters aficionado Jon Konjoyan, a 57-year-old
Toluca Lake music writer and promoter who is leading a
campaign to save the remaining original house from
destruction.

"They were such a huge American act in the '70s," he
said. "So many people loved them."

The response underscores the enduring draw of the
Carpenters, the vocal duo whose soft -- some say
saccharine -- songs were in marked contrast to the
harder rock acts also popular in the '70s and '80s.

Although some of their music is now relegated to
dentists' offices and elevators, the Carpenters
continue to have a loyal fan base.

Konjoyan was a young man in 1974 when he and his
brother made a pilgrimage to the Newville Avenue home.

From 1981 to 1990, he worked for the Carpenters'
label, A&M Records.

"When they photographed the 'Now & Then' cover here in
1973, the house was instantly immortalized," Konjoyan
said. "Actually, when the photographer had come to the
house to shoot the cover, they didn't know what to do.
The photographer said, 'Why not get in the car and
drive by?' "

So they did.

"They used Richard's red Ferrari. People thought it
was a Pinto," Konjoyan said.

Music fans quickly tracked down the address -- often
with the help of the Carpenters' polite neighbors who
would direct the devotees through the neighborhood's
maze of streets.

In 1974, Rolling Stone magazine reported that a
stalker had driven up and down the avenue's short
cul-de-sac looking for Karen. "I guess the Downey
police are good -- that was the end of the story,"
Konjoyan said.

By all accounts, the home's current owners have been
remarkably kind to Carpenter fans who still flock to
Newville Avenue to gawk at the house and point to the
upstairs bedroom where Karen collapsed.

Over the years they have patiently invited visitors
inside to see the house and the backyard -- which the
Carpenter family turned into a lush Japanese garden.

Fans, in turn, have posted photographs of the home's
interior and exterior and written accounts of their
visits on the Internet.



Fan overload

Last year, the owners held a yard sale, which drew
many fans looking for vinyl records and old furniture,
including what was said to be "Karen Carpenter's
original bed and mattress."

Some fans complained that the Japanese garden had
fallen into disrepair -- that its pond had dried up
and its quaint wooden arched bridges where Karen and
Richard were sometimes photographed were dilapidated.

The homeowners, Manuel and Blanca Melendez Parra,
could not be reached Friday for comment.

But their daughter Jessica Parra said fans' interest
in the home has caught her family by surprise. At
first, the family invited fans inside and even gave
away autographed posters and other items that Richard
Carpenter had left behind when the houses were sold.

"In the beginning, we let everybody in. But honestly,
it became horrible, not only for us but for the
neighborhood," said Parra, a 26-year-old law student
who says she is not a fan of the Carpenters' music.
"People peek in windows and take pictures. They leave
flowers on the front porch."

Her father, who is from Cuba, does not have the
emotional attachment to the place that fans do, she
said. "My dad has said, 'Fine, if they like it so much
then buy it.' "

The one-story, three-bedroom house next door was
acquired by the Carpenters in 1971, when they were
rocketing to the top of the music world. It is being
remodeled into a larger, two-story structure.

Downey officials said plans for a new residence on the
site of the main house have been submitted. No
demolition permit has been issued.

Fans of the Carpenters acknowledge that they may have
run out of time to save the house.

Konjoyan's campaign to save the residence calls for it
to be privately purchased and rehabilitated at its
current location. If that is not possible, he suggests
that it could be moved elsewhere.



A community's fate

Other fans have proposed that Downey officials declare
the house a historic landmark as a way of encouraging
its preservation. They point to the demolition of the
famed Firestone Boulevard cruiser hangout Johnie's
Broiler as proof that their community's heritage is in
jeopardy.

"I urge the Downey City Council to take pride in their
community's connection to the Carpenters' legacy and
stop the demolition," fan Linda Thibert of Canada
wrote last year to the Downey Patriot newspaper.

Music lover Jennifer Byrne, a 31-year-old writer
originally from Miami, said she sought out the house
on her first visit to Los Angeles in 1998. She said
its preservation would help draw attention to the
issue of anorexia as well as be a salute to Karen and
Richard Carpenter.

"With the first money they made, this is what they
bought for their parents," Byrne said. "They didn't
buy a big mansion in Beverly Hills. They didn't go
Hollywood."

Richard Carpenter, who is in the Philippines
performing with Filipino singer Claire de la Fuente
before President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, could not be
reached for comment. Both Parra and the
preservationists said Carpenter has stayed out of the
debate.

But the fans vow to persevere and keep their memories
of the Carpenters alive because . . . they long to be,
close to you.

bob.pool@...



Copyright 2008 Los Angeles Times

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