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Rob and Michele Reiner’s Brentwood home will forever be tied to the horrific double homicide that took the lives of the iconic director and his photographer wife. Before the sprawling estate became the scene of a serious crime, it was a family home, and before that, it belonged to several members of Hollywood’s elite. The address has a very long and very illustrious history, with owners including Henry Fonda and Norman Lear.

Henry Fonda built the house, but sold it a few years later

The Brentwood home that Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner filed with love, family, and guests had a Hollywood start. Henry Fonda built the property in 1936. The farmhouse included an actual farm on the property’s acres of land. Fonda tended to the farm himself and often enlisted the help of people like John Wayne. Jane Fonda spent several years of her childhood at the Brentwood property before it was sold.

According to IMDb, he sold the property to Paul Henreid, who is best known for playing Victor Laszlo in Casablanca, in 1947. Henreid reportedly paid $42,000 for the property and lived in the house with his family for many years.

While it’s hard to say exactly how much Reiner’s property would have been worth today had a double homicide not been committed inside of it, Henreid certainly got a steal. He paid what would amount to $785,000 worth of buying power today for the home. He sold the house in 1972.

Norman Lear was the next person to own the property

Norman Lear was the next person to own the now-infamous Brentwood estate. Lear purchased the home directly from Henreid for an unspecified price. He lived at the property for nearly two decades. Lear and his wife, Lyn Lear, later sold the home to buy a much larger house in Brentwood, built for entertaining, with acres of land around it.

While they lived in the home, they had plenty of guests, including Rob Reiner, who later bought the property. Reiner and Lear were apparently both drawn to the “New England” aesthetic that Fonda had managed to transport to the West Coast. Lear sold the home to Reiner in 1991 for $4.75 million. The famed screenwriter had originally listed the property for $6.5 million.

Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner raised their family in the home

Norman Lear’s property seemed like the perfect home for the Reiners when Michele Singer Reiner began looking for properties just two years after marrying Rob Reiner. Still, Rob Reiner admitted, she was initially hesitant to mention Lear’s home to her husband. Rob theorized that his wife was concerned it would be “weird” for him to move into a house connected to Lear.

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Reiner insisted that there was nothing strange about it, but that it felt pretty fortuitous. After all, the home was the exact property he had lusted after when he was still just a rising star. Reiner and Lear both loved the New England charm of the house, modeled after a Pennsylvania farmhouse, because they were both East Coast transplants. Reiner grew up in New Rochelle, NY. Lear, years older than Reiner, was raised in Hartford, Connecticut.

It is unclear what the Reiner children plan to do with the property in the wake of their parents’ death. A private memorial service was held shortly after the gruesome discovery. Still, it is unclear if Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner have been buried. According to the Daily Mail, autopsies have been completed. The bodies of Rob and Michele were released to the family late last week.

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