Here’s a story, about a man named Brady—whose beloved fictional home in Los Angeles entered a rare public bidding war between NSYNC’s Lance Bass and HGTV.
In the end, the cable channel, Home & Garden Television, outbid the former boy band star for the iconic home, which served as the facade for "The Brady Bunch," the channel’s parent company, Discovery, announced in an earnings call on Tuesday.
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David Zaslav, Discovery’s president and chief executive, even hinted during the call with investors that HGTV will be filming the restoration from the split-level ranch-style house.
"I’m excited to share that HGTV is the winning bidder and will restore the Brady Bunch home to its 1970s glory, as only HGTV can," Mr. Zaslav said.
"More detail to come over the next few months but we’ll bring all the resources to bear to tell safe, fun stories with this beloved piece of American TV history."
"Brady Bunch" episodes feature the house’s exterior as the opening and closing shot, though scenes from inside the home were shot on a studio set. The house, located on a quiet street in Los Angeles’s Studio City neighborhood, claims to be the most photographed house in the U.S., after the White House in Washington, D.C., according to the listing with Ernie Carswell of Douglas Elliman Real Estate.
More:‘Brady Bunch’ Star Makes Impressive Profit on Home She Bought at 11 Years Old
The final sales price won’t be public until HGTV closes on the home, and a spokeswoman for Douglas Elliman didn’t immediately return a request for comment on the network’s winning bid.
In a moment of corporate humor, the chief executive even threatened to banish Discovery’s CFO, Gunnar Wiedenfels, to Greg Brady’s attic bedroom if the company didn’t meet its financial targets during Tuesday’s call.
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"And that's not a fun place to be. It didn't have a door, there were beads, if you remember," Mr. Zaslav ribbed. "And Marcia and Cindy and Peter and Bobby and Jan, they were all in the main house, but Greg was up in the attic."
Meanwhile, Mr. Bass, 39, expressed his outrage on social media over losing the home to a then-unknown corporate buyer.
He was under the impression that the seller had accepted his bid—"way over" the $1.885 million asking price—only to learn that a Hollywood studio had slipped a higher offer in at the last minute, he said via Twitter.
"This was a dream come true for me," he said on Twitter on Sunday.
But the bummed-out boy band member was in better spirits when he heard the mystery buyer was HGTV.
"I’d be pretty upset if it were anyone else, but how can you be mad at HGTV?" he wrote on Tuesday. "I can smile again."