Eve Plumb is still reaping the benefits of her childhood stardom on The Brady Bunch, but it’s not through residuals . The actress turned artist, who played middle daughter Jan Brady on the ’70s sitcom, recently sold the Malibu home that she bought at age 11 with her Brady Bunch earnings. According to the Los Angeles Times , Plumb sold the 850-square-foot oceanfront Malibu bungalow for $3.9 million, more than 45 years after purchasing it with her parents.
Eve Plumb purchased the property in 1969 for just $55,300. The 1950s cottage, which sits at the south end of Escondido Beach, was sold with the option to get a modern day makeover by Meis Architects.
‘Brady Bunch’s’ Eve Plumb sells Malibu beach home for $3.9M, 47 years after buying it for $55K at age of 11 pic.twitter.com/Yq0MkEJjg7
— Elliot Wagland (@elliotwagland) August 18, 2016
With the sale of her first home, Eve Plumb could be one of the richest stars from The Brady Bunch . In an interview with Realtor.com, Eve said her parents taught her early on to invest in real estate . Plumb explained that because she was working as a child star on a TV series, her parents wanted to make sure she always had time off to just be a kid. Her mom saw an ad for the beachfront property in Variety magazine shortly after Eve landed the role on The Brady Bunch .
“My parents and I bought it together,” Plum said of the Malibu home. “Because I was working, and working on a series, my parents always wanted to make sure that I had time off, that I wasn’t always working and wasn’t always doing personal appearances. So they looked around and found this great place. And we bought it together and enjoyed it together for years as a weekend house.”
Eve Plumb Talks 70s Nostalgia, the Brady Effect and Grease: Live! https://t.co/HXTUJQgClw (via @ModwildTV) pic.twitter.com/P2E20HVCNi
— TV Fanatic (@TVFanatic) January 31, 2016
Eve said the family was attracted to the house because it was on a private road off of Pacific Coast Highway and also because it had “a big sandy beach and not a wet, sandy beach.” Still, the cost of the house was staggering at the time.
“That was a lot of money,” Plumb said of the $50K price tag, “And it wasn’t as if I were making the down payment. Salaries were commensurate with what things cost. It was just that my parents wanted to invest my money in real estate.”
While The Brady Bunch has been airing in syndication for decades — it has never been off the air since its final season wrapped in 1974 — Eve Plumb has been vocal about the fact that being a sitcom star did not make her rich. In fact, The Brady Bunch stars don’t receive any type of residuals at all, despite the fact that their show still airs in reruns on a daily basis all over the world. Eve told OK magazine that many people believe the Brady Bunch cast members are rich, but that it couldn’t be farther from the truth.
“The biggest misconception is that we’re all rich from it, but we are not,” Plumb revealed. “We have not been paid for reruns of the show for many, many years. We are not making money off of it at all.”
Eve Plumb said that while the cast has tried to renegotiate things in the past, the most they get is a small fee if Brady Bunch clips are used in a movie.
“If they use clips of the show in a movie now, they have to get our permission and pay us, but that’s usually very low money, and often we get asked to have clip usage for free,” Eve explained. “I’m a big proponent of being paid for my work, and since the going thing now is to use clips, to pay the actor, um, I’m going to continue to ask for that. ”
Eve Plumb works as an artist and still continues to act. Fans saw her earlier this year on the Fox TV musical, Grease: Live . Still, Plumb warns today’s child stars not to blow their money, because fame can be fleeting.
“Don’t quit your day job,” Plumb says. “Save the money and buy a house. Don’t squander what you’ve got because it won’t always last.”
Take a look at the video below for more on Eve Plumb’s amazing real estate deal.
[Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images]