The Rovell family home ...

[Malc]

... once they relocated to LA was reportedly at 616 Sierra Bonita DRIVE near Fairfax & Melrose - and yet I can find no record/location of this on Google Earth or elsewhere - only Sierra Bonita AVENUE. Any ideas anyone ? Is this the same street ? Assistance would be greatly appreciated ...

[DJ M]

There's some good stuff about their home in Jon Stebbin's/David Marks's book "The lOst Beach Boy."  Since I don't have the book w/ me at work, I can't get into any specifics.  A MUST read for any BB fan.

[NHC]

616 N. Sierra Bonita Avenue is one block south of Melrose and seven blocks east of N. Fairfax, so if Melrose/Fairfax is the right neighborhood then it sounds like the right address.

[Joshilyn Hoisington]

Yeah, that's the right place.  I've been by it too many times to count.  Cool neighborhood, even now.  Nice quick walk to shopping on Melrose.

[Andrew G. Doe]

FWIW, the relevant AFM sheets have it as merely 616 N. Sierra Bonita.

[NHC]

Yeah, that's the right place.  I've been by it too many times to count.  Cool neighborhood, even now.  Nice quick walk to shopping on Melrose.

Just curious since I've never been in that area, or LA much at all, but has the neighborhood been rebuilt a lot since the 60's?  Wondering, for example, if the Rovell house looks like it did "back when".  Seems like so many areas get rebuilt and remodeled to where you can't even recognize it anymore.

[Joshilyn Hoisington]

A lot of it is pretty much the same, when it comes to the actual homes.  Certainly the architecture is very "modern" in places, though like many LA neighborhoods there's a lot of quirky eccentricity to the individual units.  Lots of Duplexes and Quad-type housing in that area too.  I wouldn't go so far as to say that it's a time machine walking through that neighborhood, but it does retain a lot of it's yesteryear charm.