10050 Cielo Drive was the street address of a former luxury home in Benedict Canyon, in the west-central part of the Beverly Crest neighborhood of Los Angeles, bordering Beverly Hills, where three members of the Manson Family committed the Tate murders in 1969.
The property had a main residence, guest house, pool, and 2-story garage. The main house had been occupied by various famous Hollywood and music industry figures. In 1994, both houses were demolished and a new house was constructed on the site, and the street address was changed to 10066 Cielo Drive.
The original house was designed by Arthur W. Hawes in 1941 and completed in 1942 for French actress Michèle Morgan. [1] It was similar to the house which sat on its own plateau directly below 10050, 10048 Cielo Drive, which was often called the Twin House.
The French country-style structure was located on 3 acres (1.2 ha), and included a private drive on Cielo Drive in Benedict Canyon, an area west of Hollywood in the Santa Monica Mountains that overlooks Beverly Hills and Bel Air. [1] The hillside structure faced east and was surrounded by thick pine and flowering cherry trees. [1]
According to official documents with the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety, the architect of record for this home was Arthur W. Hawes (1873–1951). The builder was J.F. Wadkins Corp. [2]
Michèle Morgan, French actress for RKO Radio Pictures, arranged for architect Arthur W. Hawes to design a home and for J.F. Wadkins to build the luxury home resembling an early 19th-century European style farmhouse. The house was completed in 1942, with an address of 10050 Cielo Drive. It was on a 3.3-acre level lot above Benedict Canyon in Beverly Hills. The home included a 3,200 square foot main residence; barbeque shelter; swimming pool; and a 2-story garage. According to the Los Angeles Times , Morgan paid $32,000 (equivalent to $470,000 in 2020). By the end of World War II, Morgan had returned to France. In 1944, the house was sold to Dr. Hartley Dewey and his wife Louise, where they converted the barbeque shelter into a guest house and added a dressing room for the pool. In 1946, the Deweys rented the home to Lillian Gish [3] while she was filming Duel in the Sun . [4]
Rudolph Altobelli (1929–2011), a music and film industry talent manager, bought the house for $86,000 in the early 1960s (equivalent to $876855 in 2023) and often rented it out. [5] Residents included Cary Grant and Dyan Cannon (it was their honeymoon nest in 1965 [6] ); Henry Fonda; George Chakiris; Mark Lindsay; Samantha Eggar; and Olivia Hussey. Charles Manson visited the house in late 1968, when it was occupied (from May 1967 to January 1969) by couple Terry Melcher (the son of actress Doris Day) and Candice Bergen. [7]
In February 1969, Roman Polanski and his wife Sharon Tate began renting the home from Altobelli. On August 9, 1969, the home became the scene of the murders of the eight-months-pregnant Sharon Tate, Wojciech Frykowski, Abigail Folger, Jay Sebring, and Steven Parent committed by Tex Watson, Susan Atkins, and Patricia Krenwinkel, members of the Manson Family cult. [8] Charles Manson himself was an associate of Melcher and had previously visited the house. [9] William Garretson, Altobelli's caretaker and an acquaintance of Parent, lived in the guest house behind the main house and was unaware of the murders until the next morning, when he was taken into custody by police officers who had arrived at the scene. He was later cleared of all charges. [10]
Altobelli moved into the house just three weeks after the murders and resided there until 1988. During an interview on ABC's show 20/20 , he said that while living there, he felt "safe, secure, loved, and beauty". [5] [11] The house was then sold to John Prell, a real estate investor. [12] The purchase price was $1.6 million in 1989 (equivalent to $4 million in 2023). [5] In 1992, Prell sold the property to Alvin Weintraub, another real estate investor. [13]
The final resident of the original house was the musician Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails. Reznor rented the house in 1992 and set up a recording studio there. [14] This studio, dubbed "Pig" (sometimes called "Le Pig") in a reference to murderer Susan Atkins' writing "Pig" in Tate's blood on the front door of the house, was the site of recording sessions for most of the Nine Inch Nails album The Downward Spiral (1994). [14] The band also recorded the EP Broken and filmed the video for "Gave Up" at 10050 Cielo Drive. Marilyn Manson recorded sections of the album Portrait of an American Family at the in-house studio in 1992. [15]
Reznor moved out in December 1993, later explaining "there was too much history in that house for me to handle." [16]
Reznor made a statement about working in the Tate house during a 1997 interview with Rolling Stone :
While I was working on Downward Spiral, I was living in the house where Sharon Tate was killed. Then one day I met her sister. It was a random thing, just a brief encounter. And she said: "Are you exploiting my sister's death by living in her house?" For the first time the whole thing kind of slapped me in the face. I said, "No, it's just sort of my own interest in American folklore. I'm in this place where a weird part of history occurred." I guess it never really struck me before, but it did then. She lost her sister from a senseless, ignorant situation that I don't want to support. When she was talking to me, I realized for the first time, "What if it was my sister?" I thought, "Fuck Charlie Manson. I don't want to be looked at as a guy who supports serial-killer bullshit." I went home and cried that night. It made me see there's another side to things, you know? It's one thing to go around with your dick swinging in the wind, acting like it doesn't matter. But when you understand the repercussions that are felt ... that's what sobered me up: realizing that what balances out the appeal of the lawlessness and the lack of morality and that whole thing is the other end of it, the victims who don't deserve that. [17]
Reznor took the front door of the house with him when he moved out, installing it at Nothing Studios, his new recording studio/record label headquarters in New Orleans. [18] [19] Nothing Studios was later sold and the façade of the building changed. Christopher Moore, a New Orleans artist, acquired the front door from the owner of the building, and then in September 2023 the door was sold in an auction to an undisclosed buyer for $127,000 by Julien’s Auctions.
After renting out the house, Alvin Weintraub had it demolished in early 1994 and construction on a new home began shortly after. In 1996, the newly constructed home was completed, that he named Villa Bella, and obtained a new address for the property, 10066 Cielo Drive. It is an 18,000-square-foot Mediterranean-style mansion. [20] When he listed Villa Bella for sale in 1998, Weintraub told Los Angeles magazine that this was not the Manson murder house, saying "We went to great pains to get rid of everything ... There’s no house, no dirt, no blade of grass remotely connected to Sharon Tate." [4] [21] However, there is one remaining pine tree that exists between the house and pool on the property as well as two wooden posts that were originally part of an arbor.
The owner of the property as of December 2013 was Hollywood producer Jeff Franklin. In 2010, he had made this comment to Architectural Digest : "What I fell in love with here was the setting, the view, the privacy, and the amount of flat land" but complained that the design of the house was badly conceived. [4] The property was on the market in August 2019, showing an estimated price of $97 million. [22] It again was on the market in January 2022 for $85 million, reduced in price in June 2022 to just under $70 million. [23]
The Downward Spiral is the second studio album by the American industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails, released on March 8, 1994, by Nothing Records in the United States and Island Records in Europe. It is a concept album detailing the self-destruction of a man from the beginning of his misanthropic "downward spiral" to his suicidal breaking point. The album was a commercial success and established Nine Inch Nails as a reputable force in the 1990s music scene, with its sound being widely imitated, and the band receiving media attention and multiple honors.
Charles Milles Manson was an American criminal, cult leader, and musician who led the Manson Family, a cult based in California in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Some cult members committed a series of at least nine murders at four locations in July and August 1969. In 1971, Manson was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder for the deaths of seven people, including the film actress Sharon Tate. The prosecution contended that, while Manson never directly ordered the murders, his ideology constituted an overt act of conspiracy.
Sharon Marie Tate Polanski was an American actress and model. During the 1960s, she appeared in advertisements and small television roles before appearing in films as well as working as a model. After receiving positive reviews for her comedic and dramatic acting performances, Tate was hailed as one of Hollywood's most promising newcomers, being compared favorably with the late Marilyn Monroe.
Nine Inch Nails, commonly abbreviated as NIN, stylized as NIИ, is an American industrial rock band formed in Cleveland in 1988. Its members are the singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer Trent Reznor and his frequent collaborator, Atticus Ross. Reznor was previously the only permanent member of the band until Ross was officialized in 2016. The band's debut album, Pretty Hate Machine (1989), was released via TVT Records. After disagreeing with TVT about how to promote the album, the band signed with Interscope Records and released the EP Broken (1992). The following albums, The Downward Spiral (1994) and The Fragile (1999), were released to critical acclaim and commercial success.
Michael Trent Reznor is an American musician. He came to prominence as the founder, lead vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, and primary songwriter of the industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails. The band's line-up has constantly changed, with Reznor being its only official member from its creation in 1988 until 2016, when he added English musician and frequent collaborator Atticus Ross as its second permanent member.
Thomas John Kummer, known professionally as Jay Sebring, was an American celebrity hair stylist, and the founder of the hairstyling corporation Sebring International. Sebring was murdered by members of the Manson Family along with his ex-girlfriend Sharon Tate.
Portrait of an American Family is the debut studio album by American rock band Marilyn Manson. It was released on July 19, 1994, by Nothing and Interscope Records. The group was formed in 1989 by vocalist Marilyn Manson and guitarist Daisy Berkowitz, whose names were created by combining the given name of a pop culture icon with the surname of a serial killer: a naming convention which all other band members would conform to for the next seven years. The most prominent lineup of musicians during their formative years included keyboardist Madonna Wayne Gacy, bassist Gidget Gein and drummer Sara Lee Lucas.
Patricia Dianne Krenwinkel is an American convicted murderer and former member of the Manson Family. During her time with Manson's group, she was known by various aliases such as Big Patty, Yellow, Marnie Reeves and Mary Ann Scott, but to The Family, she was most commonly known as Katie.
The Manson Family was a commune, gang, and cult led by criminal Charles Manson that was active in California in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The group at its peak consisted of approximately 100 followers, who lived an unconventional lifestyle, frequently using psychoactive drugs, including amphetamine and hallucinogens such as LSD. Most were young women from middle-class backgrounds, many of whom were attracted by hippie counterculture and communal living, and then radicalized by Manson's teachings. The group murdered at least 9 people, though they may have killed as many as 24.
Linda Darlene Kasabian was an American woman known for being a member of the Manson Family, a cult led by Charles Manson in late-1960s–early-1970s California. She was present at both the Tate–LaBianca murders committed by the cult members in 1969, but received legal immunity for her testimony as a key witness in District Attorney Vincent Bugliosi's prosecution of Manson and his followers.
Charles Denton "Tex" Watson is an American murderer who was a central member of the "Manson Family" led by Charles Manson. On August 9, 1969, Watson, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Susan Atkins murdered pregnant actress Sharon Tate, Jay Sebring, Wojciech Frykowski, Abigail Folger, and Steven Parent at 10050 Cielo Drive in Benedict Canyon, Los Angeles. The next night, Watson traveled to Los Feliz, Los Angeles, and participated in the murders of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca. Watson was convicted of murder in 1971 and sentenced to death. As a result of a 1972 California Supreme Court decision on the constitutionality in the state of the death penalty, he avoided execution but has remained incarcerated ever since.
Terrence Paul Melcher was an American record producer, singer and songwriter who was instrumental in shaping the mid-to-late 1960s California Sound and folk rock movements. His best-known contributions were producing the Byrds' first two albums Mr. Tambourine Man (1965) and Turn! Turn! Turn! (1965), as well as most of the hit recordings of Paul Revere & the Raiders and Gentle Soul. He is also known for his collaborations with Bruce Johnston and for his association with the Manson Family.
Benedict Canyon is an area in the Westside of the city of Los Angeles, California.
The Helter Skelter scenario is an apocalyptic vision that was supposedly embraced by Charles Manson and members of his so-called Family. At the trial of Manson and three others for the Tate–LaBianca murders, the prosecution presented it as motivating the crimes and as an aspect of the case for conspiracy. Via interviews and autobiographies, former Family members related what they had witnessed and experienced of it.
Mary Theresa Brunner is an American criminal and former member of the "Manson Family" who was present during the 1969 murder of Gary Hinman, a California musician and Ph.D. candidate. She was arrested for numerous offenses, including credit card theft and armed robbery, and she served a prison sentence at the California Institution for Women.
Robert Lee Byrd was an architect in Los Angeles, California. Most of his buildings and residences are from the 1920s to the 1970s. In his later years he worked together with his architect son Gary Byrd. He was known for his modern "indoor–outdoor" style – along with his use of bird houses embedded in the actual structure. He also designed and built furniture.
"Piggy" is a song by American industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails from their second studio album, The Downward Spiral (1994). It was written by Trent Reznor, co-produced by Flood, and recorded at Le Pig. It was released in December 1994 as a promotional single from the album. The song is known for being Reznor's only live drumming performance.
"Gave Up" is a song by American industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails. Written by frontman Trent Reznor and co-produced by Flood, the song serves as the sixth track of Nine Inch Nails' 1992 EP, Broken. The song is noted for its multiple music videos and became a concert favorite during the band's live performances. The video featuring Marilyn Manson was filmed at the house where Sharon Tate was murdered by members of the Manson family.
Ruth Ann Moorehouse is an American woman who is a former member of the Manson Family, led by Charles Manson. In December 1970, she, alongside Catherine Share, Lynette Fromme, Dennis Rice, and Steve Grogan were charged with attempted murder after they plotted to murder former fellow Manson Family member Barbara Hoyt to prevent her from testifying for the prosecution against Manson, Susan Atkins, Leslie Van Houten, and Patricia Krenwinkel during the Tate–LaBianca murder trial. The charge was later reduced to conspiracy to dissuade a witness from testifying. While her accomplices served a 90-day sentence at the Los Angeles County Jail, Moorehouse never served her sentence, as she failed to appear at the sentencing hearing. In October 1975, she was arrested on the 4-year-old warrant for attempting to murder Hoyt. However, the following month the county judge ruled that she would not receive a prison sentence as he was satisfied that she had disassociated herself from the Manson Family.
The Tate–LaBianca murders were a series of murders perpetrated by members of the Manson Family during August 9–10, 1969, in Los Angeles, California, United States, under the direction of Tex Watson and Charles Manson. The perpetrators killed five people on the night of August 8–9: pregnant actress Sharon Tate and her companions Jay Sebring, Abigail Folger, and Wojciech Frykowski, along with Steven Parent. The following evening, the Family also murdered supermarket executive Leno LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary, at their home in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles.