In the spring of 1969, as crews were preparing to shoot the show's first episodes for a fall debut, the call went out for a suitable Brady dwelling.

Louise Weddington Carson was newly widowed, living alone in the two-bedroom house Luther B. Carson had designed and built for the couple 10 years earlier on a sprawling Valley lot. Construction of the Ventura Freeway had forced them from their previous home.

It was the house's middle-class appearance that attracted the show's producers when they came around asking to make it the residence of Mike and Carol Brady, their six kids and Alice the housekeeper, recalled Carson's son, Guy Weddington McCreary.

"It just had a good look to it," he said. "It symbolized California living."

Series creator Sherwood Schwartz agrees.

"We didn't want it to be too affluent, we didn't want it to be too blue-collar," he said. "We wanted it to look like it would fit a place an architect would live."

There was just one problem: The real house was only a modest split-level while the interior set already under construction on Paramount Studios' Stage 5 in Hollywood was that of a roomy two-story structure.

But Hollywood set designers came to the rescue, attaching a phony window atop Carson's house to give the appearance of a full second floor.