LOS ANGELES - We've only just begun . . . to learn what is happening to the family home made famous by the pop duo The Carpenters.
The five-bedroom tract house and a smaller next-door dwelling that was connected to it by an enclosed walkway were where Richard and Karen Carpenter fine-tuned their greatest hits in the 1970s.
The pair lived in the main house in Downey, about 20 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles, with their parents. The adjoining house was something of an annex, where there was an office, a rehearsal studio, and a recreation room.
The Newville Avenue compound became a magnet for fans around the world when it was pictured on The Carpenters' trifold album cover for their 1973 hit LP "Then and Now." It is also where an anorexic Karen Carpenter collapsed in 1983 before dying.
The pair's parents remained in the residence until Harold Carpenter's death in 1988 and Agnes Carpenter's in 1996. Richard Carpenter sold the place in mid-1997.
Tired of a nonstop parade of fans paying homage to Karen Carpenter and The Carpenters' music, the compound's current owners have torn down half of it and have begun construction on a larger house. They have submitted plans to city officials calling for the replacement of the Carpenter's 39-year-old main house as well.
Fans are outraged.
"This house is our version of Graceland," said Carpenters aficionado Jon Konjoyan, a music writer and promoter in the area who is leading a campaign to save the remaining original house from destruction. "They were such a huge American act in the '70s. So many people loved them."
The response underscores the enduring draw of The Carpenters, the vocal duo whose soft songs were in marked contrast to the harder rock acts popular in the 1970s and '80s. Although some of their music is now relegated to dentist offices and elevators, The Carpenters continue to have a loyal fan base.
By all accounts, the home's current owners have been remarkably kind to Carpenter fans who still flock to gawk and point to the upstairs bedroom where Karen collapsed.
Over the years, they have invited visitors inside to see the house and its backyard, which the Carpenter family had turned into a lush Japanese garden.
Fans, in turn, have posted photographs of the home's interior and exterior and written accounts of their visits on the Internet.
The home's owners, Manuel and Blanca Melendez Parra, could not be reached for comment.
Daughter Jessica Parra said her family had been caught by surprise by the fan interest in their home. At first, they invited fans inside and even gave away autographed posters and other items that Richard Carpenter left behind when the houses were sold.
"In the beginning, we let everybody in. But, honestly, it became horrible, not only for us but for the neighborhood," said Parra, a 26-year-old law student who says she is not a fan of The Carpenters' music. "People peek in windows and take pictures. They leave flowers on the front porch."
Her father, a Cuban immigrant, does not have the emotional attachment to the place that fans do, she said. "My dad has said, 'Fine, if they like it so much, then buy it.' "
Fans of The Carpenters acknowledge that they may have run out of time to save the house.
Konjoyan's campaign to save it calls for it to be privately purchased and rehabilitated where it sits. If that is not possible, he suggests the building could be moved somewhere else.
Others have proposed that officials declare the house a historic landmark.
Music lover Jennifer Byrne, a 31-year-old writer originally from Miami, said she sought out the Newville Avenue house on her first visit to Los Angeles, in 1998. She said its preservation would help draw attention to the issue of anorexia as well as be a salute to Karen and Richard Carpenter.
"With the first money they made, this is what they bought for their parents," Byrne said. "They didn't buy a big mansion in Beverly Hills. They didn't go Hollywood."
Richard Carpenter, in the Philippines performing with Filipino singer Claire de la Fuente before President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, could not be reached for comment. Both Parra and the preservationists said Carpenter had stayed out of the debate.
