Considered one of Hollywood’s legendary music recording studios is on the market as its proprietor prepares to finish his half-century run immortalizing most of the greatest acts.
The record of family names who’ve recorded at Conway Recording Studios spans generations and genres. Burt Bacharach, Fleetwood Mac, Stevie Surprise, U2, Weapons N’ Roses, Daft Punk, Taylor Swift and Kendrick Lamar are only a few of the artists who’ve recorded there.
Whereas many studios have struggled, the distinctive area has attracted large names for many years.
Digital manufacturing instruments and residential studios have eradicated a lot of the necessity for conventional recording area, permitting artists to supply professional-quality music virtually wherever, actual property information supplier CoStar stated.
The digital revolution rocked the analog world of artwork, media and communication on a scale the economic revolution did to agrarian and handicraft economies greater than a century in the past. The appearance of Professional Instruments recording software program within the Nineties and the rise of music streaming companies within the early aughts irrevocably modified the enterprise.
But business veterans say surviving services with expansive stay rooms, classic gear and a long time of recording historical past could also be changing into extra precious as they grow to be more durable to duplicate. U.S. recorded-music income rose 7% to $6 billion within the first half of 2026, in keeping with the Recording Trade Assn. of America. Streaming, bodily codecs and licensing all posted beneficial properties.
Conway Recording Studios is a jungly hideaway on bustling Melrose Avenue created by a transplant from chilly Buffalo, N.Y., who arrived within the Seventies with a imaginative and prescient to create an L.A.-style oasis in the midst of town the place he may pursue his craft as a sound engineer.
“I moved to California to be exterior within the heat,” Buddy Brundo stated. “I like daylight.”
He defied recording studio conventions by bringing in pure mild via giant, soundproof home windows as a substitute of working in chambers sealed on all sides.
“You type of really feel such as you’re in Hawaii or elsewhere,” at Conway studios, stated leisure actual property dealer Nicole Mihalka of CBRE. “That’s what’s saved Conway so busy over time.”
Among the many musicians who got here to work there recently was Korean pop group BTS, the topic of a Netflix documentary launched in March that adopted the younger males as they recorded their comeback album “Arirang” after finishing their navy service.
Brundo seems within the movie.
1. “You type of really feel such as you’re in Hawaii or elsewhere,” an actual property dealer stated of the studios. “That’s what’s saved Conway so busy over time.” 2. Conway’s shoppers have included Justin Timberlake, Kendrick Lamar, U2 and Counting Crows. (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Instances)
Taylor Swift is an everyday and as soon as created a run on firm merchandise by sporting a Conway Recording Studios sweatshirt in public.
Folks have requested Brundo for years when he may promote the studio he has operated since 1976, stated Mihalka, who has the itemizing.
“Ten years in the past I wouldn’t even take into consideration this,” Brundo stated. Now, “I’m 83, and the way lengthy can I maintain this up? It’s greatest to stroll away whereas I nonetheless can.”
He works out thrice per week and seems match, leaping as much as play air guitar to Mötley Crüe’s “Women, Women, Women” whereas displaying off the highly effective sound system in Studio B. The band recorded the hit 1987 album of the identical identify at Conway Studios, the place members arrived by bike.
Brundo is asking $15 million for the property that spans greater than an acre on the sting of Melrose Hill, a distinct segment neighborhood at Melrose and Western avenues recognized for its fashionable eating places.
It consists of three studios, places of work, tons of recording tools, together with two grand pianos, lounges, and a kitchen that pointedly lacks a range.
“Each studio I labored with had a range, and the kitchen was a multitude,” Brundo stated.
“Ten years in the past I wouldn’t even take into consideration this,” Conway’s Buddy Brundo stated. Now, “I’m 83, and the way lengthy can I maintain this up? It’s greatest to stroll away whereas I nonetheless can.”
(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Instances)
Not that he hasn’t gone out of his approach to accommodate his shoppers. Years in the past he shrank his personal workplace to enlarge a lounge for a singer-songwriter who wanted area to camp out.
“Courtney Love needed to e book a bunch of time,” but additionally needed a spot to unwind exterior the studio. “We lived right here for 2 months with the children and the garments.”
Considered one of his studio improvements was an air-conditioning and filtration system that whooshes out smoke and neutralizes it with charcoal filters and blue lights that kill micro organism, as a result of the official smoking coverage is “no matter they need,” he stated. On a latest afternoon, a robust scent of hashish got here from Studio A.
To create his rambling California oasis in the midst of a busy neighborhood, Brundo acquired home after home on the south facet of his lot over time so he may maintain increasing. He purchased and tore down 10 of them.
“Every home was a battle,” he stated, notably one the place the house owners had a problem with guitarist and outdoorsman Ted Nugent, who by accident shot an arrow into their yard.
Whereas the property could possibly be used for different functions, Buddy Brundo hopes to discover a purchaser who will maintain the music going.
(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Instances)
Brundo had arrange a Styrofoam deer and a bear on the again of his property to entertain archer Nugent. The musician missed a shot and his arrow handed via the fence and got here near putting a neighbor in her yard as her husband stood close by.
“He was actually pissed off,” Brundo stated of his neighbor. It took Brundo one other 12 months to purchase the neighbors’ home “as a result of the worth went up,” he stated.
As we speak, the foliage a full-time groundskeeper tends has grown tall and thick. Glossy cats roam the grounds.
The car parking zone is giant for the studio’s measurement, and its 59 striped areas have accommodated about $2 million price of fancy vehicles at a time, Brundo estimated. It’s additionally sufficiently big for basketball video games, and Brundo just lately painted a full court docket on the asphalt so singer The Weeknd may play ball throughout downtime.
Whereas the property could possibly be turned to different makes use of reminiscent of shops and housing, Brundo hopes to promote it to somebody who will maintain the music going at the same time as instances change.
The latest backlash towards AI-generated music has prompted “a reversion again to the true” with bands utilizing extra devices and needing more room to report, Mihalka stated. “There are fewer studios now the place you may truly do that.”
