Long before Mariska Hargitay became known worldwide as Olivia Benson on Law & Order: SVU, she spent part of her childhood in one of Hollywood’s most extravagant residences: the legendary Pink Palace. Her parents, Jayne Mansfield and Mickey Hargitay, purchased the Mediterranean-style Holmby Hills mansion in 1958 for $76,000 and transformed it into an unforgettable pink wonderland. The three-and-a-half-acre estate featured elaborate interiors, heart motifs, a heart-shaped swimming pool bearing the words “I love you Jaynie,” and a bathroom covered in pink shag with a heart-shaped tub. Mansfield lived there until her death in 1967, when Hargitay was only three. The mansion eventually passed through several celebrity owners before being demolished in 2002. Yet pieces of that childhood home survived. Hargitay’s brother rescued her mother’s double sinks, which she later installed in her own bathroom, while her mother’s piano eventually made its way into Hargitay’s Manhattan home. She described receiving the piano as getting “a piece of my mother back.”
Another deeply meaningful property was the Los Angeles house Mickey Hargitay built on Warbler Way. He later gave the Spanish-style home to Mariska in 1996, and it became connected to one of the most emotional revelations of her life. At 25, Hargitay learned that Mickey was not her biological father; her biological father was entertainer Nelson Sardelli. She later recalled confronting Mickey in tears while he was building her house, calling the coincidence a powerful metaphor. She nevertheless continued to regard Mickey as her father. Years later, she and husband Peter Hermann created a family of their own in a six-floor Upper West Side Manhattan townhouse. The renovated property featured multiple bedrooms, dramatic living spaces, a chef’s kitchen, landscaped terraces, a rooftop atelier, and an elevator—something viewers debating the home’s many stairs apparently overlooked.