Image courtesy of Beyond Shelter Real Estate Group
The Benson House, an early residential project by Frank Gehry, has been listed for sale in Calabasas, California. The listing for $1.745 million marks only the second time the property has changed hands since its completion in 1981.
Image courtesy of Beyond Shelter Real Estate Group
Image courtesy of Beyond Shelter Real Estate Group
The residence was designed for Robert Benson, an emeritus professor at Loyola Law School, and his family. The property is designated as Calabasas Historical Landmark No. 2 and predates many of Gehry’s best-known commissions, including the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and the Walt Disney Concert Hall.
Image courtesy of Beyond Shelter Real Estate Group
Image courtesy of Beyond Shelter Real Estate Group
According to the listing by Beyond Shelter Real Estate Group, Benson gave Gehry broad creative freedom during the design process. Rather than creating a single structure, Gehry divided the program into two vertically proportioned volumes clad in asphalt shingles and connected by a wooden walkway across the sloping site.
Image courtesy of Beyond Shelter Real Estate Group
Image courtesy of Beyond Shelter Real Estate Group
The larger volume contains bedrooms, while the smaller houses the primary living spaces. The separation of functions creates an open composition organized around an outdoor space between the two buildings. Gehry has compared the arrangement to a Japanese sculpture of two stones positioned close together.
Image courtesy of Beyond Shelter Real Estate Group
Image courtesy of Beyond Shelter Real Estate Group
The residence is included in the Getty Research Institute’s archives and is discussed in Mildred Friedman’s Frank Gehry: The Houses. The book identifies the project as an important early example of Gehry’s exploration of fragmented forms and domestic spatial organization.
“The Benson House is one of my all-time favorite projects because the budget was so tight and so impossible,” Gehry once said.
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