Frank Gehry’s Benson House Hits the Market for Under $2 Million

If you’ve followed me for any amount of time, you know the reverence I hold for certain architects, among them Frank Gehry. Sure, he’s known for iconic structures like the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, the Disney Concert Hall and other ground breaking structures in places from Boston to Barcelona. But he had to start somewhere, the surprisingly humble yet brilliant Benson House, on a hillside in the Calabasas Highlands, is among his finest and most noteworthy early works.

Last sold in 2013 for $790,000, the 1,719 square foot family home has experienced a number of updates and refurbishments before being listed at today’s price of $,745,000.

Completed in 1981, The Benson House was built during Gehry’s pivotal early Los Angeles period, when his penchant for experimentation was just as prominent as it was in his later public arts buildings.

“The residence is playful, thoughtful and unlike almost anything else from this formative period of his career,” said listing agent JB Fung, of the Beyond Shelter Real Estate Group.

Take a look inside the Benson House

The two bedroom, three bath,  was created for law professor Robert “Bob” Benson, his wife and their two children. They gave Gehry complete freedom, telling him, “Whatever you want to do, we will go for,” with the only caveat being that it must be created on a shoestring budget.

Gehry called The Benson House “one of my all-time favorite projects because the budget was so tight and so impossible.” He later explained, “the richness in the project would be the differentiation of these pieces and the relationship of the different forms to each other and to the spaces they would create.”

Set into a slope, the architecture includes two distinct vertical buildings, connected by a “vertebrae-like wooden walkway.” The bedroom wing is on one side, and the walkway connects the living and gathering spaces on the other side.

“The Benson House reminds us that great architecture isn’t just about how a building looks; it’s about how it makes you feel,” Fung noted. “Gehry’s two-volume composition creates a wonderful rhythm as you move through the home, where each passage becomes a moment of discovery.”

The buildings, or “volumes,” as Gehry called them, are clad in humble asphalt shingles and grounded by concrete floors. Exposed wood rafters soar above. The home reflects Gehry’s early language of California modernism and architecture as sculpture.

The living and gathering space features an expansive, sun-filled great room with a fireplace and a wide open, modern kitchen. High ceilings and windows abound.

Additional assets include a loft workspace, panoramic views of the San Fernando Valley, and a large, rooftop deck with generous entertainment space.

The children’s bedroom is especially fun, with each child having their own space and vanity.

The Benson house is sited on four contiguous lots, each with its own APN, and encompasses .35 terraced acres.

He also noted that it isn’t often that an early Gehry work comes on the market, and at this price, there’s sure to be a lot of interest.