970 Calle Arroyo, Thousand Oaks, CA 91360

Property Description

Frank O. Gehry, Architect | The Sirmai-Peterson House, 1988 | Guest House by Brian Murphy (BAM). Set into a steep, oak-covered hillside in Thousand Oaks, the SirmaiPeterson House represents a pivotal moment in the residential work of Frank O. Gehry, where ideas of fragmentation, autonomy, and composition are explored at the scale of a domestic landscape.Completed in 1988, the house is not conceived as a singular object, but as an aggregation of discrete volumes. Each program - living, dining, sleeping - operates as its own form, pulled apart and reassembled along the contours of the site. The result is a village-like arrangement that moves with the terrain, opening and closing in response to topography, light, and view.Materially, the project is direct and unembellished. Galvanized steel, glass, and wood are deployed with clarity, each surface registering light differently throughout the day. Circulation unfolds as a sequence of thresholds between volumes, compressed passages giving way to more expansive interiors, creating a rhythm that is both spatial and experiential. Outdoor space is not residual, but integral: terraces, paths, and moments of landscape are woven into the composition, reinforcing the sense of a dispersed, inhabitable field rather than a single enclosed structure.What distinguishes the house is not only its formal ambition, but its precision. Each element reads as an independent decision, yet the whole remains coherent, held together through proportion, alignment, and the disciplined handling of materials.The guest house by Brian Murphy (BAM Construction and Design) operates in deliberate contrast. Where the main house is exploratory and fragmentary, the guest house is quieter and more resolved, its geometry more contained, its expression more restrained. Yet it remains in direct dialogue with Gehry's original composition, extending the architectural conversation without imitation.Sited within a secluded, oak-studded setting, the property offers a rare opportunity to inhabit one of Gehry's most significant residential works, where architecture is not applied, but constructed as a series of calibrated relationships between form, material, and landscape. ** Off-Market Sale; Entered for Comparables Purposes Only **