23685 Clover Trail, Calabasas, CA 91302

Frank Gehry :: The Benson House. Before Bilbao, Disney Concert Hall and the iconic global works that would define his career, Frank Gehry quietly rewrote the rules of domestic architecture on a hillside in the Calabasas Highlands. Completed in 1981, The Benson House belongs to Gehry's pivotal early Los Angeles period, when residential work carried the same experimental force his museums would later claim. Created for law professor Robert "Bob" Benson, who told Gehry, "Whatever you want to do, we will go for," the home became one of Gehry's favorite projects and most personal residential works.Set into a slope, the architecture separates from the hillside to create a moat-like negative space, allowing two distinct vertical volumes to emerge. A vertebrae-like wooden walkway connects the bedroom wing with the living and gathering spaces, creating a daily experience of movement, sequence and spatial discovery. Gehry described the composition as "almost touching," like two stones in a...