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Gehry Residence

Architect
Frank Gehry
Year
1976
Style
Deconstructivism
City
Los Angeles, CA
Gehry Residence
Photo: IK's World Trip, CC BY 2.0
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The Gehry Residence in Santa Monica was Frank Gehry's own home, a 1978 remodel wrapped around a pink 1920 Dutch colonial bungalow that he and his wife Berta bought in 1977. Gehry left the original rear and south facades largely untouched but wrapped the other sides in a new envelope of chain-link fencing, corrugated steel, and tilted glass cubes, using cheap industrial materials to remake a modest house into one of the earliest and most argued-over examples of deconstructivist architecture, though Gehry himself denied the label. Gehry owned the house until his death in 2025.

the building

Old house left visible inside new skin. Gehry wrapped the existing bungalow in a new exterior while leaving the original walls visible from within, so the 1920 house and the 1978 addition read simultaneously -- new tilted glass cubes and chain-link screening were added to the sides while the rear and south facades were barely touched.

Chain-link and corrugated steel. The addition is built from materials Gehry was already experimenting with elsewhere -- metal, plywood, chain-link fencing, and wood framing -- deployed here as visible, unapologetically industrial surfaces rather than finish materials, a choice that unsettled many of the neighbors.

the style

The house is sometimes cited as one of the earliest deconstructivist buildings, its raw, fragmented use of industrial materials breaking from conventional residential finish -- though Gehry himself denied that the design belonged to any such movement.

More on Deconstructivism

the architect

Frank Gehry is a historically major architect, and this was his own home -- an experiment in the cheap industrial materials, chain link, plywood, and corrugated steel, that he was developing in his practice at the time, tried out first on the house he lived in.

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significance

Gehry owned the residence until his death in 2025; although he later built another house overlooking Rustic Canyon, he intended to keep the Santa Monica property in the family.

more by Frank Gehry

nearby

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