Fall Open House at Grandma Prisbrey's Bottle Village in Simi Valley CA

Reserve your Saturday, October 20^th for a fascinating Open House Tour of

  Grandma Prisbrey’s Bottle Village

10am to 4pm

4595 Cochran Street, Simi Valley, CA

This California Historical Landmark has been described in many ways; but regardless of how it is depicted, all have to agree it is one of the most interesting pieces of land in all of Simi Valley.

Tressa ‘Grandma’ Prisbrey began creating this village of shrines, walkways, sculptures and buildings by hand in 1956. She worked for 25 years straight, creating one structure after another. In addition to being a California Historical Landmark, the village was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1996.

‘Grandma’s’ original concept when she first moved onto this piece of land was to build a wall to keep away the dust and smell of the adjacent turkey farm. In addition, since she had quite a passion-collection of pencils, 17,000 of them, she needed a place to put all her pencils. So, she decided she would build a ‘house’ for them. At 60 years old, she began looking to buy cinder-blocks, but since she and her husband, Al, had spent all their money on purchasing the one-third-acre of land, she soon realized she could not afford the prices. It was because of coming upon a dump that she realized that bottles would be the perfect product with which to build her wall and ‘house.’ Believe it or not, she acquired 1,000,015 bottles to start her project. She made cement by hand (at her sister’s house) and built her first bottle house and wall … all by hand. Bottle Village was now underway. ‘Grandma’ Prisbrey’s intention was not to seek attention, but to simply have someplace to keep all of her ‘collections’; and quite the collector, she was. Her philosophy was that ‘everything had a purpose and was special and unique.’

Although the village was pretty well established by 1961, ‘Grandma’ continued to add structures and tweaking what she had already built, well into the 80’s. She moved away once in 1972, but returned to continue adding more. Finally in 1982, ‘Grandma’ left for the last time due to ill health. In 1986, she gift deeded the property to the Preserve Bottle Village Committee, and in 1988 she passed away at the beautiful age of 92.

The count on the number of buildings and structures have varied in different reports; but, it is safe to say there is at least 16 to 22 buildings and structures, a mosaic sidewalk, a leaning Tower of Bottle Village, a Dolls Head Shrine, Cleopatra’s Bedroom, the Round House and much more. The Los Angeles Times appropriately described the Bottle Village as an ‘eccentric folk-art wonderland.’

Give yourself a treat and plan to come visit Grandma Prisbrey’s Bottle Villagethis coming Saturday. This is a place that is enjoyed by all ages.

(Information in the above was provided in part by Conejo Valley Guide – Local Events, Wikipedia and the official website of the Preserve Bottle Village Committee.)