{"nrhp_refnum":"96001076","name":"Grandma Prisbrey's Bottle Village","other_names":["Bottle Village"],"category":"district","location":{"address":"4595 Cochran St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Simi Valley","county":"Ventura County","state":"CA","lat":34.27891248800006,"lon":-118.70474344999997,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1996-10-25","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture","Art","Landscape Architecture"],"significance_levels":["state"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A one-third-acre folk art environment in Simi Valley, Ventura County, California, built by Tressa Prisbrey between about 1956 and 1960. It includes 16 small bottle-walled structures, 11 objects such as shrines and wishing wells, walkways and a cactus garden.","why_significant":"The nomination argues it is an outstanding folk art environment, made largely of salvaged late-1950s and early-1960s consumer items set in mortar. It credits Prisbrey, who began at age 60 with no formal training and built it nearly alone. It also presents the village as a time capsule of mass-consumer castoffs and as a notable example of bottle-in-mortar construction.","narrative":"Bottle Village in Simi Valley, California, is a folk art environment on a one-third-acre lot, created by Tressa Prisbrey, who began building at age 60. Between about 1956 and 1960 she assembled 16 one-room structures with walls of thousands of bottles laid in mortar, floors embedded with found objects, and interiors that housed collections of pencils, dolls, shells and shot glasses. Around them she added shrines, wishing wells, walkways and a cactus garden made from car headlights, television tubes and other salvage gathered on her trips to the local dump. She worked almost entirely alone and without formal training in art or construction. The site is valued as an example of bottle-in-mortar construction and as a record of everyday throwaway goods from the late 1950s and early 1960s. The 1994 Northridge earthquake collapsed or badly damaged several structures, leaving eight structures and nine objects as contributing resources.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":"Tressa Prisbrey (Grandma Prisbrey)","architectural_style":"Other: Folk Art Environment","criteria":[],"status_note":"Listed function is vacant/not in use with work in progress. The 1994 Northridge earthquake damaged or collapsed several structures, while others survived in good condition.","vacant_flag":true,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:54:28.336886-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_CA/96001076.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/96001076/36c190196a-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/96001076/36c190196a-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Los Angeles","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Grandma_Prisbrey%27s_Bottle_Village_(3).jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Los Angeles</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Grandma_Prisbrey%27s_Bottle_Village_(3).jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/123862346","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandma_Prisbrey%27s_Bottle_Village","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5595472"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/california/ventura-county/grandma-prisbreys-bottle-village-96001076/"}