Grandma Prisbrey's Bottle Village, 4595 Cochran Street, Simi Valley, Ventura County, CA

Entry 2013 HALS Challenge: Documenting the Cultural Landscapes of Women
Significance: From the National Register nomination: It is a folk art environment of structures, sculptures, gardens, and walkways all made form various found objects, notably 16 house-like structures with walls made of bottles placed in mortar. With no formal training in art or architecture, Prisbrey began Bottle Village construction at age 60, proceeding to create it by herself, mostly from materials gleaned through daily visits to the dump. The national history, Bottle Village is important because it is a significant folk art environment created by an American folk artist of high acclaim and also because it is a rarity created out of actual mass consumer throwaway from everyday lives of Americans in the late 1950s and early 1960s. This environment has achieved serious acclaim by scholars, critics, curators and students as an important American folk art environment and as perhaps the prime folk art environment in art history created by a female self-taught artist.
Unprocessed Field note material exists for this structure: N22
Survey number: HALS CA-42
Building/structure dates: ca. 1956- ca. 1965 Initial Construction
Building/structure dates: ca. 1965- ca. 1982 Subsequent Work
National Register of Historic Places NRIS Number: 96001076