Pratt, Charles M., House National Register of Historic Places Listing

Greene and Greene built it. In 1909, the sibling architects took a massive commission from Standard Oil industrialist Charles Pratt, who wanted a winter home in the rugged Ojai Valley. They called it Casa Barranca. The brothers didn't just build a house they crafted a sprawling, low-slung masterwork of the American Craftsman movement that looks like it grew straight out of the dusty California foothills. They hauled river stones up from the local barrancas for the foundations. No nails visible. Instead, the Greenes relied on intricate square-peg joinery and bands of oiled teak and mahogany that gleam in the sharp southern California sun. It cost a fortune.

Actually, the real magic lies in how the Pratt House pioneered indoor-outdoor living long before mid-century modernists claimed the concept. Every bedroom has a sleeping porch. The Greenes designed massive, heavy-framed glass doors that slide away, opening up the dark, cool interiors to the searing heat and mountain breezes of Ventura County. It was radical for 1909. When the federal government put it on the National Register in 2002, they recognized it as one of the few "ultimate bungalows" that survived almost entirely intact, right down to the original light fixtures and custom-built oak furniture. It dodged the typical modernist remodels that ruined so many other historic properties during the post-war boom. A lucky escape.