Panel Backs Restoration of Bottle Village

Simi Valley’s whimsical Bottle Village is a historic landmark worthy of spending $447,000 in earthquake rehabilitation funds to repair, Ventura County’s Cultural Heritage Board declared Monday.

As politicians line up against spending federal money on the unique architectural folly, the board’s unanimous endorsement boosts preservationists’ efforts to save the once popular tourist attraction.

“It seems to me if we’ve designated it a county landmark, we should certainly support it,” said board member Adele Stuebing, just before the board decided to send letters to the Simi Valley City Council and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) backing the project.

The decision rejects attempts by Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) and Simi Valley Councilwoman Sandi Webb to prevent taxpayer money from being spent to repair damage wrought by the 1994 Northridge earthquake.

A Federal Emergency Management Agency repair grant has been frozen pending the outcome of a bill Gallegly has introduced asking Congress to eliminate the project’s funding. Monday night, Webb persuaded the City Council to draft a letter supporting Gallegly’s bill and urging him to push for a full review of FEMA funding guidelines. And she is circulating a petition that contends it would be better to bulldoze the Cochran Street folk art collection than rebuild it.

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But Daniel Paul, a Cal State Fullerton art history graduate and volunteer with the Preserve Bottle Village Committee, praised the board’s decision.

“They understand this project,” said the 24-year-old Anaheim bartender. “It represents an everyday individual with passion, and it’s a passion that should be shared.”

Bottle Village was built by the late Tressa “Grandma” Prisbrey, who drove to the city’s garbage dump daily in her Studebaker truck beginning in 1958 for items to build the unusual structures she intended to house her pencil collection.

Prisbrey’s more than 30 creations, including 16 bottle buildings, a television tube walkway and car headlight planters, has been lauded as a “monumental” example of folk art and “an above-ground archeological dig of Simi Valley.” Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, it is also both a state and county historic landmark.

But all the buildings were red-tagged after the earthquake--which smashed 10% to 15% of the bottles--and are in need of restoration, Paul said.

“When we’re done hopefully they’ll be a wonderful attraction for people to visit,” said board member Judy Trien.

Webb was unimpressed by the board’s support.

“They’re artsy people, they’re not practical,” she said. “They don’t have to live next to it.”

Webb said she has so far collected more than 1,000 signatures from people urging that no public money be given to what she calls a “rat-infested trash heap.”

Supporters and opponents of the FEMA grant for Bottle Village continued their battle in front of the Simi Valley City Council on Monday night.

“The grant was misspent, and it should have been given to people whose homes were damaged by the earthquake,” resident Jean Dewey said.

“It makes me very, very angry to see this kind of money come across” for a project such as Bottle Village, she said.

But Bottle Village backers, some waiving articles from international arts magazines on the place, argued that much of the money will be spent on supplies, rent and wages for part-time reconstruction laborers in Simi Valley. Several said that Simi Valley might lose a landmark if it allowed the project money to be killed.

“I really don’t understand the amount of hostility directed toward Bottle Village by members of this community,” said Paige Moser. “To destroy Bottle Village through proactive effort or neglect will be a black eye for the city of Simi Valley.”

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Meanwhile, Paul said he intends to once again solicit people Wednesday and Thursday outside the Simi Valley post office to add their signatures to a petition of his own supporting the rehabilitation effort.

Times staff writer Mack Reed contributed to this story.