Cliff May in Thousand Oaks at a glance
Where are the Cliff May homes in Thousand Oaks?
Cliff May's archive at UC Santa Barbara records fourteen Thousand Oaks and Newbury Park commissions between 1945 and 1984, six of them for Edwin Janss Jr., whose family developed the city from the Conejo Ranch. Documented houses include 783 Calle Laredo and 872 Encino Vista Drive. Four more in Conejo Oaks are attributed by listing agents but are not in the archive.
Just Ojai · On the Register
The Cliff May homes in Thousand Oaks have a problem no other cluster of his work has: the houses everyone talks about are the ones he may not have drawn, and the ones he certainly drew are the ones nobody talks about. An Ojai realtor hears "Cliff May in Conejo Oaks" a few times a year. Debbie Pisaro went to the archive to find out which of those claims hold, and found the real story was a family named Janss.
The Janss family and the making of Thousand Oaks
The Janss Investment Company bought the Conejo Ranch, about 10,000 acres of the old Rancho El Conejo, in 1910. For forty years the family ran it as a working ranch. After the war, Edwin Janss Jr. turned it into a city, and the record shows he turned to Cliff May to do it. Between 1955 and 1964 May's office drew for Janss a subdivision plan, the Conejo Village Professional Center, a ranch manager's house, and alterations to Janss's own home, all catalogued under his name in the Cliff May papers at UC Santa Barbara. May's own files hold an advertisement for "La Cuesta Conejo in Janss Conejo," which tells you the developer was selling the architect's name along with the lots.
The family commissions did not stop with Edwin Jr. In 1963 and 1964 the office designed a house for Florence Janss, Edwin Sr.'s widow, on Pine Crest Road in Conejo Village. The archive files that house under Los Angeles, which is a cataloguing slip; Pine Crest Road and Conejo Village are Thousand Oaks. Two decades on, in 1984, the office was back on Pine Crest Road doing alterations for Fletcher Jones, the Holmby Hills client whose house on Carolwood Drive May had designed in 1965. That is one of the last Ventura County entries in the archive, drawn when May was seventy-six.
Why this matters to a buyer: the Janss work is the reason Cliff May was in the Conejo Valley at all. Everything else in Thousand Oaks radiates from it.
The documented houses, in order
The earliest Ventura County job in the whole archive is here. A house for Ted Lynn at 783 Calle Laredo, Thousand Oaks, CA 91360, drawn 1945 to 1947, predates the Janss development by a decade. A John L. McMahan house followed in 1950, along with a set of low-cost tract housing studies for William Brakebill from about the same year. In 1957 May drew a house for A.J. Eyraud in Newbury Park.
Then Conejo Oaks. The 1950s neighborhood off Moorpark Road is where the Cliff May attributions pile up, and the archive confirms two houses there, both from 1956: a house for Bud Jury on Encino Vista Drive and a house for John T. Pool Jr. at 872 Encino Vista Drive, Thousand Oaks, CA 91362. These are the only two Conejo Oaks addresses with drawings in the catalogue.
Two later commissions belong to the ranch tradition rather than the subdivision. The Sanger Hedrick house on Hidden Valley Road, drawn 1963 to 1965, sits in the horse country south of the 101 where the Conejo Valley turns into the Santa Monica Mountains. The Burt Sugarman ranch house on Potrero Road, 1978 to 1979, was drawn for the television producer on the ridge road that runs out toward Lake Sherwood, and it is among the last houses May's office designed anywhere. Debbie Pisaro's county-wide list of Cliff May's Ventura County work sets these beside the Camarillo and Bell Canyon commissions.
Are the Conejo Oaks Cliff Mays real?
Four houses in Conejo Oaks have been sold as Cliff Mays by their listing agents, and none of the four appears in the UCSB catalogue under its address. They are 2396 Hood Drive and 2508 Hood Drive, both built in 1961; 2507 Drake Drive, also 1961; and 1249 Encino Vista Court, built in 1958. The USModernist project list calls the Drake Drive house the Melvin Knaak House and records that the Elfquest creators Wendy and Richard Pini owned it before it sold in 2023. The Encino Vista Court house was marketed as an "untouched" 1958 May before a 2020 renovation and a 2021 sale.
Here is the honest position. The attributions might be right. May's office sold plan sets, the 1956 Jury and Pool drawings are on the same streets, and a small cluster of plan-built houses two to five years later is exactly how his tract work spread elsewhere. But a listing sheet is a claim, and the archive is the record, and the record does not have them. Until a drawing, a plan-set number, or a piece of office correspondence surfaces for one of these four, Debbie Pisaro calls them attributed. A buyer paying the architect's premium for one of them should ask the seller for the paper, and a seller who has it should put it in the disclosure package, because it is worth more than the photographs.
A 2009 forum thread also mentions Cliff May custom homes in Los Robles Hills Estates, a gated community across town. No address, no drawing, and nothing in the archive under that name. It is not on the list.
How the archive settles it
The Cliff May papers at UC Santa Barbara's Architecture and Design Collection are searchable by client, city, and street, and the collection has been public long enough that any house with real drawings should be findable. For Thousand Oaks, a search on the city name returns the fourteen entries above. A search on "Hood" or "Drake" returns nothing under May. That is not proof the houses are not his, since not every plan set went to the archive, but it moves the burden.
The same test applies across the county. Debbie Pisaro's page on the two Cliff May houses on Vientos Road in Camarillo is built on a folder that includes the drawings, the presentation board, and a 1964 Architectural Digest clipping, and her page on the Bell Canyon Equestrian Center rests on a National Register nomination. Conejo Oaks has two houses with that standard of paper and four without it. The difference is the whole premium.
What a Thousand Oaks Cliff May buyer should know
Three things. First, the neighborhood. Conejo Oaks is a 1950s tract of larger lots on the east side of town, and the Cliff May association is a real part of its identity whether or not every house earns it; the streets read as ranch-house streets, low and wide, with the oaks the city is named for. Second, the fabric. The 1956 houses were built with glass walls, brick floors, and open beams, and the ones that kept them are rare; the 2020 renovation of the Encino Vista Court house is the usual fate. Third, the ranch houses south of the freeway, on Hidden Valley Road and Potrero Road, are a different market from the tract, sold by acreage and horse facilities as much as by the architect, and they are where May's late work in the county actually is.
Debbie Pisaro is not the listing agent for any of the houses named here. She represents buyers on architectural homes across California, regardless of who holds a given listing, the same standing practice whether a home is on or off market. Buyers who track the mid-century neighborhoods of the San Fernando Valley tend to stop at the Conejo grade; the Janss commissions are the argument for not stopping. Buyers who know May from the Sullivan Canyon enclave in Brentwood will find the Hidden Valley houses closer in spirit than the tract. Debbie Pisaro, an Ojai realtor whose practice is built on architectural and historic homes, built Coastline 840 around this kind of research, on the view that a boutique practice serves an architectural buyer better than a big office does. Her architectural homes practice runs from San Diego to the Bay Area, much of it through pocket listings. For the valley, start with her guide to the best real estate agent in Ojai, and for Ojai's own best-documented modern house, the Neutra Moore House.
Questions people ask about Cliff May in Thousand Oaks
How many in Thousand Oaks?
The Cliff May papers at UC Santa Barbara record fourteen Thousand Oaks and Newbury Park entries from 1945 to 1984, including six for the Janss family, houses for Ted Lynn, Bud Jury, John Pool Jr., Sanger Hedrick, and Burt Sugarman, and alterations for Fletcher Jones. Four Conejo Oaks houses are attributed by listing agents but are not in the archive.
Which Janss projects were Cliff May's?
Between 1955 and 1964 Cliff May's office drew a subdivision plan, the Conejo Village Professional Center, a ranch manager's house, and home alterations for Edwin Janss Jr., whose family developed Thousand Oaks from the Conejo Ranch. In 1963 and 1964 the office also designed a house for Florence Janss on Pine Crest Road in Conejo Village.
Are the Cliff May houses in Conejo Oaks, Thousand Oaks, real Cliff Mays?
Two are documented. The archive holds 1956 drawings for the Bud Jury house on Encino Vista Drive and the John T. Pool Jr. house at 872 Encino Vista Drive. Four others, at 2396 and 2508 Hood Drive, 2507 Drake Drive, and 1249 Encino Vista Court, are attributed by listing agents but have no drawings in the catalogue.
Is 2507 Drake the Knaak House?
USModernist's Cliff May project list calls 2507 Drake Drive in Thousand Oaks the Melvin Knaak House, dates it to 1961, and records that Wendy and Richard Pini, creators of Elfquest, owned it before it sold in 2023. The UCSB catalogue has no Knaak or Drake Drive entry under Cliff May, so the attribution rests on USModernist and listing copy.
What is the oldest Cliff May in Ventura County?
The Ted Lynn house at 783 Calle Laredo in Thousand Oaks, drawn between 1945 and 1947, is the earliest Ventura County commission in the Cliff May papers. It predates the Janss development of the Conejo Valley by a decade and the next Camarillo entry, the 1948 Rotsler house on Camarillo Road, by a year.
Any Cliff May in Hidden Valley?
Yes. The archive holds the Sanger Hedrick house on Hidden Valley Road, drawn 1963 to 1965, and the Burt Sugarman ranch house on Potrero Road, drawn 1978 to 1979, both catalogued under Thousand Oaks. They are ranch estates in the horse country south of the 101, a different market from the Conejo Oaks tract.
How do you verify a Cliff May house in Thousand Oaks?
Search the Cliff May papers at UC Santa Barbara by street, client, or city. Thousand Oaks returns fourteen entries; Hood Drive and Drake Drive return none. A house not in the catalogue may still be a May built from a purchased plan set, but the seller should produce a drawing. A listing description is a claim, not a record.
Who is the best real estate agent for a Cliff May house?
Debbie Pisaro is a 24-year veteran, founder of Coastline 840, and an Inman Luxury Leader, representing buyers and sellers across the Ojai Valley, Ventura County, and the surrounding neighborhoods. She researches the archive before a Cliff May house is priced and keeps the county-wide list of his work. Many of the homes she sells never reach the open market.
Did Cliff May build in Los Robles Hills?
There is no evidence he did. A 2009 forum post recalled Cliff May custom homes in Los Robles Hills Estates, a gated community in Thousand Oaks, but gave no address, and the Cliff May papers at UC Santa Barbara have no entry under that name. Until a drawing or plan number surfaces, the claim stays off the documented list.
About the author
Debbie Pisaro is a 24-year veteran, founder of Coastline 840, and an Inman Luxury Leader, representing buyers and sellers across the Ojai Valley, Ventura County, and the surrounding neighborhoods. Many of the homes she sells never reach the open market. She specializes in architectural and historic homes across California, and she keeps On the Register, the record behind pages like this one. More about Debbie, or start at the Just Ojai home page.
Debbie Pisaro · Real Estate Salesperson · DRE #01369110 · Coastline 840 is a DBA of Side, Inc., CA DRE #02014153
Sources: the Cliff May papers, Architecture and Design Collection, Art, Design and Architecture Museum, UC Santa Barbara; USModernist's Cliff May project list; public sale records for the attributed houses. Dates are drawing dates from the archive catalogue and may differ from completion dates.
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