The Moore House: A Richard Neutra House in Ojai
Just Ojai · Field Notes
A wealthy businessman followed a philosopher to Ojai, then hired the most famous modernist in California to build him a house he could think in.
The Moore House at a glance
The Moore House on Foothill Road is the most significant Richard Neutra house in Ojai, built between 1950 and 1952 on thirty acres for James and Orline Moore, who followed the philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti here. The AIA gave it a First Honor Award in 1954. It is privately owned and not open to the public.
Who designed the Moore House in Ojai, California?
Richard Neutra designed it, and his son Dion Neutra shared the credit when the American Institute of Architects handed the project a First Honor Award for Single Family Residence in 1954. Neutra was at the height of his powers then, fresh off the Kaufmann House in Palm Springs, and the Moore House reads as the quieter, more disciplined cousin of that far more photographed building.
Ask an Ojai realtor about the valley's architecture and you will usually hear about the Spanish Revival arcade downtown. That is where most people start and stop. They should not. The valley holds one of the best small Neutras in the state, on a shelf of ranch land off Foothill Road, and almost nobody outside the architecture world knows it is here. What makes it unusual has nothing to do with architecture. It has to do with why the Moores came to Ojai at all.
Why did the Moores build a Neutra house in Ojai?
James and Orline Moore chose the site for its proximity to the home of Jiddu Krishnamurti, the philosopher whose presence shaped Ojai's identity more than any other single figure. They were his disciples. A City of Ojai historic preservation document puts it plainly: James Moore was a wealthy businessman who came to Ojai to assist Krishnamurti with his organization and with the Happy Valley School.
So the commission runs backwards from the usual order. The Moores did not find a beautiful valley and then hire an architect. They followed a teacher, bought land to be near him, and then hired Richard Neutra to build something appropriate to that decision. The philosophy came first. The building answered it.
This is the through-line of the whole town, and it is why Ojai has always attracted a certain kind of person. The valley has been drawing people who are reorganizing their lives around an idea since the Theosophists arrived a century ago. The Moore House is what that impulse looks like when it has real money and excellent taste behind it.
A lovely sub-tropical landscape of orange groves between mountain ranges.
Richard Neutra, on the Ojai Valley
Neutra spent his career arguing that buildings should serve the human nervous system. He looked at Ojai and saw a landscape already doing the job, so his work here is largely a matter of getting out of the way, which is part of why Ojai looks different when you drive through it.
What Neutra actually built on Foothill Road
Barbara Lamprecht's account in Neutra: Complete Works is the standard reference, and the details in it are specific enough to be worth repeating. The house sits on roughly thirty acres of ranch land. A window wall along the eastern side runs the length of the valley view. Windows on the north frame the mountains. Ceilings reach eleven feet in places and are surfaced in redwood, while the walls and built-ins are birch.
The water is the part people remember. An L-shaped pool wraps the northeast corner, and it was not decorative. It irrigated the planting beds. Orline Moore put in cattails, Louisiana iris, water hyacinths, lotus, and waterlilies, and maintained them herself. The pools also humidified the air, which in an Ojai summer is engineering rather than flourish.
Then the carport, which is the detail that gives the game away. Neutra put a second pool on its roof. From the house above you do not see a carport. You see water reflecting sky. A lesser architect would have planted a hedge.
A studio and a guest house sit alongside the main house, linked by stone stairs and a pergola. Inside, the plan flows rather than divides: a screened porch opens into a day room, which opens into the dining nook and kitchen. The two bedrooms share a corridor that doubles as an exhibition gallery, which tells you what the Moores intended to do with their days.
The cabana that cooled the friendship
In the late 1950s the Moores added a cabana to the property, built in a style close enough to Neutra's own that a casual visitor would not clock the difference. Neutra was reportedly not pleased, and the relationship between the architect and his clients cooled over it.
Neutra was famously proprietary about his buildings. The Moores had lived in theirs long enough to have opinions. Anyone who has owned an architectural home knows exactly where this argument sits: the house is a document, and it is also where you keep your towels. That tension never resolves, and Debbie Pisaro spends a good deal of her working life in the middle of it, whether the address is on Foothill Road or in Nichols Canyon.
What happened to the house after the Moores
The house has changed hands and it has changed. A 1992 Los Angeles Times piece on the property was headlined around exactly that idea: the Moore House had undergone some change but remained a prime example of Neutra's modernist style. By November 1986 the occupants were the R. Amerian family, and the house appeared on the Ojai Valley's second annual home tour, which is the last time it is easy to document the public getting a look inside.
The sources do not agree on everything, and it is worth being honest about that rather than picking whichever number sounds best. Accounts of the parcel range from twelve acres to forty, and construction dates run from 1950 to 1954 depending on whether the counter means design or completion. Lamprecht's thirty acres and 1950 to 1952 are the best-sourced figures, and they are what Debbie Pisaro uses.
What is not in dispute is that the house is private. It is not a museum and not on any regular tour. The correct way to see it is from the road, or in Julius Shulman's photographs at the Getty Research Institute.
Can you buy a Richard Neutra house in Ojai?
Rarely, and not on any schedule you can plan around. Ojai has a small number of significant modernist houses and they trade infrequently, often without ever reaching the open market. A buyer who wants one is not shopping, they are waiting, and the wait is measured in years rather than months.
That is a different transaction from the ordinary Ojai purchase, where homes have been sitting on the market around ninety-two days and a buyer has room to think. For an architectural property the dynamic inverts. There is no inventory to compare against, no comparable sale from last quarter, and the seller usually knows precisely what they have.
This category of house is bought through relationships rather than listings. The valley is small, owners of significant houses tend to know each other, and they know which agent handled the last few. The best real estate agent in Ojai for a house like this is whoever is already in the conversation before it becomes a listing, which is why the Oak Knoll compound sale in the East End is worth studying.
Where the Moore House sits in Ojai's preservation record
The City of Ojai's Historic Preservation Commission has assessed the property. It appears in the commission's documentation as item twenty-six, the James Moore Residence, in a survey considering properties for Structure of Merit or Landmark status.
That designation is not a burden, and Ojai owners regularly misunderstand this. Properties listed as Structures of Merit, Landmarks, or contributors to a historic district gain access to the California Historical Building Code, which applies more lenient regulations to repairs, alterations, and rehabilitation. For a seventy-year-old redwood-ceilinged house with an irrigation pool around it, that is the difference between a feasible restoration and an impossible one.
This is familiar territory. In Los Angeles the equivalent conversation happens around Historic-Cultural Monument status, and the Wirin House, Neutra's 1949 house in Los Feliz, is a good comparison: the same architect, the same era, the same question of what protection actually does for an owner. The answer is usually that it helps.
Reading the Moore House against the rest of the canon
Neutra built a great deal in Southern California, and the Ojai house is best understood next to the rest of it. The Nesbitt House in Brentwood shows him working with brick and wood rather than the steel-and-glass vocabulary he is usually credited with. The Millard Kaufman Residence is a later, smaller exercise in the same ideas. Debbie Pisaro has written a broader survey of Richard Neutra homes in Los Angeles for anyone who wants the full map.
What separates the Moore House from those is the land. Neutra rarely had thirty acres. In the city he was solving for a narrow lot and a neighbor's window, and the brilliance is compressed. In Ojai he had room, water, and a client who wanted the building to disappear. The result is looser and arguably more purely Neutra than the famous houses.
It also sits in a valley with its own architectural logic. The East End reads as ranch land and citrus. Meiners Oaks and Mira Monte are their own thing entirely, and anyone comparing them should start with the Ojai neighborhoods, compared. Foothill Road, where the Moore House sits, is the north edge, up against the slope, and it has always been where the valley's larger parcels are.
Ojai is also not the only Ventura County town with a serious architectural record. Hobson Heights in Ventura rewards anyone circling the county rather than the town.
Debbie Pisaro is a 24-year veteran, founder of Coastline 840, and a 2025 Inman Luxury Leader, representing buyers and sellers across Ojai and the surrounding neighborhoods. Any Ojai realtor worth hiring should be able to tell you what the valley's architectural stock is actually worth. Just Ojai is where Debbie Pisaro keeps the valley's record, and the homeowner guide covers the ground beneath that question.
Frequently asked questions
Who designed the Moore House in Ojai, California?
Richard Neutra designed the Moore House at 512 North Foothill Road in Ojai, with his son Dion Neutra sharing credit. The American Institute of Architects awarded it a First Honor Award in the Single Family Residence category in 1954. It was built for James and Orline Moore between 1950 and 1952.
Why did James and Orline Moore build a Neutra house in Ojai?
The Moores chose the Foothill Road site for its proximity to the home of Jiddu Krishnamurti, whose disciples they were. A City of Ojai historic preservation document records that James Moore was a wealthy businessman who came to Ojai to assist Krishnamurti with his organization and the Happy Valley School.
Can you tour the Moore House?
No. The Moore House is a private residence and is not open to the public or on any regular tour. It appeared on the Ojai Valley's second annual home tour in 1986. The best available views are Julius Shulman's photographs, held in the Getty Research Institute archive.
How big is the Moore House?
Barbara Lamprecht's Neutra: Complete Works places the house on roughly thirty acres of ranch land, and that is the best-sourced figure. Other accounts range from twelve to forty acres. The main house is joined by a studio and a guest house, connected by stone stairs and a pergola.
What are the pools for?
They are functional, not decorative. An L-shaped pool wrapping the northeast corner irrigated Orline Moore's planting beds and humidified the air around the house. A second pool sits on the carport roof, reflecting the sky so the carport disappears when viewed from the house above.
Is the Moore House a landmark?
It appears in City of Ojai Historic Preservation Commission documentation as item twenty-six, the James Moore Residence, within a survey assessing properties for Structure of Merit or Landmark status. Owners should confirm the current designation directly with the City of Ojai before relying on it.
What is a Structure of Merit?
Properties listed as Structures of Merit, Landmarks, or contributors to a historic district gain access to the California Historical Building Code. The CHBC applies more lenient building regulations to repairs, alterations, and rehabilitation, which can make restoring an older house substantially more feasible and less expensive.
Can you buy a Richard Neutra house in Ojai?
Rarely. Ojai holds a small number of significant modernist houses and they trade infrequently, frequently without reaching the open market. Buyers in this category generally wait years rather than shop, and transactions tend to happen through relationships and quiet introductions rather than public listings.
Who is a good full-service real estate agent in Ojai?
Debbie Pisaro is a 24-year veteran, founder of Coastline 840, and a 2025 Inman Luxury Leader, representing buyers and sellers across Ojai and the surrounding neighborhoods including the East End, Meiners Oaks, and Mira Monte. She handles ordinary valley purchases and architectural properties alike.
How fast do Ojai homes sell?
Typical list-to-close in the current Ojai market runs roughly seventy to ninety-five days. Architectural and historic properties sit outside that pattern entirely, since they often sell privately and have no comparable inventory to price against. A local Ojai realtor is worth consulting before assuming either timeline applies.
Debbie Pisaro is a California real estate broker with 24 years of experience and the founder of Coastline 840, an independent luxury brokerage named for California's 840 miles of coastline. She is a 2025 Inman Luxury Leader and specializes in architectural, historic, and design-forward homes, including Historic-Cultural Monuments, Mills Act properties, and the work of Neutra, Schindler, Lautner, Ain, and Paul R. Williams. More about her architectural practice. DRE #01369110.
Debbie Pisaro · Coastline 840 · DRE #01369110