Childhood home, now on the market, leads to life as an architect

"I probably don't remember anything else when I was 11," said Farbstein, who now heads Pacific Palisades-based Farbstein & Associates. That Straub-designed post-and-beam residence, which cost $50,000 in 1956, is now listed for $7.249 million, making it "probably one of the best investments my parents ever made.""

"The 3,345-square-foot home could easily be mistaken for a Zen woodland retreat. Window-walls, some resembling Japanese screens, augment the home's horizontal stretch beneath pitched fir ceilings trimmed with clerestory windows. Straub designed the home's four wings to embrace existing oak and sycamore trees on the 2-acre property."

"We've been cleaning out 50 years of memories," said Ellie Farbstein, a Santa Monica-based artist. "I got a lot of my artistic sensibility from living in such a beautiful place." Original ash wood cabinetry is built into most rooms. The only change through the decades: parquet wood flooring that replaced cork, and Formica that was swapped out for granite kitchen countertops."

Jay Farbstein's childhood encounter with architect Calvin Straub's design sketch at age 11 inspired his career in architecture. Straub designed a post-and-beam residence for the Farbstein family in Pacific Palisades that cost $50,000 in 1956 and is now valued at $7.249 million. The 3,345-square-foot midcentury home features four wings designed to embrace existing oak and sycamore trees on a 2-acre property. The residence showcases Japanese screen-inspired window-walls, pitched fir ceilings with clerestory windows, brick fireplaces, and original ash wood cabinetry. Siblings Jay and Ellie Farbstein are selling the home following their parents' deaths after 50 years of residence. Minimal modifications have been made, with parquet flooring replacing cork and granite countertops replacing Formica.

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