The six-bedroom home was built in 1974 and boasts 122 feet of beach frontage. The circular, wood-and-glass structure was designed to provide views of the Pacific Ocean from every room.

Gesner's family home, known as "The Sandcastle," is located next to his most famous work, the Wave House built for his friend Gerry Cooper.

Inspired by the sandcastles his son built on the beach, Gesner's groundbreaking design quickly became a Malibu icon.

"My father's most famous work is the iconic Cooper Wave House next door to our sandcastle," Zen Gesner told us in a recent phone interview." He designed it in the late 1950s while sitting offshore on the lot, stepping on his long balsa wood board and using an oil-based pen. Once he sketched it on the board, he paddled it, transferred it to paper and brought it to life."

Zen says his father "had a vision of building something that would blend in with the environment, the shoreline and the surf, and it would evolve over the years."

Harry died in 2022 at the age of 97.

Self-taught architect and surfer Harry Gesner's Malibu, California estate is on the market for the first time for $27.5 million.

The six-bedroom home was built in 1974 and boasts 122 feet of beach frontage. The circular, wood-and-glass structure was designed to provide views of the Pacific Ocean from every room.

Gesner's family home, known as "The Sandcastle," is located next to his most famous work, the Wave House built for his friend Gerry Cooper.

Inspired by the sandcastles his son built on the beach, Gesner's groundbreaking design quickly became a Malibu icon.

"My father's most famous work is the iconic Cooper Wave House next door to our sandcastle," Zen Gesner told us in a recent phone interview." He designed it in the late 1950s while sitting offshore on the lot, stepping on his long balsa wood board and using an oil-based pen. Once he sketched it on the board, he paddled it, transferred it to paper and brought it to life."

Zen says his father "had a vision of building something that would blend in with the environment, the shoreline and the surf, and it would evolve over the years."

Harry died in 2022 at the age of 97.

The Sandcastle's spectacular living quarters feature wood-beamed ceilings, walls of windows and a massive brick fireplace that Harry built as a stage for his wife, actress Nan Martin.

"I've always had incredible respect for his originality," Zen said of his father's unconventional approach to architecture." His early forays into environmental architecture and design, and the use of recycled building materials, predated his time by decades."

The cylindrical kitchen wraps around a circular island with stained glass windows in the overhead beams, and a cozy fireplace and breakfast bar.

There are two en-suite bedrooms on the first floor. Upstairs, the main suite has a soaring ceiling, beams, eyebrow windows and a brick fireplace.

The sand castle is built on a cove four miles north of Trancas Canyon.

"It was a magical place, with no straight lines-mostly circles, multiple levels, and an exterior structure that snaked upward like a tree house," Zen says.

The house was built with materials that Harry salvaged and repurposed to great effect: siding made from water piping, maple salvaged from an old high school gymnasium, old redwood harvested in the 1800s, and windows and doors saved from a silent movie theater in Hollywood.

"My father built our family house almost entirely from reclaimed materials that he had previously lived with elsewhere," Zen says." He preferred to use reclaimed wood in his house because it had a soul and was sometimes better quality than any new wood you could buy at the lumber yard. These practices have influenced the way I look at everything. Waste not, recycle, and reuse when possible."

A solarium with stained glass panels, a wrap-around deck and a covered patio offer unparalleled sunset views.

The one-acre property includes a treehouse condominium with ocean views, a one-bedroom boathouse, and a condominium "nest" that sits above an indoor-outdoor cabana.

Zen recalls touring the site with his father and says his fondest memory was viewing his client's land for the first time. Gesner said he has photos of his father outlining his initial impressions.

"He brought a chair and sat alone on the land for hours, noting everything there - the way the sun rose and set each day, the direction of the prevailing winds, the wandering wildlife, any large trees or boulders he could incorporate into the final design of the house, how the house felt organically born and rooted in that place," Zen recalls.