diff --git a/package/owfs/owfs.mk b/package/owfs/owfs.mk
index 83614afc70..e0679d21b7 100644
--- a/package/owfs/owfs.mk
+++ b/package/owfs/owfs.mk
@@ -66,6 +66,13 @@ OWFS_MAKE_ENV += \
 	_python_prefix=/usr \
 	_python_exec_prefix=/usr
 OWFS_DEPENDENCIES += python host-swig
+# The configure scripts finds PYSITEDIR as the python_lib directory of
+# host-python, and then prepends DESTDIR in front of it. So we end up
+# installing things in $(TARGET_DIR)/$(HOST_DIR)/usr/lib/python which is
+# clearly wrong.
+# Patching owfs to do the right thing is not trivial, it's much easier to
+# override the PYSITEDIR variable in make.
+OWFS_EXTRA_MAKE_OPTS += PYSITEDIR=/usr/lib/python$(PYTHON_VERSION_MAJOR)/site-packages
 else
 OWFS_CONF_OPTS += --disable-owpython --without-python
 endif
@@ -75,6 +82,8 @@ ifeq ($(BR2_STATIC_LIBS),y)
 OWFS_CONF_OPTS += --disable-zero
 endif
 
+OWFS_MAKE = $(MAKE) $(OWFS_EXTRA_MAKE_OPTS)
+
 define OWFS_INSTALL_INIT_SYSV
 	$(INSTALL) -D -m 0755 $(OWFS_PKGDIR)S25owserver \
 		$(TARGET_DIR)/etc/init.d/S25owserver