Kanye West Is Now Facing an $18 Million Loss on His Tadao Ando-Designed Malibu House
Four months ago, Kanye West put his infamously wrecked Malibu house on the market, asking a steep $53 million. To nobody’s particular surprise, there were no takers. This week, the price tag was slashed all the way down to $39 million by the home’s listing agent, Selling Sunset star Jason Oppenheim.
It’s worth noting that the current ask is a staggering $18 million less than what West himself paid for the place less than three years ago, back in September 2021. The music mogul-turned-Yeezy fashion designer shelled out $57.3 million—in cash—for the 4,000 square foot residence, which was completed circa 2013 and designed by famed Pritzker Prize-winning Japanese architect Tadao Ando.
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But it remains unclear if West ever spent a night at the oceanfront home, which sits cheek-to-jowl between two other houses on surfer-friendly Malibu Road. Almost immediately after he bought it, West set about tearing the place apart, ripping out all the windows, doors and interior finishes. The formerly four-bedroom, five-bath house is now a vacant and uninhabitable concrete shell, with its rooms open and exposed to the unforgivingly corrosive sea air.
Despite the big price reduction, buyers should be warned that the house will require many months and likely millions of dollars in renovation costs. And the current $39 million ask, while substantially improved, is a lofty figure. Other homes along this same stretch of sand typically top out around $20 million—and that’s for a brand-new or freshly rehabbed residence.
Still, those other homes lack a Tadao Ando pedigree. West’s Brutalist white elephant remains one of only a handful of U.S. buildings designed by the 82-year-old, who’s been called “Hollywood’s favorite starchitect” and whose homes are “the hottest must-have[s] among the super wealthy.”
Last year, Jay-Z and Beyoncé paid $190 million for a different—and substantially larger—Malibu estate designed by Ando, an amount that remains the most ever paid for a California home. Kim Kardashian is planning to built an extravagant Ando-designed vacation mansion near Palm Springs. In 2021, Slack co-founder Stewart Butterfield and his wife Jen Rubio dropped $40 million to buy a Tom Ford’s Ands-designed New Mexico ranch.
West, who remains one of the world’s most successful record producers and one of the best-selling musicians of all time, seems to be shifting away from real estate ownership—when he’s not out traveling the globe with wife Bianca Censori, he frequently bunks up for months at a time in some of L.A.’s poshest hotels, including the oceanfront Nobu Ryokan.
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