In 2021, Kanye West paid $57.25 for a chunk of prime Malibu real estate designed by Tadao Ando, a Pritzker-winning Japanese architect. There are only about 20 of Ando’s boxy concrete homes in the U.S., and one that sold to Jay-Z and Beyoncé this year set a California record. Another, soon, will belong to his ex-wife Kim Kardashian; a few weeks after she filed papers to scrub “West” off her name, she flew to visit the architect, who finalized the design of a “spaceship style” mansion she’s building in Palm Springs.
West’s house was originally designed for Richard Sachs, a banker, who sold it to him two years ago. West is now listing the three-story, 4,000-square-foot home for $4.25 million less — or $53 million — a difference that People magazine explains is due to his having “removed the home’s interiors.”
West apparently gutted the house and left it exposed to sun, sand, and storms. Neighbors reportedly said the place was “left to rot,” and no one visited, emboldening pranksters who decorated the place with a “Happy Hanukkah” banner last year. A contractor who was also guarding the building by sleeping on the hard concrete is now suing West over dangerous conditions, saying he was working 16-hour days. At least, he was until West asked him to replace a functional electrical system with large, off-the-grid generators. “I said, ‘You cannot have carbon monoxide running into a building,’” he told Nightline. “‘You’re going to suffocate everyone.’” So he quit. “You can only pay people so much to do crazy work.”
Maybe he needed quick cash to pay off that suit or finish his next album. In any case, the problem is now his broker’s to deal with. And Selling Sunset’s Jason Oppenheim is trying desperately to spin this, telling People that Ando “is known for his concrete work, which is what remains” and claiming that “much of the architectural integrity” remains in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. The photos on the Oppenheim Group site, however, are from the 2021 listing, and the description reads like AI was asked to pitch an empty box: “Natural light is used creatively throughout the space.”
