Feel Good Story: The $57 Million Malibu Home Kanye West Destroyed & Abandoned Has Survived The Fires
NY Post - Kanye West’s infamous Malibu mansion — a Tadao Ando-designed masterpiece that West left gutted and abandoned — has miraculously survived the devastating California wildfires, according to its new owner.
The news was first reported by Realtor.com.
West purchased the beachfront property, a once-stunning architectural marvel, in 2021 for an eye-popping $57.25 million.
The rapper, 47, quickly stripped the home down to its concrete frame in an alleged attempt to convert it into a futuristic bomb shelter.
The drastic renovation was never completed, leaving the property exposed and sparking backlash from architecture lovers worldwide.
Thank God. Of all the chaos & destruction caused by the out of control fires that have engulfed the hills surrounding Los Angeles. Among all the celebrities, and even the lesser important non-celebrities who've lost their homes, it's heartwarming to see that one Kanye West's $57.25 million architectural marvel of a home, which he promptly gutted and left abandoned upon purchasing, still stands tall. Probably because it's made entirely of concrete.
I learned about Kanye West's Malibu home/bomb shelter escapades from an episode of the worst reality TV show reality TV has to offer, Selling Sunset. A show that features a team of real-estate agents who when not screaming bloody murder at each other and attempting to destroy their co-workers personal lives in the most diabolical ways possible, allegedly sell houses. Sometimes to Deshaun Watson.
Sorry I couldn't find a better video. I'm assuming Selling Sunset is trying to scrub it from the internet. It was a wild scene. Like 2 days after another full blown Deshaun Watson rape allegation dropped, he's just on Selling Sunset with a group of hot real estate agents congratulating him for signing the biggest contract in NFL history. The scene had nothing to do with anything either. Was no need for it. Just a gratuitous "Congrats on all the money Deshaun Watson!", then on to the next real estate agent drama.
Anyways... the Kanye home was designed by legendary Japanese architect Tadao Ando. When it was first built, people called it the epitome of artistic triumph.
And in the height of Kanye's "Hitler wasn't all that bad" phase, he purchased the home. Then promptly gutted the entire thing. The home immediately lost $18 million in value. Kanye proceeded to leave it sitting there fully exposed, the floor-to-ceiling windows completely removed, just rotting away on the beach. He supposedly had plans to turn it into a futuristic bomb shelter, but clearly that never happened. Architecture enthusiasts were livid that Kanye had desecrated one of the few residential structures the great Tadao Ando had ever built.
Classic Kanye. Of the few homes in the area to survive the devastating fires, naturally, Kanye's bomb shelter is one of them. So points to Kanye for identifying a quality bomb shelter. Had he actually gone through with his plans, it sounds like it would have been a very functional one.
Kanye was actually able to sell his gutted masterpiece of a home through the Selling Sunset, Oppenheim Group for $21M. Meaning he took a $36M loss on his investment (not including the amount of money he spent to knock the value down to that point). But still… great to see not every home was destroyed. We can rest assured that if you are in fact rich enough to purchase a fully concrete $57.25 million bomb-shelter grade home designed by the most renown architect in the world, then Malibu is still a perfectly safe place to live.
You gotta take the little victories where you can get them if you're LA right now. And on top of the house Kanye destroyed surviving the fires, the Rams won last night!
Gotta be honest with you, Trey… I'm not sure the demographic of people who lost their LA homes to the fires even know that the Rams exist. And for those who do, I feel like the losing of everything they owned in a devastating fire is probably a little too fresh for them to be psyched about Rams football. I feel like it would mean more a year from now, when people have had some time to get their affairs in order. Or if this happened in say, any football city that wasn't Los Angeles. Maybe I'm wrong. I'm sure there people who found the Rams winning to be a nice little pick me up. For them, I am very happy. Go Rams. And hopefully the new owner of the Tadao Ando home is able to salvage something livable out of it. Maybe the value will go up a bit now we know it's fire proof.