Kanye West has yet again gone against the grain, this time within in the luxury real estate world. Get this, the Yeezy honcho demolished his $53 million beachfront mansion in Malibu, originally designed by esteemed Japanese architect Tadao Ando. Purchased in September 2021, the home was once an architectural marvel blending glass and nature, but West’s drastic renovations have reduced its value by $14 million.
Get ready for this one, West said:
“This is going to be my bomb shelter. This is going to be my Batcave.” West reportedly told a laborer during the demolition, according to an interview with The New Yorker. The mansion, completed by Ando in 2013, has been left as a skeletal shell, stripped of its plumbing, electricity, and iconic clouded glass windows.
Naturally, despite his initial vision, West never transformed the home into the bomb shelter he imagined. In December 2023, he decided to sell the property, initially listing it at $53 million, already $4.5 million less than his purchase price. By April, the price dropped by another $14 million, bringing it to $39 million, with expectations of further reductions.
The gutted remains of Ando’s design stand starkly above the golden sands, a blackened exterior perched on stilts. West, alongside his wife Bianca Censori and a team of laborers from New Jersey, embarked on radical changes that included dismantling staircases and installing a foam slide. Censori, with architecture degrees from the University of Melbourne, helped guide the overhaul.
Laborer Saxon, who worked on the project, described the brutal conditions: “There was so much rebar in the concrete. It was absolutely brutal.” He shared that West’s vision was “simple fresh and cleeeeeean.” Saxon often slept on-site, surviving on Clif Bars and Red Bulls. “I stink, I haven’t showered for two days,” he told The New Yorker.
Saxon’s tasks included painting over marble walls, removing expensive wooden cabinets, toppling chimneys, and smashing marble bathroom walls, leaving the house a barren shell devoid of its original luxury features. At one point, Saxon hesitated to alter the floor-to-ceiling windows facing the ocean, leading to a confrontation where West allegedly said, “If you don’t do what I asked you to do, I’m not going to be your friend anymore. You’re not going to work for me anymore. And you’re only going to see me on TV.” Saxon replied, “I don’t watch TV,” and walked out.
Not for nothing, West’s fascination with architecture is well-known. He has met with prominent architects like David Adjaye and Jacques Herzog and rapped about Ando, whom he once visited with Kim Kardashian. Architect Kulapat Yantrasast remarked, “To be honest, he did not like the house — he did not like the interior,” to The New Yorker.
But after the redesign and demolishment, the drastic changes has left the property virtually unrecognizable and significantly devalued. Saxon is currently in an ongoing lawsuit with West over unpaid wages. Despite efforts to sell, including enlisting Jason Oppenheim from “Selling Sunset,” the mansion remains on the market.
