Kanye West has lately spent a lot of time off the grid. Indeed, ever since he purchased his expansive, mostly rural $14 million ranch in Wyoming in 2019, Ye has made spatial solitude an integral part of his creative process. (See also: his makeshift pied-sous-terre under the Mercedes-Benz Stadium.) But after a whirlwind album cycle and amidst his pending divorce from Kim Kardashian West, it seems like he’s ready to be back where the people are, reportedly purchasing a $57.3 million concrete abode designed by Pritzker Prize-winning Japanese architect Tadao Ando, which sits snugly between two other properties on the Malibu shoreline.
Per Dirt.com, Ye purchased the home—one of the few designed by Ando in the U.S.—in an off-market deal from its previous owner Richard Sachs, the financier perhaps best known publicly for dating Ashley Olsen in 2017, who commissioned the home's renovation. The home has three levels comprising guest bedrooms, public areas including living room and kitchen, and a top-floor suite that offers The Last Unicorn-level views of the crashing waves below. Of course, as Twitter was quick to point out, $57.3 million sure seems expensive for a house with seemingly very little privacy, its 5,700-square-foot lot hitting right up against the edge of the public road and neighboring houses, with no yard space to speak of. Even so, as Dirt reports, it’s still only the second-highest number paid for a Malibu home this year.
Cramped lot aside, the sculptural space itself is still a testament to West’s longstanding taste for artful (or, depending on your taste, unsettling) minimalism. An Ando by the sea, which undoubtedly recalls the architect's art island of Naoshima, Japan, feels like a natural successor to the deeply stark Calabasas mansion he shares with Kardashian, which Ye once described as a “futuristic Belgian monastery.” Luckily, the family home, which the now-estranged couple designed in collaboration with Axel Vervoordt, is only a 30 minute drive away from the new digs. And given that there aren’t any photos of its interior available online, we’re just going to have to trust that it feels—or will feel—as spacious inside as Kanye’s always envisioned. “We need to build a home,” he recalled to this publication last year, “where every room is a [James] Turrell”—warm, sparse, boundaryless. As architect Zach Walters elaborated, “Kanye talks a lot about how our spaces are so cluttered. What does all this stuff mean for our mental health? How different would we be if we were in spaces where we could actually think and focus and be clear?” Whenever Ye does find himself seaside, now seems like as good a time as any for him to hit up his buddy (and fellow Malibu resident) Jonah Hill for some surf lessons. Kinda feels like the ultimate cure for what ails you.
