The crowdfunding entrepreneur who snapped up Kanye West’s abandoned beachfront bunker has put it back on the market. West’s former Malibu retreat, designed by renowned Japanese architect Tadao Ando, made headlines after the controversial rapper left it gutted and vacant. The architectural gem was a literal shell of its former self when Belwood Investments snapped it up last August for under $22 million — amounting to a loss of more than $36 million for West. Now, mid-renovation, Belwood’s CEO Bo Belmont wants to sell, the Wall Street Journal reported.
West, who had his legal name changed to “Ye,” bought the property in 2021 for $57.25 million from the financier and art collector Richard Sachs, for whom the home was built in 2013. Kanye told a laborer that he planned to make the home his “bomb shelter,” or “bat cave,” the New Yorker reported. West’s teardown job occurred around the same time that his erratic behavior and antisemitic outbursts made increasingly frequent headlines, and got him cut off from lucrative deals with Gap and Adidas.
The home, built in 2013, spans 4,000 square feet, with four bedrooms and five bathrooms. The concrete, box-like structure stands on 12 caissons submerged 60 feet into the bedrock of the coast. Its former ocean views turned into ocean exposures after Ye stripped the home of its windows, marble bathrooms and electricity. The Tadao Ando home prior to West’s gut renovation. West listed the hollowed-out home for $53 million in December 2023. The price plummeted to $39 million before Belmont scooped it.
Restoration of the rare Ando home is in full swing, the Journal reported. Framing, plumbing, roofing and electrical work have all been undertaken by Belmont, with the guidance of architecture firm Marmol Radziner. New windows are still in route, however. Belmont told the Journal that renovation costs will likely add up to $8.5 million. Tadao Ando is a Pritzker Prize-winning Japanese architect.
But windows or no, Belmont is looking for an exit. The Journal reported this week on the CEO’s plans to relist the home for $39 million, as is. Belmont told the Journal that selling now is a way to recoup his investors — whose crowdfunded contributions range from $1,000 to $1 million — as soon as possible. Belmont said carrying the property currently costs him about $1 million a month.
The home miraculously survived the massive wildfires that scorched entire neighborhoods across Los Angeles in January. Belmont told the Journal that the fires may even increase the home’s value, due to the destruction of so much inventory along the Pacific Coast Highway. If no one bites, Belmont plans to try again once the restoration is closer to completion in early 2026 — with a much higher price, of course, in the range of $55 to $65 million.
The Pritzker Prize-winning Ando’s residential designs are rare and iconic, and they always go from millions, from a Lenox Hill penthouse to Beyonce and Jay-Z’s record-setting Malibu mansion. His work has been panned for being parking garage-esque, but others praise his modernist creations as sculptural works of art, including Belmont.
West undertook the radical renovations alongside then-wife Bianca Censori, who holds a Master's degree in architecture. The Tadao Ando home prior to West's gut renovation. West bought the Malibu getaway amidst his divorce from Kim Kardashian. Tadao Ando is a Pritzker Prize-winning Japanese architect.
Just six months ago, Steven “Bo” Belmont was jazzed about having acquired a Tadao Ando-designed house in Malibu from Kanye West for a discounted $21 million. At the time, the founder and owner of Belwood Investments, a California-based real estate crowdfunding firm that’s been flipping homes since 2018, aspired to raise at least $5 million to restore the unfinished property during the next year or so to its original state and then hoist it back up for sale at around $40 million.
“This is not just a phenomenal real estate investment; it is an opportunity to revitalize and preserve an architectural gem by the renowned Tadao Ando, ensuring it remains a jewel of Malibu,” Belmont said via a press release. “This acquisition exemplifies Belwood Investments’ commitment to transforming properties with historical and architectural significance while delivering exceptional returns for our investors.”
But that was then. Belmont has now decided to put the place back on the market a little sooner and a lot more incomplete than expected. He’s asking a substantial $39 million for the oceanfront spread, which is listed by Jason Oppenheim of The Oppenheim Group and Mauricio Umansky of The Agency.
Records show the increasingly erratic music mogul-turned-Yeezy fashion designer doled out a whopping $57.3 million in cash for the residence in fall 2021 and then controversially gutted the place in preparation for a redesign. He proceeded to rip out all the windows, doors, and interior finishes before changing his mind and flipping the vacant and uninhabitable concrete shell back on the market in early 2024 at $53 million. The price was later slashed to $39 million, and after languishing and sitting exposed to the elements for nearly three years, it finally sold for $21 million, a staggering $36 million less than West paid.
Originally designed and built for financier and art collector Richard Sachs by the Pritzker Prize-winning Japanese architect, the brutalist structure was completed in 2013 in collaboration with the architecture firm Marmol Radziner using 1,200 tons of concrete and 200 tons of reinforced steel. Per marketing materials, the house has four bedrooms and five baths in just over 4,000 square feet, with roughly 1,500 square feet of outdoor decks providing ocean views.
Lacking plumbing, electrical, HVAC, and interior finishes at the time he scooped it up, Belmont has since completed the framing, installed new plumbing and electrical systems, redone the roof, and is waiting for glass for the windows to arrive from Germany.
The investor recently told The Wall Street Journal that he doesn’t intend to abandon the construction that is already under way and will continue to work on the mansion until he receives a fair offer. If one doesn’t come about, he added, he will list the property for between $55 million and $65 million closer to completion, which is expected by early 2026.
Several unsolicited offers have already come in during the past few months, including a $30 million overture from a Montana developer and a $28 million submission from a local builder. “I’m obviously not going to take that,” he said, “but there’s been a lot of activity.” A broker price opinion report prepared for Belwood by Rugiero at the time of purchase estimated the property’s final value once restored would top $50 million, while other brand-new or freshly rehabbed homes along this same stretch of sand typically go for around $20 million.
However, it is one of only a handful of U.S. buildings designed by the 82-year-old Ando, who’s been called “Hollywood’s favorite starchitect” and whose homes are regarded as “the hottest must-have among the super wealthy.” In 2023, Jay-Z and Beyoncé paid $190 million for a much larger Malibu estate designed by Ando in a deal that remains one of the most ever paid for a California home.
Kim Kardashian is planning to build an extravagant Ando-designed vacation mansion near Palm Springs, and Slack co-founder Stewart Butterfield and his wife Jen Rubio bought Tom Ford’s Ando-designed ranch in New Mexico in 2021 for $40 million. After he offloaded his Malibu home, West paid $35 million in an off-market deal for a glitzy Richard Landry-designed contemporary mansion in the guard-gated Beverly Park neighborhood of Los Angeles that had previously belonged to Perfect 10 magazine founder Norm Zada, as well as the late Saudi billionaire Sheikh Saleh Abdullah Kamal. His other L.A. property in Calabasas, where his now-shuttered Donda Academy was located, has fallen into a state of neglect.
