Kanye West Takes Loss on Off-Market Deal in New York City
By Mark David
LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – As was sussed out by tabloid juggernaut TMZ and confirmed with property records, Kanye West made an off-market deal and sold his longtime pied-à-terre in downtown New York City’s Soho neighborhood for $3 million to one of his downstairs neighbors. Unfortunately for the publicity courting provocateur and dilettantish musician — the style-savvy 21-time Grammy winner recently announced plans for his own architecture firm, Yeezy home , as an offshoot of his fashion label — he paid a combined $3.14 million for the two units that comprise the fourth-floor corner apartment that he had subsequently combined and had worked over into an elegantly somber, über-minimalist crash pad by Italian architect Claudio Silvestrin .
West purchased the units in two separate transactions, the first in late 2004 and the second in early 2006, and together they measure 2,437 square feet of almost entirely open living space with one bedroom area, one compartmentalized bathroom and a sizable, wardrobe-lined dressing area. Described on Silvestrin’s website as a “serene and generous space” wherein “day and night areas follow one another in a continuous, unrestricted flow of space,” the sensually geometric interiors make use of a strictly limited yet warm and deluxe materials palette, primarily French limestone and pear wood. With massive windows along two walls behind automated floor-to-ceiling shades, the sparely detailed yet cocoonish and fully interconnected spaces are defined by a series of monolithic volumes floating away from the walls. One acts as a coffee table in the main living area, another houses an unusually long bathtub and a third serves as a work island and snack bar in the otherwise entirely disguised kitchen.
West, who says he’d like to buy a big spread in Wyoming where he can make 52 records in 52 weeks, and his social media maven wife Kim Kardashian are in the final stages of a multi-year and multi-million dollar overhaul of a huge mansion in Hidden Hills, Calif., they snagged in 2014 for $19.75 million . They purchased the neighboring property at the same time for another $2.925 million and one of their former homes, a 9,000-square-foot custom-renovated villa in a guard-gated enclave in Bel Air, is back on the market at $18 million after being sold to Ukrainian billionaire Marina Acton only about eight months ago for $17.8 million .
exterior image: Joe Strini for Property Shark
