Imagine a concrete compound sitting high on a grassy bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Malibu’s prized Paradise Cove — one designed by a Pritzker Prize-winning architect.

In reality, it exists — and was quietly on the market as a whisper listing for a colossal $295 million when Kanye West drove up to the estate, unannounced, one day.

It had taken 15 years for art collectors Maria and Bill Bell — a soap opera heir whose parents, William J. Bell and Lee Phillip Bell, created “The Young and the Restless” and “The Bold and the Beautiful” — to build the estate. They had commissioned the Japanese starchitect Tadao Ando for its design, and it was one of only a handful of the now 85-year-old’s residential homes in the US.

And, apparently, West wanted to give it a whirl.

Celebrity broker Kurt Rappaport was representing the Bells. But instead of calling Rappaport, West simply drove to the estate to see it for himself. According to Jonathan Van Meter’s new book, “Citizen Kim,” the buzzy biography of West’s ex-wife, Kim Kardashian, West — now known simply as Ye — “just pulled up to the gate, rang the buzzer, and said ‘Hi, it’s Kanye.’”

“And when the owner hesitated, Kanye said, ‘If Elvis Presley came to your door and rang your buzzer, would you let him in? This is that.’”

But this wasn’t your average unexpected house tour. According to Van Meter, “Kanye stayed for four days. He set up his ‘office’ by the pool and took meetings because he wanted to feel the vibe of working in an Ando.”

Van Meter declines to say what year West saw the 42,000-square-foot white concrete compound. According to the Wall Street Journal, it happened in 2022. 

The previous year, in September 2021 — more than six months after Kardashian had filed for divorce — West paid $57.25 million to buy a different Tadao Ando designed beach house 4 miles west, on Malibu Road.

That 4,000-square-foot grey concrete home had been commissioned by money manager Richard Sachs and completed, after seven years, in 2013. Ando’s executive architect for the project, Ron Radziner, told the New Yorker that the Bells’ home was known as “the Big Ando” and that West’s home was known as “the Little Ando.”

Ultimately, Jay-Z — who had once hired West to be his music producer — and Beyoncé bought the Big Ando for a then-record $200 million in 2023.

And while there may have still been things that West apparently loved in the world, like his Tadao Ando-designed Malibu beach house, he ended up destroying that, too.

By then, Kardashian — married to West from 2014 to 2022 — had learned how to co-parent with West without directly dealing with him and instead communicating through his wife, Bianca Censori, or via his manager, according to Van Meter. As for their four kids, Kardashian has implemented a “lockdown” protocol, which means no TVs, radio or SiriusXM to help shield them from his public outbursts, Van Meter wrote.

After Kanye bought the house, in September 2021, he hired contractor Tony Saxon to gut the interiors. West’s idea: to turn the home into a luxury, minimalist bomb shelter or “bat cave.”

He destroyed the interiors, stripping them of electricity and plumbing, and ripping out marble bathrooms and windows. He even removed a firepit, a concrete hot tub and an indoor fireplace — leaving the house raw, naked and exposed to the elements.

The destruction was also the subject of a court battle. Saxon sued West for $1.7 million; a Los Angeles jury ultimately awarded him $140,000 this past March, reportedly for lost wages and medical expenses.

By December 2023, West had listed the gutted shell for $53 million. In 2024, it sold for $21 million to Steven “Bo” Belmont’s crowdfunded real-estate firm, where individual investors bought in for $1000 to $1 million. The company then listed it for sale in 2025, asking $39 million.

But the house faced foreclosure later that year.

Today, West’s former home, now a public blight on the beach, is in limbo. At least two auction dates have been set and postponed so far in 2026, and the residence’s fate remains unclear.

At the time of those auctions, Ryan Keeley, began using the destroyed home and public eyesore on an otherwise beautiful strip of Malibu Road, narrow beach and all, as an eye-catching oceanfront art studio.

As for Belmont, on Wednesday he told Gimme Shelter by email: “My focus is on working toward the best possible outcome for everyone involved, especially our investors.”