Bianca Censori might be one of the few people looking back fondly on an abandoned home.
To rewind, Censori’s husband, Ye, purchased a stunning Tadao Ando-designed beachfront property for a staggering $57.3 million in 2021. Instead of moving in, however, Ye gutted it. From the windows to a the electricity and plumbing, it was seen as an architectural sin to strip such an expensive home into nothing but concrete.
In 2021, a new buyer purchased it from Ye for $21 million — less than half of what the rapper paid — to try and bring it back to its original glory.
In a new profile in Vanity Fair, Ye’s wife Bianca Censori sees a deeper meaning to the massive financial loss and ruin of a once-beautiful home.
“The thing about destruction is it gives life to something else,” Censori said. “So when I would enter that house that was quote, unquote ‘destroyed,’ bats were living inside of it, and the sea salt had taken over the steel that was in the house and was rusting.”
Censori, who is ironically an architectural designer herself, also saw the expectations to honor the house’s original state as oppressive.
“They have this idea of, ‘Okay, once I have this home, and I’ve handed it off to the client, it has to remain the same way as when I passed it off,’ ” Censori remarked. “But that’s not how people use space. I think that the destruction of the home was beautiful to me, and I think symbolic also of that time.”
As for their current home in Beverly Hills, they’re also reportedly at odds with the HOA. “It was built in the 2000s, but it looks like someone was like, ‘Hey, have you seen that movie Blow? That’s what I want! An ’80s cocaine house,’ ” Censori said of their home. “Anytime anyone comes over, I’m like, ‘Do not look at the house.’ ”