Wibke Frenz
Among many other things, Kanye West prides himself on his exacting architectural taste. His $4.5 million Claudio Silvestrin-designed New York apartment, for instance, is an aggressively minimalist space filled with hard right angles and French limestone. And West’s Hollywood Hills bachelor pad provided a showcase of SoCal Brutalism (he sold it for $2.95 million in 2017). Since August 2014, when the world’s most famous couple purchased their dream home from Lisa Marie Presley for $20 million, their mega-mansion has remained in a state of constant construction. According to TMZ, convoys of dump trucks have rumbled through the exclusive neighborhood’s near-trafficless, pin-drop quiet streets as the Kardashian-Wests’ two separate swimming pools were filled in and excavation began for an artificial lake. In Hidden Hills, however, an insider says West has been frustrated by strict local rules and regulations enforced by the powerful Hidden Hills Community Association that effectively limit how much he can alter his mansion’s original aesthetic (a “French Country piece de resistance” according to its listing).
Think three-dimensional Norman Rockwell painting—a throwback to Hidden Hills’ establishment as an equestrian-based, ranch-style alterna-L.A. And West is hardly the only Hollywood arriviste setting down roots in this incorporated city of just 648 residences which is fast becoming Los Angeles’s most gilded celebrity redoubt. Moreover, with its absence of sidewalks and streetlights, copious “Horses & children at play” signage, and abundant 2-acre lots surrounded by white three-rail fences, Hidden Hills exudes a certain rough-around-the-edges charm that stands in stark contrast to its sister city.
The Kardashian-Wests’ neighbors in the nearly two-square-mile community include Miley Cyrus (who moved into a $5 million, 5.5-acre horse ranch/vineyard in 2015), Kardashian materfamilias Kris Jenner, and R&B phenom The Weeknd who dropped $20 million in May on a 12,000-square-foot mansion that reportedly includes a bridge entrance, home theater, and eight-stall barn.
