Feng Shui-based home in Malibu comes to market for $69M

One all-encompassing feature distinguishes a furnished beachfront home in Malibu now listedfor $68.8 million – feng shui design.

Dr. Wei-Tzuoh Chen and his wife, Carrie Chen, have put their feng-shui-based glass, steel and concrete home up for sale at 41800 Pacific Coast Highway, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The couple bought the property in 2003 for $2.25 million, then spent six years building the 8,200-square-foot vacation property. They listed it in 2015 for $53 million and in 2018 for $45 million.

Now the Visalia-based kidney specialist and his wife say it’s time to move on.

Their five-bedroom, seven-bathroom estate, designed by architect Ed Niles, resembles an oval cylinder next to a pyramid nestled against a tower of cubes.

Chen, who moved to California in the 1980s from Taiwan, said he is of Chinese descent and a strong believer in feng shui, or “wind-water” principles. 

He chose the property in part because it sits on a hill and has 75 feet of oceanfront, important elements in feng shui, he said. Also, the home was built facing south in accord with feng shui guidelines.

The main house has 7,600 square feet, with four bedrooms and 47 skylights. There’s also a one-bedroom, one-bathroom guesthouse.

When it came to its design, Chen said he was inspired by the numbers eight and nine, which symbolize luck and good fortune. The home is made up of eight connecting structures and there are nine turns to get to the primary bedroom.

In Chinese tradition, it is important for a home to be unassuming on the outside, Chen told the Journal in 2015, so the house is barely visible from the road. 

Red, which brings good fortune, is incorporated into the house: The “barbecue tower” — a triangular structure where the family can cook and dine protected from the wind — is outlined in crimson. The home’s four bedrooms are connected to the rest of the house by an interior glass bridge, because privacy is important in Chinese tradition, he said

The furniture in the home was strategically arranged along feng shui principles, Chen recently added. The property is for sale furnished. 

The two-story gray house includes a grand entry hall that can hold 100 people, a music studio, a home theater and a stainless-steel Japanese soaking tub. It also has numerous red sculptures around the property. A bronze statue of a muscular dog stares across the sea.

Brokers Madison Hildebrand and Jennifer Chrisman of Compass and Wendy Wong and Katherine Quach of Treelane Realty Group hold the listing.

Since February 2022, there have been 66 home sales along Malibu’s coastline with a median sale price of $10 million, Hildebrand told the Journal.

In December, a 16,000-square-foot estate on 6 acres with nearly 340 feet of beachfront sold at 28060 Sea Lane Drive for $91 million.

— Dana Bartholomew