• Wei-Tzouh Chen bought a piece of beachfront land in Malibu, California, for $2.1 million in 2003.
• He and architect Ed Niles spent six years creating a feng shui-inspired home there from scratch. 
• The four-story, five-bedroom mansion is now up for sale for $68.8 million.

At 59 years old, Wei-Tzouh Chen decided to pursue his dream of building a one-of-a-kind house. He told Insider that his father built one of the most beautiful houses in Taiwan, and he wanted to follow in his footsteps.

In July 2003, Chen said he bought a piece of beachfront land in Malibu, California, for $2.1 million, and over six years, he set out on building a four-story feng shui-inspired mansion.

Chen, who is a doctor, and his family used the home as a weekend retreat, but he's now selling it for $68.8 million because the now-79-year-old said it's time to let the home go. He added that he also divides his time between his properties in Hawaii and Taiwan. 

The home "is an architectural feast," the home's realtor, Madison Hildebrand of real-estate agency The Malibu Life, told Insider.

To get started on building the home, Chen needed to find the perfect architect to bring his vision to life. He said he began interviewing architects and chose Ed Niles, who he described as a genius.

Chen said he was impressed with Niles' work. Chen was originally going to buy a home Niles designed, but Chen wanted the house to be his own idea, he said. 

For Chen, who is from Taiwan and of Chinese descent, it was important that the home was built in line with feng-shui principles, he added.  

According to National Geographic, feng shui is an ancient Chinese art of arranging a space to achieve harmony and balance. It translates to "the way of wind and water."

Chen also wanted the home to show off his art collection and be a cozy, livable space, he said. 

He had a design in mind. "I don't want it to be modern, I don't want it to be traditional – I want it to be futuristic," he said. 

The home has a guesthouse, five bedrooms, four balconies, six-and-a-half bathrooms, and an open-plan kitchen and living room with a patio and garden. 

A secluded sandy beach is only a 75-foot walk from the garden, according to Hildebrand.

In the beginning, he and his architect did not get along, Chen said – they had conflicting ideas.

According to Chen, Niles wanted "curb appeal," where the house immediately amazes from the outside. Chen said he wanted the exterior of the home to be unassuming for passersby, and for people to be amazed once they open the door. 

But Chen said he told Niles: "I want to shy away from the public so nobody knows where we live."

However, Chen said many concepts, such as the circular bedroom and the open space layout, were Niles' ideas. 

A lot of thought was put into the design. The mansion is made up of eight small buildings which are connected together. Most of the buildings have sharp angles, which is similar to Chinese architecture, Chen told Insider. 

The number eight is mirrored throughout the home, as it's his lucky number, Chen said. For example, the garden has a red number eight-inspired piece of artwork. 

The number is also part of feng-shui design and is "really about luck, wealth, and prosperity," Hildebrand said.

The home is designed in such a way that the ocean breeze naturally air-conditions the home, Hildebrand told Insider.

There are enough turns in the house that some of rooms, such as Chen's music room, avoid the airflow, Hildebrand added. 

This is because, in Chinese tradition, it's believed a spirit can only walk straight — they don't know how to turn around. Having more turns means they can get lost, Chen told Insider.

Each bedroom has its own ensuite bathroom, and apart from the master bedroom, its own balcony, Chen said. "They have their own territory, their own independent privacy, but they're connected by a bridge," Chen added. 

There's also a hydraulic elevator that connects the three stories. The elevator is stronger compared to other models and pretty much silent, Hildebrand said.

The home was constructed out of concrete, steel, and glass with little wood used, Chen said.

That's because, in his experience, wooden beachfront homes tend to become rusty due to the moisture in the air, he said. 

There are 47 custom-made skylights dotted around the house. "The shape of the skylight is based on the moon's movement," he said. 

The color scheme is mainly gray, with touches of red throughout the home. Chen said Niles wanted the home to be monochromatic, and included touches of red as it's one of Chen's favorite colors. 

There's exposed concrete across the home, which gives the home a rustic and contemporary feel. This design is very rare, Chen said.

The master bedroom features a custom-made skylight that wraps around the room and gives a 270-degree view of the beach.

The bedroom, like the rest of the home, is built facing south. This is to ensure the room gets the most sunlight exposure, Chen said. 

The room features Chinese art, which Chen collects, he said.

The master bedroom has an ensuite bathroom with a Japanese ofuro bathtub that has views of the sea, Chen said.

Chen's parents had a Japanese education, which is why he included both Chinese and Japanese influence in this unique house, he told Insider. 

There's a large open kitchen with nine refrigerators, which is joined with the living room, Chen said. The sliding door reveals a grassy lawn and beach view.

The kitchen and living room have high ceilings and are quite open. "If you go to a gallery, there's always open space," Chen said. The architect wanted to recreate that aspect with his home, he added. 

The sliding door opens to the patio, with a walkway down to the beach. Chen said he designed the walkway himself, inspired by the walkway in his house in Taiwan. 

He said a lot of people always ask him why he never built a pool. Firstly, maintenance is expensive, he said. 

"You have the water in front of you, why don't you swim in there and come back?" he added. It doesn't make sense to him that people would want a pool in front of a beach, he said.

Nothing about building this home was easy, he said. One construction company filed bankruptcy whilst working on the home, and then he had to find another one.

The first three years of the project were just building the foundation of the home, Chen said. This was difficult as they had to build the structure over a sandy beach. 

Building with a lot of metal was tricky too, as they could only use cranes, he said.

He also made sure his home was natural disaster-proof. He had engineers from the University of Southern California design the house to sustain an earthquake of 7.7 magnitude.

The work paid off. "It is an architectural statement. It's in some ways you feel like you're actually in a museum," Hildebrand said. 

Designing a space according to feng-shui principles is quite common in California, Hildebrand said, so it wouldn't be a difficult sell despite the property being so unique. 

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