National media outlets have been reporting since June that rapper Kanye West’s Monster Lake Ranch near Cody, Wyoming, has been sold, but public records in Park County suggest otherwise.
All three of the parcels that are part of Monster Ranch are still listed as belonging to the entertainer’s LLC, Psalm Cody Ranch, according to the Park County assessor’s land records.
A representative for the County Assessor’s Office told Cowboy State Daily it’s possible the sale of Monster Lake Ranch hadn’t been recorded yet, but that it would be unusual for a sale to linger so long without being recorded.
Park County records also show Monster Lake Ranch at 3,884.74 acres, while the listing at Hayden Outdoors Real Estate puts the ranch at 4,524 acres.
What The Listing Says
Bill Vacek, listing agent for the property with Hayden Outdoors, told Cowboy State Daily he couldn’t explain the discrepancy and said he could not confirm when the Monster Lake Ranch listing was made, nor when it was sold.
The Monster Lake Ranch listing with Hayden Outdoors describes it in one place as a 792-acre parcel with eight cabins and two homes, as well as an on-site restaurant and lounge and assorted horse barns, corrals and storage areas.
But it goes on to list the deeded acres and leased acres as both zero, while a different section at the top of the listing says the ranch is 4,524 acres, leaving it unclear what exactly has sold.
Hayden Outdoors also has a listing for the Bighorn Mountain Ranch, which Kanye West owned near Greybull, and that is listed as sold as well. A date is not associated with that listing or sale, but it is a little more straightforward with deeded acres matching total acres sold at 6,713.
Real estate sale prices in Wyoming are undisclosed, but the Bighorn Mountain Ranch was listed as $14.5 million, while the Monster Lake Ranch was listed as $14 million.
Inside The ‘Yeezy Campus’
West’s purchase of Monster Lake Ranch, which he named West Lake Ranch, was announced in 2019, along with the purchase of several commercial properties in Cody.
West had ambitious plans for his holdings in Wyoming, particularly Monster Lake Ranch. In a 2020 GQ article, he referred to Monster Lake Ranch as the “Yeezy Campus” and a new “paradigm shift for humanity.”
Yeezy is what West called his apparel business. While West is a famous rapper, it was his apparel business that made him a billionaire.
West also had announced plans to move his shoe manufacturing operation to Wyoming in 2019. Psalm Cody Commercial had received approval for a 4,800-square-foot temporary structure at Monster Lake Ranch that was going to temporarily house the Yeezy-Adidas operation.
Things seemed like they were looking up for West at the time.
His partnership with Adidas had been very lucrative, worth $1.5 billion in 2019 revenue. And he had recently inked a fresh new partnership with Gap as well, to create clothing that would have “modern, elevated basics for men, women and kids, at accessible price points,” according to a Cowboy State Daily article quoting media materials that had been released at that time.
In spring 2021, however, West listed the seven commercial properties he’d bought in Cody to house the shoe manufacturing operation for sale.
Monster Lake, and a second ranch he’d bought near Greybull called Bighorn Mountain Ranch, were not listed for sale at that time, but West did list Monster Lake Ranch in October 2021, amid divorce proceedings with his wife, Kim Kardashian.
In 2022, West made a string of antisemitic remarks on social media that ultimately unraveled his partnerships with Adidas and Gap. Also that year, West finalized his divorce from Kardashian.
He ultimately kept Monster Lake Ranch as part of the divorce settlement and pulled it off the market.
A month later, the ranch was reported as his primary residence on a marriage license for his union with Bianca Censori in December in various national tabloid articles.
Monster Ranch Had A Special Role
West had many ambitious ideas for Monster Lake Ranch, including dome-shaped dwellings that he believed could help people who are homeless, once their designs had been perfected.
He called them “Yecosystems,” and applied for a string of trademark applications for them.
In his descriptions of the project, Yecosystem domes were envisioned as branded homes, interspersed with retail stores that would sell Yecosystem-branded food and beverages.
Architectural plans that West shared in a 2020 GQ article, meanwhile, showed a special role for the city of Cody in West’s plans. It was to be home to a multifamily retreat center for guests to come to West Lake Ranch and experience life inside the domes, as well as performance by a choir for Sunday services.
“We see 100,000 students singing these compositions,” West said then. “A circular 100,000-person amphitheater.”
West hoped to create a prefabricated, affordable design — likening it to the process he used to design shoes — that would eventually appear across America.
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
