It was November of last year when Ukrainian billionaire and aspiring pop star Marina Acton picked up a heavily renovated Spanish-style from the West-Kardashian collective, and eight months later she put it on the market again. Acton paid just under $18 million for the home, and asked that much in return when she listed it; the duo had purchased it about five years earlier for $9 million. There were significant renovation costs, of course.

The reasons for Acton’s purchase of the Bel Air house remain murky. She supposedly never moved into the home. And the $14 million she saw as a return when it sold this month renders it a rather poor investment prospect. It was perhaps a means to an end; in other words, there may be extraneous reasons why Acton bought this pile, but they’re not really germane here.

The house is, though. And a mightily contemporary effort it is.

But comforting it is not. It isn’t really thought-provoking either, and a house should really be one or the other. Cozy or cerebral, take your pick. Ideally, an artful blend of both. But this house doesn’t inspire fantasy or stimulate inquiry. From outside, it looks like a hollowed-out Spanish style, a bit of a residential zombie.

The 9,000 square feet of interiors are a blank canvas. Materials are of course pricey, but scale is the extent of the home, and subtext is nonexistent. The place leaves the eye starved for texture, and lacks any kind of individual identity or circumspect design vision. Definitely a house waiting for an identity. Hopefully the kitchen will get some attention from the new owner; it’s quite sterile. The island would suffice for an emergency appendectomy.

The property exterior follows through from the tenor of the interiors. There are a few examples of tall, green, and growing, but they look marginalized from the tightly controlled landscaping. A stark rectangular pool, a concrete sunlounge, and a perfunctory covered poolside pavilion fill out a property that would benefit from a little soul. Or at least a little style.