Two-for-one carries a different meaning for Simon Nixon. The co-founder of MoneySuperMarket recently purchased a pair of neighbouring properties on Malibu’s Carbon Beach – known as Billionaire’s Beach – before commissioning a leading West Coast architect to replace them with a single modernist villa of concrete, glass and black steel, embellished with one-off design pieces and eclectic contemporary art.

Washed with shimmering ocean light, Carbon Beach, Malibu is the latest addition to Simon Escapes: billionaire Nixon’s worldwide portfolio of luxury rental properties. Just yards from the Pacific surf, it carries the trademarks of Olson Kundig – the award-laden starchitects behind some of America’s most distinctive private homes and public buildings – including a bright orange, five-metre-high metal door that suggests you’re stepping into a Mondrian painting, and a steel staircase of leather-bound steps.

The beach house’s glass-walled rooms, which can be connected in various combinations, surround an internal cactus-garden courtyard, with an open-plan ground floor comprising a kitchen-diner, office, gym and two living rooms partitioned by an enormous raw concrete fireplace and log stacks. Upstairs bedrooms display a similar paired-back concrete aesthetic; the master suite sporting two high-spec bathrooms and private terrace with fireplace.

If it all sounds a tad industrial, the beach house’s edge is softened by no-expense-spared interior design including natural materials, tasteful vintage furnishings and exuberant modern art. Original 1960s Pierre Jeanneret bar stools and a 19th-century French primitive coffee table with granite top sit alongside De Padova sofas with African fabric cushions, 1950s Poul Jensen Z chairs and a ping pong table, handmade from white oak by local craftsman Sean Woolsey. There are powder rooms with towering ceilings coated in Shou Sugi Ban charred timber, a leather-panelled walk-in wardrobe and rare Afghan rugs.

Of several striking artworks, a huge Californian landscape by San Francisco-based artist Koak layers intense colours over sketches made in charcoal left by the state’s ravenous wild fires. A dazzling abstract canvas by LA-based Nevena Prijic explores the evolution of the human body and Beach Dancers, by Trinidadian artist Che Lovelace, provides a lush Cubist-inspired depiction of his home island. The beach house’s state-of-the-art kitchen may have Gaggenau appliances, a concrete cabinet on factory-style rails and a 10-person dining table alchemised from a slab of gorgeously grained timber (there’s also a professionally equipped catering kitchen for entertaining) but it might just remain redundant for the duration of your stay; stroll for 20 minutes along the blonde sand and you’ve a choice of celebrated restaurants, from Malibu Farm and Little Beach House to Nobu with its yellowtail jalapeño sashimi and miso black cod: a culinary garnish for Carbon Beach’s magnificent architectural main course.

Carbon Beach, £160,000 a month; for shorter breaks, contact the team for availability and a quotation; simonescapes.com