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Don't miss real-time alerts on your stocks - join Benzinga Pro for free! These facts highlight the unique blend of luxury, technology, and privacy that define Bill Gates’ iconic home. Enhancing its allure, the library features two hidden bookcases and a discreet bar, weaving an element of mystery into this scholarly retreat. With six kitchens scattered throughout, the mansion is well-prepared to host gatherings of any size, from intimate dinners to grand banquets. This expansive parking area complements the estate’s lavish scale, providing generous vehicle space for both the family and visitors during events. A private tunnel was constructed to provide access to the compound from Highway 106.
Xanadu 2.0: Bill Gates’ Tech-Infused Mansion
At 66,000 square feet, the home is absolutely massive, and it's loaded to the brim with high-tech details. Before the construction began, Bill gates bought the lot for $2 million in 1988. He also bought the surrounding structures for extra space and privacy, bringing the total cost to $14.4 million. It features an Art Deco style complete with comfortable armchairs and couches, excellent lighting, and even a popcorn machine for the best experience. With the critical use of trees to cool this mansion, it is imperative to make sure they are well taken care of.
Bill Gates has hosted a party for Governers in this estate
While the construction team may have installed this for Bill and Melinda Gates' then young children, it remains one of the most exciting features. A 40-year-old maple tree, Bill Gates's favorite, is under constant surveillance. An entire building, with a total area of 3,900 square feet, was constructed to encompass the 60-foot-long pool. There is a glass wall that one could swim under to reach the terrace outside.
How much does Bill Gates pay in property taxes?
The mansion features an extensive library that houses enough entertainment away from the screens. Apart from two secret bookcases in the library, the room also stores a 16th-century Leonardo-da-Vinci manuscript called Codex Leicester, believed to have cost Bill Gates a whopping $30.8 million. The house's entrance is through a private tunnel constructed in 2006.
The complex also features a 6o-foot long swimming pool that boasts an underwater music system with a glass wall and great views of the lake and city. Its sand is not native to Washington and was imported from the Caribbean and completes an eccentric water experience for this family and guests. The primary residence has seven bedrooms and 18.75 baths, according to public filings, and there's reportedly a 20-car garage for his Porsche collection.
Moreover, there are also speakers hidden behind the wallpaper, which means music can follow visitors as they move from one room to the next. In fact, visitors and guests of Gates’ mansion are given devices (worth an extra $150,000) to pick and choose their favorite paintings or photographs to display. In addition to these lavish amenities, Xanadu 2.0 boasts an array of high-tech features that elevate it to new heights of modern living. But their 66,000-square-foot home on the shore of Lake Washington is another matter.
What sets it aside is that it’s also an “earth-sheltered house”, which means it uses its natural surroundings as walls for temperature and to reduce heat loss. According to Business Insider, the house also comes with a high-tech sensor system helps guests monitor each room’s climate and lighting. If you think that’s one burner stove too many, it will make more sense once you learn that the billionaire’s home has a 2,300-square-foot reception hall that can accommodate up to 200 people. To list some of the most conventional ones first, Gates’ house has 7 bedrooms, 24 bathrooms (yes, you read that right, that amounts to more than three bathrooms for each bedroom suite), and an impressive total of 6 kitchens. Born and raised in Seattle, WA, Bill Gates lives in a 66,000-square-foot mansion built into a hillside overlooking Lake Washington in Medina — a small city on the opposite shore from Seattle. According to the King County public assessor's office, the property is worth $127.48 million as of this year.
Bill Gates's $130 Million Mansion Xanadu 2.0 Boasts Tech That Tracks Inhabitants' Location - Yahoo Finance
Bill Gates's $130 Million Mansion Xanadu 2.0 Boasts Tech That Tracks Inhabitants' Location.
Posted: Tue, 06 Jun 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
It's part of Gates Nassar's Evergate Stables, a collection of training facilities she and her husband, Nayel Nassar, run throughout the country and in Belgium. Like the Gates' first home in San Diego county in Rancho Santa Fe — all of 15 minutes away — this one sits on the grounds of a country club. The Santaluz Club features Rees Jones-designed golf course, hiking, and a spa. Renowned for its advanced technology, Xanadu 2.0 features a central computer that controls home automation, adjusting lighting, temperature, and music when a guest enters a room.
The Microsoft co-founder even included a walkthrough of the lakefront property on the CD-ROM included with his 1995 book The Road Ahead. Bill Gates is among the longest-reigning holders of the title “world's richest man.” The billionaire founded the tech empire Microsoft Corp., which propelled him to his 12-figure net worth. And as many would expect from someone who founded one of the largest tech companies in existence, he spared no expense in building his own home. To that end she hired the interior designer Thierry Despont, who has been the creative mind behind the restoration of famous interiors like those of the Palm Court at the Plaza Hotel in New York and the Ritz in Paris.
From the sand that is imported yearly for the beach from the Caribbean islands to the 6-meter-high trampoline room, the luxurious house was constructed at a cost of $63 million and took 7 years to be built. Gates and then-wife Melinda purchased their fourth San Diego property, this 5,800-square-foot beach house, for $43 million in Del Mar, California, in 2020. Known as Xanadu 2.0 — a name inspired by "Citizen Kane" — Gates' home base is Medina, Washington, a wealthy suburb of Seattle that's home to many tech titans. Gates owns at least 12 parcels of land there, totaling about 10.5 acres. Over three decades, he and his ex-wife, Melinda French Gates, spent more than $150 million on their current real estate portfolio.
Following their 2021 divorce, a number of the properties were transferred from one trust to another — so it's hard to discern who owns exactly what, as all of their trusts are linked to the same Seattle bank. Another unique feature is a massive 2,500-square-foot fitness facility that has a trampoline room with a 20-foot ceiling (which tells you quite a bit about the billionaire’s favorite way to blow off some steam). It also has a sauna, steam room, and separate men’s and women’s locker rooms. In 2013, Gates purchased an $8.7 million equestrian estate in Wellington, Florida, featuring a showjumping area and a 20-stall barn.
Gates' highest property tax bill is in Washington state, where he has a 10.5-acre property in the tony Seattle suburb of Medina along Lake Washington. He spent $34 million buying the 12 parcels of and around his mansion, known as Xanadu 2.0, and together, they have an assessed value of $183.5 million. Last year, the property taxes on the properties added up to $1.3 million. The taxes on the largest of the parcels — 5.15 acres on the water — will exceed $1 million this year. Last year, the homes owned by Gates and his former wife, Melinda French Gates, racked up a $2.7 million property tax bill last year. That's more than 700 times as much as the average American pays in property taxes each year.
The estate is enclosed by an iron fence that is entered through a gateway with a giant letter "K" above it. Central to the estate is Xanadu proper, the castle-like mansion that served as Kane's home and repository for his enormous collection of antiquities and objets d'art. Xanadu has a butler and at least a few dozen footmen and maidservants, who are shown at the end of the scene where Kane wrecks his wife's suite after she leaves him. There are no photos available of the home online, but property records indicate the main house is 6,993 square feet, with eight full baths, eight bedrooms, two half baths, a sauna, and a home theater. It's almost guaranteed to match the surrounding homes, which heavily feature timber and stone.
He described his vision of a smarthome where guests would be given badges that would communicate with sensors around the house. As the guests moved through the rooms, lights would dim or brighten, music would play and the temperature would automatically adjust to their preference. Among its luxurious amenities is a 60-foot swimming pool equipped with an underwater music system, allowing for a unique aquatic listening experience.
Its assessed market value is $29.4 million — up from $5.8 million in the 2009 county record. Like some of the other properties in the Gates portfolio, the Del Mar Country Club house was transferred "due to the dissolution of a marriage" in 2021 — the same year Bill and Melinda divorced — according to property records. It is likely now solely owned by one of the two Gates, though it isn't evident which one. Gates amassed a small real estate empire in San Diego County, and it started with a property in Rancho Santa Fe.
