Bill Gates built a house, or rather, he had one built for him.
It sits on 5 acres surrounded by native alder, maple, and Douglas fir. The walkways are covered with slate and the concrete retaining walls, with sandstone and granite.
The 11,500-square-foot family wing has four bedrooms and quarters for a nanny. A four car garage is attached and a lower level has a techno-playland and an exercise facility. The exercise facility includes a sauna, steam room, seperate men's and women's lockers and a trampoline room with a 20-foot ceiling.
The formal dining room seats up to 24 guests and has a commercial-grade kitchen. There is also a reception hall in the rear and partly below ground, that can seat up to 150 people for a dinner or 200 for a cocktail party. One wall holds a 22-foot-wide video display made up of 24 rear-projection television monitors, each with a 40-inch screen. A second commercial-grade kitchen serves the reception hall.
A 2,100 square-foot, paneled library has a domed reading room and two secret pivoting bookcases, one of which contains a bar. The library is home to Leonardo da Vinci's 16th-century notebook, the Codex Leicester, for which Gates paid $30.8 million.
The pool building contains a 17-by-60-foot swimming pool, with an underwater music system and a floor painted in a fossil motif. Swimmers can swim under a glass partition and emerge outdoors by a terrace.
The address is a secret, given only on a need to know basis.
Total assessed value: $53,392,200
Land Value: $9,122,200
Estimated property taxes for 1998: $620,183
Waterfront: Approximately 500 feet
Square footage, all structures: More than 66,000 feet
Rooms: Seven Bedrooms, 24 bathrooms (includes 10 full Baths)
Six kitchens, six fireplaces.
Style: Pacific Northwest lodge
Architects: James Cutler and Peter Bohlin
Interior designer: Thierry W. Despont
Primary contractor: Sellen Constructionsource: U.S.News.com
It is not necessary to downvote this w/u, just because you hate Bill Gates..This is about a house..