Bill Gates’ $124 million mansion was described as filled with technology, leaving Melinda in a “mild crisis”.

On May 3, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and his wife, Melinda Gates, announced their divorce after 27 years of marriage. In addition to the division of the $124 billion fortune, the Gates mansion in Washington (USA), named Xanadu 2.0, is also a topic of great interest, because Bill and Melinda are both very secretive about this house.

 

An article published in the New York Times in 1995 said the house was more than 6,100 square meters, including a spa room, an 18-meter swimming pool, a gym that was paved with stones brought from the top of a mountain in the Pacific Northwest, a trampoline room and fish pond.

The nickname of the Gates mansion is Xanadu 2.0. In particular, Xanadu is the name of the large, lavish mansion of journalist Kane in the movie Citizen Kane, and 2.0 refers to the technology that Bill equipped in the house.

Bill Gates and Melinda’s $124 million mansion, taken in 2001. Photo: Getty Images.

“The way to the house is like Jurassic Park”

According to TechCrunch, the details of the mansion were so kept secret by Bill Gates and Melinda that a ticket to the house was auctioned for $35,000 in 2009. Records show that the Gates family still owns the surrounding land, so go. Horizontal to look into the house is impossible.

However, a Microsoft intern was able to visit the house in 2007 and then shared it on the company’s blog. According to this person, the house is built with “orange wood”, sand imported from Hawaii. “The driveway to Bill’s house is like going to Jurassic Park… The landscape is breathtaking,” this person wrote.

Some rare details about the villa include that it is divided into floors in the form of a hill about 51 meters high. The house was designed by architects James Cutler and Peter Bohlin. Bohlin’s company BCJ is also the designer of the famous cube-shaped Apple Store at Fifth Avenue, New York (USA).

Melinda French Gates once shared that the house caused her “a mild crisis”. It was built by Bill before marrying Melinda in 1994, construction was halted when the Microsoft co-founder had just got married.

“This place is a singles’ dream, and a bride’s nightmare,” the 2008 Fortune article revealed the house was “filled with high-tech software and screens, making Melinda feel like living in a game”.

The details of the mansion are kept secret by the Gates family. Photo: Reuters.

Bill Gates smart home vision

After six months of thinking about whether or not the house should be demolished, Melinda decided to continue building, but will add a few things to her liking to make it a home for the family, not just full of technology. According to the New York Times, she contacted famous interior designer Thierry Despont for advice.

Even so, the Microsoft cofounder still wants this house to contain more technology. In his 1995 book The Road Ahead, Bill shared his vision of a smart home, where visitors would hold badges to communicate with sensors around the house.

As you move around the room, the lights turn on or off, the music is turned on, and the temperature is adjusted to your liking. It is unclear whether those wishes will be realized in the villa or not.

While sensors that turn lights on and off, speakers that play music are quite popular in this day and age, Bill also shared his desire to turn the wall into a screen to project art. When the house was being built, Bill contacted to buy electronic rights to famous works at museums such as the National Gallery in London (UK).

Bill Gates and Melinda announced their divorce on May 3. Photo: Yahoo News.

The Microsoft co-founder thinks that in the future, more people will decorate their homes with picture walls as he wants to do. However, that did not materialize. Interactive Home Systems, the company that helps Bill buy paintings from museums, has become the Corbis online photo repository, selling the licensing and distribution business to a Chinese business.

In a 2019 interview, Melinda hinted that she didn’t want to live in that mansion anymore.

“We won’t own that house for the rest of our lives. I look forward to the day when Bill and I move into a house about 140 square meters,” she shared.