A Look At One Of America’s Most Amazing Mansions
It comes as no surprise that one of America’s most amazing mansions belongs to one of the country’s and the world’s most amazing personalities, William Henry “Bill” Gates III, American business magnate, entrepreneur, philanthropist, investor, and programmer. Gates is one of the best-known entrepreneurs of the personal computer revolution, co-founder of Microsoft and a number of philanthropic endeavors, donating large amounts of money to various charitable organizations and scientific research programs through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, established in 2000.
Located on 1835 73rd Ave NE, Medina, Washington you can find Xanadu 2.0; Bill Gates luxurious state, named after the fictional home of “Citizen Kane” Charles Foster Kane and the legendary Kublai Khan’s summer palace. The 66,000-square-foot mansion is renowned for its design and the technology it incorporates. It took seven years to build, with a cost of over US $63 million dollars.
The Gates mansion is located on the eastern shore of Lake Washington, a short 15-minute drive to Seattle and to the Microsoft Headquarters in Redmond. The home sits imbedded into the hillside in order to utilize its semi-underground placement as insulation, privacy and security. This concept is known as earth sheltering; when a building uses the surrounding topographical features like the hillside or the adjacent trees to regulate temperatures, retain heat and provide some cover as well as an added aesthetic value.
The house is the result of a collaboration between Bohlin Cywinski Jackson Architects and Cutler-Anderson Architects of Bainbridge Island, Washington. Peter Bohlin made clear that making the technology of the home as visible as possible was always high priority in the design and construction of the mansion. The building is outfitted with fiber optic cables and electronic tablets that can control several internal systems like room temperature, lighting and access to different areas of the house. Visitors can also wear special pins that activate sensors upon entering a room and accommodate the environmental conditions depending on the user’s pre-recorded preferences.
The central media server allows those inside the home to select from the vast library of music, movies and other media and display it on one of the many high definition monitors located throughout the house. The smart sound system of hidden speakers, follow users around the home and activate as they enter different rooms maintaining their musical preferences playing for them. The pool also has an underwater speaker system and all the mansion’s floors and walkways are heated.
The home has 24 bathrooms and using IoT (Internet of Things) technology can communicate with the car’s GPS systems as they are on their way home to begin drawing a bath automatically for them. Security systems are also state of the art; most of the house can be viewed by hidden cameras in the walls, the ceilings, and in trees and stones outside. Floors sensors can track individuals in the house to an accuracy of six inches. The Microsoft security team at the Redmond campus can also monitor the house’s security system remotely. There is also a hidden pass way behind a pivoting bookcase that leads to a secret bar deep within. The mansion has several garages with a total capacity of 23 cars all combined. One of the garages can transform into a basketball court at the push a button.
One of the most amazing rooms in the house is the mostly underground reception hall. The room can accommodate up to 200 guests for parties and reunions and includes an enormous wall filled with high-definition screens. The hall itself is equipped with a large restaurant-grade kitchen ready to meet all of the guests’ needs.
The 1,900-square-foot guesthouse was the first building on the property to be completed. The one-bedroom, one-bath house is just as technological as the main property, and was originally used to test the high-tech features that would later be used in the rest of the mansion.
Exercising is also a priority in Xanadu 2.0, the mansion’s health club has nothing to envy from the most sophisticated and well-equipped gyms. The 2,500-square-feet facilities, includes a sauna, a steam room, separate men’s and women’s locker rooms, and a trampoline room with a 20-foot ceiling.
The lakeshore by the mansion is home to a wetland estuary and an artificial stream that was created to solve any runoff issues that the property’s large walls could potentially create. The water is kept constantly stocked with sea-run trout and salmon to add to the aesthetic appeal and eco-friendly nature of the property.
Today the house has settled to almost double the value of its original cost, and is worth $123.54 million.
Xanadu 2.0 is not the only amazing home we have featured here in Donald Burns Blog, for more absolutely terrific mansions, check out our other posts.
