YOUR MAMAS NOTES: It was South Florida-based celebrity and society gossip Jose Lambiet who first let the real estate cat out of the bag about zillionaire software super-mogul Bill Gates and his wife Melinda shelling out $8.7 million for an equestrian estate in a gated enclave in the horsey community of Wellington, FL.
Well, children, turns out the horsey spread in Wellington isn't the only Sunshine State property that Mister and Missus Gates currently own. At least not according to a well-connected snitch we'll call Wendy Whistleblower who whispered to Your Mama via covert communique that in August 2009 the Washington State-based couple quietly coughed up $5,000,000 for well-maintained mini-mansion in sleepy but swanky Hobe Sound, FL.
Lo and behold, using an address supplied by Miz Whistleblower, Your Mama almost immediately discovered the Hobe Sound residence in question, the one Miz Whistleblower says is owned by Bill and Melinda Gates,* is actually for sale on the open market—and has been since January 2012—with an asking price of $6,600,000.
Current listing details describe the single story mini-mansion as a "Spectacular European villa" that sits on 5.24 mostly mangroved acres with 200 feet of direct frontage on the Intracoastal Waterway. Listing details go on to indicate the mansard-roofed manse was built in 2003 with four bedrooms and seven full and two half bathrooms in 9,458 square feet of recently refreshed interior space replete with sand and terra-cotta-colored checkered marble floors, high ceilings with thick crown molding, and an impressive amount of custom cabinetry and mill work **
A center hall foyer flanked by a wood-paneled library and a formal dining room stretches deep into the house where it opens in to an immense, stone tile floored formal living room with a weirdly wee fireplace. Three sets of wood-framed glass doors open to the outdoors and another set opens in to an airy, window-ringed room with a soaring wood plank lined ceiling and a dark-bottomed indoor swimming pool. Terraces, patios and loggias that line the rear of the residence give way to a flat patch of grass sliced by a brick path that leads to a raised wooden walkway that becomes a permanent dock as it extends out over the shimmering Intracoastal. Other notable features include an expensively equipped center island kitchen, a spacious laundry room with dual washers and dryers, and a water view master suite with dual bathrooms.
Some of the children may recall that, as of yesterday, Your Mama was only aware of two private homes owned by Mister and Missus Gates: the newly purchased horse place in Wellington and their 50,000 square foot lake front super-compound in Medina (WA). Since then it's come to our attention that Mister and Missus Gates maintain a healthy handful of high-maintenance luxury properties.
The couple has been widely reported to belong to the Yellowstone Club, a frightfully expensive,*** members only golf and ski community in Big Sky, MT where other members include the likes of politicos Dan Quayle and Bill Frist, Beverly Hills businessman Burt Sugarman and his celebrity gossip journalist wife Mary Hart, parking lot mogul and much-maligned former Dodgers owner Frank McCourt, three time Tour de France winner Greg LeMond, and media, entertainment, and tech world power player Peter Chernin, to name but a few.
Since the summer of 1999 the the Gates have also owned a sprawling 13,573 square foot residence on 1.33 acres that backs up to a Tom Fazio-designed golf course at the guard-gated and ultra-posh Vintage Club in Indian Wells, CA. Property records and other online resources indicate they paid $12.5 million for their deluxe desert digs through a trust that familiarly links back to Mister Gate's father's law offices in Kirkland (WA). According to property records and other online resources, some of the other big-rich home owners at The Vintage Club include: influential businessman Kent Kresa; Texas-based beer and banking tycoon Bud Dillard's widow, Kay; Louisiana energy mogul William Doré; bajillionaire industrialist and conservative political activist Charles Koch; French paper pasha Jacques Lejeune; the late Austrian industrialist Friedrich Flick's multi-billionaire widow Ingrid; agro-industrialist Cargil MacMillan's multi-billionaire widow Donna; and Las Vegas casino owner Faye Johnson.
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
In Case You Missed It: Bill Koch
There's a mammoth, 42,000 square foot oceanfront mega-manse in Palm Beach, FL that has two swimming pools and where bubble gum pop super star Katy Perry was hired to perform last year during the birthday party for Mister Koch's notably younger third wife Bridget Rooney...of the Pittsburgh Rooneys, natch. Mister and Third Missus Koch also maintain a 50+ acre compound in the upper Castle Creek Valley area above swanky Aspen, CO, that they scooped up in 2007 for about $51 or $55 million depending on where you read.
A bit farther from Aspen, near the wee town of Paonia, the often controversial and famously litigious Mister Koch is in the process of spending Lord only who knows how many millions to build—we shit you not, puppies—an authentic replica of an Old West town on 6,400 pristine Rocky Mountain acres. Good grief! Why build such a folly, children? Who knows? Because he can? If Marie Antoinette can have Hameau de la Reine then why can't Mister Koch have his very own historically accurate Wild West village complete with saloon, jailhouse and train station, right? Mercy. Chrissakes. Who does he think he is, Michael Jackson? Pleeze. Anyways...
Mister Koch has long maintained one or more residences on Cape Cod in and around Osterville, MA. Earlier this year the May-December Koch couple forked over $19.5 million to acquire a 26-acre waterfront compound from high-cultured centenarian philanthropist and horticulturist Rachel "Bunny" Mellon. In late 2012 they quietly sold a waterfront compound, located a short hop down the street from Miz Mellon's spread, for $8.65 million; They'd only bought the place about 1.5 years earlier for, according to property records, $8.4 million. Such are the often capricious real estate ways of the rich and/or famous.
This week, word slipped down the billionaire real estate gossip grapevine that Mister Koch, a voracious collector of many things and a hardcore racing yachter who won the prestigious America's Cup in 1992, hoisted a 1.58 acre mini-compound on Osterville's sleepy but seriously swank Seapuit River Road on the open market with a $15,000,000 asking price.*
Listing details show the white clapboard sided Colonial was built in 1929 and sits on 1.58 prime acres on the private island of Oyster Harbor with views towards Nantucket Sound over Dead Neck Island. The fastidiously maintained main residence spans 8,653 square feet and has nine bedrooms served by eight full and four half bathrooms, according to listing details. There are additional guest and/or staff quarters that may (or may not) be located above the semi-detached three car garage.
The art-filled interiors—think pedigreed and gilt-framed land- and seascapes—are both relaxed and traditional not to mention roomy enough to accommodate large gatherings of extended family and friends. It's the sort of place one's brittle boned and deeply blue-blooded grandmother might approve or aspire to. Not not surprisingly, given the waterfront location and Mister Koch's extensive collection of maritime memorabilia, the interiors are awash with nautical this and thats. One room, a sort of office/games room with fireplace even looks like the captain's cabin of a well-appointed 18th century galleon.
In Case You Missed It: Bill Gates
According to Mister Lambiet, Mister and Missus Gates leased a house in Wellington for the last two seasons at a rental cost of $1.1 million but recently bit the real estate bullet and acquired a more permanent outpost in the horsey enclave where just about every body—and we mean every damn body—is involved with the horse trade(s) in one way or another.
Given that the philanthropically minded tech tycoon has a net worth commonly estimated to be well in excess of $65 billion dollars, the $8.7 million dollar purchase represents but an infinitesimal sliver of his essentially limitless riches. Most people will never even earn $8.7 million in their entire lifetime but, let's get real, butter beans, 8.7 million clams could slip out of Mister Gates pocket in a taxi cab and he'd never even miss it. Even less skin off his and his missus' financial teeth will be, as shown on the digital listing we perused, the mandatory if relatively modest $370 per quarter home owner's association dues.
Anyways, according to listing details Your Mama dug up on the internets, the boomerang-shaped 4.8 acre spread is located in the guard gated Mallet Hill development and includes an architecturally eye-brow knitting 7,234 square foot quasi-hacienda style mini-mansion with four bedrooms and four full and two half bathrooms.
There are stone tile floors throughout the high-ceilinged open-concept main living space comprised of "formal" dining area, a living room with fireplace and French doors, and a roomy center island kitchen with dining area, granite counter tops and high quality appliances. The exposed pine kitchen cabinetry lends a unexpectedly and unnecessarily—ahem—rustic, country-house aura that Your Mama doesn't quite understand since the rest of the house is an undeniably large, luxurious, and probably extremely well built but otherwise strikingly bland mock-Med macmansion.
Outdoor recreation and lounge areas include a columned loggia that overlooks a 32-foot long swimming pool and a built-in barbecue station on the patio. Broad tree-dotted lawns run up to the edge of a narrow Y-shaped canal. Equestrian facilities include several fields, pastures and pens plus a newly constructed 20 stall barn that—somewhat oddly—is "subject to HOA approval" according to listing information.
It's difficult for a jaded property gossip like Your Mama to believe that a man of Mister Gates extraordinary pecuniary prowess doesn't own a slew of high maintenance properties in every high priced nook and cranny of the world but, as far as Your Mama knows anyways, the only other property the Gates own is their technologically forward thinking 50,000+ square foot super-compound in Medina (WA) on shores of Lake Washington.
In Case You Missed It: Megan Ellison
The reported sale price of $2.8 million is a far cry from the wildly optimistic $7,000,000 price tag the seller—an Austrian-born mover and shaker in the beauty and fashion industry—first put on the idiosyncratic apartment way way way back in March 2008.
The sky-lit kitchen has stainless steel counter tops and cabinets as well as a full suite of top-grade Euro-style stainless steel appliances. Shoji-style sliding panel separate the bedroom from the kitchen area and the adjacent bathroom is a blush-tone extravaganza of limestone—or some other fancy-pants stone—and a cacophony of sinuous circular shapes that mimic the circular shape of the massive main living/dining room.
Since it's conversion to a conversion to a full-service co-operative apartment house in 1988 the heavily ornamented building, a magnificent mish-mash of Beaux Arts, Edwardian and Baroque Renaissance Revival styles, has attracted its fair share of high profile downtown dwellers who enjoy 24-7 doorman and concierge services and residents only access to a private garden and gym.
Previous residents with recognizable names include Toni Morrison, Calvin Klein, and Steffi Graf as well as a slew of supermodels such as Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista, Christy Turlington, and Naomi Campbell. A Police Building insider snitched to Your Mama that current residents include actresses Lauren Graham and Michelle Rodriguez although they do not—least as far as Your Mama knows—live together. French fashion photographer Gilles Bensimon owns a couple of apartments in the building including a three bedroom and three bathroom duplex spread on the fourth floor that's long been occupied by his ex-wife—model and former Real Housewives of New York cast member Kelly Bensimon—and is currently available for lease at $20,000 per month.
Back on the Left Coast young Miss Ellison owns three very contemporary city view residences all in a row in the so-called Bird Streets area high above L.A.'s Sunset Strip. She paid designer Steve Hermann $12.6 million for the first of her three Bird Street spreads in February 2008. The following April she paid entertainment industry mogul Byron Allen $6.25 for the never occupied Steve Hermann-designed house next door and in early 2011 she shelled out another $13,800,000 for a third house. By Your Mama's rough and rudimentary calculations, Miss Ellison is into her Bird Street quasi-compound for a stomach twisting $32,650,000, an amount that makes her $2.8 million dollar pied a terre purchase in New York City look like pennies she found in the cushions of her sofa.
