Bill Gate’s Convention Center

A – Grand Staircase – 92 feet long, descending 84 steps with roof 63 feet above the stairway.  The Grand Entrance is at the top with a 6,300 sq ft garage for guest limos.  The gate for the road to the estate is in the upper right.  The driveway continues past the Grand Entrance through a second gate to the family four car garage above the inner sanctum [D].

B – Library (hidden behind [A] and trees), 2,100 sq ft and home to Leonardo da Vinci’s Codex Leicester.

C – Guest and convention wing with reception hall, guest rooms, dining rooms, kitchens, meeting rooms, theaters, etc.

D – Family 11,500 sq ft “inner sanctum” with 4 bedrooms. A 60 x 17 foot indoor/outdoor pool is below and the lakefront building is the boat house.

E– Executive offices and main reception hall.

F – Security offices, activity center and exercise room.

Since 1997 Microsoft and Bill Gates have been holding an annual very exclusive “CEO Summit.”  The inaugural 1997 conference introduced his 50,000 sq ft, $150 million, Lake Washington estate that was near completion. Usually about 100 top-level people from around the world attend. Sessions and meetings are held at the Microsoft campus and Bill’s estate, aka his personal Convention Center.  Most of the meetings and social events are closed to the media and public and advance notices of the times and places of these are not provided. The above is a guide to his lakefront convention center as viewed from the public waters.  The estate along with more information is in my book, Lake Washington 130 Homes, on pages 118 and 119 (www.hundredhomes.net).

Nathan Myhrvold’s T-Rex House

Nathan Myhrvold became fascinated with dinosaurs and visited the filming of the “Jurassic Park” sequel in 1996 and met the film’s consultant and world-leading paleontologist, Jack Horner. Horner convinced Nathan to use some of his Microsoft multimillions to fund a dinosaur bone digging foundation. His foundation has recovered more tyrannosaurus rex skeletons than the total previously found by everyone else. He has given most of them to museums including the Smithsonian. In-side the big rounded windows of his living room he has one of the t-rex skeletons he helped dig up.

He co-founded Bellevue-based Intellectual Ventures in 2000 and the company has been featured in recent news. Intellectual Ventures invests in invention. The company has created and purchased thousands of patents and original inventions with the purpose of protecting the inventors and collecting royalties from larger companies. Nathan personally holds 18 U.S. patents and has applications pending for 100 more. He was born in Seattle, earned a PhD in theoretical and mathematical physics from Princeton at the age of 23 in 1981. He joined a computer startup company, Dynamical Systems, Inc., and became CEO. The company was purchased by Microsoft in 1986 and he joined Microsoft as Chief Technology Officer. He is a prize winning nature and wildlife photographer and a master French chef, occasionally working as an assistant chef at top-of-the-line restaurants.

The mansion along with more information is in my book, Lake Washington 130 Homes, on page 97 (www.hundredhomes.net).

Mercer Island Proctor Landing Mansion Sells For $15.7 Million

This house on Mercer Island (page 57 in Lake Washington 130 Homes, http://www.hundredhomes.net/) sold for $15.7 million in a private transaction with an undisclosed buyer in the second half of 2009. The property was listed for sale in the early 2000s for $34.5 million and in May 2009 the listing price was $23.9 million.

The estate has 17,780 sq ft of living space on 1.37 acres with 255 feet of waterfront, 8 bedrooms and 15 baths. The original house was built in 1932. It was purchased in 1998 for $7.9 million by the seller who extensively expanded and remodeled, maintaining the original English Tudor architecture. The interior of the home has been described as a mini “Taj Mahal.” The home features an indoor/outdoor pool, a two bedroom guest house, a children’s room in the tower and a three office carriage house.

The house was featured on KING 5’s Evening Magazine and the link for the web view is: http://www.king5.com/archive/64596642.html

Lake Washington 130 Homes was also featured on KING 5’s Evening Magazine and the link for the web view is: http://www.king5.com/archive/64598997.html

HDTV homes of the rich and famous

In August 2009 I wrote and published Lake Washington 130 Homes. I have expanded my initial scope of a guide book for cruisers to offer a book in a style that has never been used and will be interesting to a wide audience.

The book contains photographs, stories and statistics of 130 mansions and estates that are creatively woven with current and historical information about the homes, owners, their businesses and communities. This book is for anyone who has a fascination with unique homes of the rich and famous or an interest in the Seattle area. This is the first book of its kind as traditional print-publishers have not followed the Internet in publishing pictures of homes, their locations and public information regarding the owners and residents.

KING 5 Evening Magazine aired a HDTV show on October 7, 2009 about LW 130 Homes. It can be seen on web TV at:
http://www.king5.com/archive/64598997.html It's 4.3 minutes long and there is a brief commercial at the beginning. It includes the homes of Bill Gates, Paul Allen, Kenny G (former home), Craig McCaw, Steve Ballmer, Howard Schultz, Detlef Schrempf, and many others. The Dykstra house is near the end (don't blink).

I was interviewed on KIRO radio and the interview is the soundtrack for a tour of the Lake and the book. It can be viewed on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vkm9fHmmQ8Q&feature=related

The book's web site is:
http://www.hundredhomes.net/