Paul Ryan at McCaw Family’s Hunts Point Compound

Vice Presidential Candidate Paul Ryan attended fund raisers in Hunts Point and Medina on September 10, 2012. The $1,000 per person afternoon reception was at the McCaw family’s compound and hosted by Bruce and Jolene McCaw. The Seattle Times reported the two-hour event was attended by more than 200 people. Ryan gave a speech on economic issues and higher paying guests received photos of themselves with Ryan.

The McCaw family purchased the compound in 1999 from Kenny G (4/30/12 post below) in a private transaction estimated at more than $20 million. The two mansions have 15,810 sq ft on 4.3 acres with 327 feet of waterfront, 8 bedrooms and 10.5 baths. Craig and Susan McCaw and their family were (and maybe still are) living here.

Craig was the leader or the world famous McCaw brothers, Bruce (1946- ), Craig (1949- ), John (1951- ) and Keith (1953-2002). Keith and John formerly lived in Madison Park and Bruce sold his Medina Groat Point estate in 2011 (2/13/11 post) and may have moved here. The brothers were the pioneers of the cellular phone industry and sold their company, McCaw Cellular, for $11.5 billion in 1994.

The evening $25,000 per couple event was at undisclosed location in Medina. An earlier in the year event for Mitt Romney (12/29/12 post) was held at the mansion of Peter Neupert, a former Drugstore.com and Microsoft executive. He hosted a similar event in the 1990s for President George W. Bush. Neupert’s mansion is on Evergreen Point Road south of Bill Gates’ campus but not on the water. The mansion is 8,000 sq ft on 5.4 acres which is one of the largest lots in Medina.

Paul Maritz Exec of the Year – Silicon Valley

Paul and Yaffa Maritz’s Mercer Island Home

Paul Maritz, a former Microsoft top executive, was named the Silicon Valley Business Journal's 2011 Executive of the Year. “2011 has been tough for many of Silicon Valley's biggest tech companies . . . All the while, VMware Inc. has been . . . steadily growing its business and developing new products that have kept it at the forefront of its industry. That's why, in this week's Business Journal, we named VMware CEO Paul Maritz as our Executive of the Year. . . is planning an expansion that will more than triple the size of its headquarters campus.”

He joined the company as CEO in 2008. VMware provides virtualization (cloud computing) software. Maritz’ corporate statement is “VMware enables our customers’ success by simplifying and automating IT in the Cloud Era.” Maritz was also the recipient of Computerworld’s 2011 Morgan Stanley Leadership Award for Global Commerce, “which recognizes individuals whose personal leadership has made a critical contribution to the effective use of information technology throughout the world.”

He was with Microsoft from 1986 to 2000. His last position was executive vice president of the Platforms Strategy and Developer Group. He was part of the 5-person executive management team and, according to Wikipedia, was the third-ranking executive behind Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer. He was responsible for most of Microsoft's desktop and server software, including Windows and Internet Explorer.

He has maintained his Mercer Island home that is near and south of Paul Allen’s campus/compound.  A major expansion of this home and dock house was completed in 2003. The living area is now 8,040 sq ft and the property is 1.6 acres with 169 feet of waterfront.

Paul Allen Charity

Paul Allen’s charity donations in 2011 were the most generous of any living American donor. This was reported in The Chronicle Of Philanthropy on 2/6/12 and summarized in a 2/7/12 Puget Sound Business Journal article by Emily Parkhurst. Allen gave a total of $372 million to charity. He gave $295 million to his own Allen Family Foundation and $70 million to the Allen Institute for Brain Science. The Allen Family Foundation has numerous programs including libraries, education, science, arts and culture.

Allen was number three on the list of all American donors. Two deceased donors gave more. Margaret A. Cargill from Minnesota bequeathed $6 billion and William S. Dietrich II of Pittsburgh bequeathed $500 million. Bill Gates was not on this year’s Chronicle’s list of the 50 most generous people in America.

Paul Allen and his Mercer Island private campus/compound/estate are on pages 64 and 65 in Lake Washington 130 Homes. The book highlights the charity activities of owners of the mansions in the book. Previous posts in this blog regarding Paul Allen were about his book, Idea Man, (4/22/11) and a guide for viewing his Mercer Island campus (12/28/10).

Paul Allen’s Private $150 million, 9.6 acre campus/compound/estate

Obama Shirley Fundraiser

A major Seattle fund raising brunch for President Obama was held at the Medina mansion of former Microsoft President, Jon Shirley on September 25, 2011. More information is in a Seattle Times article that reported about 65 guests paid $35,800 per couple and listened to Obama blast the GOP.

Jon was President and COO of Microsoft from 1983 to 1990 when he retired.  He remains as a director of the company and is also a director of Seattle-based Manzanita Capital, a financial services company. Jon and his wife, Mary, are major donors to and supporters of local charities and the arts. Jon is Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Seattle Art Museum and on the Chairman’s Council of New York City’s Museum of Modern Art. The couple collects art and vintage racing Ferraris.

The home is two houses north of Bill Gates’ property which has multiple buildings with more than 60,000 sq ft. The Shirley’s mansion has 27,255 sq ft with only two bedrooms. Much of the mansion’s space is for the art and automobile collections. The value of these collections is estimated to be worth more than the $40 million estimated value of the property. The property is on 4.35 acres with 244 feet of waterfront. It is on page 120 of Lake Washington 130 Homes.

Dykstra on Evening Magazine

KING 5’s Evening Magazine featured me and the book Lake Washington 130 Homes on the Monday, 6/20/11, show. You can see it on the Internet.

“Move over Hollywood! Seattle now has its very own book plotting the houses of our rich and famous. Starbucks founder Howard Schultz, Bill Gates, you name it and it's likely here, showing you the where, when, and how of our most famous mansions. The book retails for $18, find more info at http://www.hundredhomes.net/ .”

Simonyi’s Windows 2000 House

Charles Simonyi is a Hungarian-born former Microsoft executive. He was the man once behind constructing Microsoft Office's Word and Excel software. His Medina mansion is one of the most picturesque and must-see places on Lake Washington (LW 130 Homes pages 4 and 94). The mansion is 19,000 sq ft on 1.3 acres with 300 feet of waterfront. The home is known locally as the “Windows 2000 House” and “Villa Simonyi.” It got the Windows 2000 name when Microsoft introduced Windows 2000. The rumor is a few windows were added to the house to bring the total to 2,000.

His former girl-friend, from the 1980s until 2008, was Martha Stewart. He picked her up with his personal jet when she got out of jail in 2005. He had a sudden infatuation with a new girlfriend Lisa Persdotter a Swedish socialite. They got engaged in St. Tropez, France on 08/08/08, the same day as 2008 Beijing Olympics opening ceremony. He was 60 and she was 28 at the time. They were married in Gothenburg, Sweden, on November 22, 2008, following three days of celebrations whose attendees included neighbor Bill Gates.

Simonyi was one of the initial commercial astronauts. He paid $25 million for a 2007 two-week International Space Station roundtrip aboard the Russian Soyuz space shuttles. He paid $35 million for a similar trip in 2009.

Paul Allen – Idea Man

Paul Allen’s Campus on Mercer Island

Please see the 12/28/10 post for the guide for viewing the $150 million, 9.6 acre campus.

Paul Allen’s new book, Idea Man, has created a lot of controversy.  Some of the local headlines are:  Paul Allen goes public with hard feelings toward Gates, Paul Allen's attempt to shape his legacy may backfire, Paul Allen says book not revenge against Gates, and Paul Allen's book: Shaping legacy with a chainsaw?

An interesting article (Seattle Times by Kristi Helm) discusses a lengthy interview with Paul at his MI campus and discusses Paul’s relationship with Bill while also describing the author’s tour of Paul’s campus.  Helm’s description of the main controversy in the book is:  “Allen accuses Gates, along with Chief Executive Steve Ballmer, of trying to cheat him out of Microsoft shares while Allen was being treated for cancer in 1982. Allen said he overheard the two conspiring to dilute his shares by issuing options to themselves and others. (Ballmer went to Allen's house later to apologize.)  ‘My partner was out to grab as much of the pie as possible and hold onto it,’ Allen writes."

Most of the book is about the creation of Microsoft and the eight years Paul was with Microsoft.  The headlines are grabbing the obvious rift between Allen and the team of Gates (house guide) and Ballmer (house guide).

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).

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/