One of the most talked about divorces in the world, the one just announced between Bill Gates e Melinda Ann French it is also destined to become one of the most expensive: the founder of Microsoft and his ex-wife, apart from the respective assets of 130 and 70 billion dollars, their charity foundation with which they have already specified that they will continue to operate (although it is not yet known if they will do so together), and the shares of Microsoft, have to divide an empire.
Is composed by works of art, horses, luxury cars – several Porsches and even a Ferrari – an island (facing Belize), 100,000 hectares of land (Bill Gates is the largest landowner in the United States), and several houses: among many a villa in Santa Fe, a other on the ocean in San Diego, a ranch in Wyoming and, above all, the Medina estate, in Washington State, which alone is worth 130 million dollars.
It is the family residence and is called Xanadu 2.0: a tribute to the film Fourth Estate by Orson Welles, one of Gates’ favorites, in which the protagonist Charles Foster Kane lives in a house of the same name. It is an all-wood house located right in front of Lake Washington, on land that the tycoon had bought in 88 for two million dollars, and then invested more 63 million to build it in two years with a record project which 300 workers worked on.
6200 square meters of total internal area, Xanadu 2.0 is a world: there are 7 bedrooms, 34 bathrooms, six kitchens, a party room that can accommodate 150 people seated and 200 standing, one gym of 230 square meters where there are also jumping trampolines and saunas, a library of another 200 square meters where the Leicester Codex, Leonardo da Vinci manuscript purchased at auction for 30.8 million dollars, a cinema that can accommodate up to 20 people and 23 car garages. A house with a low environmental impact, but with a very high technological level fully computerized with Microsoft operating systems that also work thanks to an electronic badge supplied to each guest. As soon as you enter a room, it automatically adjusts, according to everyone’s preferences, the temperature, the artwork to be projected on the walls and even the background music. You can also listen to music in the large swimming pool, the heart of the park surrounding the house composed of rare plants that come from all over the world and that overlooks a private beach of 500 square meters. “I wanted something nice but nothing ostentatious,” Gates wrote in his book The Road Ahead talking about Xanadu. “I wanted a home that could accommodate sophisticated technology, advanced but not intrusive to make it clear that technology must be a servant, not the master. ‘
What will become of Xanadu 2.0? Its future is not yet clear, just as it is not clear the future of all the other assets of the couple who to date have not yet revealed the patrimonial details of the divorce even if, according to the New York Times, they would have clarified them safe from prying eyes in a law office. Given the calm tones with which Bill and Melinda Gates announced the separation, there shouldn’t be any big battles and in any case, neither of them will fall badly. In the gallery above the VIP houses
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