BILL GATES



William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American entrepreneur, philanthropist, and the chairman of Microsoft, the software company he founded with Paul Allen. During his career at Microsoft he has held the positions of CEO and chief software architect, and he remains the largest individual shareholder with more than 8% of the common stock. Forbes magazine's list of The World's Billionaires has ranked him as the richest person in the world since 1995, and recent estimates put his net worth near $56 billion. When family wealth is considered, his family ranks second behind the Walton family. Gates is one of the best-known entrepreneurs of the personal computer revolution. Although he is widely admired, his business tactics have often been criticized as anti-competitive, and have, in some instances, been ruled as such in court. Since amassing his fortune, Gates has pursued a number of philanthropic endeavors, donating large amounts of money to various charitable organizations and scientific research programs through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.


Born: October 28, 1955 (age 51)
Seattle, Washington
Occupation: Chairman, Microsoft
Co-Chair, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Salary: US$966,667
Net worth: US$56.0 billion (2007)
Spouse: Melinda Gates
Children: 3


Personal Life


Gates married Melinda French of Dallas, Texas on January 1, 1994. They have three children: Jennifer Katharine Gates (1996), Rory John Gates (1999) and Phoebe Adele Gates (2002). Bill Gates' house is one of the most expensive houses in the world, and is a modern 21st century earth-sheltered home in the side of a hill overlooking Lake Washington in Medina, Washington. According to King County public records, as of 2006, the total assessed value of the property (land and house) is $125 million, and the annual property tax is just under $1 million. Also among Gates' private acquisitions is the Codex Leicester, a collection of writings by Leonardo da Vinci, which Gates bought for USD $30.8 million at an auction in 1994.

Bill Gates House

When you have a net worth of $50 Billion, you will be able afford a very Grand Mansion.



Basic Data of the house:

The house was designed by James Cutler of James Cutler Architects and the architectural firm Bohlin Cywinski Jackson (BCJ).
At one point there were 300 workers working on the house, including 104 electricians.
PDL was the lead designer on the project.
An interior designer, Thierry Despont disagreed with the layout of a portion of the home which resulted in demolition and the removal of 60 cubic yards of cured, cast-in-place concrete.



An existing cedar tree was determined by Gates to be in the wrong location and moved 6 inches.
Construction took 7 years
The lot was purchased in December 1988 for $2 million,
Construction occurred over a period of seven years with nominal completion in 1995


Family wing


The Gates family's 11,500-square-foot inner sanctum is surprisingly modest, with four bedrooms and quarters for a nanny. A four-car garage is attached. The lower levels include a techno-playland family room and an exercise facility that is better appointed than many health clubs.


Guest wing

The southern half of the main building, this wing contains the main entrance (with grand staircase), theater, library, formal dining room, reception hall, and conference facilities. It includes only two bedrooms.

The Features of the House:


Electronics are used abundantly; visitors are surveyed upon entrance and given a microchip that sends signals throughout the house to adjust temperature and other conditions according to preset user preferences.
If you wish, your music will follow you throughout the house - even at the bottom of the pool.
The 17-by-60-foot swimming pool has an underwater music system and a floor painted in a fossil motif. Swimmers can dive under a glass wall and emerge outdoors by a terrace. A locker room off the pool has four showers and two baths.
There is an elevator if you don't want to take the stairs.
There are no visible electrical outlets anywhere. Gates does not like clutter.
The wood columns from main floor to roof in entry area are over 70 feet tall.
All of the timbers used inside and out are finished the same - inches have been removed from the exterior of the wood and then sanded to a satin finish. They are nearly perfect in that there are almost no knots.
Some of the interior passage doors weigh over 800 lbs, but are balanced for easy use.
The roofing is stainless steel.
The floor is heated everywhere including the driveway and walks.
The security system (automated and personnel) is extensive. Hidden cameras are everywhere, including the interior stone walls. Sensors in the floor can track a person to within 6 inches. The system is monitored at the Microsoft Redmond campus.
There are 52 miles of communication cable in the building.
Gates insisted on saving a 40 year old maple adjacent to the driveway. The tree is monitored electronically 24 hours per day via computer. If it seems dry, it gets just the right amount of water automatically delivered.
The entry gate senses when your car approaches and opens fully by the time you arrive.
There are several garages. Gates has a personal 4-car garage. The house for the maintenance staff has its own garage. The nanny parks in the 6-car carport across from the main entry. Additional cars can be parked in a subterranean arched concrete building which through an electronic transformation becomes a basketball court.
Very old antique cabinets from China have been brought in and built into the walls with adjacent paneling built to match the cabinets exactly.
The master bathtub can be filled to the right temperature and depth by Gates as he drives home from work.

The shower curtain next to the spa is a 4500 lb slab of granite.
All bolts throughout the house are stainless steel and oriented in the same direction.
The finish color of the steel brackets used on all the timber framing was changed after installation, requiring in-place refinishing.
All woodwork is flawless. Much of the woodwork is of various rare types from all over the world - imported especially for this house.
Many of the heavy timbers used in the house are actually glued-laminated beams with a veneer to make them appear as solid sawn lumber.
Acoustics are a concern throughout the house. Various woods and fabrics are being used with acoustics in mind. Acoustic panels in the ballroom move out of sight on their own.
The ventilation system also conditions the air for health and comfort.
Melinda has 42 linear feet of clothes hanging space in her closet operated like a dry cleaner's rack.
The reinforcing steel in all concrete is four times the code minimum. No. 8 steel wrapped with no. 5 ties was common for simple columns.
The theater (underground in a concrete shell) is the most state of the art theatre in the world according to specialty contractor.
Many doors are blended so well with the walls that it is hard to see them.
Situated in the hillside along the east bank of Lake Washington, the house can be seen by over 350,000 daily commuters on the SR-520 Evergreen Point Floating Bridge, which is just to the north of the house.
Each door handle in the home is custom made on a CNC machine to specifications laid out by Mr. Gates. Each handle (2 per door) cost approximately $2000.

The big boss of Microsoft does have a nice little pad down on the shores of Lake Washington.



Bill and Melinda Gates' $97 million house.



Much of the house is built underground into the hill, so the house looks smaller than it actually is. Unfortunately the hidden section underground did not escape the taxman's view; Bill paid over a million dollars last year on property taxes.


A stream flows through the property.
The pool room is in the background

House View from the Lake





House View from the Air



Hallway



Fire Place



Swimming Pool




I am sure everybody would want to become like him...............