Bill Gates’ house: Found this on Wikipedia’s Unusual articles page. Pretty amazing stuff; some things that jumped out at me:
- Assessed values (as of 2002) of $113 million, with over $1 million in annual property tax
- 66,000 square feet
- The wood columns from main floor to roof in entry area are over 70 feet tall.
- Some of the interior passage doors weigh over 800 lbs, but are balanced for easy use.
- The roofing is stainless steel.
- Hidden cameras are everywhere, including the interior stone walls.
- 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.
- All woodwork is flawless. Much of the woodwork is of various rare types from all over the world – imported especially for this house.
- The theater (underground in a concrete shell) is the most state of the art theatre in the world according to specialty contractor.
Picture? Of course!
More photos can be found on this Flickr group.
I’m not sure I can even get my mind around a place like this. Some of the photos look like a Disneyland attraction.