Bill Gates's House

Microsoft's co-founder, who started the company with Paul Allen in 1975 and ran it as chief executive until 2000. He has spent the years since on the Gates Foundation.

Medina was platted in February 1914 as Medina Heights, and a ferry from Seattle started running 6 weeks later. Lowering Lake Washington nearly 9 feet in 1916 opened prime new land along Medina's shoreline.

Bohlin Cywinski Jackson and James Cutler's office drew the place together, with Peter Bohlin and Cutler leading. The separate guest house on the grounds went up in 1993 and 1994.

The house is known for its wiring, but Architosh reported in 1999 that the drawings were done largely by hand. The only part modeled on a computer was the garage.

When Long-Bell's old lumber sheds in Longview came down in 1996, their giant old-growth beams were salvaged and sold. HistoryLink records that some of them went into this house.

The county's roll measures the tract at a little over 5 acres. In January 2026 a single recorded instrument moved it out of Gates's own name into a holding company, with no price recorded.

Medina ranks among the country's richest ZIP codes, yet only 8% of the property tax billed here stays in town. A state cap on levy growth left it facing a $500,000 shortfall in 2020.