"It all started in 2011, when Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg began scooping up properties surrounding the home he purchased in Palo Alto's exclusive Crescent Park neighborhood. After spending $40 million buying four adjacent houses in 2012 and 2013, Zuckerberg established a template that his billionaire contemporaries would follow, with ever-rising stakes. The Meta CEO's obsession with acquiring and demolishing neighboring properties has only grown since then."
"OpenAI's Sam Altman has quietly assembled his own San Francisco empire atop Russian Hill. The ChatGPT billionaire started his real estate spree in 2020, with the purchase of a $27 million, 9,500-square-foot home with an infinity pool, sauna and elevator at 950 Lombard St. Last year, that buy turned into a legal nightmare when the home's leaky pool led to a moldy, "lemon" lawsuit against the property's developer. Nevertheless, Altman doubled down, acquiring three additional neighboring properties at the beginning of the year."
Mark Zuckerberg began buying neighboring properties in Palo Alto in 2011, spending $40 million on four adjacent houses in 2012–2013 and later acquiring at least 11 properties along Edgewood Drive and Hamilton Avenue with his wife Priscilla Chang, creating a more than $110 million fortress spanning multiple blocks. OpenAI's Sam Altman bought a $27 million Lombard Street home in 2020 that faced a mold-related "lemon" lawsuit and then added three adjacent properties to form a $65.5 million cluster. Designer Jony Ive recently purchased four neighboring Belvedere homes for $73 million, including century-old houses and a 1999 bay-overlooking property. The pattern shows tech billionaires consolidating adjacent luxury homes into expansive compounds.
Read at SFGATE
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]