Gates’ daughter opens up about $207m home. Picture: Facebook; Supplied
Bill Gates’ daughter Phoebe has opened up about her fears over being perceived as a privileged “nepo baby” when she moved out of her father’s $US130 million ($A207 million) compound to attend college.
The Microsoft founder’s youngest daughter left the family nest in 2021 to head to Stanford University, where she received a degree in human biology, Realtor reports.
During her podcast, “The Burnouts,” Phoebe said her status as “nepo baby” gave her “so much insecurity.”
“I had so much insecurity and, like, such a desire to prove myself,” she shares.
“I was like, ‘I have so much privilege. I’m a nepo baby.’ … [I had] so much insecurity around that.”
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Bill Gates’ daughter, Phoebe, has opened up about the fears she had over her “nepo baby” status when she moved out of the family’s $130 million home to attend college. Picture: YouTube/The Burnouts
Bill Gates with his daughter, Phoebe. Picture: NGELA WEISS/Getty Images
Before moving to Stanford, which is just a stone’s throw from Palo Alto, California, in the heart of Silicon Valley, Phoebe had been living mostly in another tech hub: the picturesque Seattle suburb of Medina, Washington State, which has long been home to some of the world’s wealthiest tech tycoons.
It was there that her father, Bill, began building his now-infamous compound, called Xanadu 2.0 in reference to the fictional estate featured in the movie “Citizen Kane.”
The sprawling home is where he and Melinda raised their three children.
However, while she was in her final year of high school, the family’s life was thrown into disarray when Bill and Melinda announced that they were divorcing after 27 years of marriage.
The former couple announced the news in May 2021 — and revealed just three months later that they had reached a divorce settlement that saw a hefty chunk of Bill’s fortune going to Melinda.
At the time, Phoebe’s sister, Jennifer, now 28, and brother, Rory, now 25, had already moved out of the family home and gone onto college, leaving Phoebe as the only child still residing at Xanadu 2.0 with her parents.
Still, they took steps to ensure that her home life remained as consistent as possible, with
Melinda recently revealing in her upcoming book, “The Next Day,” that she made Bill move out of his longtime home so that she could remain in the property with Phoebe while she finished her senior year.
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Bill and Melinda Gates, with their three children. Picture: Facebook
Although Melinda has previously confessed to not liking the $130 million compound her husband began building before they wed, she admitted that she made him move out when they first separated, while she stayed there with their youngest child. Picture: Ted Soqui/Corbis via Getty Images
In an excerpt of the book, which was shared with People magazine, Melinda explains that the breakdown of her marriage began as early as 2019, when she began “having nightmares about a beautiful house collapsing all around her,” according to the outlet.
By February 2020, those nightmares had evolved into an image of her entire family, including Bill, watching from the edge of a cliff as she “plummeted” into an abyss.
Although Melinda tried to hide the panic that she was feeling, things came to a head during a trip to New Mexico that month, which she said she had initially planned to take alone, before inviting Bill to join her at the last minute.
It was on the last night of that trip that she told her husband she wanted them to begin living apart.
“It was one of the scariest conversations I’d have had,” Melinda writes in her book, with People noting that she told Bill that she would stay in their marital home with Phoebe so she could continue her senior year of high school with as little disruption as possible.
Ironically, Melinda had previously confessed to never being a fan of Xanadu 2.0 and is packed with all manner of hi-tech amenities.
Bill had already begun work on the property when he and his former wife tied the knot in 1994 — however, Fortune reported in 2008 that Melinda had tried to shut down work on the home, before hiring a new architect to overhaul the property to better suit her needs and those of their future family.
Although she conceded to the outlet that she had grown to “like” the home, she later told the New York Times in 2019: “Just to be clear, the house was being built before I came on the scene. But I take responsibility for it.”
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Phoebe is now understood to be residing in New York City, where her parents bought a $US51 million penthouse for their older daughter, Jennifer, in 2023. Picture: Realtor
It’s unclear whether Phoebe has found her own pad, or if she’s moved into the sprawling apartment, which is located in a celebrity-loved building in Tribeca. Picture: Realtor
Following their divorce — and Phoebe’s relocation to Stanford—Bill reclaimed ownership of the abode, while Melinda is understood to have moved into a smaller property in Seattle, where her female-focused organisation, Pivotal Ventures, is headquartered.
Meanwhile Phoebe is understood to have relocated to the East Coast, with her official LinkedIn page listing her current home base as being in New York City, where her parents are reported to have purchased a $US51 million penthouse for her sister, Jennifer, in January 2023.
According to records, the property — which is located in the same paparazzi-proof building that Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds, Jennifer Lawrence, Harry Styles, and Justin Timberlake have all called home over the years — was bought by a Seattle-based trust that is linked to Bill.
It’s unclear whether Phoebe has moved into the same property, or if her parents have purchased her a separate unit to call home while she works on her fashion company, Phia, as well as her podcast.
She and her siblings are understood to make regular trips to their father’s home, though, with the billionaire revealing in an interview with The Times in January that his children often visit Xanadu 2.0 — citing their trips as being one of the reasons he refuses to “downsize” and move to a smaller home.
“My house in Seattle, I admit, is gigantic,” he said. “My sisters have downsized. I can’t. I like the houses I have. My kids like to come back — that is a luxury. I don’t cook, I don’t make my own bed, but I don’t mind if no one has made it — I wouldn’t notice.”
Parts of this story first appeared in Realtor and was republished with permission.
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