Inside Mark Zuckerberg’s sprawling $427 million real estate portfolio
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s $427 million real estate portfolio is more than able to accommodate his new plans to work from home until 2022.
Remote work? No problem for Mark Zuckerberg.
The 37-year-old Facebook founder plans to work remotely for up to half of 2022, The Wall Street Journal reported last week — and his $427 million real estate portfolio is more than able to accommodate his work-from-home lifestyle.
The centibillionaire owns about 1400 acres and 10 houses in Palo Alto, San Francisco, Lake Tahoe and Hawaii. He has a history of not getting along with his neighbours, from construction noise complaints in San Francisco to a petition against “colonisation” due to his growing Hawaii real estate portfolio.
The homes are hardly a dent in his estimated $120 billion net worth, which places him as the fifth richest person in the world, according to Forbes.
He has two children with his wife Priscilla Chan, five-year-old Maxima and three-year-old August. They said having children inspired them to pledge to give 99 per cent of their Facebook shares away, though many have criticised billionaires for exacerbating inequality.
A family spokesperson confirmed the residences to The Post, and pointed out “Mark and Priscilla’s work with the community in Kauai”.
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A noisy townhouse overhaul
Dolores Heights, San Francisco: $15.82 million
Mr Zuckerberg spent $13 million on this now-7368-square-foot house in November 2012, plus an additional $2.4 million in renovations, according to San Francisco property and permit records.
Photos of the stucco and brick home with a slate roof are scarce, but property records paint a portrait of the home: on the first floor, an office, media room, half-bathroom, a laundry room and mudroom, a wine room and a wet bar.
It is unknown how many bedrooms and bathrooms the house has, but it has 23 total rooms on four floors on a 0.22-acre lot, according to San Francisco property records.
The $2.4 million renovation of the 1928 property included remodelling the kitchen and bathrooms, replacing and repairing the stucco and brick exterior, making it fire and earthquake safe, installing airconditioning, moving and renovating windows and replacing the slate roof, according to permit records.
He added to the first, second and third floors, and added the fourth floor as a habitable level with a bathroom and a glass roof deck, according to property records.
The renovations solicited six complaints from neighbours, including noise, dust, parking, littering, construction debris and alleged permit violation complaints, which were dismissed or mediated by inspectors and city staff, according to records.
Half a block of suburban Silicon Valley
Palo Alto, California: $66 million
Mr Zuckerberg owns at least 1.83 acres, or about half a block, in Palo Alto, California.
He paid $67.9 million for the lots lined with redwood, magnolia and Ginkgo trees on large front yards. Combined, the homes span almost 20,000 square feet with 15 bedrooms and more than 16 bathrooms, according to property records.
The primary home is a 5,617-square-foot five-bedroom, five-bathroom wood-floored home on 0.41 acres, which he purchased for $9 million in 2011, a year before he married Ms Chan, according to Architectural Digest.
The colonial revival, clapboard-sided house is the oldest home in Palo Alto, with parts of the wood frame structure dating to the 1860s, according to a City of Palo Alto Historic Resources Board report.
Today, the mansion has a saltwater pool, a sunroom, an entertainment pavilion, a fireplace, a barbecue area, a spa, front and back porches and some unusual amenities — like a “Facebook Cannon” which launches grey T-shirts and an AI assistant with the voice of Morgan Freeman, according to Architectural Digest, which Mr Zuckerberg built himself, according to FastCompany.
He used the other four homes as guesthouses and recreational facilities, according to an Architectural Review Board meeting.
In 2016, he proposed to demolish to demolish the four residences and replace them with 20 per cent smaller houses to expand outdoor space for their primary property. But the Palo Alto Architectural Review Board denied his request in part because the houses were not “credible” single-family homes.
“What I’m finding here when I look through these plans is that none of these are really residential in my book. A residence is something where a family lives. A person resides in that residence. And these are not residences. These are part of a larger compound,” said Architectural Review Board member Peter Baltay at the meeting.
News of neighbours’ complaints in San Francisco also made his new neighbours wary, emails show, though builders said they minimised neighbourhood impact in their plans, they outlined in the review board meeting.
Thousands of Hawaii acres
Kauai, Hawaii: Over $267 million
Mr Zuckerberg seems to love Hawaii. In fact, he can’t stop buying up land — 1400 acres of it.
In 2014, he spent $155 million on 707 acres including most of Pila’a beach and Kahu’aina Plantation, which, according to local newspaper, The Garden Island, including a 6100-square-foot house with a 16-car garage and offices and security headquarters, part of Zuckerberg’s $30.7 million security team.
Mr Zuckerberg first underwent local scrutiny for putting up walls and blocking beach access after this purchase, The Garden Island reported.
In 2017, Mr Zuckerberg underwent national scrutiny when he filed quiet-title lawsuits to buy pockets of land within his estate. Called kuleana parcels, these landlocked patches of land were granted to native Hawaiian tenant farmers in 1850 and handed down through generations, local reports explained.
Mr Zuckerberg withdrew the lawsuits after public backlash, but he will spent $60.5 million on 89 acres spanning at least 12 kuleana parcels, according to local reports, including 79.8 acres from Gary Stewart for $44.5 million, according to Pacific Business News.
In March, the couple spent $70 million to add 600 more acres to their portfolio.
Mr Zuckerberg has recently been spotted hitting the waves, hurling spears and donning copious amounts of sunscreen on the islands, in addition to their contributions to the Chan Zuckerberg Kaua’i Community Fund of Hawaii Community Foundation.
Dual desert vacation homes
Lake Tahoe, California: $78.8 million
In 2018, Mr Zuckerberg spent $78.8 million on two Lake Tahoe homes — the Brushwood and Carousel estates. Together, the estates span almost 10 acres.
The Brushwood estate has a 5322-square-foot, six-bedroom, five-bathroom home on six acres of land. It has approximately 400 feet of lakefront, a private pier, patios, a guesthouse and a garage, according to permit records. The main house has peaked roofs with light-wood beamed ceilings, photos show.
In a former life, the home hosted the Oscar de la Renta fashion show and the Lake Tahoe summer music festival, according to Realtor.com.
The Carousel estate has an eight-bedroom, nine-bathroom home on 3.5 acres. It has 200 feet of lakefront, a marina-style pier, a breezeway and a two-car garage, plus a guesthouse and a caretaker’s apartment, according to Realtor.com and permit records.
It originally had three separate cabins in the ‘30s that were connected and expanded in the ‘50s. The caretaker’s house was built in 1967, and the house had further modifications in the ‘70s and in 1998, according to historical status inspection, which determined the property not historic.
Lake Tahoe, which straddles the California and Nevada border, has been a celebrity favourite for decades, with residents and vacationers including Frank Sinatra, Kim Kardashian and Gene Simmons.
Early homes
Harvard, LA rentals and New York Suburbs
Mr Zuckerberg was born and raised in Dobbs Ferry, New York, by a dentist and a psychiatrist. He has three sisters, according to New York Magazine.
After leaving his Harvard dorm room to start Facebook, the man who inspired the 2010 film The Social Network rented a few places in Silicon Valley — and even tried to pay in Facebook stock, a former landlord (who opted to accept cash from the young entrepreneur) told The Post.
This article originally appeared on NY Post and was reproduced with permission
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