Mark Zuckerberg has spent 14 years gobbling up his leafy Palo Alto neighborhood, in line with a New York Occasions report detailing how the Meta CEO has bought 11 properties for over $110 million to create his personal private fiefdom in Crescent Park.
The piecemeal compound includes a important residence, visitor properties, manicured gardens, and a pickleball courtroom — even a pool with a movable hydrofloor that may flip the swimming space right into a dance ground. The pièce de résistance: a seven-foot statue of spouse Priscilla Chan draped in flowing silver robes.
Beneath his suburban stronghold lies 7,000 sq. ft of subterranean area that neighbors have dubbed “the billionaire bat cave.” A non-public college for 14 kids additionally operates in one of many properties — a violation of metropolis zoning codes that doesn’t appear to hassle metropolis officers, report the Occasions.
The entire operation has taken a toll on some longtime residents, who cite years of development noise, blocked driveways, and surveillance cameras peering each which means. Neighbor Michael Kieschnick tells the outlet, “No neighborhood needs to be occupied, however that’s precisely what they’ve performed.”
A minimum of Zuckerberg’s workers has periodically provided peace gestures, together with wine, donuts, and, perhaps most tellingly, noise-canceling headphones.