Last week, TMZ reported that Melinda Gates was convinced that the divorce announcement was imminent back in March, so she decamped to a private island in the Pacific with her grown-up children for several months, thinking she was waiting out the gossip storm. The actual divorce announcement didn’t come until the beginning of May though. TMZ also reported that all of the Gates kids – and all of the family – are on Melinda’s side because Bill did *something*. Well, in case you were wondering where the hell Bill has been living all this time, it’s not in his luxurious Washington state home. No, he’s staying at a fancy golf club in Indian Wells, California.
Bill Gates has been hiding from the fallout from his divorce at an ultra-exclusive California golf club for a number of months, according to a source. An insider said the 65-year-old billionaire Microsoft founder has been holed up at The Vintage Club in Indian Wells, which bills itself as “one of the United States’ most prestigious and ultra-exclusive private country club communities,” a veritable 712-acre oasis of wealth.
A source exclusively told Page Six, “Bill clearly saw this divorce coming for a long time because he’s been there for around three months.”
Bill was this week spotted at The Vintage Club with his 25-year-old daughter Jennifer Gates and her fiancé, Egyptian millionaire Nayel Nassar, according to the Page Six spy. Gates owns a private home on the property, which also boasts members such as billionaires Charles Koch, Philip Anshultz and Dennis Washington.
It costs $250,000 to join and home prices there range from a mere $2.3 million to $20 million. It has an 85,000-square-foot clubhouse at the epicenter, a host of restaurants, and a luxury spa, and two nationally-ranked 18-hole Tom Fazio-designed golf courses. The Microsoft mogul reportedly spent $12.5 million on a massive home in the posh resort community in 1990. The 13,573-square-foot home has six bedrooms and nine bathrooms and sits along a pristinely manicured golf course.
Bill signed his divorce papers in Palm Desert, California — where The Vintage Club is based — while Melinda signed her divorce petition in Bellevue, Washington, near the Gates’ $130 million family home and their foundation headquarters.
The source added that The Vintage Club is so private, “It is the perfect place for Bill to hide out from anyone who wants to question him about his divorce or his alleged ties to Epstein.”
The only reason I know about the posh golf clubs in and around Indian Wells is because a handful of tennis players go golfing whenever they’re in town for the BNP Paribas Open, at the Indian Wells tennis complex owned by Larry Ellison. Ellison has some kind of posh spread in Indian Wells or Palm Springs too – that whole area is a billionaire’s playground, and this answers some questions about why Bill Gates has attended tennis matches in Indian Wells. Anyway, it sounds like a nice club and it sounds like Gates has a nice set-up there, with lots of privacy and security. I wonder if he’ll be California-based from now on?
Photos courtesy of Getty, Avalon Red.
I’m honestly not anti-capitalism but reading this isht gives me pause.
I feel the same. It’s literally breath taking, how can a home be worth $130m?! one home. $130m…is it a typo?
It’s an insanely large bunker. They built it under a bridge spanning Lake Washington so people couldn’t gawk… but there are plenty of tourist boats that will happily drive by for you.
Fix the tax code.
Yes, whole-heartedly YES.
Yes!
The tax code and exclusionary land use policies. But def end the mortgage interest deduction and the SALT deduction. Those are subsidies for very high income people and they perpetuate racial disparities in homeownership and therefore wealth accumulation.
Washington State has no state income tax, btw.
The Bellevue property is more like 4 homes on either side of the main home on Lake Washington. The size is for privacy sake so they say. “Small” homes in the Medina neighborhood with no lake front, older homes on smaller lots are easily priced well over 5M, so this really isn’t a stretch.
The estate is gorgeous, with many buildings, and is not under a bridge as a previous commenter said. That would be impossible since both bridges across Lake Washington float on the water.
Many wealthy Seattleites of Gates’s age live part-time in Palm Springs, Indian Wells or some other warm location. He is old enough to retire, if he had a job.
Nice doghouse.
Only a billionaires’ playground gets to have an epicenter instead of a center.
I just really truly think that it may be time for us to start eating the rich.
I’m sorry Lily, I’m a vegetarian…can we just tax them more?
sure! but for those that resist/refuse can we hold onto mine as a plan b?
But that’s the whole point. Nobody *wants* to eat their shtty botoxed spray-tanned skinny asses, it’s just that you get to the point where they have EVERYTHING, the people have nothing [incl no hummus, no lovely roasted asparagus, et. al.] We’re tired, we’re hungry, we’re poor = Eat The Rich.
Ditto Darla. We can let them live, just not as richly.
Share it out then we can educate, feed and enable the millions.
They need to be taxed at the Eisenhower rate, especially folks like the Kochs and the Mercers.
Inequality in few words: the IW golf club.
1) the whole setup sounds very Trumpian and very gauche, sorry Bill
2) I too would choose Cali’s climate over Seattle’s rains in my old age
Man that sounds so boring and bougie to me. A golf club?! All the money in the world and he lives at a golf club? I swear, no imagination.
Zero. No imagination, no soul, no empathy.
Money’s wasted on the rich.
Especially when there is so much in the world to explore.
Does anyone know how diverse the membership is at Indian Wells? I see zero Black or AAPI people in any photos on the website. Maybe there’s one woman in a spa photo who looks ethnically ambiguous. My question has nothing to do with Bill Gates specifically – but just curious how “exclusive” this club is.
If Bill has links to Epstein which are proven, and engaged in illegal behaviour with minors, I hope that he is forced to swap his gauche millionaire habitat for a supermax cell. No mercy for anyone associated with Epstein – and I hope that not only would his wealth be confiscated, but his products vetoed. The behaviour of these amoral arseholes is just not tenable any more – not after the pandemic, and not in an increasingly woke and diverse world.
Rich people and their golf. How original.
He controls one of the largest philanthropic foundations focused on world health. More than 10,000 people die of covid every day, we are seeing it just ravage India right now. Their foundation could vaccinate millions. Glad to hear he is safely holed up in a millionaire’s enclave.