Inside the $12 million reno Jeff Bezos is planning for his $23 million D.C. mansion
A staircase made from a slab of marble. A limestone fireplace. A whiskey cellar. One hundred and ninety one doors, mostly custom and made from mahogany or bronze.
Those grand touches are part of the $12 million renovation Jeff Bezos began undertaking at his Washington D.C. mansion in 2016, according to a 2018 report by the Washingtonian. In November 2019, the Washingtonian noted that those renovations were still underway more than three years later.
However, any ongoing renovations did not stop the billionaire Amazon CEO from hosting a lavish after-party for the annual black-tie banquet of the Alfalfa Club, an exclusive D.C. social club.
Celebrity guests seen entering Bezos' D.C. mansion on Saturday night included Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, actor Ben Stiller, Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner, White House adviser Kellyanne Conway and U.S. Senator Mitt Romney. Politico also reported that J.P. Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon and former Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis attended.
In 2016, the Amazon CEO paid $23 million — $1 million over the home's list price — for the most expensive mansion in the D.C.'s prominent Kalorama neighborhood (making Barack and Michelle Obama, as well as Kushner and Ivanka Trump, his neighbors).
The estate is two separate residences combined: one was designed in 1913 by John Russell Pope (the architect of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial) and the other was designed in 1908 by Waddy Wood. The buildings, filed in The National Register of Historic Places in 1973, housed the city's historic Textile Museum from its founding in 1925 through 2013.
And as the property of world's richest man, the buildings are getting more than a few updates.
The Washingtonian obtained construction plans for the four-story home from the Washington D.C. Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs.
The plans show the Pope home completed with 10 bathrooms, an exercise room, a TV room, an array of bedrooms, two dressing rooms and two kitchens. There is also space for the whiskey cellar and wine room, complete with an elevator to access the home's amenities.
Through a connected walkway, the Bezos family can enter the second property, designed by Wood. From the plans, the Wood house appears to be dedicated to parties and guests.
Complete with a ballroom and marble staircase, "the property has all the infrastructure needed for large affairs: an area for grilling, furniture storage, staff changing rooms and offices, a kitchen just for catering parties, a coat room, and multiple bathroom stalls," The Washingtonian reported.
In total, the renovation calls for 25 bathrooms, 11 bedrooms and five staircases.
Bezos hopes to keep the history of the place intact, according to The Washingtonian's report, which points to a note in the construction plans instructing "All historic fabric is to be protected and left intact where possible."
Bezos is no stranger to luxe real estate: He was the 26th-largest landowner in the U.S. as of September 2019, according to Bloomberg, including over 300,000 acres in Texas. The world's richest man, Bezos has an estimated net worth of $116 billion, according to Bloomberg.
His current home base is a lake house in Medina, Washington, estimated to be worth $25 million in 2019, according to Wealth-X. He also owns a 2.03-acre property in Beverly Hills, California, worth about $25 million in 2019, and in Manhattan, Bezos' three linked apartments in The Century building on Central Park West were worth $17 million last year, according to Wealth-X. Bezos also purchased a three-level penthouse in Manhattan at 212 Fifth Avenue in 2019 in a deal that could be worth up to $80 million, CNBC Make It reported at the time.
He also uses his billions for other things, like funding Blue Origin, his space flight company, and to support projects like the 10,000 year clock being built inside a mountain on his property in Texas.
Read the full Washingtonian report here.
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