Bill Gates Paid $38 Million To Buy An Entire Street In Palm Beach For Daughter’s Equestrian Hobby — ‘Gobbled Up Properties Like Pac-Man’Imagine

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Bill and Melinda French Gates back in 2011 dropped half a million dollars just to rent a house in Wellington, Florida—for four months. Why? Their then-teenage daughter, Jennifer Gates, was training to become one of the top show jumpers in the country. And while that alone sounds like a rich-kid fairytale, the next chapter is pure billionaire.

By 2016, Bill Gates had completed what one observer summed up perfectly to Daily Mail: “He gobbled up properties like Pac-Man.” According to property records, Gates didn’t just buy a home—he strategically snapped up nearly an entire street in the exclusive equestrian village. Starting with a $8.7 million horse farm purchase in 2013, he expanded piece by piece, ultimately spending around $38 million to claim 18 acres on and around Mallet Hill Court.

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The spree included a newly rebuilt mansion, a 20-stall barn, vacant lots, and multiple homes. Gates often paid two to three times the appraised value just to secure neighboring lots. As one seller, Stuart Roffman, put it, the street may have had a gate, but there was still too much buzz. “Between trucks, stable hands, grooms and house staff, that’s a lot of people on a small street,” he said.

So Gates did what only Bill Gates could—buy his daughter the privacy of her own equestrian neighborhood.

Jennifer’s horse haven included:

A 4.5-acre ranch bought in 2013 for $8.7 million

A neighboring 4.5-acre property purchased for $13.5 million in 2016

Two vacant lots acquired for nearly $5 million

A 5.2-acre estate with barns and a home for $8.7 million

And a final 1.3-acre lot snapped up for $2.5 million

But don’t mistake this for unchecked indulgence. Melinda Gates made it very clear in a 2024 New York Times interview: “We absolutely did not just buy them things.” She added, “It was much more of an upbringing like I grew up in. A very middle-class household where money did dictate whether I got an extra pair of shoes that year or not.”