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

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.

Don't Miss:

• Maker of the $60,000 foldable home has 3 factory buildings, 600+ houses built, and big plans to solve housing — you can become an investor for $0.80 per share today.
• Inspired by Uber and Airbnb – Deloitte's fastest-growing software company is transforming 7 billion smartphones into income-generating assets – with $1,000, you can invest at just $0.30/share!

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

Trending: Invest Where It Hurts — And Help Millions Heal: Invest in Cytonics and help disrupt a $390B Big Pharma stronghold.

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."

Today's Best Finance Deals

That might raise eyebrows when your daughter is training on one of the most elite circuits in the world with access to barns, paddocks, and a freshly renovated mansion. But Melinda stood firm. Their kids got allowances. They did chores. And they were explicitly told not to mention private jets to their classmates—because, apparently, that's where the line gets drawn.

Then again, maybe real estate didn't count. If horses were Jennifer's hobby, collecting multimillion-dollar homes may have just been considered part of the uniform.

Of course, the perks extended beyond Florida. When Jennifer graduated from Stanford in 2018, she didn't just get a diploma—she got a 124-acre equestrian estate in North Salem, New York, reportedly valued at $15.8 million. Spread across three parcels, the property offered both wide-open pastures and a convenient home base near New York City, where she'd eventually begin medical school.

See Also: This Jeff Bezos-backed startup will allow you to become a landlord in just 10 minutes, with minimum investments as low as $100.

Jennifer, now 29, is married to Olympic show jumper Nayel Nassar and has officially traded in her med school scrubs for a residency badge. After graduating from medical school, she matched into the Pediatrics Research pathway at Mount Sinai—her first choice. 

"Pediatrician incoming!!!" she wrote in a celebratory Instagram post, calling it a dream come true. So yes, she got the horse haven, the Harvard-level education, and now a shot at helping kids full-time—all while still staying active in the equestrian world.

As for Bill? He's been known to downplay the flash, once saying that beyond a certain point, "It's the same hamburger." Though in this case, that hamburger came with its own arena and a few million dollars' worth of paddocks on the side.

Read Next:

• With Point, you can get up to $500,000 in cash from your property with no monthly payments and no income requirements — even if your credit isn't perfect.
• Arrived Home's Private Credit Fund’s has historically paid an annualized dividend yield of 8.1%*, which provides access to a pool of short-term loans backed by residential real estate with just a $100 minimum. 

Image: Shutterstock