For years, people have been wondering what Mark Zuckerberg is up to in Lake Tahoe.
We have our first clue.
The Meta CEO plans to build a 75,000-square-foot, seven-building compound on the lake’s western shore, according to planning documents seen by California news site SFGate.
Zuckerberg started to lay the groundwork in December 2018, when he bought a 3.5-acre property from the family of the late investment banker Robert Quist for $22 million. The next month, he bought another estate next door for $37 million.
The Quist spread, also called the Carousel Estate, included a pier suitable for a large yacht and a house with seven bedrooms, according to the Wall Street Journal, which cited Zillow. The property next door, known as the Brushwood Estate, had a house with six bedrooms, five bathrooms, and two half-baths.
Those specs seem irrelevant, though, because Zuckerberg has started demolishing the homes, according to SFGate.
According to Lake Tahoe’s parcel tracker, the property where he plans to build has been deemed a “project area.” SFGate reported that a 2022 letter from the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA) sent to the LLC used to buy the properties, Golden Range LLC, gave Zuckerberg the OK to demolish the Carousel Estate.
The demolition paves the way for Zuckerberg’s planned seven-building compound. The main residence will be a 20,000-square-foot, 35-foot-tall structure, SFGate reported from the planning documents.
Another construction approved by the TRPA, SFGate reported, features a bunkhouse, a gym, a gatehouse, an office, and a guesthouse. The same documents showed the property will also include fire pits, bridges, and mulch trails.
Zuckerberg can add the Tahoe property to his already extensive real-estate portfolio. He owns another compound in Palo Alto, California, and over 1,200 acres of land in Hawaii. In April, BI calculated Zuckerberg’s property holdings were worth about $200 million.
Set against a landscape of breathtaking mountains and forests, Lake Tahoe is a popular vacation destination for many wealthy Californians. Dotted with luxury ski resorts and multimillion-dollar homes, it’s also one of the most exclusive and sought-after real-estate markets in the US.
The billionaire founder of Oracle, Larry Ellison, the Kardashians, and singer Liza Minelli have all owned homes in the area at some point.
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