Who Gets Xanadu 2.0, the Gates Family Mansion?

Melinda Gates, at least, has been open about her desire to live in a smaller house.

As experts in philanthropy, finance, technology and global health scramble to predict what the divorce of Melinda and Bill Gates could mean for their industries, others are wondering: Who will get their lakefront estate in the Seattle suburbs, which is valued at upward of $131 million? And will the public finally get a peek inside? The couple, worth an estimated $124 billion according to Forbes, announced their split in a joint statement posted to their social media profiles on Monday. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, of which they are co-chairs, said that nothing will change in its organizational structure. But their 66,000-square-foot home on the shore of Lake Washington is another matter. The sprawling complex — which, at the time of a 1995 New York Times story, included a spa, a 60-foot pool, a gym paneled with stone from a mountain peak in the Pacific Northwest, a trampoline room, and a stream for salmon, trout and other fish — got the nickname Xanadu 2.0 from Mr. Gates’s biographers.