Before HQ2 or even HQ1, Amazon was headquartered in a 1,500-square-foot Craftsman home in the tony Seattle suburb of Bellevue. Now that house is for sale.
The owners of the three-bedroom house where Bezos famously started the trillion-dollar company in 1994 are asking $1.5 million for the keys to the landmark, according to the Seattle Times.
Bezos was only renting the home for a few months when he drew up articles of incorporation, and a later owner remodeled the 65-year-old house and attached garage in 2001, but that didn’t stop listing agent Pat Sullivan from shining a spotlight on its history with a fat arrow pointed at the garage door noting “The birthplace of Amazon.”
The last time the house went on the market in 2009, it sold for $620,000, or $720,000 in today’s dollars, according to the Times. Its current $1.5 million asking price is still well below the $2 million median home price in the area, as a surge of Amazon workers has helped boost Seattle-area property values.
Bezos, the world’s wealthiest man with $132 billion to his name, now owns a waterfront estate in nearby Medina valued at $76 million. In 2017, he dropped $13 million on a four-bedroom home adjoining his 12,000-square-foot Spanish-style mansion in Beverly Hills. [Seattle Times] — Alex Nitkin