Even nine-figure billionaires occasionally declutter.

Bill Gates, with a net worth of more than $100 billion, is pruning the edges of his vast waterfront compound, putting a traditional cottage that abuts his legendary Medina, Washington, compound up for sale at $4.8 million.

The olive-green cottage, built in the 1950s but since updated and immaculately maintained, sits on a hillside parcel looking out over Lake Washington. Gates purchased the four-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath home for $1 million back in 1995, a year after marrying Melinda French Gates; the couple divorced in 2021. There’s no indication Gates ever lived in the 2,780-square-foot house that, as with several other neighboring properties he acquired throughout the 1990s, was likely intended to bolster the privacy of his ultra-modern primary residence, a 66,000-square-foot ultramodern megamansion known as Xanadu 2.0.

Arched openings and oak floorboards define the bright, open layout, where the living room centers around a large picture window and fireplace, and the dining room opens onto a covered deck. Both rooms have a fireplace. Elsewhere, the kitchen has been refreshed with stainless-steel appliances and granite countertops, and the primary suite features French doors that open to a private deck. Three additional bedrooms sit on the lower level, each with its own fireplace and enough flexibility to function as guest space, a home office, or creative studio.

Gates began assembling his Medina compound in 1988, paying $2 million for a wooded hillside that would become the site of Xanadu 2.0, named after the fictional mansion in Citizen Kane. The software tycoon ultimately invested more than $60 million into the property, which was designed by the architects at Bohlin Cywinski Jackson with interiors by the late French architect and designer Thierry Despont. In all, there are seven bedrooms, 24 bathrooms, a domed library, a 60-foot pool with an underwater sound system, and a reception hall built to host 150 guests. Today, the estate is valued at more than $130 million.

Over the next two decades, Gates expanded his footprint by acquiring at least a dozen neighboring homes, some large and some more modest, eventually controlling about 10.5 acres. He sold one of the homes for $4.85 million in 2024 after just a few days on the market and still holds multiple surrounding properties through the same LLC.

Xanadu 2.0 is just one trophy of Gates’s expansive real estate collection, which is estimated to top $150 million. His portfolio also includes homes in Rancho Santa Fe and Indian Wells, an oceanfront retreat in Del Mar, a residence at Montana’s Yellowstone Club, and an equestrian compound in Wellington, Florida.