For some of the world’s richest people, buying a mansion is the first in a string of many purchases. They start buying homes nearby—not to live in themselves, but to keep their household staff close by.
Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison, who is worth $195 billion, is one example. In 2023, he paid nearly $10 million for homes in a small gated community in Boynton Beach, Fla., to house members of his family’s staff, including tutors for the five children he shares with Jolin Ellison, his sixth wife, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the situation. The community sits roughly 30 minutes from the Manalapan, Fla., estate on the ocean he’d purchased a year earlier for $173 million. At the time, it was the most expensive residential property ever to change hands in Florida, according to local outlet Palm Beach Daily News.
The ultrawealthy are increasingly buying up homes for the people who work for them while they build out their own property holdings, the Journal reported. The arrangement keeps employees “close enough to be helpful,” while still giving the family its privacy, according to the Journal, which also reported that the world’s eighth-richest man bought eight homes in Palm Meadows Estates. An Ellison-linked LLC with a California address made those purchases, according to the Journal.
The LLC structure behind Ellison’s purchases also fits a broader “stealth wealth” shift in real estate planning for rich buyers. A growing class of ultrawealthy buyers, particularly tech and AI executives, are routing home purchases through LLCs, privacy trusts, and off-market “whisper” listings to stay anonymous. Ken DeLeon, founder of Palo Alto, Calif.-based DeLeon Realty, previously told Fortune his wealthiest clients structure LLCs so that even someone digging through ownership records “still cannot easily connect the property back to the principal owner.”
Overall, Ellison has invested at least an estimated cumulative $450 million in real estate investment in Manalapan, a 400-resident island town about 20 minutes from Mar-a-Lago. The surrounding area has also become increasingly popular among billionaires, and in nearby Palm Beach, security has become part of the draw.
“What used to be a temporary inconvenience has now become part of the infrastructure of doing business here,” Palm Beach-based luxury agent Jessica Julian previously told Fortune.
Mark Zuckerberg is also establishing a family compound
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who is worth $261 billion, has also been assembling a family compound in Palo Alto one house at a time.
Since buying a 5,600-square-foot home on Edgewood Drive in 2011, Zuckerberg has spent more than $110 million to acquire at least 11 houses in the city’s Crescent Park neighborhood, the New York Times reported last year, sometimes offering owners double or even triple what their homes were worth. Several homes sit empty, others house guests or host entertainment, and one was used as a private school in violation of city code, the Times reported.
In 2012, he refinanced his Palo Alto home with a 30-year, 1.05% adjustable-rate mortgage, which reflects a broader pattern among ultrawealthy buyers who prefer to keep their money invested.
“Ultrahigh-net-worth individuals think differently about liquidity and leverage,” Miltiadis Kastanis, executive director of sales at Compass, previously told Fortune. “They’d rather keep their money working for them in investments, businesses—or even art—rather than tying it all up in one property.”
Zuckerberg’s attorney said the family arranges taxi and rideshare transportation for staff, and pays someone to make sure anyone connected to the property parks only in front of homes Zuckerberg owns, Palo Alto Online reported.
Not every neighbor has liked Zuckerberg’s compound arrangement. To try to ease tensions during loud stretches of construction, Zuckerberg’s staff handed out gifts like noise-canceling headphones.
“Mark, Priscilla and their children have made Palo Alto their home for more than a decade,” a spokesperson for Mark Zuckerberg previously told Fortune. “They value being members of the community and have taken a number of steps above and beyond any local requirements to avoid disruption in the neighborhood.”
And city leaders have struggled to respond. In April, Palo Alto’s City Council voted down a plan from Vice Mayor Greer Stone and Councilman Keith Reckdahl aimed at owners who hold more than three properties on a single block. It would have capped how long construction could last, required security guards to be licensed, and set occupancy rules, the Palo Alto Daily Post reported.
For local residents like Michael Kieschnick, who lives on the Hamilton Avenue block, the worry is Crescent Park won’t be the last neighborhood this happens to.
“What has happened in our neighborhood has left a blueprint that is easy for anyone else to follow,” he told Palo Alto Online.
