Cruising Medina’s West Coast and Lake Washington

Page numbers on the map refer to Lake Washington 130 Homes.  This area covers pages 105 to 124.

The City of Medina is a low-density residential community with a population of 3,500.  It has 4.5 miles of waterfront and 1.6 square miles of land.  The city ranks number 2 behind Hunts Point in the state in per capita income with $82,000.  The waterfront boundaries are with Bellevue to the east in Meydenbauer Bay and with Hunts Point to the north around Evergreen Point in Fairweather Bay.

The southwest point of Medina is Dabney Point and home to Medina’s beach park, city hall and police department.  Medina’s west coast from Dabney Point to the SR520 Bridge is known as CEO row and Medina’s Gold Coast.  The mega-lots (lots over two acres) in this area of Medina stretch over 200 yards from the shoreline to Evergreen Point Road. Medina’s western bluffs are over 100 feet above the water.  Many of the bluff houses are hard to see from the water because they are high on the hill offering fantastic views.  Because of the height, many estates have trams.  These trams cost more than $100,000 each.  The stairways from the bluff to water level have over 100 stairs. There are three MLS listings over $4.2 million.

At the southern end are the side-by-side expansive Peter La Haye (deceased and inventor and developer of cataract implant lenses) and Jeff Bezos (Amazon founder and CEO) multi-mansioned estates (previous post).

Further north is the must see, Bill Gates compound. Since 1997 Microsoft and Bill Gates have been holding an annual very exclusive “CEO Summit.”  The inaugural 1997 conference introduced his 50,000 sq ft, $150 million, LW estate that was near completion.  Usually about 100 top-level people from around the world attend.  Sessions and meetings are held at the Microsoft campus and Bill’s estate, aka his personal Convention Center (see guide).

(This is the tenth chapter [go to next chapter] of our “Lake Washington Cruising” article. The chapters are being posted in reverse order.  When all chapters are posted they will be in order in this blog with the first chapter at the top.  I will be posting approximately two chapters per month.  You can read and print an abbreviated pdf version of the entire article.)