There goes the neighbourhood

What happened when Mark Zuckerberg moved in next door

- HEATHER KNIGHT

For decades, the Crescent Park neighbourhood of Palo Alto represented the dream of California living.

Doctors, lawyers, business executives and Stanford University professors lived in charming homes. The houses, an eclectic mix including Craftsman homes and bungalows, were filled with families who became fast friends. The annual block parties heaved with people.

Then Mark Zuckerberg moved in.

Since his arrival 14 years ago, Crescent Park's neighbourhood tranquillity and even many of its actual neighbours have vanished. Residents hardly ever see the Facebook founder, now worth about US$270 billion, but they feel his presence every day.

Zuckerberg has used Edgewood Drive and Hamilton Avenue like a Monopoly game board, spending more than $110 million to scoop up at least 11 houses. He has offered owners as much as $14.5 million, double or even triple what the homes are worth.

Several of his properties sit empty in a notoriously crunched housing market. He has turned five of them into a compound with a main house for him; his wife, Priscilla Chan; and their three daughters, along with guest homes, lush gardens, a nearby pickleball court and a pool that can be covered with a hydrofloor.

The compound is encircled by a high row of hedges. One of the unoccupied buildings is used for entertainment and as a staging ground for outdoor parties.

Another property has been used for the past few years as a private school for 14 children, even though that is not an allowable use of a house in the neighbourhood under city code.

Underneath the compound, Zuckerberg has added 630m² of space — cavernous areas that his building permits refer to as basements, but that his neighbours call bunkers or even a billionaire's bat cave. The work has led to eight years of construction, filling the streets with massive equipment and a lot of noise.