Mansion A Tad Too Small? Jack It Up And Ship It Out

MEDINA - Another Microsoft technobaron has set his sights on Lake Washington's eastern shore and is the first to trigger a law to control the building of megamansions.

Nathan Myhrvold, the software giant's 37-year-old chief of technology, has paid $5.7 million for two shoreline acres on Overlake Drive West with a 10,520-square-foot house he plans to barge away.

Myhrvold and his wife, Rosemarie Havranek, declined to say what they plan to build in its place, but an estimate they submitted to the city calls for a new house totaling 13,225 square feet. Myhrvold, a gourmet cook, has previously said it will have "a great kitchen."

Myhrvold relayed through Microsoft spokesman John Pinnette that he and Havranek hadn't decided on final designs, so any description remains "months away."

But Medina officials know the house will be big enough to fall under the city's Bill Gates-inspired Large Home Mitigation Ordinance.

Medina enacted the 1994 ordinance after numerous complaints stemming from construction of the Microsoft chairman's 45,000-square-foot estate on 73rd Avenue Northeast.

The ordinance kicks in for a range of megamansion sizes, depending on zoning. The smallest to trigger it would be 7,440 square feet of lot coverage on a site where at least 1,200 cubic yards of dirt would be removed.

Medina can require builders of megamansions to post a bond to cover damage to streets and to limit work hours, protect sensitive features such as streams and designate someone to enforce compliance.

Myhrvold's future neighbors have expressed some concern about architect Vassos Demitriou's estimate that during excavation of the site, dump trucks will make 750 to 1,000 trips past Medina Elementary School on winding, two-lane Overlake Drive West. The street has no sidewalks in places.

The trucks will carry out 7,500 cubic yards of material during two months of excavation. They'll travel through downtown Bellevue on Northeast Eighth Street to Interstate 405 or north on 84th Avenue Northeast to Highway 520, according to Demitriou.

Construction would take two years, he said.

The Medina Planning Commission recently gave Myhrvold's mitigation plan preliminary approval, which allows him to move the existing house. Demitriou told the commission he wanted the house removed in the next couple of months. Efforts to reach Demitriou for a barging schedule and the outgoing house's destination were unsuccessful.

Demitriou had proposed hiring traffic controllers to get the trucks in and out of the neighborhood without mishap and with the least disruption to neighbors. Several Medina residents told the commission last month that they would like to consider other options.

They suggested requiring Myhrvold to put in a sidewalk, and barring truck traffic on weekends and while children go to and from school.

The city recommended that Myhrvold barge as much excavated material from the site as possible, rather than take it over city roads. Demitriou told the commission that trucking would cost an estimated $82,500, compared with $246,000 to barge it.

"So we would like to not have that as a requirement," he told the commission.

Myhrvold and Havranek now live in Bellevue. They paid businessman Victor Alhadeff $5.7 million cash for the 14-year-old, seven-bedroom home.

King County assessed the land this year at $2.8 million and the buildings at $2.9 million.

The Alhadeff house has seven bathrooms, four fireplaces, a 75-foot swimming pool and a dock, according to King County tax records. It sits just west of Groat Point on 115 feet of shoreline.

Myhrvold would follow not only Gates but a number of other Microsoft millionaires who have moved onto the Lake Washington waterfront in a big way. Charles Simonyi built an architecturally adventurous 20,500-square-foot house on Groat Point. Microsoft co-founder and billionaire Paul Allen created a 74,000-square-foot complex on Mercer Island that includes a recording studio.