Bill Gates has made no secret of his love for “The Great Gatsby,” the classic novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald in which a green light at the end of a dock symbolizes the title character’s optimistic yearning for a dream that remains just out of reach.
When they were first dating, his now-ex-wife, Melinda French Gates, would turn on a green light in her office, signaling that it was OK for him to visit, Bill Gates said in a 2019 Netflix documentary. It was a nod to the light at the end of Daisy Buchanan’s dock in the novel, which kept alive Jay Gatsby’s hopes of winning Daisy back.
Literary scholars call it a symbol of the illusory nature of the American Dream.
So what should we read into the sudden appearance of a bright green light on the Lake Washington shoreline, at the base of the Microsoft co-founder’s Medina, Wash., home?
That question has been circulating in the neighborhood and on the water since the beacon was switched on a few weeks ago. Gates’ representatives don’t comment publicly on his personal property, but GeekWire has been able to piece together the history of the green light and recent developments to solve at least part of this mystery.
Most important: the light itself is not new, which we confirmed by closely examining photographs taken of the house over the years, benefitting from the Gates mansion’s status as a frequent subject of fascination among tourists and locals alike.
The lighthouse-style structure is visible, just barely, in numerous photos taken of the house from planes and boats over the years, such as this 2009 picture from the water, and this 2018 aerial photograph.
However, in none of the pictures is the light illuminated. It appears to have been many years since it was turned on. Upon getting their first glimpse of the bright green light in recent weeks, some local boaters who’ve frequented the waters of Lake Washington for many years assumed it was a new structure.
In fact, after digging into this further, we now understand that the miniature lighthouse was installed in 1997 when the house was originally completed. The location hasn’t changed, but it had started to fall over due to erosion on the beachhead. It was recently leveled up, secured, fixed, cleaned, and turned on again.
A green beacon on the shoreline
GeekWire arranged to view the light from a boat on the lake one evening last week. It stood out as a unique beacon along the stretch of high-end properties that line the Medina shoreline.
Nothing else rivals it among nearby homes or on their docks. Positioned on a rocky outcropping near a boat dock and kayak storage area, it’s reminiscent of a buoy light. The grey steel and glass ornament stands probably 3 feet tall, by our best estimate, looking from a distance across the water.
By early evening on this weeknight, it was already shining bright, as assorted pleasure boats moved across and around Lake Washington. A pair of wakeboarders were out on the water, and a larger tour boat slowly moved past the Gates compound.
The roughly $130 million estate has always been an attraction for those hoping to catch a glimpse of one of the world’s richest people, or to simply gawk at the expansive grounds and structures where he has lived since the 1990s.
As the sun set to the west beyond Seattle and the Olympic Mountains, the green light became more visible from greater distances on the lake. From the far side of the lake, on the shores of Seattle, a tiny green dot was easily visible with the naked eye as the sun set around 9 p.m. Binoculars would have made it unmistakable.
Whether it’s visible from Melinda French Gates’ new home remains a mystery.
A public affairs representative with the U.S. Coast Guard in Seattle said the agency is not in the business of regulating shoreside lights like the one on the Gates property. The rep said a decorative, large red or green light on a dock could potentially confuse a boater unfamiliar with the area, but acknowledged that was speculative.
“The buoys that we maintain as the Coast Guard are charted,” said Petty Officer Michael Clark. “So if you’re a mariner utilizing buoys you can correlate them with a chart to know that they’re a verified buoy.”
The City of Medina contracts with the Mercer Island Police Department’s Marine Patrol Unit, which patrols the lake and shorelines to respond to emergency calls and promote boater safety. According to its website, it also deals with installation and maintenance of regulatory and navigational buoys.
Marine Patrol Unit Sgt. Chad Schumacher said he was unaware of any regulations related to shore lighting that would be enforced by his agency or others. He pointed to a Washington state Administrative Code on docks and piers that mentions lighting and its relation to fish life and attracting fish with artificial nighttime lighting.
“The Coast Guard and I would just recommend that mariners operate with due care at night when they feel they’re in an unfamiliar area,” Schumacher said.
Bill, Melinda, and Gatsby
Bill Gates’ love of the classic novel is well-documented. When Gates has played Secret Santa on Reddit in years past, he’s been known to gift Gatsby-related items. In 2019, he gave one Reddit user a fancy manuscript copy of “The Great Gatsby,” and a candle with a passage from the novel inscribed.
In the 2019 Netflix docuseries, “Inside Bill’s Brain: Decoding Bill Gates,” the third and final episode ends with Gates discussing the importance of “The Great Gatsby” in his relationship with French Gates.
The two are shown paddling together in a tandem kayak.
“When we were first dating she had a green light that she would turn on when her office was empty and it made sense for me to come over,” Gates said of their Microsoft days. “Which comes from the light at the end of Daisy’s dock in the book.”
Asked by director/narrator Davis Guggenheim what one thing he would have wished he had done if he was to die that day, Gates appeared to get emotional in the moment. “Thanking Melinda,” he said.
The Microsoft co-founder began dating Melinda French when they were both working at the company. The two married on Jan. 1, 1994, raised three children together, and became one of the world’s richest and most influential pairings.
The couple announced that they were ending their 27-year marriage on May 3, 2021, tweeting a joint statement at the time that said after a “great deal of thought and work” they no longer believed they could grow together as a couple in the “next phase” of their lives.
In the weeks after the announcement, reports surfaced that Gates resigned from the Microsoft board after allegations that he had an inappropriate, years-long sexual relationship with an employee. A Gates spokesperson at the time said his “decision to transition off the board was in no way related to this matter.”
Speculation swirled at the time about potential causes of the breakup, who would get what when assets were split, and what would happen to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
In March 2022, French Gates said in a televised CBS interview that she believed in forgiveness and thought she and Gates “had worked through some of that.”
“It wasn’t one moment or one specific thing that happened,” she said of the decision to split. “There just came a point in time where there was enough there that I realized it just wasn’t healthy and I couldn’t trust what we had.”
She said at the time that after grieving, anger and many tears shed, she was ready to move on and that dating and falling in love were in the realm of possibilities.
“I hope that happens for me again,” French Gates said. “You know, I’m dipping my toe in that water a little bit.”
In his own interview at the time with Vanity Fair, Gates said he was grieving, as well. From his point of view, he said they had a “great marriage,” that he wouldn’t have changed it, and that he would “marry Melinda all over again.”
In a voice-over in the Netflix documentary, Gates quotes a sentence from the conclusion of “The Great Gatsby,” which comes after a final reference to the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. The sentence is also spelled out along a curved ledge in the expansive home library where he’s shown standing in the film.
It reads, “He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it.”
