Mark Zuckerberg’s massive estate on the Hawaiian island of Kauai just got even bigger, pushing his real estate portfolio—now estimated at over $300 million—into truly billionaire territory.
The Meta CEO quietly picked up another 962 acres of ranchland earlier this year, bringing his total holdings on the island to more than 2,300 acres. According to Wired, which obtained new planning documents and spoke with people close to the deal, the purchase was valued at more than $65 million and was made through a Hawaiian-sounding LLC. It’s Zuckerberg’s largest land buy yet and adds fuel to growing local concerns about the billionaire’s outsized presence on the island.
Zuckerberg first started snapping up property in 2014, when he dropped around $100 million for 700 acres near the sleepy town of Kilauea. Since then, the estate—now called Koʻolau Ranch—has ballooned into one of the most elaborate private compounds in the country. Already, there are two sprawling mansions, a gym, a tennis court, several guesthouses and treehouses, a water system, and even a tunnel leading to an underground shelter reportedly the size of a professional basketball court and equipped with blast-resistant doors and an escape hatch.
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The latest expansion isn’t just about creating an increased buffer of land for the Facebook tycoon and his family, and when one man’s private estate costs more than it does to run an entire Hawaiian island for a year, people are bound to ask, “What exactly is he building out there?” According to new permits, he wants to build three more structures on the property, ranging from 7,800 to 11,000 square feet—10 times the size of an average home in Hawaii. Two of the planned buildings are motel-like dorms packed with 16 bedrooms and 16 bathrooms, plus a 1,300-square-foot shared lanai. They’re projected to cost between $3.5 and $4 million apiece, and, like the rest of the compound, the new buildings will come equipped with a high-level security apparatus that includes cameras, keypad locks, and motion detectors throughout. Zuckerberg’s team describes them as “short-term guest accommodations” for family, friends, and staff.
Zuckerberg’s Kauai ranch already has two mansions, several guest houses, a tennis court, and an underground shelter.
Google Earth
All this development, however, is raising some serious questions. Part of Zuckerberg’s land sits atop a known burial site. One local, Julian Ako, spent months negotiating with the estate’s team just to access and register his ancestors’ graves; his great-grandmother and her brother are buried there. The state later confirmed there’s a “high probability” of more remains nearby.
Zuckerberg’s team and representative Brandi Hoffine Barr say the existing burial plot is fenced off and maintained. They also say workers are required to report any discoveries of ancestral bones. Still, many of the workers on the ranch have signed NDAs, making it unlikely they’d speak out even if they did find something.
Zuck’s amassing of land comes as other billionaires—Larry Ellison, Jeff Bezos, and Oprah Winfrey, among them—continue to acquire huge parcels of land across the Hawaiian Islands. For locals, that trend is driving up prices and reshaping the islands in ways that feel irreversible. “Eventually Hawaii isn’t going to look like Hawaii anymore—it’s going to be a resort community,” Puali‘i Rossi, a professor of Native Hawaiian studies, told Wired.
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Zuckerberg, meanwhile, says he and his wife Priscilla Chan are focused on conservation, ranching, and farming, scrapping previous plans for 80 luxury homes on the site. Nonetheless, Zuckerberg’s total investment now exceeds $300 million, likely surpassing the $311 million annual operating budget for the entire island of Kauai.
Authors
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Abby Montanez