The residence in Bellevue, Washington where Jeff Bezos kickstarted the journey of Amazon is now up for sale at a price tag of $2.28 million.
This property marks the origin of the global e-commerce giant, serving as the birthplace of the visionary company that has become a household name over the past three decades.
However, there’s a slight catch.
Back in 1994, Jeff Bezos rented this humble abode and transformed its garage into the headquarters of Amazon, then an online bookstore. But that home, as it stood, no longer exists.
Initially built in 1954, it underwent a full reconstruction in 2001, significantly altering its appearance from Bezos’ early renting days. This includes the garage.
Despite now being memory, it’s still a cool piece of history.
To evoke the early days of Amazon, the listing team recreated the original blue and white “amazon.com” sign, which now graces the garage.
An open house held over the weekend attracted a diverse crowd of interested shoppers, ranging from the casually curious to serious home buyers, according to Lin Shen, the listing agent from Sea to Sky Realty.
The lore of Amazon recounts the company’s beginnings in that original garage outfitted with makeshift desks crafted from doors purchased at Home Depot, a frugal setup that still symbolizes one of Amazon’s core values.
However, the garage headquarters were short-lived, as Amazon quickly outgrew the space, moving to an office in Seattle’s South of Downtown after a few months.
Interestingly, Bezos chose this Bellevue home in part because it featured a garage, converted into a rec room, allowing him to boast about having a garage startup akin to Silicon Valley legends like Hewlett-Packard.
The home looks a lot different than it did when Bezos and his then-wife MacKenzie Scott rented the property for $890 a month at the time.
The current listing describes a three-bedroom home with modern amenities, including an enormous great room, a granite and maple kitchen, and an abundance of natural light from skylights.
The property last changed hands in 2019 for approximately $1.5 million.
The current owners, residing in California, have rented out the house for the past several years.
Shen anticipates significant interest in the coming weeks, with the local housing market showing signs of increased activity, she told The Seattle Times, which was first to report on the listing.
Despite its historical significance as Amazon’s original birthplace, Shen maintained that the listing price was determined based on comparable nearby homes, emphasizing the prime location in Bellevue west of I-405, King County’s priciest area.
The median home price in this upscale neighborhood — including high-end areas like Medina, Yarrow Point, and Hunts Point — reached nearly $3 million in December.