The house that launched a billion packages: Birthplace of Amazon hits market

The house outside Seattle where Jeff Bezos launched the company is on the market for the first time since 2009

Before HQ2 or even HQ1, Amazon was headquartered in a 1,500-square-foot Craftsman home in the tony Seattle suburb of Bellevue. Now that house is for sale.

The owners of the three-bedroom house where Bezos famously started the trillion-dollar company in 1994 are asking $1.5 million for the keys to the landmark, according to the Seattle Times.

Bezos was only renting the home for a few months when he drew up articles of incorporation, and a later owner remodeled the 65-year-old house and attached garage in 2001, but that didn’t stop listing agent Pat Sullivan from shining a spotlight on its history with a fat arrow pointed at the garage door noting “The birthplace of Amazon.”

The last time the house went on the market in 2009, it sold for $620,000, or $720,000 in today’s dollars, according to the Times. Its current $1.5 million asking price is still well below the $2 million median home price in the area, as a surge of Amazon workers has helped boost Seattle-area property values.

Bezos, the world’s wealthiest man with $132 billion to his name, now owns a waterfront estate in nearby Medina valued at $76 million. In 2017, he dropped $13 million on a four-bedroom home adjoining his 12,000-square-foot Spanish-style mansion in Beverly Hills. [Seattle Times] — Alex Nitkin