WOODSIDE, CALIF. – On the same day that former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes was granted a delay in her criminal fraud process due to a pregnancy, her partner received a traffic summons.
William “Billy” Evans was summoned on March 17 for “not showing the place of license,” according to San Mateo County court records.
The appointment revealed a new direction for the couple: a house at the leafy end of Green Gables, one of the most expensive estates in America.
CNBC has independently confirmed that Holmes and Evans are currently staying in one of the houses that dot the 74-acre property. The property, which is currently listed for sale for $ 135 million, is located in Woodside, one of the richest cities in Silicon Valley. The opening statements of his trial begin this week.
The Green Gables website features “an architectural masterpiece in the best natural setting.”
Four swimming pools adorn the grounds, including a stadium-sized Roman pool, a tennis court, a flower garden and orchards and an exclusive reservoir for the property. Green Gables, built in 1911, evokes the image of an enchanted forest with deer roaming the property.
Christie’s International Real Estate and Compass Real Estate manage the listing. Over the years, the estate has hosted royal, political, Silicon Valley elite and even the United Nations 20th birthday gala. And now you can add Holmes to that list.
According to the website, the English-style, country-style main house is a nine-bedroom, 10,000-square-foot “craft mansion.” The other six houses on the property are more modest, including the one that houses Holmes and his partner. A court employee confirmed to CNBC that the address for Evans’ appointment was one of the houses on the Green Gables estate.
The town of Woodside is 25 miles from San Jose federal court, where Holmes is battling a dozen charges of fraud and conspiracy to commit fraud. It is home to some of Silicon Valley’s most important names, including billionaires Larry Ellison (co-founder and CEO of Oracle), Charles Schwab, Gordon Moore (co-founder of Intel) and John Doerr, venture capitalist.
On the city’s main street, a store owner told CNBC “if you want to hide, you hide here.” Another described it as a place “where people are going to get down.” The quaint and quaint town includes a Michelin-starred restaurant where billionaires are often seen, a small bakery and a local grocery store. Residents said they had not seen Holmes lately.
Jury selection at trial began last week after four delays, including one in March due to Holmes’ pregnancy.
Zackary Wright, Christie’s Western regional executive director / manager, told CNBC, “I can’t comment on the tenants of the property.” Asked by Holmes, Helen Miller, one of the agents on the list at Compass, said “I don’t know if it’s not. I’d know, I don’t know,” she later added, “I can’t talk about anyone renting.”
Miller said there has been “quite a bit of interest” in buying the property, noting that four of the houses on the estate can be rented each year. The property also hosts about ten weddings each summer.
According to the estate’s website, San Francisco banker and businessman Mortimer Fleishhacker built the property as a summer getaway for his family. It has been passed down through several generations. In a promotional video, one of Fleishhacker’s great-grandchildren said that “what he created in Green Gables is unquestionably one of the great private real estate gems in the world.”
Holmes’ attorneys did not respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
Holmes’ life outside the courts has been the subject of much speculation. In 2019, an employee of the Michelin-starred Spruce restaurant in San Francisco told CNBC he had seen Holmes having dinner there several times. That same year, CNBC learned that Holmes and Evans were living in a two-bedroom, $ 5,000-a-month apartment in the Russian Hill neighborhood of San Francisco.
For now, outside of the media joke in Holmes court, Evans and his newborn have kept a low profile, leading a very different life than it was when he was CEO of Theranos. During this time, Holmes gave away magazine covers, named one of Time’s 100 most influential people, hailed as the “next Steve Jobs” of Inc. magazine. and “the youngest female billionaire in the world” by Forbes.
He worked with politicians, celebrities and CEOs. But its star power began to explode after the publication of a series of reports by former Wall Street Journal reporter John Carreyrou showing that Theranos blood testing technology was not working.