Jim Sinegal House: Inside the Costco Co-Founder’s Hunts Point Mansion

Jack LeeJuly 28, 2026Last Updated: July 28, 2026

Jim Sinegal house waterfront mansion in Hunts Point, WA on Lake Washington — The Jim Sinegal house sits on 1.56 waterfront acres in Hunts Point, Washington.

Jim Sinegal, co-founder of Costco, lives in an 8,370 square foot home in Hunts Point, Washington. The waterfront property sits on 1.56 acres with 165 feet of shoreline on Lake Washington. The house has four bedrooms and four and a quarter bathrooms and once hosted a fundraiser for President Barack Obama.

Jim Sinegal spent decades building Costco into one of the largest retailers in the world, yet he chose to raise his family in a quiet, water-facing corner of Washington rather than a flashy estate built to impress. The Jim Sinegal house sits in Hunts Point, a small peninsula community near Seattle known for privacy and long-time residents rather than gates and tour buses.

This article walks through what is publicly known about the property: its location, its size, its waterfront lot, and the notable event it once hosted. You will also get a look at Sinegal’s background and how his family’s real estate interests stretch from Lake Washington to Napa Valley.

Table of Contents

Who Is Jim Sinegal?

James D. Sinegal was born on January 1, 1936, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He started in retail at 18, working as a bagger for FedMart, where he later crossed paths with retail pioneer Sol Price. That relationship shaped the rest of his career.

Before Costco existed, Sinegal worked alongside Sol Price at Price Club, the warehouse retailer widely credited with inventing the membership model. That early experience taught him how volume, low overhead, and tight margins could work together, lessons he carried directly into his next venture.

In 1983, Sinegal co-founded Costco Wholesale with Jeffrey Brotman. He served as president and CEO for nearly three decades, stepping down in 2012. Under his leadership, Costco grew from a single warehouse into a global chain built on low margins, high volume, and famously fair employee wages. Sinegal often said that treating workers well was good business, not charity.

Costco’s 1993 merger with Price Club combined two companies of similar size, each doing roughly eight billion dollars in annual sales at the time. The merged company converted its Price Club locations to the Costco name over the following year, and the combined business went on to become one of the largest retailers in the world.

Sinegal’s approach to leadership also extended beyond Costco’s walls. In 2017, Dartmouth College awarded him an honorary doctorate, recognising his contributions to business and public life. He has spoken at Democratic National Convention events and testified before lawmakers on wage policy, arguing that paying workers well strengthens rather than weakens a company’s long-term prospects.

He remains a well-known figure in retail circles and continues to be cited as a model for how a company can scale without cutting corners on its workforce.

Where Is the Jim Sinegal House Located?

The Jim Sinegal house is located in Hunts Point, Washington, a tiny incorporated town on a peninsula that juts into Lake Washington, a short distance from downtown Seattle. Hunts Point covers less than half a square mile and has one of the highest median home values in the entire state.

The town has no commercial district and no through traffic beyond residents, which keeps it unusually private for a location so close to a major city. Sinegal has lived here for years, well before Costco became a household name nationwide.

Hunts Point sits directly across the water from Seattle’s Eastside tech corridor, which has helped push land values in the area steadily upward over the past two decades. Unlike gated communities built around a single developer’s vision, Hunts Point grew organically over the past century, with older homes sitting beside newer construction on lots that rarely change hands.

Getting to downtown Seattle from Hunts Point takes roughly 15 to 20 minutes by car via the SR 520 bridge, which makes the area appealing to executives who want quick access to the city without living inside it. That combination of proximity and seclusion is a major reason the peninsula commands some of the highest per-acre land values in King County.

Inside the Jim Sinegal House: Size and Layout

The house spans approximately 8,370 square feet. It has four bedrooms and four and a quarter bathrooms, a layout that favours comfortable family living over sprawling excess. Public listings and property records confirm these figures, though the interior finishes androom-by-roomm details have never been published in detail.

Here is a quick breakdown of the property’s known specifications:

Size: Approximately 8,370 square feet
Bedrooms: 4
Bathrooms: 4.25
Lot Size: 1.56 acres
Waterfront: 165 feet on Lake Washington
Location: Hunts Point, WA 98004

Sinegal has kept a low profile when it comes to publicising his home’s interior, which tracks with his general reputation for avoiding the spotlight outside of Costco business.

The Waterfront Lot and Lake Washington Views

What sets the Jim Sinegal house apart from a typical large home is the lot itself. At 1.56 acres with 165 feet of direct waterfront, the property gives Sinegal private lake access on one of the Pacific Northwest’s most desirable bodies of water.

Lake Washington waterfront lots in this size range routinely rank among the most expensive residential land in the state, driven by scarcity rather than square footage. Hunts Point, along with neighbouring Medina, has some of the tightest supply of lakefront parcels in the greater Seattle area, and that scarcity keeps values climbing even when the broader market cools.

Waterfront footage matters more than most buyers expect in this part of Washington. A165-foott stretch is enough for a private dock, direct swimming access, and unobstructed sightlines across the lake toward the Seattle skyline and, on clear days, the Cascade foothills beyond it. Properties with that much uninterrupted shoreline rarely come up for sale, since most owners in Hunts Point hold onto their lots for decades rather than trading up.

The lake itself has long served as a natural boundary between Seattle’s dense urban core and the quieter, wealthier communities on its eastern shore. That geography is part of why Hunts Point, despite its small size, has remained one of the most consistently expensive zip codes in the Pacific Northwest.

A Neighbourhood Built for Privacy

Hunts Point has long attracted business leaders who want proximity to Seattle without the exposure that comes with it. Sinegal’s neighbours over the years have reportedly included members of the Nordstrom family and Scott Oki, a well-known figure in the local golf and business community.

That kind of neighbourhood is a world away from the more visible celebrity enclaves found elsewhere in the country. For comparison, the Norman Braman House sits in a Florida market built around visibility and scale, a different approach to privacy than what Hunts Point offers.

Business and sports figures alike tend to choose real estate that matches their public profile. The Clinton Portis House reflects a similar pattern among athletes who prioritise discretion once their playing days wind down.

Even entertainment figures follow this same instinct toward quiet, secure properties once their careers reach a certain level. The Emilia Clarke House shows how that same preference for privacy shows up outside the business world too.

When Obama Visited the Jim Sinegal House

In July 2012, President Barack Obama attended a fundraiser at the Sinegal residence in Hunts Point, an event tied to a Senate majority super PAC. Reporting at the time put the ticket price at roughly $25,000 per person, and the event drew significant local news coverage given the scale of security required for a sitting president to visit a private residence.

The visit was not an isolated moment. Sinegal spoke at the 2012 Democratic National Convention, where he argued that fair wages and strong public investment in education were tied directly to long-term business success. His willingness to host political fundraisers at his own home lined up with that public stance.

The Sinegal Family and Their Napa Valley Estate

Jim Sinegal’s real estate interests extend beyond Hunts Point through his son, David Sinegal, who spent 21 years working at Costco before shifting his focus to wine. David purchased a Victorian-style home built in 1881 in Napa Valley, along with the surrounding vineyard, and turned it into Sinegal Estate Winery.

The winery draws on the same values that shaped Costco: structure, discipline, and a long-term view rather than a quick payout. It is a smaller, more personal venture, but it shows how the family’s approach to property tends to prioritise substance over spectacle, whether that is a lake house in Hunts Point or a historic vineyard in Napa.

Jim Sinegal’s Net Worth and Costco Legacy

Estimates of Jim Sinegal’s net worth vary depending on the source and the date of the estimate, generally ranging from the high hundreds of millions to just over a billion dollars. Most of that wealth traces back to his Costco holdings rather than real estate or other outside ventures.

What stands out about Sinegal’s financial profile is how modest his compensation was relative to his role. He kept his CEO salary well below industry norms for a company of Costco’s size, a decision he defended publicly for years as central to the company’s culture. That same restraint appears to carry over into his choice of home: a comfortable, private waterfront property rather than a landmark mansion built to draw attention.

Final Thoughts

The Jim Sinegal house tells a simple story about a man who built one of the largest retailers in the country without changing how he lived. An 8,370 square foot home on 1.56 waterfront acres in Hunts Point is undeniably valuable, but it is far from the largest or most extravagant property owned by someone of his net worth.

That restraint mirrors the philosophy Sinegal brought to Costco for nearly three decades: focus on what matters, avoid excess, and let results speak for themselves.