The American Versailles is on sale
One of the biggest houses in the United State called Versailles (don’t confuse it with the one in France) needs a buyer who is looking for a home larger than the White House estate. The unfinished lavish 90,000-square-foot Floridian mansion is threatened with foreclosure, which prompted the owners to put it for sale.
Versailles is an estate in Windermere, Florida constructed by Westgate Resorts founder David Siegel and his much younger, former beauty queen wife, Jackie. With its 90,000-square-feet Versailles is (or will be, once finished) the third largest private home in the country behind the Biltmore Estate (135,000 square feet) and Oheka Castle (109,000 square feet).
The house is only half completed because of the financial crisis that buffeted Siegel’s time-share business. When completed it will be 67 feet tall, covered in white marble from Italy and will have 22 bathrooms, 10 kitchens, 13 bedrooms, a bowling alley, and a hall with a stained-glass dome that took three years to build. The mansion sits on 10 acres of lakefront property and is built on a custom-made hill. The complex also includes a baseball field, an underground 20-car garage, two movie theaters, and a roller-skating rink.
So far, the Siegel put $50 million into the construction of his dream-home. BofA, which holds the mortgage, had threatened to foreclose, but Siegel says he is raising money and will finish the house. Versailles is currently on the market for $100 million (finished) or for $65 million in its current, unfinished state.
A documentary that follows the live of the billionaire couple living in the Versailles inspired mansion will go out in theaters in 2012. It’s called: The Queen of Versailles.
