Inside David and Jackie Siegel’s Versailles mansion
David and Jackie Siegel’s partially finished dream home known as Versailles will include a theater inspired by the Paris Opera House, a bowling alley, roller-skating rink, and 30-car garage.
The 47-year-old mother-of-eight from Windermere, Florida, was the star of The Queen Of Versailles, an award-winning documentary chronicling Jackie Siegel and her billionaire husband, David Siegel, as they build their 90,000-square-foot mansion modeled after France’s 17th century Palace of Versailles.
Jackie Siegel, who resumed construction on the sprawling house after creditors went after her husband’s company, Westgate Resorts, and work on Versailles was halted, told New York Magazine: “We’re going to inlay the floors with a lot of onyx and amethyst and semiprecious stones.”
The mansion is the largest single-family home in America, with a custom-made stained-glass oculus, 10,000-square-foot spa and a commercial kitchen with a Benihana-style grill.
Explaining their master suite, Jackie Siegel, who won the Miss Florida beauty title in the Nineties, said: “We’re gonna have a round platform with a round bed, and it’s going to have buttons so you can watch TV.”
The master bathroom will include a Jacuzzi, his-and-hers showers, and a third in the center – in case they “want to take a shower together”. Gesturing at the space between the his-and-hers showers, Jackie Siegel said: “Because this, is too far to walk.”
David and Jackie Siegel’s partially finished dream home known as Versailles will include a theater inspired by the Paris Opera House
The ten staff quarters located inside the mansion each include a jacuzzi and a kitchen.
Jackie Siegel, who was branded as “tacky” and “ditzy” after the documentary premiered at the Sundance Festival last year, explained: “People said, <<Why do they need ten kitchens? That’s ridiculous!>>. But it’s because they’re in the staff apartments.”
The mansion’s doors are made from one of world’s last batches of Brazilian mahogany. The former beauty queen casually remarked: “They had to stop exporting it because they were cutting down the rain forest, or whatever.”
As well as 30 bedrooms, the home will have 23 bathrooms with views over Lake Butler, about 20 miles outside Orlando.
Meanwhile, she said that the mansion’s mezzanine will be used for “an orchestra for the people downstairs. Or speeches. Like if the president came”.
Jacqueline Siegel said that once her dream home is complete she would like to launch her own reality show. But David Siegel, 77, said he has no interest in getting back in front of the camera.
David Siegel is only intent on finishing work on the mansion which has been under construction for more than five years, after the financial crisis and recession delayed progress – “but now we’re doing better than ever” he said of his company.
He actually filed suit against the filmmaker, Lauren Greenfield, before the documentary even premiered, claiming its depiction of his company’s downfall was inaccurate and damaging to his business.
David Siegel, the founder of Westgate Resorts, a real estate and timeshare business which employs thousands of people across the U.S. – many of whom lost their jobs during the recession – said he was happy for Lauren Greenfield to film the house, but “then the economy changed”, he said.
“I don’t know how it happened, suddenly the focus wasn’t the house. It became the family, and then it became the business.”
David Siegel added: “The only thing that’s true about [the documentary] is that my wife is a big-busted shopaholic. Jackie, they could have called her an ax murderer, and she’d have been happy they spelled her name right.”
The Queen of Versailles, filmed by Lauren Greenfield, premiered on Bravo in April.
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