George Vanderbilt’s Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina sees 1.4 million visitors a year. Visitation rates to Gilded Age estates confirm it, too. And while these ostentatious overtures highlight now, to an absurd degree, the disparity of wealth in our country, much as they did more than a hundred years ago, the success of that TV show (recently picked up for a second run on HBO), along with the same network’s eponymous historical drama, sure seems to prove that we do appreciate the spectacle. Although it may seem crass by comparison, the Siegels’ Versailles is just a contemporary spin on “conspicuous consumption,” a term coined during the Gilded Age by sociologist Thorstein Veblen. When complete, Versailles will not only be the largest single-family home in America (“the size of a Super Walmart” is Siegel’s go-to comparison), but also the first with its very own Benihana kitchen, an exotic “bird garden,” and a pub with a 19th century bar interior shipped overseas from England. Siegel, a former engineer married to billionaire timeshare magnate David Siegel, founder of Westgate Resorts, has resumed the task of finishing the Florida mansion named for the Palace of Versailles after recovering from the financial crisis of 2008. In the first episode of the 2022 Discovery+ reality show Queen of Versailles Reigns Again, Jackie Siegel steps off her helicopter ready to inspect progress on the 90,000-square-foot mansion she and her husband are building.

Construction at the height of the Gilded Age, Lynnewood Hall, designed by Horace Trumbauer for businessman Peter Widener, now awaits renovation.

The Gilded Age by Mark Twain