An exclusive look at Jackie Siegel’s almost-completed Versailles

After 22 years of stop-and-start construction, the home that inspired a blockbuster documentary, reality show, and Broadway musical is almost complete, and matriarch Jackie Seigel, the “Queen of Versailles” herself, is preparing for her next steps.

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At 90,000 square feet, the palace-inspired mega-mansion on Windermere’s Lake Butler Sound is one of the largest private residences in America. Gilded in gold leaf and dripping with crystal chandeliers, Versailles may have earned its position as a highly scrutinized symbol of private wealth, but Jackie Siegel is insistent that the public understand it as the centerpiece for her philanthropic work.

For Siegel, memories of her husband David and daughter Victoria loom large in her consciousness. Versailles, which she and David first broke ground on more than two decades ago, has evolved from a private family dream into a direct tribute to their memory. With interior construction finished, she now awaits the final county permit approvals required to occupy the residence and relaunch what she considers her life’s work.

Seigel opened the home to GrowthSpotter, providing exclusive access to the property. Here’s what’s inside:

The mansion’s massive interior features 14 bedrooms, 32 bathrooms and six kitchens, anchored by a grand ballroom designed to host up to 1,000 guests.

The layout accommodates both large-scale gala entertaining and the daily life of a sprawling family. The upper level holds a family wing of suites for the Siegels’ adult children. Downstairs, the formal living room centers on a custom-loomed carpet spanning 1,000 square feet, while the banquet-ready formal dining hall seats 150 guests around a single table.

At 4,000 square feet, Jackie Siegel’s two-story closet and dressing room is bigger than most American homes. It’s a short walk from the primary bedroom, the anchor of a massive 10,000-square-foot master wing that functions as a self-contained sanctuary.

The bedroom proper features African Mahogany double glass doors that offer a panoramic view of Lake Butler. The space includes a private sitting lounge with a fireplace and an integrated morning kitchen and coffee bar. The connecting en suite bathroom features exotic 22-carat gold-leaf fixtures, a steam shower and a gold-tiled, square Jacuzzi tub.

The home includes a bowling alley, a video arcade, a sushi bar, a British-style pub complemented by an imported century-old wooden bar from the United Kingdom, and a nightclub complete with a custom circular bar, a backlit stained-glass plume and a built-in DJ booth. A two-story theater features an upper viewing balcony modeled after the historic Palais Garnier opera house in Paris.

To protect the acoustics of the theater’s commercial sound system, the massive central chandelier was engineered with rigid, marine-grade locking pins to prevent the crystal strands from jingling during heavy bass notes.

Outdoors, the mansion sits on 10.1 acres of lakefront property along Lake Butler Sound, boasting roughly 1,200 feet of continuous shoreline. A subterranean garage carved beneath the estate is engineered to house a fleet of up to 35 vehicles.

The property’s extensive water features include a private boathouse and five swimming pools, split between three indoor facilities and two resort-style outdoor pools, one of which is an infinity pool featuring a waterfall that hides a grotto outfitted with multiple Jacuzzis.

The rest of the acreage contains two lighted championship tennis courts, a full-sized baseball field and a subterranean 20,000-bottle wine cellar.

The sprint to the finish

He died on April 5, 2025.

“We were able to bring my husband in a wheelchair just a few weeks before he passed away,” Jackie Siegel said. “He was so proud of the boys and how they took over the project. But he never got to live here.”

Motivation to finish the house has stayed steady, according to David Alexander Siegel.

“Versailles is intended to be much more than a private residence. It will serve as a gathering place for charitable events, fundraisers and community initiatives that bring people together in support of meaningful causes,” he said. “At this point, all of the remaining work is on the exterior. We still need to complete the pools, finish the landscaping and wrap up the last portions of the stonework and other exterior finishing touches.”

While the county database registers 86 building division permit entries for Versailles’ address at 6121 Kirkstone Lane, stretching all the way back to the primary foundation permit issued on February 17, 2004, Orange County public records also reveal that the finish line is finally in sight.

Jackie has not seen the invoices or calculations, she said, and won’t venture a guess as to the cost of the house. But people with knowledge of the project said the house could have cost anywhere from $300 per foot to $3,000 per foot — which would translate to a range of $27 million to $270 million in construction expense — depending on how tightly the budget was managed.

The story behind Versailles

Past surges of activity each told a different story through intermittent momentum. The initial push from 2004 to 2007 saw the massive structural skeleton rise just before the subprime housing bubble burst. As chronicled in Lauren Greenfield’s 2012 documentary “The Queen of Versailles,” the subsequent 2008 global financial crash forced a multi-year freeze on the family’s assets when commercial banks abruptly choked off the credit lines fueling Westgate Resorts.

Because Westgate founder David Siegel personally guaranteed hundreds of millions of dollars in corporate debt for aggressive expansions, most notably the PH Towers on the Las Vegas Strip, his personal fortune became deeply entangled in the company’s survival. To avoid corporate bankruptcy and satisfy lenders demanding immediate repayment, the family enacted extreme cost-cutting measures, halting all funding to non-revenue-generating personal projects. Consequently, construction on the palace ground to a complete halt in 2009, and the unfinished, exposed concrete shell was put on the market for $65 million in an attempt to liquidate the asset.

The shell of the house never sold, and eventually, construction resumed. The languishing project had touched a nerve, Jackie said, as the house was meant to be a manifestation of David’s triumph over his devastating losses stemming from his 1997 divorce from Bettie Whitaker. A $200 million settlement had largely cleaned him out.

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“Some people think Versailles was David’s grand romantic gesture for me, but I think it was a lover’s quarrel with his ex-wife, almost like, ‘Who has the biggest house?’” she added.

Longwood-based real estate consultant Brad Parker, who in 2000 brokered the sale of the land on Lake Butler Sound to Pulte Homes, recalled egging David on to buy it from the homebuilder a few years later.

“I told him, ‘You really want to show her? Build a bigger house within view of hers,’” Parker said. “From where Bettie’s house was, she would see it.”

And that’s what happened. David Siegel purchased the 10.1-acre peninsula in 2003 for $4.8 million.

When work restarted during the 2013-2014 economic recovery, the push focused entirely on sealing the massive shell against the Florida elements. Years later, the 2021-2022 surge brought a frantic, hyper-focused effort to finish and stage key interior rooms for the reality television series “The Queen of Versailles Reigns Again,” which was produced by Ample Entertainment and originally aired on Discovery+.

Today, the remaining workload has shrunk and migrated entirely outside the primary living envelope. The remaining items represent the final municipal checklist required for a certificate of occupancy: outdoor pool installations, structural closeouts for the guest house and a few minor accessory adjustments.

How Versailles will be used

Jackie sees the home’s massive footprint as a unique vehicle to amplify her family’s philanthropic vision, transforming what the public often views as an emblem of excess into a practical fundraising engine.

“I realized that God put this house here for a reason,” she said. “What I felt when I prayed is that it’s to give back, bring people together and raise awareness.”

Central to her plan is utilizing the estate as a platform for the Victoria’s Voice Foundation, the national nonprofit she and David founded after losing her 18-year-old daughter to an accidental overdose in 2015. By hosting national charity galas, donor dinners and educational summits at Versailles, she aims to eliminate venue rental fees and lower operational overhead, ensuring more donor capital goes straight to addiction resources.

Because the opioid crisis transcends political divisions, Jackie envisions Versailles serving as a unique neutral ground for otherwise polarized groups, attracting figures who might not otherwise share a room.

This philanthropic mission would share the spotlight with the estate’s ongoing media presence, as another reality television series is in development.

“They’re going to come here, interview all the kids, interview me, tour the house,” Siegel said regarding the scope of the show, which she notes will also feature the lifesaving work of Victoria’s Voice. “It could involve going to New York, to our resorts. I don’t know if they’re going to follow some of the kids around and see what they’re doing, carrying on their father’s legacy.”

While the core format of the series is still being finalized, Jackie has floated the possibility of weaving a lighthearted competition element into the mix, such as a pageant, given her long history as a pageant contestant and producer.

The home has already begun serving as a backdrop for these upcoming media pursuits. On June 12, production crews shot a concept promo to help the producers brainstorm the creative direction of the show and pitch the series to television networks.

The promotional reel features Jackie pitching the concept.

“Welcome to Versailles. I am so thrilled to announce that a new coronation will take place this fall called the Queen’s Court at the Palace of Versailles. And I’m the Queen of Versailles. And the question is, who will be the next prince, princess, duke, duchess, baron, baroness, lords and ladies? The purpose of this event is to fundraise for various charities including but not limited to Victoria’s Voice.”

While Versailles is planned to serve as a public stage, the layout remains anchored around the family. The upper floors were custom-configured to provide permanent, dedicated spaces for Jackie’s adult children, ensuring they keep a home base regardless of where their personal lives take them.

“They all have their own bedrooms, and they’ll be here,” Siegel said. “My son Drew and daughter Debbie, they have a place up in New York. They have a hotel in Midtown, Westgate New York Grand Central. So they would come down every other weekend or something like that.”

Versailles is almost ready for that next act. But if the last 22 years have taught Jackie anything, it is that this monumental manor will never be a static piece of real estate. It remains a dynamic, evolving stage for a family whose narrative is still being written.

“Life is constantly changing,” she said. “There’s just going to be a lot of different things… things that I don’t even know yet.”

Have a tip about Central Florida development? Contact me at [email protected] or (407) 420-5246. Follow GrowthSpotter on Facebook and LinkedIn.

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