“90,000 sqft”: The largest single-family home in America has been under construction since 2004, and drama keeps it from being completed

Ginger Gadsden and Matt Austin of WKMG News 6 say the Versailles mansion near Orlando is the kind of story that refuses to end, partly because the home itself has never really reached an ending. Construction started back in 2004, they explained, and more than two decades later the place is still unfinished, still famous, and still attracting new drama – this time in the form of a lawsuit tied to unpaid work and a threat of foreclosure.

Gadsden summed it up in the opening seconds: this story has been developing “since 2004,” and if anyone thinks the mansion’s drama is over, it isn’t.

The house, often called “Versailles,” is expected to be the largest single-family home in the United States if it is ever completed. That “if” has basically become part of its official identity at this point.

Now, Austin and Gadsden say, a contractor claims it’s owed nearly $300,000 and has filed a construction lien, trying to push the entire property toward foreclosure.

It’s almost absurd on its face – an enormous palace of a home, world famous, described like a modern myth, being tugged by a dispute over a figure that sounds small next to the mansion’s scale, but is still huge money for the people who did the work.

A New Lawsuit Adds Another Layer To The Never-Ending Build

Gadsden and Austin report that the contractor involved says it had a $9.2 million contract to make improvements to the property, and as of last summer, the company claims it was shorted by nearly $300,000.

Gadsden said the lawsuit claims the contractor has filed a construction lien against the property, and under that lien the contractor is pushing for foreclosure.

Austin pointed out how strange the math looks when you zoom out. This is an estate that gets talked about like a hundred-million-dollar property, he said, and yet the lawsuit is for much less than that, but the smaller number still matters.

Gadsden made the point that if you’re a contractor working a $9.2 million job, you still want what you’re owed. That nearly $300,000 isn’t a rounding error to the people who did the labor, paid crews, and bought materials.

The lawsuit also lands in a story already thick with personal history. The mansion was owned by Westgate Resorts founder David Siegel, who Austin and Gadsden said died last year. His widow, Jacqueline “Jackie” Siegel, is still the face associated with the home, and the project remains unfinished under her stewardship.

A Mansion So Big It Sounds Like A Movie Set

Then the anchors get into what makes Versailles famous in the first place: the scale is almost cartoonish.

Gadsden said the home is 90,000 square feet stretched over 10 acres. She rattled off the features like she was reading a list of “things no normal house would ever have,” because that’s exactly what it is.

Fourteen bedrooms.

Thirty bathrooms.

Multiple kitchens – she said “five or more” in one description, and later the list got even bigger.

A ballroom or event space designed for 150 people.

A massive garage, with Gadsden mentioning a 35-car figure, and Austin later talking about how the garage alone is its own world.

And then the “capper,” as Gadsden called it: a British-style pub inside the house.

She kept going: a wine cellar, a roller skating rink, and a bowling alley. At one point she joked that it sounds like she’s describing part of the White House.

Austin added another detail that makes the whole thing feel like an artifact from a different era of wealth. He said the windows and doors include Brazilian mahogany, and he described it as “now banned.” He also said those doors and windows were purchased back in 2001 and cost $4 million.

That one detail is a reminder that Versailles isn’t just big – it’s the kind of project where even the “parts” are luxury purchases on a scale most people can’t imagine.

Gadsden also shared a detail that feels both funny and slightly depressing if you think about it too long: she said she remembers hearing that the master closet is larger than her entire home, and she described it as a two-story closet.

It’s hard to even picture, and that’s probably why people keep watching the story. It isn’t relatable. It’s a spectacle.

World Famous, Documentaries, Even Broadway

Austin and Gadsden both stressed that this isn’t a local curiosity. It’s world famous.

Gadsden said people have done documentaries on it, and she mentioned there was even a Broadway play connected to the story. She and Austin traded a quick aside about which actress starred in it, with Austin saying he thought it was Kristin Chenoweth.

That kind of pop-culture footprint is unusual for a private home. Most mansions don’t become a recurring public storyline. Versailles did, largely because it became a symbol: a monument to ambition, wealth, and then, in slow motion, every obstacle that can drag big dreams into decades of limbo.

And that might be why Austin said, half-joking, that he’s not sure it would be as interesting if it were ever finished. Gadsden agreed in the same spirit, saying if it’s done, what will people talk about?

It’s a strange truth about projects like this. The unfinished state becomes the brand. Completion would almost ruin the mystique.

Who Could Ever Buy It?

Austin raised another question that hangs over the entire project like a cloud: if it ever becomes a finished, working home, who would even be able to buy it?

Gadsden said she didn’t know, and you could hear the honest uncertainty there. A property of this scale isn’t just expensive to purchase – it’s expensive to maintain, staff, insure, secure, and keep functional.

Austin compared it to a modern-day Biltmore, suggesting it might become more of a landmark than a normal residence, assuming it ever gets to a point where it can be occupied like a finished home.

That comparison also highlights what makes Versailles so fascinating: it’s not just luxury. It’s excess on an institutional scale, like a private estate trying to imitate a palace.

A House That Became A Symbol Of Delay

The current lawsuit, in the way Austin and Gadsden describe it, feels like one more knot in a project that has always had knots.

This house has been under construction since 2004, and now even the renovation work has its own conflicts. It’s the kind of story where the timeline itself becomes part of the headline. Most houses are built in months or a few years. This one has lived through whole eras – recessions, cultural changes, personal losses, and now legal battles over money.

And in a weird way, that’s why it keeps pulling people back in. Versailles isn’t just a mansion. It’s a public reminder that the bigger a project gets, the more it can start living a life of its own, feeding on delays, disputes, and headlines until the unfinished version becomes the “real” version.

Gadsden and Austin don’t pretend they know how it ends. They basically frame it as: we’ll see what happens next, because there is always a next chapter here.

And with a lien filed and foreclosure being pushed, the “next chapter” may not be about marble floors and ballrooms. It may be about whether the biggest single-family home in America can even survive long enough to become what it was supposed to be.