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My Very Own Versailles: Homeowners Who Re-create the French Palace

On an unassuming side street in Long Island’s Old Brookville, a 1,000-foot long driveway flanked by an allée of pear saplings leads to a 120-room, 17th century-style château bedecked with elaborate limestone carvings. Atop its slate roof, a copper ridge decorated with rosettes shines in the early summer sun. Above the front door, the initials “RY” are flanked by horn-blowing cherubs.

Though it is a brand-new building in suburban Long Island, the roughly 23,000-square-foot structure looks for all the world like it belongs in France at the Palace of Versailles, King Louis XIV’s famous creation. That was the goal of its owner Raphael Yakoby, an Israeli-born entrepreneur who created Hpnotiq liqueur, a bright blue liqueur popularized by hip hop artists in the early 2000s.

The front door, with its wrought-iron metalwork, is a scaled-down replica of a door found at Versailles. On the grand staircase in the foyer, the cast-iron and gold-leaf banister is a replica of one found at Le Petit Trianon, Marie Antoinette’s retreat on the grounds of Versailles.

Mr. Yakoby, who has spent about four years building the house, says he plans to move in next month, but once it is completed he’s also planning to put it on the market for $100 million—a figure he says is close to the cost of building the home.

There is something about Versailles that has produced a seemingly constant stream of imitators, ever since the late 1600s, when Louis XIV transformed a hunting lodge into the opulent palace known world-wide. With roughly 2,300 rooms and its chandelier-laden Hall of Mirrors, Versailles started prompting imitations as soon as it was completed, from other European palaces to grand homes. Even the layout of the city of Washington, D.C., borrowed elements from the gardens of Versailles.

When it comes to private homes, Versailles continues to have an outsize influence: According to realtor.com, 23 homes currently on the market or recently sold referenced Versailles in their marketing copy. “It’s maintained this huge mystique,” says historian Tony Spawforth, author of “Versailles: A Biography of a Palace.”

The allure of Versailles was no accident: Louis XIV created the massive palace as a way to showcase his power and draw attention to the glories of France. “There was an enormous ‘wow’ factor that Louis was aiming for,” Mr. Spawforth says.

For many of those who choose to build homes inspired by Versailles, the palace represents the pinnacle of success and achievement, and the culmination of a lifelong dream. The costs of this dream are considerable: Not only is building a modern-day Versailles very expensive, it can upset neighbors and be difficult to sell.

“It’s a little bit over the top,” concedes Jean “Manouch” Pierre, a businessman who bought the “Versailles Penthouse” at the Metropolis condominium in Las Vegas last year for about $2.8 million. “But this is what working hard is all about.”

Mr. Pierre says his opulent condo was given its Versailles look around 2005 by a previous owner. It has 30-foot-high ceilings and cabinets trimmed with gold leaf. A chandelier hangs above a curving marble staircase with 18-karat gold detailing. A commercial real-estate investor in his mid-50s who is originally from Iran, Mr. Pierre bought the property at auction after it had failed to sell at its asking price of $4.88 million; he says he was so amazed by photos of the condo that he bought it without ever visiting. The first time he saw the property in person, “I was extremely emotional,” he adds, noting that the purchase felt like an embodiment of his hard work and success after “coming here with nothing.”

To make the condo even more Versailles-like, Mr. Pierre got permission from the homeowners association to install fireplaces, and plans to complete the décor with period-appropriate antiques or replicas.

To Patrice Tarsey, Versailles is “the most beautiful palace ever built.” So in 1992 when she saw a newly built house in Los Angeles that was inspired by Le Petit Trianon, she jumped at the chance to own it.

The roughly 11,000-square-foot home in Holmby Hills has wrought-iron and marble balconies and gold-leaf moldings throughout. In the entry there is a 46-foot-high dome, with twin rose marble circular staircases topped by an 18th century Baccarat crystal chandelier. In the library and living room the cherry wood floors, in a Bordeaux pattern, are a copy of the floors in the Hall of Mirrors.

Ms. Tarsey is a real estate heiress whose father Jason Tarsey owned the Dunes Hotel on the Las Vegas Strip. A few years ago, she relocated to Florida, and rented the house out. Now she’s planning to list it for $22.5 million with Gregory Bega and Lindsay Galbraith of Sotheby’s International Realty.

Versailles-style details don’t come cheap. Builder Tom C. Murphy, co-president of Florida-based Coastal Homes, says he’s worked on three homes inspired by Versailles, ranging in size from 15,000 to roughly 80,000 square feet. These homes are pricey not just because of their size, he says, but because materials and artisans are often sourced from overseas. Moreover, 17th and 18th century homes didn’t have to contend with things like electric lighting and HVAC systems, which take extra work to conceal without ruining elaborate design schemes.

In the U.S., homes inspired by Versailles don’t always go over well with neighbors. When dentist Leonid Glosman and his wife Natalie set out to build a Versailles-inspired home in Beverly Hills in the late 1980s, it took two years to get permission to build, because the home’s style “is not customary in the neighborhood” and “the height was much higher than the rest of the homes,” says their daughter Monique Vayntrub.

Once they are built, Versailles-style homes can sometimes have trouble on the resale market. “A lot of people today want modern, contemporary, they don’t want traditional and they don’t want European,” warns Beverly Hills-based real-estate agent Myra Nourmand of Nourmand & Associates.

According to realtor.com, homes that mentioned Versailles in their listing copy spent a median of 122 days on the market, far higher than the national median of 62 days and above the 111-day median for the top 5% highest priced homes in the country.

Several Versailles replicas have faced difficulty selling. Perhaps the best known example is the 90,000-square-foot mansion in Windermere, Fla. that inspired the 2012 documentary “The Queen of Versailles.” Owners David Siegel, founder of timeshare giant Westgate Resorts, and his wife, Jacqueline, put the partially completed home on the market in 2010 for $100 million fully finished, or $75 million as-is. The home sat on the market for several years and had its price reduced before being taken off the market.

Ms. Glosman, who moved with her husband to the U.S. from Russia in the 1970s, says she chose Versailles as her inspiration because “it is one of the most magnificent architectural achievements in the world.”

But when the family put the eight-bedroom house on the market for $18.95 million in 2014, they found that not everyone had the same appreciation for the style. The home had “a limited audience” of potential buyers, says Ms. Nourmand, one of the listing agents.

When the house didn’t sell, the Glosmans took it off the market and spent millions on a renovation, replacing many of the colorful interiors with white and swapping antiques for modern furniture. Now they are seeking to rent the house out for $100,000 a month for long-term rentals or $300,000 a month for short-term rentals.

When it comes to Versailles-style homes, “either you love it, or it’s not for you at all,” says Debbie Sonenshine of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage, who is listing a $4.75 million home in Atlanta with elaborate gardens inspired by Versailles.

But if history is any indication, there will be no shortage of future mini-Versailles to come.

“It’s unique—it’s not cookie cutter,” Kevin Harris says of the Versailles-inspired home in Indianapolis he bought in 2014 for $650,000. The roughly 14,000-square-foot home has hand-plastered moldings on the ceilings and doors, murals on the walls and a ballroom. The Scalamandré fabric on the dining room walls is a copy of draperies at Versailles, he said.

Mr. Harris, a manufacturing executive, acknowledges that the home’s ornate style may make it difficult to resell if that time ever comes. But he and his wife love the home, he says, and after all, “you gotta live somewhere.”

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