ORLANDO, Fla. — Jackie Siegel, the wife of Westgate Resorts founder David Siegel, and star of the documentary “Queen of Versailles” is back in a new show that once again follows the construction of the family’s massive 90,000 square-foot mega-mansion named “Versailles.”
The new show, aptly titled “Queen of Versailles Reigns Again,” chronicles the challenges of constructing this larger-than-life residence. “We’ve got plumbing issues. There’s marble falling off the house” Siegel says of what viewers can expect to see during the show. “It’s not just finishing it. But it’s also repairing it. And I’m redoing a bunch of the house.”
Located in Windermere’s Lake Butler Sound community, Versailles has been under construction for almost 20 years after the land for it was purchased in 2000.
When completed, it will be one of the largest single-family homes in the United States with five kitchens, a 35-car garage, a 150-person dining room, a ballroom and the family’s very own British-style pub. The home even has its own Wikipedia page.
Siegel says one of the reasons she wanted to film a follow-up to the original “Queen of Versailles” documentary was to improve her family’s image.
“After the documentary from 2012 came out, my husband (said) he didn’t like the way that he was portrayed in the show. And we actually didn’t even know we were making a documentary. We thought we were doing something for just like a home makeover show. But then the camera people started coming into the house and it was during probably the worst time of our lives.”
Siegel says that she felt much more empowered by the team at Discovery+ to make the sequel series because they allowed the family to show more of their real life. “They’re not like a tabloid and they don’t have a dark side,” she said, adding that it was important to her that the show also feature her work with the Victoria’s Voice Foundation, which focuses on addiction and was founded after the death of Siegel’s daughter in 2015.
Though “Queen of Versailles Reigns Again” will depict progress on overall construction on the house, Windermere’s Versailles still isn’t finished, as Siegel is currently working on flooring.
“I’m actually flying to Indonesia in a couple of days,” she says of her current project for the house. “For my ballroom floor, we’ve sourced gemstones for our Grand Ballroom floors [including] amethyst, rose quartz, turquoise, onyx, all kinds of like those stones, just to name a few. That’s going to be in the millions of dollars for this floor.”
There is still a lot of work to be done, but Siegel is hopeful that the project will be finished next year. “My goal right now is to have it finished for my husband’s birthday. His birthday is May 3, 2023. So that’s my goal to really have the house finished [by then].”
While nothing has been confirmed by Discovery+ yet, Siegel is hopeful that there will be more episodes in the future. “They haven’t said anything about a season two yet, but they are sending cameras with me [to Indonesia]. So if they’re making that investment to send cameras that far on the other side of the world I would think that they’re anticipating a season two.”
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(The first season of “Queen of Versailles Reigns Again” is streaming now on Discovery+.)
