Suppose Obama convinced Congress that it’s past time we had a gigantic presidential palace, and they allocated the funds to build one. If it were nearly the same size and stocked with nearly the same level of decorations (such as all the gold and jewelry), although with new artwork, not priceless originals. How much would this cost? I realize that there is not one definite answer to this, but the Dope is always a good place to have hypothetical discussions that are at least ballpark-accurate.
Versailles was actually largely restored in 1923 by funding by the John D Rockefeller Foundation, for $1,000,000. Presuming that building it would cost no more than double that and bringing up to 2009 value would be something like $25 million.
That’s not taking inflation into account, though. The Biltmore estate (which is awesome and pretty Versailles-like itself) only cost around $7 million at the time, if I recall correctly. Also, if personal experience is any guide, I know a couple people with multi-million dollar houses—they aren’t that big (and not gold-plated on the inside, either). There’s just no way you could get something like that done today for that kind of money. You also forgot to triple the cost due to it being a government project.
Adjusting for inflation $1 million in 1923 dollars works out to roughly $120.5 million in today’s money. So, $241 million or thereabouts. I imagine Air Force One has a pretty similar price tag. IIRC, some of the homes in the Hamptons have a similar price tag. And this house with 3.5 acres of marble, is probably in the same ballpark.
Yup. It just seems building one of these things today would be incredibly inefficient. You’d have to find special craftsmen. Who’d probably be in Unions. And think their unique skill is worth of $200/hr (or the contractors who’ll hire them will take $155/hr out of that and pass $45 on). I imagine the project today would be enormously expensive, much more than it would have back in the day. I’m sometimes scared what various projects seem to cost these days. I’ve heard it estimated that if you managed to buy a 747, you’d need to spend another $100m to renovate it inside. Wtf? 2,000 man years? I really think it’s the intrinsic inefficiency of the system rather than modern high wages.
I had a tour in versailles last year and they told me that a lot of the paintings and furniture were gifts from other states, local counties etc coming to court for favours. I bet that over time, the hypothetical Obama Presidential Palace would get more Versaille-like.
Also, a couple of the decorations have gotten cheaper over time. The mirrors of the Mirror hall would cost a fraction today of what they cost back in the 1700s.
I wonder if the artisanship would cost about the same today. What is the rate for a painter of exquisite murals or crown moldings these days?
Hearst Castle might be a rough American analogue to Versailles. It cost about $10m to build and furnish from 1919-47, including its amazing art collection. It includes several buildings with a total of 90K sq ft. and 56 (!) bedrooms:
Build it today and you’d probably have to triple the budget, if it could be built at all. But there’s nothing contractors like to hear more than “Price is no object!”
I think our starting point should be finding out how much acreage Versailles occupies, and finding the price of similar acreage in suburban Washington.
If the Presidential Palace was a close replica of the Palace at Versailles, it would have no bathrooms (per the recent “diapers in the Middle Ages” here in GQ). So that would save some money
I think the restoration of Windsor Castle is a good parallel here. Not only is the Windsor fire relatively recent, but the fire destroyed many of the grandest rooms in the castle (in total, more than 100 rooms). The restoration itself took 5 years, from 1993 to 1998, and cost £40 million. Granted, the bulk of that £40 million was to restoring the interior of the castle, as the superstructure remained intact, so it would probably cost a bit more than that to secure a suitable plot of land, build the building and gardens etc.
(Seeing the restoration, it’s also quite impressive that so many master craftsmen, capable of such work, still exist!)
A big question is whether you want to construct the building using traditional methods or using modern methods. For example, you could probably build it today using steel and concrete more quickly and cheaply than the original building was constructed out of hand-carved stone blocks. Carved wood decoration could be reproduced using a milling machine. Ornamental plaster could be replaced by prefabricated molded pieces (which you can buy at Home Depot today).
I read a number of years ago an article where they estimated the cost of rebuilding various famous monuments, amongst others Versailles. I don’t remember anymore the cost mentioned but it was way higher than the figure listed so far.
More importantly, the article began by mentioning that all the costs assumed modern materials (like concrete, for instance) or lower quality industrial reproductions, because building them like the originals would be plainly impossible, since according to them there aren’t enough qualified craftsmen (gilders, woodcarvers, stonecutters, whatever) in the whole world nowadays to build an identical copy of any of the listed monuments.
So, for instance if you were to make again the chandeliers at Versailles, you would have to monopolize all the companies still making such high end glass products for a veerryyy long time. Same for the marble carvings of the Taj Mahal, etc…
I found a figure for the current program of renovation in Versailles. It will last 17 years, and 180 millions will be spent during the first 7 years, so it would put the renovation cost at something like 440 millions. That’s for a mere restoration. I don’t dare to imagine how much building it from scratch would cost.
At 51,210 square meters of floor space, that’s 551, 220 square feet.
Over 2000 windows, 6000 paintings, 15,000 engravings, over 2000 pieces of sculpture, 5000 pieces of furniture and objets d’art. What about those ginormous reflecting pools?
Being of the pre-electric, pre-running water era we’d save money there. OTOH chandeliers etc. ain’t cheap. I imagine it would be over $1B easily.
One thing I’m curious about is how much of Versailles was built with hard currency. There was more barter then wasn’t there? I’d imagine that being appointed royal architect was lucrative in the long run even if you didn’t get payed an hourly rate. Also calling yourself a ‘craftsman to the king’ probably carried more cachet than it would today. I wouldn’t be surprised if position and reputation weren’t a bigger part of the compensation package.
I also wonder how much of the decorations might come from the national treasury? If we decorated Obamasailles with gold from fort knox that was still considered part of the gold reserves it wouldn’t cost much.