Places like Biltmore in Asheville, NC and The Breakers in Newport, RI. A brief search indicates George Vanderbilt spent around $5 million on Biltmore, completed in 1895. Inflation calculator says that would be the equivalent of $149 million today.
There are probably fewer people today with the craftsman skills to do that type of thing so perhaps labor costs would be much higher. Or maybe i’m wrong and you wouldn’t need them with modern machinery. I have no clue about that type of construction.
He employed 1000+ people in the construction, brought craftsmen over from Europe etc.
What are you aiming for? An original work of art, an exact reproduction, or the same square footage but looking modern?
In the good old days, labour was cheaper than materials and heavy equipment -so for example, it was cheap to build in brick, because experienced bricklayers who could quickly construct a straight uniform wall came cheap. Today, they are expensive and slow compared to a bunch of guys with power tools building a form, which a giant truck comes in and pumps full of concrete. Drywall has replaced plastering. Power tools and computerized machinery will make miles of whatever fancy wood finish you want. Ornate “plasterwork” can be preformed and simply glued on. Even tacky gold leafing can be done so an apartment in a New York city tower has as much gold leaf per square foot as Versailles.
Plus of course, we have modern tech that outdoes anything the originals could want - extreme insulation, very efficient central heating and air conditioning, sealed 3-pane windows, etc.
So if your goal is to simply copy an old building superficially for looks, the price will probably be substantially less. But, if you want construction details made of unique quality craftsmanship/artwork - you will pay through the nose. And that latter is what obscenely rich people tend to aim for.
I was referring to actually recreating the buildings. With the same materials and craftsmanship.
That doesn’t mean I would expect a modern worker to do stonework with a hammer and chisel if he has modern tools to do the same job. As long as it was THE SAME JOB, and not just something that looked the same.
Like if I wanted a log home, you dont have to use hand saws, power tools are fine. But some synthetic prefab with a woodlike siding is NOT.
Real wages for skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled labour are much higher than they were back in the gilded age.
This, of course, is partly because productivity is much higher, due in part to technological advances like power tools, modern techniques, etc, etc.
But the building techniques, designs and styles that we use nowadays are developed in part to make best use of these advances. If you design and construct using the styles and materials of 130 years ago, you will forgo some of the productivity advances that these techniques offer. But you’ll still have to pay-present day wages for the workers required. In fact, you may have to pay a premium over modern-day wages, because workers capable of working with those styles, materials, etc, may be in short supply.
So I’m thinking that, on balance, this is going to cost you more, in real terms, than it would have done in 1885.
You could get the about the same level of quality for the inflation adjusted cost plus something to account for new costs that didn’t exist a century ago. Some cost areas will be higher, others lower. A lot of the custom finishing work will be done at the factory, windows, doors, millwork, molding and trim, providing high quality for lower cost. Other labor specialties like tile and masonry may cost a little more to get the same quality craftsmanship.
Of course if you build it now you’ll wire it and have HVAC ducting and a lot more insulation. Those are the added costs that didn’t exist a century ago.
If you have $149 million to reproduce the Biltmore today you can do it even with additional modern costs added in, it’s just a matter of a management. But you aren’t really creating a new shrine to the glory of opulent indulgence, you’re just making a cheap knock-off. If you want to make that kind of statement today you need to spend $billions.
A hybrid may not be totally unreasonable. Even the most amazing old buildings had, what we would regard from a modern point of view, quite shoddy building standards. The core structure of any new building is going to need to be built to modern standards, and that can mean to a much better overall standard that the original golden era. This doesn’t mean built to the base level that a modern cookie cutter cardboard house is built to. The modern rich demand and build good houses. There is nothing wrong with concrete.
But when it comes to the fitout, you can spend any amount of money. As noted above, if you want quality hand work, you will pay big. You could get a good approximation with custom CNC and the like, but again it depends upon what you want. Everything will be custom, and you will pay modern artisan rates. A good comparison might be high end commercial fitouts. They can involve a lot of custom work, and are for wealthy companies ground up custom designs. The prices relative to domestic fitouts are eye watering. Take a guess and multiply by ten is a good start.
In some (probably most, if not all) places you couldn’t reproduce them and stay within code. For example, you probably couldn’t build a real brick house in California or anywhere else where there’s a possibility of earthquakes. Masonry buildings tend to fall apart when they happen. So the best you could do would likely be a concrete building with a brick facade.
Exactly - times change. Like log houses - at one time the giant logs were there for the pickin’. Today, they are premium(!!) lumber and would raise the cost tremendously.
Not just earthquake - it may be in some areas that even things like insulation or double-paned windows are mandated by code. Fire prevention rules may prohibit certain construction techniques such as how fireplaces are built, or materials like asbestos.
I remember doing a tour of Hampton Court, built by Cardinal Wolsley and then given by him to Henry VIII in an attempt to keep his head attached. (It failed). The Cardinal went to Rome, and when he came back said “I want a nice villa like the ones I saw in Italy”. However, the local craftsmen did wood but not plaster - so some of the earlier rooms in the palace are painted to look like plaster above a waist-high wainscoting - but over 500 years the wood has dried out and cracked, and you can see that what looks like a plaster wall is actually massive sheets of painted oak.
Similarly with your plan - the only question is how much you want to spend to be authentic vs. appear authentic? You start at about the same price adjusted for inflation and work your way up to “the sky’s the limit”.
As pointed out, a lot of what was done by hand is now done with power tools. This includes details like air nailers and big items like a giant crane instead of thirty workers to put beams in place (not to mention, how many details in the good old days were compromises, as in “we can’t have a beam that big, it’s too heavy to lift in place- make it 3 pieces…?”). I worked once at a replica “pioneer village” where obviously they went to great pains to be authentic with houses they restored; so details like hand-made square nails to restore antique buildings were part of the process. You’d have to be extremely rich to do that with your reproduction for a whim.
If you want an exact copy, it’s going to be real costly. You’re going to have to special order all the 2x4s for example, because they’re not the same size anymore. And even if you have the old stock produced, you might still have to space them more closely by code.
The wood will in use should not be in short supply. Even if specific sizing of framing lumber matters, and it shouldn’t, getting it custom milled will not be a great expense. Materials tend to cost less after adjustment for inflation, while the most skilled labor will only cost a little more. Inflation adjustments in costs should apply well to house construction, even on a massive level. Those mansions were built from mostly custom parts for everything, even if not purely custom probably still made to order. The same items, everything from hinges to doorknobs and stair treads and molding will all be available off the shelf or from a less expensive custom ordering process.
The costs will only soar if you attempt the same level of unique custom work achieved over a century ago, and that would create a much different structure.
So, let’s keep the scope to the Biltmore, which is not in California, but in N.C. where things like earthquakes aren’t an issue.
For those who haven’t been, you should, it’s pretty amazing. Also, they had built a rail-way to the Biltmore to shuttle the workers back and forth, food for though.
Back to the OP, so you literally mean, a carbon copy of the Biltmore, nail-by-nail, or, say a lavish house of approximate size with comparable trimmings, or, a copy of the Biltmore using modern day methods and materials? All three will have different costs.
As I have been to the Biltmore, some of the rooms are amazing, but not all. Some components of the exterior are also amazing, but not on all four sides of the building. You can actually see this as you walk around the inside and outside. The area where people would have been entertained or having spent the most time are the bestest. As you move on to more utilitarian/private areas, it’s certainly nice, but a handyman could pull it off. Likewise with the exterior, the ornate masonry work is most prevalent on the front and sides, but, the back of the house is way more toned down, almost no detail and smaller.
I seriously doubt you could recreate Biltmore today for anything remotely close to $149 million:
The original size of the Biltmore estate was around 125,000 acres. If you budget the full $149M just for that, you’re trying to buy it for less than $1200/acre - below what crap forest land would sell for.
The main house (the largest, but certainly not the only building) has a floor area around 179,000 square feet. To create this in anything like the same (absurdly grand) style you’d do well to get by for $1000/square foot.
The country’s greatest-ever landscape architect - Frederick Law Olmstead - did the grounds. It’s said that among much other work, this involved around 3 million plantings.
I think that with a budget of $1 billion or so today, you could create something that would impress many people - until you told them that it was intended to be the equal of Biltmore.