Fleur de Lys, Beverly Hills, CA

Forbes: The 10 Most Expensive Homes For Sale

What has been called the most beautiful estate in America is also the most patient: owner Suzanne Saperstein has had this mind-boggling mansion on the block since 2007 and the price has not come down a cent from $125 million. It has 12 bedrooms and 15 baths, plus a guest house, on five gated Beverly Hills acres, but it is not the size, a whopping 35,000+ square feet that impresses, it is the building itself, a European-style palace fit for royalty with marble walls and limestone floors and plenty of gold embossing everywhere. Besides a 50-seat theater (not home theater), there are dual kitchens, a ballroom, gym, pool house, and much more.
(Trulia.com)

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Jackson Ranch, J... Charles Schwab, Tiger Woods, Harrison Ford and Vice President Dick Cheney are among those who either bought here or call Jackson home. Land in this incredibly beautiful part of the Wild West is extremely expensive, and in this case it is land you are paying for. A cool $175 million gets you what would be a starter home anyplace else, a non-descript 3-bedroom, but you’ll have plenty of space to build, on this 1,750-acre horse and cattle ranch with trout fishing ponds, drop dead views of the Tetons and a world class 52-stall equestrian facility.
(Hall and Hall)

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Fleur de Lys, Be... What has been called the most beautiful estate in America is also the most patient: owner Suzanne Saperstein has had this mind-boggling mansion on the block since 2007 and the price has not come down a cent from $125 million. It has 12 bedrooms and 15 baths, plus a guest house, on five gated Beverly Hills acres, but it is not the size, a whopping 35,000+ square feet that impresses, it is the building itself, a European-style palace fit for royalty with marble walls and limestone floors and plenty of gold embossing everywhere. Besides a 50-seat theater (not home theater), there are dual kitchens, a ballroom, gym, pool house, and much more.
(Trulia.com)

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The opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Comcast.
Woolworth Estate... At the turn of the 20th century retail magnate Frank Woolworth hired famed architect Charles Pierpont Henry Gilbert to build three adjacent townhomes on Manhattan’s Upper East Side for his daughters, and this is the middle one, 4 East 80th Street. Completed in 1916, the five-story neo-French Renaissance home is an unusually large 35 feet wide, has a grand entry hall and staircase, 14-foot ceilings, endless fireplaces, a 50-seat formal dining room, and spans nearly 20,000 square feet. It contains 10 bedrooms and 12 bathrooms and is asking $90 million.
(Brown Harris Stevens)

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Tranquility, Zep... Thanks to tax codes, homes on the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe command almost a 100% premium over the California side, making Zephyr Cove, a low-density enclave on the south shore of the lake just three miles from the border, ultra-desirable. That’s where this 210-acre estate can be found, comprised of nine buildings surrounding its own private lake, albeit smaller than Tahoe. The estate is gated with a gatehouse, boathouse, docks, and a 20,000-square-foot main house designed around a large collection of significant architectural and historical items, and a replica of the grand staircase from the Titanic. The grounds include a professional-quality basketball court, two full-sized golf holes, an art studio, stable, and extensive gardens. The price was recently slashed by 25% to $75 million.
(Brown Harris Stevens)

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Versailles, Wind... David Siegel made his money in timeshares but ironically when it came time for his own place he bought – or rather built. In fact, he is still building ten years later and it is not quite finished. By some estimates his Versailles will be the single largest residence in the country at around 90,000 square feet. The name is an apt choice as it is modeled on the famous French palace, and it is indeed palatial. The waterfront estate, on a 10-acre Lake Butler peninsula with almost a mile and half of shoreline, is scheduled to have all the usual bells and whistles: theaters (two), kitchens (ten), garage (for twenty), elevators (two), pools (three), and a bowling alley, indoor roller rink, and arcade, just one of each. The main house has 13 bedrooms (the master spans 6,000 square feet) and 23 baths, and the grounds include a gate house, tennis courts, and baseball field. You can buy it as is for $75 million or finished to the original design for $100 million.
(AP PHOTO)

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1220 South Ocean... One of the only homes on the list without a name is also one of the newest, just finished, and it sits just minutes from ultra-luxe Worth Avenue and the famous Breakers resort. It is another grand reinterpretation of a palatial French chateaux, and sits on 2.5 gated, walled, and very secure acres. It has 200 feet of intra-coastal waterway frontage, thousands of square feet of balconies, extensive gardens and a large heated pool with fountains. Inside are 27,000 square feet of marble and rare woods. The master bedroom suite is 4,000 square feet, there are a total of eight en suite bedrooms, five more bathrooms, a guest house, and a gym. The home has never been lived in, and the $84 million starting price, which is now available to qualified buyers on request, appears to have been reduced to $74 million in recent months.

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1016 Madison Ave... This very unique pre-war Madison Avenue townhome is suitable for residential, commercial, or both, with street level retail/gallery possibility. It spans seven stories and 12,000 square feet, has an elevator and grand staircase, and features 10 bedrooms. A curving grand staircase runs the full height and it has hardwood floors throughout. The home includes a large basement with ample storage, a reception area, and fireplaces on four floors. All yours for $72 million.

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Three Ponds Farm... This 60-acre Long Island estate is the only one on this list with its own 18-hole golf course – by famed “US Open Doctor” Rees Jones no less. In fact, big name architects were high on the list for the builder, who employed classicist Allan Greenberg, who has worked on The White House, for the 20,000-square-foot main house. There are 14 very elaborate and unique formal gardens, a guest house, waterfront on two sides (pond and lake), a huge pool and grass tennis court. Yours if you can pay the $68 million price tag.

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3 Indian Creek, ... This is one of just 32 homes on a private barrier island off of Miami Beach, and access is limited to owners and their guests, ensuring the utmost privacy and making it a celebrity enclave where Carl Icahn owns a home. The brand new 30,000-square-foot home is ultra-modern and somewhat Asian-styled and water-themed composed of five interconnected pavilions with walkways and lots and lots of glass. Water, in the form of pools, reflecting pools, and waterfalls flow around and through the home and under the walkaways. The $60 million home occupies two acres and has 10 bedrooms, 14 bathrooms and five kitchens.

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La Villa Content... Seller Richard Weintraub probably knows what he is doing, since he is president of Weintraub Real Estate Group. His Italianate estate was most famously used as the locale of the Vampire Queen’s domicile on HBO’s True Blood, but has also appeared in many other films and shows. It is comprised of several buildings and courtyards and totals 13 bedrooms, 14 baths, about 16,000 square feet, with a guest house, tennis courts, a huge pool with excessive pavilion, and most valuable in this part of the world, eight acres with Pacific Coast Highway frontage. The whole estate runs $75 million but less deep pocketed buyers can purchase it in chunks starting at just $28.5 million.

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