243 Hedges Lane, Sagaponack, New York

243 Hedges Lane (pictured above), a Michael Davis-built home, sold May 19 for $19.25 million within a week of being completed. Michael Davis Design & Construction company is based in Sagaponack. The eight-bedroom, eight-bath, three-half-bath English country home on 2.3 acres had been listed for $19.5 million, Davis says. The house has a master suite with a fireplace, an outdoor roof deck and a bathroom with radiant heat, a steam shower and his-and-hers walk-in closets. There's also an elevator, a gym, sauna and steam room, a 3-D home theater, a restored 1840s guest cottage, a saltwater pool and a pool house.

Click on plans below to enlarge:

Lynnewood Hall, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

"Lynnewood Hall is a 110-room Neoclassical Revival mansion in Elkins Park, Montgomery County designed by architect Horace Trumbauer for industrialist Peter A. B. Widener between 1897 and 1900. Considered the largest surviving Gilded Age mansion in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area, it housed one of the most important Gilded Age private art collections of European masterpieces and decorative arts assembled by Widener and his younger son Joseph...

...Built from Indiana limestone, the "T"-shaped Lynnewood Hall (dubbed "The last of the American Versailles" by Widener's grandson) measures 325 feet (99 m) long by 215 feet (66 m) deep. In addition to the large art gallery, the 110-room estate also included a ballroom, swimming pool, wine cellars, a farm and an electrical power plant."

Ballroom



 Great Hall

Le Petit Trianon, Paris, France

The Petit Trianon is a small château located on the grounds of the Palace of Versailles in Paris, France.

"It was designed by Ange-Jacques Gabriel by the order of Louis XV for his long-term mistress, Madame de Pompadour, and was constructed between 1762 and 1768. But Madame de Pompadour died four years before its completion, and it was subsequently occupied by her successor, Madame du Barry. Upon his accession to the throne in 1774, the 20-year-old Louis XVI gave the château and its surrounding park to his 19-year-old Queen Marie Antoinette for her exclusive use and enjoyment. Marie longed to escape Louis and his court, and he gave her just the place..."

 ...The château of the Petit Trianon is a celebrated example of the transition from the Rococo style of the earlier part of the 18th century, to the more sober and refined, Neoclassical style of the 1760s and onward. Essentially an exercise on a cube, the Petit Trianon attracts interest by virtue of its four facades, each thoughtfully designed according to that part of the estate it would face. The Corinthian order predominates, with two detached and two semi-detached pillars on the side of the formal French garden, and pilasters facing both the courtyard and the area once occupied by Louis XV's greenhouses. Overlooking the former botanical garden of the king, the remaining facade was left bare. The subtle use of steps compensates for the differences in level of the château's inclined location."

Hôtel Camondo, 63, rue de Monceau, Paris, France

"The mansion was built in 1911 by the Comte Moïse de Camondo, a banker, with architect René Sergent, to set off his collection of eighteenth-century French furniture and art objects. Its design was patterned upon the Petit Trianon at Versailles, though with modern conveniences. Both house and collections were bequeathed to Les Arts Décoratifs in honor of his son, Nissim de Camondo, killed in World War I, and opened as a museum in 1935. More tragedy followed when a few years later Moise’s daughter and her family were deported to Auschwitz where they died.

Today the house is maintained as if it were still a private home preserved in its original condition."

The White House - Proposed Truman Expansion

Here is a plan of Truman's proposed West Wing Expansion (circa 1945).

The main feature was a 350+ seat auditorium in proximity to the oval office.

Carlton Palace (House), London, England

Construction began in 1784; when these rooms were visited in September 1785 by the usually critical Horace Walpole, he was impressed, writing that when completed, Carlton House would be "the most perfect in Europe".

"There is an August simplicity that astonished me. You cannot call it magnificent; it is the taste and propriety that strike. Every ornament is at a proper distance, and not one too large, but all delicate and new, with more freedom and variety than Greek ornaments; and, though probably borrowed from the Hotel de Condé and other new Palaces, not one that is not rather classic than French."

When completed, Carlton House was approximately 202' long, and 130' deep. Visitors entered the house through a hexastyle portico of Corinthian columns that led to a foyer that was flanked on either side by anterooms. Carlton House was unusual in that the visitor entered the house on the main floor. (Most London mansions and palaces of the time followed the Palladian architectural concept of a low ground floor (or rustic) with the principal floor above.) From the foyer, the visitor entered the two story top lit entrance hall that was decorated with Ionic columns of yellow marble scagliola. Beyond the hall was an octagonal room that was also top lit. The octagonal room was flanked on the right by the grand staircase and flanked on the left by a courtyard, while straight ahead was the main anteroom. Once in the anteroom, the visitor either turned left into the private apartments of the Prince of Wales, or turned right into the formal reception rooms: Throne Room, Drawing room, Music Room, Dining Room.

Chateau Neuf de Meudon, France

The former Château de Meudon, on a hill in Meudon, about 4 kilometres south-west of Paris, occupied the terraced steeply sloping site. It was acquired by Louis XIV, who greatly expanded its as a residence for Louis, le Grand Dauphin. It was largely ignored under Louis XV and Louis XVI, but became the official residence of the King of Rome from 1812, and was occupied by Jérôme Bonaparte under the Second Empire. The main building was largely destroyed in a fire in 1871, and it is now the site of the Observatoire de Paris-Meudon.