In the new Broadway musical The Queen of Versailles , officially opening on November 9, Kristin Chenoweth transforms herself into Jackie Siegel, the self-proclaimed “Queen of Versailles” and a woman on a mission to build the largest single-family residence in America. Siegel was in fact a real person, immortalized in Lauren Greenfield 's 2012 documentary, and her 90,000 square-foot mega mansion—designed after the real-life Versailles—has been under construction since 2004. “I had watched that documentary, and was obsessed with it,” says New York-based designer Christian Cowan , who was tasked with creating her one-of-a-kind wardrobe for the show. “I was like, sign me up!”

Siegel’s story represents an extreme manifestation of aspiration and greed, an outsized embodiment of the

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