Top 10 Most Extraordinary Private Residences in the World

Buckingham Palace, the official London residence of the British monarch since Queen Victoria in 1837, has 775 rooms including 19 state rooms, 52 royal and guest bedrooms, 188 staff bedrooms, 92 offices, and 78 bathrooms. Originally built as Buckingham House in 1703, it was extensively remodelled by John Nash and Edward Blore. The palace covers 828,000 square feet and sits within a 42-acre garden.

Villa Leopolda on the French Riviera, originally built for King Leopold II of Belgium in 1902, sold in 2008 for $750 million — briefly the most expensive residential real estate transaction ever recorded. Set on 18 acres overlooking the Mediterranean between Nice and Monaco, its 11 villas, orangeries, and guest houses are set within one of the most elaborately landscaped private gardens in the world.

Mies van der Rohe's Farnsworth House (1951) is perhaps the most influential single-family house ever built: a single rectangular glass room suspended above the Fox River floodplain on eight white steel columns. Every element of the interior is visible from the exterior and vice versa, pushing the idea of "less is more" to its absolute extreme. It is now a museum and UNESCO candidate site.

Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater (1939) — a weekend house for the Kaufmann department store family, built directly over a waterfall in the Pennsylvania woods — is consistently voted the greatest American building ever constructed. Its cantilevered concrete terraces appear to float above Bear Run creek, and the living room floor is the unprocessed bedrock of the stream itself.

The One in Bel Air, Los Angeles — a 105,000 square foot mega-mansion completed in 2022 by developer Nile Niami after 10 years of construction — is the largest private home ever built in America. Containing 21 bedrooms, 42 bathrooms, a 30-car garage, a 400-foot outdoor running track, a nightclub, a 4D cinema, five pools, a beauty salon, and a helicopter pad, it sold in 2023 for $126 million.

Antoni Gaudi's Casa Mila (1912) — known as La Pedrera (the stone quarry) for its undulating limestone facade — contains 32 interlocking apartments with floor plans unlike any conventional building, where no two rooms are rectangles. Its famous rooftop of twisted chimneys and warrior-helmet ventilation shafts has become one of Barcelona's defining images.

William Randolph Hearst's estate at San Simeon, designed by architect Julia Morgan and built between 1919 and 1947, was the largest private home in the United States during its construction. The 90,080 square foot main house (Casa Grande) contains 38 bedrooms, 41 bathrooms, and houses a collection of European art and antiquities valued in the hundreds of millions. It is now a California State Historic Park.

Elvis Presley's Graceland in Memphis, Tennessee, purchased for $102,500 in 1957, is now one of the most visited private homes in America with over 600,000 visitors annually. Its 17-room colonial revival mansion contains Elvis's famous Jungle Room, the TV Room with three TVs installed to replicate the White House (at LBJ's suggestion), and his grave in the garden. The estate complex is now valued at approximately $400 million.

The Palace of Versailles, built for Louis XIV beginning in 1661, was the seat of the French royal family and French government until the French Revolution in 1789. With 2,300 rooms, 1,800 fountains, 800 hectares of grounds, and the Hall of Mirrors stretching 73 metres, it was designed to awe visiting dignitaries into submission. It employed 36,000 workers during peak construction and consumed a significant percentage of France's entire national budget.

Buckingham Palace, the official London residence of the British monarch since Queen Victoria in 1837, has 775 rooms including 19 state rooms, 52 royal and guest bedrooms, 188 staff bedrooms, 92 offices, and 78 bathrooms. Originally built as Buckingham House in 1703, it was extensively remodelled by John Nash and Edward Blore. The palace covers 828,000 square feet and sits within a 42-acre garden.

Villa Leopolda on the French Riviera, originally built for King Leopold II of Belgium in 1902, sold in 2008 for $750 million — briefly the most expensive residential real estate transaction ever recorded. Set on 18 acres overlooking the Mediterranean between Nice and Monaco, its 11 villas, orangeries, and guest houses are set within one of the most elaborately landscaped private gardens in the world.

Mies van der Rohe's Farnsworth House (1951) is perhaps the most influential single-family house ever built: a single rectangular glass room suspended above the Fox River floodplain on eight white steel columns. Every element of the interior is visible from the exterior and vice versa, pushing the idea of "less is more" to its absolute extreme. It is now a museum and UNESCO candidate site.

Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater (1939) — a weekend house for the Kaufmann department store family, built directly over a waterfall in the Pennsylvania woods — is consistently voted the greatest American building ever constructed. Its cantilevered concrete terraces appear to float above Bear Run creek, and the living room floor is the unprocessed bedrock of the stream itself.

The One in Bel Air, Los Angeles — a 105,000 square foot mega-mansion completed in 2022 by developer Nile Niami after 10 years of construction — is the largest private home ever built in America. Containing 21 bedrooms, 42 bathrooms, a 30-car garage, a 400-foot outdoor running track, a nightclub, a 4D cinema, five pools, a beauty salon, and a helicopter pad, it sold in 2023 for $126 million.

Antoni Gaudi's Casa Mila (1912) — known as La Pedrera (the stone quarry) for its undulating limestone facade — contains 32 interlocking apartments with floor plans unlike any conventional building, where no two rooms are rectangles. Its famous rooftop of twisted chimneys and warrior-helmet ventilation shafts has become one of Barcelona's defining images.

William Randolph Hearst's estate at San Simeon, designed by architect Julia Morgan and built between 1919 and 1947, was the largest private home in the United States during its construction. The 90,080 square foot main house (Casa Grande) contains 38 bedrooms, 41 bathrooms, and houses a collection of European art and antiquities valued in the hundreds of millions. It is now a California State Historic Park.

Elvis Presley's Graceland in Memphis, Tennessee, purchased for $102,500 in 1957, is now one of the most visited private homes in America with over 600,000 visitors annually. Its 17-room colonial revival mansion contains Elvis's famous Jungle Room, the TV Room with three TVs installed to replicate the White House (at LBJ's suggestion), and his grave in the garden. The estate complex is now valued at approximately $400 million.

The Palace of Versailles, built for Louis XIV beginning in 1661, was the seat of the French royal family and French government until the French Revolution in 1789. With 2,300 rooms, 1,800 fountains, 800 hectares of grounds, and the Hall of Mirrors stretching 73 metres, it was designed to awe visiting dignitaries into submission. It employed 36,000 workers during peak construction and consumed a significant percentage of France's entire national budget.