Dreaming of living in the White House? If you have $39 million to spare you can - that is, you can purchase a replica of the building where the president of the United States lives, which is across the country in California.
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The house, built in the 1930s in the small town of Hillsboro, located 30 km from San Francisco and covering a built-up area of 2,262 square meters, has 11 bedrooms and contains replicas of the Oval Office, the Rose Garden and the various wings found in the White House in Washington DC.
Originally, the property was built for George Randolph Hearst, who was the heir to the Hearst media company, which owns shares in Disney, ESPN and other media and media companies. Hearst commissioned architect Julia Morgan to design the house, after she had already designed a huge castle for the family in another town in California.
The property is currently owned by real estate developers Mehrdad Elie and his wife Nada, who bought it for $15 million last year. The couple lives in a smaller house across the street, which they bought in 2015 for $6.7 million.
Their intention was to renovate the building and live in it, but then they realized it was too big for them.
"What are my wife and I supposed to do in a 2,000-square-meter house? We only have two small children. We will have to talk to each other using walkie-talkies. What's more, we love the house we live in now," said the real estate developer.
According to the couple, in the year they have owned the property, they have already invested $6 million in its renovation, including replacing the roof and rebuilding nine bathrooms, and upgrading five more. They also tore up the carpets that were on some of the floors and replaced them with a parquet floor, replaced the old heating system with a new one, enlarged the kitchen, which was divided into four smaller spaces, added a wine cellar, a laundry room and a staff room.
On the third floor there is a movie theater with seven vibrating seats. "When you watch the movie "Top Gun" you feel like you're sitting next to the pilot," Elie said. In addition, on the same floor there is a drinks bar, a games room and access to a huge 140-square-meter roof terrace.
Despite the massive renovation, the current owners claim that they tried as little as possible to deviate from the architectural vision of the original White House. They even intended to purchase furniture in the spirit of the era, but in the end gave it up because they decided not to move into the house.
This is not the only replica of the White House. In the 1920s, the governor of Texas, Ross Sterling, built a replica of the building. In 2017 it was sold for an undisclosed amount, but the initial asking price was $5.5 million.