Whitemarsh Hall, known as "the Versailles of America, " was one of the largest and most exquisite estates in North America. Edward Townsend Stotesbury, one of the wealthiest Philadelphians in the early twentieth century, commissioned renowned architect Horace Trumbauer to build the one-hundred-forty-sevenroom mansion in 1916 on three hundred acres just outside Philadelphia. Whitemarsh Hall, which took five years to build at an estimated cost of $10 million with all the furnishings, was a wedding present for his second wife.