Portlock home is like a local Versailles

It's hard to find properties in Hawaii with enough land to create your own palace, but this grand chateaux in Portlock is a reasonable facsimile. In fact, if Louis XIV of France (known as "the Sun King") were still alive today, this home might have been his Island escape.

Sitting on a 25,024-square-foot lot, this award-winning masterpiece by renowned architect Jeffrey Long of Long & Associates is worthy of anyone who fancies themselves to be a sun king (or queen).

Upon entering the 8,200-square-foot home, a spacious two-story Grand Hall is revealed below with a panorama of Maunalua Bay, the Koolau range and Diamond Head in the distance.

Long says the main space of the home radiates from a central core; the heliocentric design is based on the ancient practice of tracking the setting sun at the horizon throughout the year—much like the Salon of Apollo in Versailles. In other words, this Grand Hall simulates a solar calendar.

According to Long, the arched plan's central axis is aligned with the setting sun at the spring and fall equinoxes, and is contained on the southwest by the sunset at winter solstice and on the northwest by the sunset at the summer solstice. From the central core, the progress of the sunset is tracked throughout the year as the sun travels past four pairs of battered stone monoliths that define the edge of the Grand Hall and covered lanai beyond it (perhaps like Stonehenge).

There are five bedrooms and 5.5 bathrooms, a media room, gourmet kitchen, and 2,900 square feet of open lanai area. These are just little side details compared to the grandness of the rest of the house, but nice to know!

The garage is 600 square feet, but you have a massive driveway for the rest of your guests to park. That's assuming you'll be entertaining-and with a house like this, you'd probably want to. (Click here for more details.)

Money talk: $14,888,000 fee simple
Contact: Dolores Bediones, Prudential Locations, 808-732-5037, dolores.bediones@pruhawaii.com