Seven years ago Fred Milani, an Iranian-American developer, built a replica of the White House in Atlanta. Now the 16,500-square-foot facsimile of Obama’s new home has become a casualty of the bursting housing bubble. Milani, 57, has put the house up for sale for $9.88 million. “I still do not want to sell, but I will,” he said. “A prominent builder of McMansions in a city that once could barely consume enough of them, Mr. Milani has fallen on financial hard times as the demand for real estate has waned,” reports the New York Times. Twice he has avoided foreclosure on his home and he must repay multiple loans. Inside its wrought-iron gates, the paper reports, the Atlanta White House contains Middle Eastern décor (wall rugs, a hookah), American political kitsch (Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation on a bedroom wall), and iconography (a tapestry of “The Last Supper,” a crucifix). Who does Milani expect to buy the house? “Wealthy international buyers,” he said. “Or maybe I’ll contact one of the contenders for the real White House, maybe John McCain or Ross Perot.”
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