Warm weather and rain complicated palace construction this week, and work was suspended for a couple of days.

WSJ: NY inmates help build ice palace in Adirondacks

Henri Christophe embarked on construction of his palace in 1810 and a year later declared himself king in northern Haiti.

BBC: Haiti's Sans-Souci Palace : A journey to the past

" New plans were drawn up in the fall of 1669, and by 1671 construction was complete, resulting in the palace that Colbert declared "monstrous, but a well-arranged monster, " and which was destined to become, in Zega's words, "a pillar of French civilization.

FORBES: Palace Coup

The construction site is making it hard for some tourists to reach Buckingham Palace to see the Changing of the Guard, which proceeds as usual.

WSJ: In London, the Queen Gets New Neighbors: Olympic Beach Volleyball Crowd

The ranch, which includes a 12, 147-square-foot, Tudor-style main house, is owned by Tommy Ford, who runs a construction firm that builds facades of casinos and hotels, including Caesars Palace and the Venetian.

WSJ: Private Properties: Zynga's Marc Pincus Buys a San Francisco Home for $16 Million

From these plans, as well as extensive inventories of construction materials carefully preserved by the French court to reflect the magnificence of the finished palace, Zega and Dams were able to trace the peculiar rise of Versailles.

FORBES: Palace Coup