Siegel opened CFI, a real estate development firm, with an office located in his family garage in 1970.

[3] In 2016 Westgate Smoky Mountain Resort suffered extensive damage from a fire, rebuilding is said to have begun quickly.

[5] In 2012, filmmaker Lauren Greenfield released a documentary entitled The Queen of Versailles, based on a series of interviews with Siegel, his wife Jackie Siegel, and their attempt to build a 90,000 square foot mansion, Versailles house, modeled after the famous French original.

[6] Westgate Resorts was sued in a federal court in Las Vegas for failure to pay bills relating to the pH Towers and building work allegedly carried out to a poor standard.

The matter was finally settled under Judge Michael Baxley, and Westgate agreed to pay $500,000, $100,000 less than the original judgement required.

In her order, Judge Conway called the testimony previously offered by Mr. Siegel during court hearings, "inconsistent and incredible and thus lacking weight".

Finally, the arbitrator wrote that Westgate "did not remotely establish the type of malice required for a defamation claim on behalf of a public figure.

"[20] CEO David Siegel, a Republican, sent an email in the fall of 2012 to all of his employees suggesting that he might "reduce the size of this company" if Obama were to win the 2012 presidential election.

[21] The email was widely interpreted by the media as a threat to the employees about possible layoffs if Barack Obama were to be re-elected.

[22] Siegel admitted in the documentary The Queen of Versailles as to possibly illegal activities in Florida during the 2000 United States elections, which he claims were singularly responsible for getting George W. Bush into the White House.

(9 minutes 20 seconds into the documentary).In an August 2012 interview with Bloomberg Businessweek, Siegel elaborated on his claims: Whenever I saw a negative article about [Al] Gore, I put it in with the paychecks of my 8,000 employees.