Lauren Greenfield is captivated by wealth. For 25 years, the California photographer focused on those living or chasing the extreme American dream — not only in America but in China, Dubai, Milan and Moscow.
Along the way, she’s met people like Jackie and David Siegel, whose bankrupting efforts to live like royals — in a Florida palace replete with a bowling alley, sushi bar and baseball field — were depicted in Greenfield’s 2012 documentary, “The Queen of Versailles.”
You’ll find the Siegels among other rich and often ridiculous folk in “Generation Wealth,” Greenfield’s new book (Phaidon, out now) and exhibit, opening Sept. 20 at the International Center of Photography (ICP).
Growing up in 1980s California, Greenfield told The Post, opened her eyes to living large. While her college-professor parents gave her a comfortable, upper-middle-class life, her prep-school peers were getting Porsches.
“By normal standards, I was privileged, but it always felt [that] I had less,” the 51-year-old told The Post. And things have gotten worse. “Where we used to compare ourselves with the neighbors, in the last 25 years, we’ve spent more time with people we’ve met on TV and their wealth. ‘Keeping up with the Joneses’ has literally become ‘Keeping Up with the Kardashians.’ ”
In fact, Greenfield photographed two members of that family — a pre-teen Kim and Kourtney — at a middle-school dance in Bel Air, Calif., in 1992. A decade later, they’d become the It girls in what Greenfield calls “a post-moral world”: materially rich yet never satisfied.
Here are the photographer’s behind-the-scenes takes on a privileged few.
He owns a white house — and a backyard Mount Rushmore
Greenfield photographed real estate magnate Huang Qiaoling in 2002 while shooting a story about China’s emerging rich. From the windows of his 55,000-square-foot White House in Hangzhou, the mogul, now 58, could see the 20-foot-tall heads of Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln rising from his mini-Mount Rushmore.
“I don’t know where he got this love of America,” Greenfield said of the tycoon, whose staff reportedly calls him “President Huang.”
“He was quite formal as he showed us around the grounds, but it was absolutely amazing. There was a full replica of the Oval Office, with a portrait of George Bush.” She adds that things might be different today, however.
When the photographer was in China in 2014, “people [do] not feel as comfortable being on camera, showing off one’s wealth and love of America. What I saw in 2002, I don’t think you’d see now.”
The man who had a 100-foot limo
Robert Strauser, a k a “Limo Bob,” owns the Guinness World Record-setting longest limousine: 100 feet long, with a pool and helicopter pad. Greenfield shot the car-service owner in 2008 at his Chicago office in all his gilded, more-is-more glory: fur coat, stuffed animals and all.
“He’s not a rich person, but he loves bling — it’s part of his brand, and his work is about helping people show off. He wears over 30 pounds of gold and has a fur coat [pictured] that Mike Tyson supposedly gave him. He’s been the driver for rich people, drug dealers, rap stars and a lot of people — he doesn’t even know what they do — but if you have the money to be in the limo, there you are,” Greenfield said.
“When I shot him, it was after the [housing market] crash, and people weren’t sure they wanted to be in limos . . . but that was relatively short-lived. His son, Bobby, was in the ‘My Super Sweet 16’ show for MTV and had, like, a 15-foot-high ice sculpture of himself.”
Obsessed with ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’
The photographer shot socialite Suzanne Rogers, now 50, in her Toronto home in 2010 after meeting her at a fashion show in Paris. Rogers says her outlandish outfits and decor are inspired by the candy-factory heiress Truly Scrumptious, from the film “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.”
“She’s married to Ed Rogers, a major media mogul in Canada. She says her style for her clothes and her house is essentially one and the same: ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’-inspired,” Greenfield said. “Here she’s wearing an Oscar de la Renta dress for a charity benefit.
“Her house is incredible — even her bookcase is art directed: They don’t appear to be real books because they’re all the same. She had four closets and used the wine cellar as her overflow shoe closet — she had 200 pairs of shoes, not including boots. She loves Hermès Birkin bags, which start at about $12,000, and said she had them in almost every color.”
Today, Rogers’ Instagram account is a candy-coated tribute to her ostentatious life: photos of her travels to London fashion week and a spa in Capri; and the socialite rubbing shoulders with Diane von Furstenberg, Bono and her neighbor, Sean Connery. Oh, and her Barbie-pink golf cart, complete with a “Suzanne” vanity plate.