Mukesh Ambani - Antilia - 27 storeyed house

Videos - http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=2ASNE1eZiYw&feature=related
Video - http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=QFMNXOJ3-dA



Thought it would be fun covering the much talked about 27 storeyed $2 billion (yes 8,000 crore) house being built on Mumbai’s Altamount Road by India's richest man – Mukesh Ambani. Well the nearest priced residential house is valued at $300 million, the sum offered by Aditya Mittal, son of steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal, for a seven-storey mansion opposite his father’s home in London’s billionaires’ block, Kensington Palace Gardens.

The name of the house is Antilia — meaning mythical island - which is not just a home. It is going to be more of a private mini-hotel with its ballroom, several lounges, guest rooms, six floors of parking for 168 cars and 600 servants. In comparison, most other rich properties are renovated villas, mansions or castles. No two floors of the project are similar.

Some absurd facts about this ‘house’..

1. 3 helipads on top. Mumbai corporation has not given permission for making this operational yet
2. Hanging gardens within the structure
3. Swimming pool within the structure
4. A two storey Health centre
5. Parking space for 168 cars (6 floors). I initially thought that meant there will be a mini office in the building but apparently that is not the case. All these cars will belong to Mukesh Ambani! Just in case you are interested, he drives a 5 crore Maybach now
6. A floor exclusively for servicing these automobiles within the building
7. A floor for Home theatre – sitting capacity of 50

Well the most absurd part is the employee strength of over 600 in the building. Yes, the ratio would be almost 1:100 for people living in the house and those that are being paid to take care of it. The 6 lucky members are Mukesh, his wife, 3 children and his mother Kokilaben. The family will be moving in from their old home ‘Sea Wind’ which was a 14 floor building at Cuffe Parade.

It is designed by Chicago architects, Perkins & Will, and is inspired by the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. It is expected to be completed by September 2008. The 4532 sq m plot was bought by Mr Ambani in 2002 when land prices were relatively cheap and hence the actual expenditure on the property is less than $2 billion. Currently, land is valued at over Rs 75,000 per square feet.

The building will be will be 150 metres tall. Normally that is the equivalent of a 60 storeyed tower, but in this case each floor is more than twice the height of a normal floor, with the result that the building will only have 27 floors when completed. Given the prevailing state of skyscrapers in Mumbai, this building will be more than twice as tall as the earlier tallest buiilding.

Meanwhile, this trend of spending extravagantly on high end residential buildings is catching up in India. Videocon Industries chairman Venugopal Dhoot, JSW Steel's Sajjan Jindal, Kasliwal brothers, Nitin and Vikas of S Kumars are some among a long list of corporate honchos who are moving to their dream residences. I will write about these in detail in the next post and also about the most expensive residential houses in the world.