Mumbai: Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani’s skyscraper home, Antilia, in Mumbai has been declared the most outrageously expensive residence in the world in 2014, according to Forbes list. The list also includes Indian steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal’s houses in London.
In its list of 20 billionaire homes, the magazine cites Ambani’s residence on Altamount Road “as the world’s most expensive home far and away with construction costs topping $1 billion.”
The 27-storey, 400,000-square-foot home named after a mythical island in the Atlantic includes six stories of underground parking, a health level, three helicopter pads and reportedly requires a staff of 600 to run it.
Construction costs for Antilia have been reported at between $1 billion (Dh3.67 billion) and $2 billion.
To put that into perspective, Forbes compares it to 7 World Trade Centre, the 52-storey tower that stands just north of ground zero in Manhattan. With 1.7 million square feet of office space, it cost a reported $2 billion to build.
While the New York Times in 2008 reported that Antilia cost $50-70 million, its value has gone up due to the rising costs of surrounding structures currently in South Mumbai.
Meanwhile, Mittal’s houses in Kensington Palace Gardens, London, occupy the fifth and 18th place on the list.
He is believed to own three homes on the high-security street known as Billionaires Row including a neo-Georgian mansion near the Israeli embassy. The home, reportedly bought for Mittal’s son at $222 million in 2008, is up for sale.
Another house owned by Mittal in this super-posh locality was bought in 2004 for nearly $90 million. He picked up the 55,000-square foot mansion from billionaire Bernie Ecclestone and, after pouring millions into its renovation, named it “Taj Mittal.”
Located on Billionaire’s Row, it has 12 bedrooms, a pool and marble sourced from the same quarry as the Taj Mahal, Forbes reported.
“As 2014 continues, the list of outrageously-priced homes owned by billionaires is stacking up,” said Forbes. “Although the market cooled off a bit in 2013, with no properties trading hands above the $100 million mark (2011 and 2012 both saw $100 million transactions), 2014 has kicked off with a bang. London set a new record, and three homes have sold for more than $100 million so far this year in the US alone.”
As demand for real estate pushes property values up the world over, the price tags of homes already owned by the super rich also increase, it said.
