It was the crowning jewel of Western Australia’s richest suburb. A 6,600 sq m property set 300m back from the Swan River in Peppermint Grove, Perth, with nothing but a tennis club to block the view from its 10-metre concrete dome and turrets, surrounded by lush gardens.
The original plans included a large private gym, beauty salon, observatory with a revolving roof, parking for 17 cars and an enormous swimming pool. The finished property would have cost $50m and was estimated to have been worth $70m, making it the most expensive house in Australia. It was dubbed the Taj-on-Swan. For Indian businessman Pankaj Oswal and his wife, Radhika, it was to be their dream family home.
Instead, it will soon be rubble. Peppermint Grove shire council on Friday confirmed, after years of protracted legal battles, lawyers for the Oswals had given an undertaking they allow the demolition crews to move in. Nine years after it was first conceived and four years after work ground to a halt when the Oswals departed Australia for Dubai, the Taj is coming down.
It was the most West Australian of beginnings. In 2006, a young couple, rich from exploiting the resources of the state’s north-west coast, approached a real estate agent with a view to buying land for their family home. The real estate agent in question was Willie Porteous. Porteous’s wife, Rose, was the widow of mining magnate, Lang Hancock, father of Gina Rinehart, who is now the richest person in Australia.
Until the Taj-on-Swan came along, it was Rose Hancock who owned the most famous house in Perth – a 16-bedroom white columned Gone With the Wind-style mansion in nearby Mosman Park, built for a comparatively affordable $7m in 1990, two years before Lang’s death, and demolished in 2006.
The Oswals bought the Bayview Terrace block for $22.7m in July, 2006. Their elaborate plan was not an instant hit with the neighbours, who were worried it would interfere with their water views. But those issues were soon smoothed over. The Taj would be built.
The Oswals had arrived in Australia five years earlier, chasing cheap gas from the north-west shelf. He was the eldest son of noted Indian industrialist Abhey Oswal, she was the daughter of a rich family. She was just 18 at the wedding and 22 when they arrived in Perth in 2001. He was 27.
Pankaj set up a company called Burrup Fertilisers and built a liquid ammonia plant on the Burrup Peninsula, a rugged bit of Pilbara coastline 1,250km north of Perth, known for its abundance of Aboriginal rock art. The plant opened with much fanfare in 2006. Pankaj had secured a 25-year deal for cheap gas and a 20-year deal with Norwegian fertiliser company Yara International to buy and ship the product.
Their grand social entrée followed a year later with a party for the first anniversary of the ammonia plant. The Oswals kitted out the ballroom of the Burswood casino with ice sculptures and flew singer Marcia Hines, with her 10-piece band, into Perth for the evening. They were soon the darlings of the social pages.
A 2008 profile in the Weekend Australian Magazine captured their allure:
The smart young couple stand on the site of their Perth dream home, next to their four-wheel-drive Porsche, gazing out at one of the most expensive river views in the country. He is handsome with his square-chiselled jaw; she is slender, pretty and draped in gold jewellery. Stippled with afternoon sunshine, the scene resembles an advertising shoot selling the car, the real estate or the lifestyle.
Radhika told interviewer Victoria Laurie the house would be her “absolute fantasy”.
“We’ve been married for 11 years and we’re putting everything in it, whatever we could dream of,” she said. “And that’s God’s way, so it’s very nice.”
The couple, who are Hindus, did not allow builders to eat meat on the site, causing some strife with the Construction, Forestry, Mining, and Energy Union. They had poured an estimated $7m in concrete by December 2010, when Burrup Fertilisers was put into administration amid allegations that Pankaj was syphoning millions of dollars out of the company into other privately-held companies. Pankaj has denied any wrongdoing.
Pankaj and Radhika sold their majority stake in the company in 2011 to pay their approximately $900m debt to ANZ Bank, but are still being chased by a number of creditors, including the shire of Peppermint Grove, which claims it is owed $100,000 in unpaid rates for the oversized block, and the Australian Tax Office, which is chasing a $186m debt allegedly owed by Radhika for a transfer of business interests from Pankaj. She has also denied any wrongdoing.
The shire of Peppermint Grove could be adding up to $500,000 to its invoice to cover demolition costs.
In the years since the Oswals left, the concrete shell of the building has been branded an eyesore by neighbours, who complain its padlocked gates do nothing to stop the graffiti and “undesirable people” attracted to its unfinished walls.
The shire council in March voted unanimously to demolish the building but the decision was appealed by the Oswals’ lawyers, who said the couple still planned to make it their family home. It was set down for a hearing in front of the state administrative tribunal in November until the Oswals lawyers, this month, dropped their suit.
The shire president, Rachel Thomas, said on Friday she was delighted the matter was finally resolved.
“I think we all are. It has been a blight on the area and it’s also been a source of anti-social behaviour in the area,” Thomas told the ABC. “It has been a disturbance for neighbours, so we are delighted that we’ve got a certain outcome now.”
