India’s richest man and Reliance Industries’ chairman Mukesh Ambani’s Mumbai home, Antilia, which he shares with wife Nita and their three children - Anant, Akash and Isha (who now lives at her Worli home with husband Anand Piramal) is one of the most valuable private residential properties in the world. According to Wikipedia, the 27-storey home is the most expensive residence in India and is currently valued at $ 2.2 billion which is approximately around Rs 15,000 crore. It is also the second most expensive residential property in the world after the Buckingham Palace, the London home of the British Royal Family. Although the residence, named after a phantom island in the Atlantic Ocean near Portugal and Spain, has 27-storeys, the extra high ceilings make it stand as tall as an ordinary 60-storey high building. Mukesh Ambani’s home in South Bombay’s Altamount Cumballa Hill area has three helipads, air traffic control, a 168-car garage, a ballroom, 9 high speed elevators, a 50-seat theater, terrace gardens, swimming pool, spa, health centre, a temple, a snow room which has actual snow falling from the walls and has accommodation for a staff of 600 who are on call 24x7. The architectural design of the house is mainly inspired by the sun and lotus designs, but other than aesthetics it also has other features like the fact that it can withstand an earthquake of magnitude 8 on the Richter scaler. The construction for Ambani’s only residential home started in 2006, and the family moved into the home by 2012. Here are sneak peaks that will take you into the Ambani’s gorgeous Mumbai residence:
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However the property is mired in several controversies. The most talked about being the fact that Antilia is built on land that housed an orphanage and the charity (ran by a Waqf board) which ran the orphanage put the property on sale for the purpose of ‘education of underprivileged Khoja children’ on account of which the sale of the land was disputed by Waqf minister Nawab Malik as well as the revenue department of the Government of Maharashtra. . However after many legalities, Ambani paid Rs 1.6 million and finally obtained a No Objection Certificate from the Waqf Board, following which the construction of the land began. The construction of the three helipads on the roof of Antilia has also been opposed by the Indian Navy who stated that helipads are not allowed on Mumbai buildings. The Environment Ministry also stated that the helipads violated local noise laws. A 2011 Washington Post article had stated that Ambani hadn’t moved into his mansion fearing ‘bad luck’.
Mukesh Ambani recently rose to being the fourth richest man in the world according to the August Bloomberg Billionaires Index, however he slipped to the ninth spot according to the Forbes Billionaires Ranking when he lost around $7 billion early in November on account of a drop in Reliance shares, as per reports in Forbes’ real time data on billionaires.
