MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Indian tycoon builds 2 billion USD family home in downtown Mumbai

Mukesh Ambani “Antilla”: six floors reserved for his collection of 168 imported cars

Indian businessman Mukesh Ambani, ranked the world's fourth-richest man by Forbes magazine this year, is to soon move into what is believed to be the most expensive private home ever built.

The 173mtres-tall building, named Antilla after a mythical island in the Atlantic, has a floor space of 37,160sq m, far more than Louis XIV's palace at Versailles. The 27-floor skyscraper in the heart of the financial capital of Mumbai reportedly cost more than 2 billion US dollars.

And since each floor is double the average height, Antilla will be the equivalent of 60 storeys high.

Designed by Perkins + Will and Hirsch Bedner Associates, of Dallas and Los Angeles, it has entertainment centres, a ballroom, a health club, an Olympic-size swimming pool and a lush, four-storey-high open garden - a luxury in the densely populated port city.

The distinctive feature of 53-year-old Ambani's future home, where he plans on living with his wife, three children and mother, is that no room or floor is alike. Each has a distinctly different layout and is constructed with dissimilar material.

The first six floors are reserved for Amabani's 168 imported cars alongside an in-house service centre to maintain them.

The entertainment centre, comprising a mini-theatre capable of seating 50 people, will be on the eighth floor. Other floors above them house gyms, the swimming pool and many guest apartments.

The top four floors are for the Ambani family, with a breathtaking view of the Arabian Sea and the port city's impressive skyline. Topping the building will be the “air space floor” capable of housing three helicopters. The kitchen is big enough to cater for several hundred guests.

Ambani is expected to hold a house-warming party this month - amidst criticism from many Mumbai residents who find his extravagance “vulgar” in a city where millions sleep on pavements or lead pitiful existences in futile search of riches.

But the Mail Today newspaper quoted some of Ambani's unnamed friends defending the magnate's home.

“It's only a family home, just a big one. It's merely a question of convenience and requirement,” one matter-of-factly stated.