Mukesh Ambani, chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries and the world’s fifth richest man, acquired the land for his expensive project in 2002 and expects to have his new home completed in January of 2009. The building has been designed by firms Perkins + Will and Hirsch Bedner Associates.
Lending the building a mythic resonance, the tower is named Antilia, after the mythological phantom island, and is designed based on the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the original Seven Wonders of the World. Antilia’s design also conforms to Vaastu, an Indian tradition similar to Feng Shui. Furthermore, the building makes use of different architectural elements and materials for every floor—making sure that each one is uniquely appealing.
The 27-storey building will be about 568 feet tall—meaning that, on average, each storey will be over 20 feet tall. The first six floors will be reserved for parking the Ambanis’ cars while the seventh floor will be used to maintain those cars. The eighth floor will be used for entertainment and includes a 50-seat cinema with a gardened rooftop and balconies. The ninth floor will be reserved for emergencies should the Ambanis, their guests and/or staff require rescue. The tenth and eleventh floors will contain a health club, swimming pool and other athletic facilities. Above that will be two-storey guest apartments and, finally, the four floors on which the Ambani family will live. The remaining three floors will be used for maintenance and a control room for Antilia’s three helipads.
At a projected cost of $2 billion, Antillia is the world’s first billion-dollar home.
That’s quite a bit more than The Pinnacle, Yellowstone Club founder Tim Blixseth’s planned Montana mansion and our former “Most Expensive Home.” The 10-bedroom abode would’ve cost $155 million, but construction never began and Blixseth has recently sold the 160-acre land parcel on which it would’ve been built.
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