Antilia: Inside Mukesh Ambani's 27-Story Mumbai Residence, The World's First $1 Billion Home

The Talk of Mumbai

The wife of India’s richest man, Nita Ambani has built a model township, an elite school, and a Premier League cricket team. But all anyone wants to talk about is her house: the 27-story, 570-foot-tall, 400,000-square-foot Xanadu that few have entered but that has all Mumbai buzzing. Discussing her home for the first time, Nita Ambani talks with James Reginato.

 

Nita Ambani, who describes herself as “quite spiritual,” performs one hour of Bharatanatyam, a form of Indian classical dance, each day.

The first pictures showing the interior of what is believed to be the world's most expensive residence have been made public in Vanity Fair magazine.
The home, which is called Antilia after a mythical island, is located in Mumbai, India. Owned by Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani, the residence boasts 400,000 square feet, three helicopter pads, underground parking for 160 cars, and requires a staff of 600 to run.
Though the building is 27 storys tall, BBC News notes that many of the floors are double- or triple-height, so the building rises to 570 feet -- the equivalent of a 40-story structure.
The house is reported to be worth more that $1 billion, which will not affect Ambani's bank balance too significantly. The energy magnate is one of the top 5 richest men in the world, and is said to be worth approximately $22 billion, according to Forbes magazine.
Nita Ambani, wife of Mukesh, spoke to Vanity Fair about her home, telling the magazine, "It's a modern home with an Indian heart."
The Ambani's residence includes a movie theater with a seating capacity of 50, health floors that feature a swimming pool and gym, and balconies with outdoor gardens.
The house is not without its critics, however. Some have said that such a home is inappropriate in a city where millions of people live in extreme poverty. One writer on Smart Money Daily said of it:

"Really will having a house this spectacular give him a better life; or will the separation it creates from virtually everyone else around him make it a regretful nightmare?"

The ice-cube-size diamond ring she is wearing today might suggest otherwise, but it’s not unusual to find Nita Ambani in the trenches. In the past years she has built a series of enterprises that are proud success stories in contemporary India, including an international preparatory school, a Premier League cricket team, the nation’s first Braille newspaper in Hindi, and a 400-acre model township that houses 12,000 people and stands adjacent to the world’s largest oil refinery. A 400-bed hospital wing is under construction and plans are proceeding for a world-class university on 1,000 acres of property.
While it is true that all of these undertakings are owned or financed by her husband, Mukesh, the richest person in India and the 19th-richest in the world, Nita has earned respect in her own right throughout the country for her vision, drive, and willingness to get her jeweled and manicured fingers dirty. Lately, she has been referred to as “corporate India’s first lady.”
So it must be a source of frustration that, notwithstanding her accomplishments, the international press remains fixated upon her house.