Mukesh Ambani, India's richest man, builds world's first billion-dollar home

Mukesh Ambani, owner of this 27-storey Mumbai family home, is said to be worth £18bn. Photograph: Jay Hariani
Mukesh Ambani is having a few friends round to celebrate moving into his new Mumbai pad. But as the home has 27 storeys, soars to 173 metres and is worth an estimated £630m, it will be a housewarming like no other.

The building – named Antilia, after a mythical island – will be home to Ambani, the richest man in India and the fourth richest in the world, plus his wife and their three children. It contains a health club with a gym and dance studio, at least one swimming pool, a ballroom, guestrooms, a variety of lounges and a 50-seater cinema.

Those lucky enough to have received an invitation to the housewarming later this month will be able to choose a variety of means of transport to get there.

If they want to avoid Mumbai's gridlock, there are three helicopter pads on the roof. If they do drive, they will not have any trouble parking: there is space for 160 vehicles on the lower floors.

Once in, nine lifts will take the guests from the lobby to upper levels, where the festivities will take place.

On the top floors, with a sweeping view of the city and out over the Arabian Sea, are quarters for the 53-year-old tycoon and his family. Overall, there is reported to be 37,000 sq metres of space, more than the Palace of Versailles. To keep things running smoothly, there is a staff of 600.

It cost an estimated £44m to build but, because of Mumbai's astronomic land and property prices, will be worth about 15 times that amount – £630m. "Antilia is marvellous, I remember a Picasso painting [there], it was one of its kind – stunning," one local businessman who visited the building gushed to the Times of India newspaper.

Experts say there is no other private property of comparable size and prominence in the world.

According to Forbes magazine, Ambani, who owns much of Reliance Industries, is worth £18bn. He ran the oil, retail and biotechnology conglomerate with his brother Anil until they fell out several years ago.

But Mukesh was always known as the quieter of the brothers and there is surprise that he has made such a public statement of his immense wealth. A deeply private man, he has distanced himself from the flamboyance of India's ultra-rich, preferring home cooking to haute cuisine and local fashions to western suits.

The Ambanis had been living in a converted 14-storey apartment block.

"Perhaps he has been stung by his portrayal in the media as an introvert. Maybe he is making the point that he is a tycoon in his own right," said Hamish McDonald, author of Ambani and Sons, a history of the business – India's biggest privately owned company.

An asymmetric stack of glass, steel and tiles with a four-storey hanging garden, Ambani's new home has been built, reports say, with local materials as far as possible. According to Forbes magazine, the plants save energy by absorbing sunlight, making it easier to keep the interior cool in summer and warm in winter.

Billionaire's bling is not absent – hence the glass and gold chandeliers hanging from the ballroom ceiling. Interior design of Antilia was overseen by an American firm and is described as "Asian contemporary". It has apparently been influenced by vaastu, an Indian tradition close to feng shui which supposedly allows positive energies to move through the building.

India's prime minister, Manmohan Singh, has previously called on business leaders to "eschew conspicuous consumption" and "be role models of moderation".

Shiny Varghese, deputy editor of the Indian magazine Design Today, said the Ambanis' house was the ultimate expression of a much broader trend. "It's so obscenely lavish that I'm not sure too many people will go all that way, but we are heading into the sort of culture where money is not a question when setting up a home," he said. "The lavishness is huge.

"People are now happy to spend 100,000 rupees (£1,400) on a chair."

Friends defended Ambani from charges of ostentation in a city where millions live in slums. "He can't just walk into a cinema and watch a film like you or me," one associate told the Guardian. "So he has built a house to his requirements like anyone else would. It's a question of convenience and requirements. It's only a family home, just a big one. It's just another home that someone is living in. It's no big event."

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