There comes a time in every face-meltingly rich person’s life when they have to decide: Do I buy an island or do I build one? If you think this is any different in Mumbai, where 55 percent of the population lives in slums, you’re wrong — and racist. Hath not an Indian the right to rub one’s face in it? The market for private Caribbean islands was already picked over by the Johnny Depps of the world. And who knows what happened to those manmade isles off the coast of Dubai. They probably washed to sea when the skyscraper market there collapsed. So Mukesh Ambani, the fourth-richest billionaire in the world after Warren Buffett, decided to build his own island with a more urban feel. Ambani, his wife, and their three kids have just moved into their $1 billion, 27-story Mumbai home, named after the mythical island Antilia.
Flouting Prime Minister Singh’s call for India’s new business elite to be “role models of moderation,” it features three helicopter pads, underground parking for 160 cars, a gym, a dance studio, a ballroom, lounges (plural), a 50-seat cinema, an elevated garden with room for small trees, and it requires a staff of 600 to maintain. Here’s hoping his teenage daughter is already at work on the Bollywood version of “Closet Bitch.”
India’s richest man Mukesh Ambani moves into £630m home [Telegraph UK via Daily Beast]
