The Most Expensive House in the World

The dream for most of us is to be able to afford a nice little home with a white picket fence in a decent neighborhood. Here in the United States, to get a home like that, you can expect to pay around $200,000 according to the National Association of Realtors. In some parts of the country, that can get you a multilevel home, but that’s just a decent condo in some big cities.

Now $200,000 might seem like a lot, but that is only enough to pay for one 5,000th of the world’s most expensive home, which is Antilia, a private home in South Mumbai, India. It’s believed that the Buckingham Palace is the most expensive property, but that is a government property. Antilia is owned by Mukesh Ambani, who is the chairman of Reliance Industries and he had to fork over $2 billion to build Antilia.

So what makes Antilia the most expensive home? Simply looking at it gives you an idea of just how massive the construction was, and construction isn’t cheap. Antilia was finished in February of 2010, and it’s a massive 27 floor structure (that is equal to 40 stories since some of the ceilings are double height) at 570 feet tall with 48,000 square feet of living space and 21 elevators inside.

Antilia is named for a mythical island that was supposedly in the Atlantic Ocean, but this home is not in the ocean or even in a bad neighborhood. Antilia is on Altamount Road, which is one of the swankiest locations in the entire world. It’s certainly large enough to house dozens of people, but Antilia is only inhabited by Ambani and his family.

The rooms in Antilia are massive, and there is even a staff at the home to make sure everything is running properly and that it’s cleaned to the point of no dust. The garage is bigger than most homes in India, even, with space in there for a total of 168 cars, and even three helipads on the roof if you need to fly there.

A layout of Antilia shows a pool that is big enough to host an Olympic event, as well as a spa with personal gyms, a yoga studio, dance studio and juice bar…and that’s just the two story recreation area. Not only Olympic events, Ambani could host top performers if he wanted to since there is a theater that has 50 reclining seats next to a ballroom.

The bedrooms offer perhaps the best view from Antilia, since they are located all the way on the top. Nita Ambani said that they wanted to top floor “because we wanted the sunlight.” The bedrooms also have rare materials, as do many of the rooms, that contain crystal, mother-of-pearl, marble and diamonds in the design motifs.

The floating gardens in the lobby and the outdoor gardens on balconies are a sight to behold, and some of the plant life can be seen from the ground below. Each floor is different than the one below it, but all of the rooms on each level share a similar theme depending on the material that the decorations are made out of.

Another part of the price tag for this enormous structure went into making it structurally sound, and it can go undamaged in an Earthquake that registers up to 8.0 on the Richter Scale. It’s a concern that has been prevalent in India for quite some time now after several large earthquakes.

As for how Indian residents perceive the $2 billion Antilia, they have given mixed reviews. Some are proud of the fact that the world’s most expensive home can be seen from their area, while others have said that it’s “shameful” because India is a nation where “many children go hungry.” No matter how people view it, it is still the most impressive home out there.

For comparison, the most expensive home in the United States is estimated to be just under $200 million, a residence in Beverly Hills, California that has a vineyard and a 27 car garage. That property looks like a two bedroom apartment compared to Antilia. Even renting a three bedroom apartment in the high end area that Antilia is in would only cost you less than $1,300 per month. Ambani is worth more than $22 billion, so Antilia is not only affordable for him, but it’s a modest investment.