India’s richest man Mukesh Ambani moves into $1 billion family home

The 53 year-old tycoon is the richest man in India and the fourth richest man in the world. He and his wife, their three children, and his mother will be living in a vertical palace along with a staff of 600.

100 staff members for each family member.

The monstrosity, named "Antilla" after a mythical Atlantic island, took seven years to construct and purportedly utilizes countless metric tons of local materials typically in short supply. 

The single-family home boasts:

• space for 160 cars
• an entire floor for servicing vehicles in the building
• a ballroom
• a salon
• an "ice sauna" filled with man-made snow (for those hot Indian days)
• two-story health and fitness center with a gym and dance studio
• hanging gardens
• 50-seat cinema
• a large ballroom with 80% of its ceiling covered in crystal chandeliers
• numerous lounges
• numerous guest rooms
• indoor swimming pool
• three rooftop helicopter pads and an air traffic control center

The family's former home was a 14 floor building called "Sea Wind".

Mukesh Ambani owns much of the Mumbai-based petrochemical giant Reliance Industries and is estimated to be worth $27 billion. 

In a 2008 New York Times profile, friends described the tycoon as something of a contradiction: a cold-blooded businessman whose heart also "bleeds for India." He wants to help pave the way for a better life for the country's poor.

Ambani does not appear to be influenced by calls by the Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh, for business leaders to be "role models of moderation".

How ridiculously ironic.

Photos:

Exterior Photo/Photographer: Wikipedia, Jhariani

Interior photos: Hirsch Bedner Associates