Hand-picked by none other than Mukesh Ambani’s wife, Nita Ambani, Perkins +Will and Hirsch Bedner Associates are the firms behind Antilla, the architects of the Mandarin Oriental in Dallas and Los Angeles. The only other, top-notch, vaguely comparable home in the market is a *70 million dollar triplex penthouse at the Pierre Hotel, New York. At 525 feet and resembling a French chateau, this penthouse dwarfs in comparison, both financially and in stature to the Antilla.
A STORY IN THE SKY
The 27-storey Antilla has more floor space than Louis XIV’s palace at Versailles! After four years of design and construction, this tower is 570 feet tall with 400,000 square feet of interior space. Built mostly out of glass, the ultra-modern Antilla includes panic rooms, a movie theatre and a crew of 600 servants!
Let’s take a tour. The first six floors are stashed away for parking alone and get this, just for the Ambani fleet of cars. Friends can flock aplenty as there is space allotted for 168 imported cars here. The seventh floor is to be employed for the maintenance of these cars. Atop the six floor parking lots, lies the beginning of the story that is Antilla. A lobby with nine lifts and lounges welcome one here. The eighth floor is the entertainment floor complete with a 50-seat theatre, a gardened rooftop and balconies. The ninth floor has been kept for emergencies in case the Ambanis, the staff or guests need to be rescued. A gymnasium, swimming pool and other athletic features occupy the tenth and eleventh floors. Over that are two-storey apartments for guests and enfin, are the four floors that will house the Ambani clan. The floors above them are for maintenance and a control room for the three helipads that sit pretty on top of Antilla.
NO MYTHS HERE
Antilla is a superb blend of contemporary meets conventional. Architectural nuances blend so well with stylish spaces to lend a feeling of evenness without any echoes in design. Resonances of Indian culture flirt with English ambiences. To exemplify, in a lounge that shoots off the entertainment floor, that houses a wine room too, the basins are designed like ginkgo leaves with the stem stretching out to the faucet to stream the water into the sink. No two floors are the same.
That is, if a certain type of wood, metal or crystal is part of the tenth floor, it would not be used on the eleventh floor.
Silver coloured railings adorn dual stairways. Large ballrooms with ceilings draped in crystal chandeliers. Retractable display units for art pieces, numerous LCD monitors with speakers embedded and stages for entertainment. Indoor as well as outdoor bars, powder rooms, green rooms, entourage rooms for the staff to rest in; it’s all been taken care of. The Ambanis have employed Indian companies, contractors, craftsmen and material enterprises wherever it has been possible to do so. Whether its silver railings, the crystal chandeliers, hand-woven Indian rugs, steel support beams, you name it.
ANTILLA’S ODE TO GREEN
Health is of utmost importance in the Ambani mansion. First of all, each family member gets a separate gym! A swimming pool and yoga studio beautified with local plants in the outdoor patio are on the fitness floor. There is also an ice room where the Ambanis and guests can break away from the scorching Mumbai heat. The ice room is a little, cooled space sprinkled with man-made snow flurries. For clement days, there is a four storey open air atrium of gardens, lawns and flowers. All floors offer panoramic views of the Arabian Sea.
Antilla may have the most modern amenities known to mankind but it also heralds the cause of being environmentally friendly. The gardens, whether it is the hanging hydroponic plants or the fixed trees, serve a critical purpose apart from beautification of Antilla’s exterior. These plants are energy-saving devices. They absorb the sunlight, thereby deflecting it from the living areas. This keeps the indoors cool in summers and warm in winters. These hydroponically grown plants limit the need for air-conditioning. With vertical gardens, the entire exterior wall is like a giant tree. This adds to the green area of the place by five or ten folds over what it would be if one did a green roof.
Wealth of this kind is an illusion for some, mythical for others and real for the Ambanis. History has definitely been created. History with a difference and a heart.