Three things stand out about industrialist Gautam Singhania’s new home in Mumbai, the first being its scale. The 36-storey residential skyscraper dwarfs nearby buildings in Breach Candy, an exclusive enclave of India’s financial capital abutting the Arabian Sea. At 145m, JK House will be India’s tallest family home, with two swimming pools, a spa, a helipad, and even a private museum, housing memorabilia from the Singhania dynasty, which owns the Raymond Group, a textile-maker and suit retailer.
Such unusually lavish features fit with Singhania’s flamboyant lifestyle, which includes an extensive collection of sports cars and hobbies ranging from motor racing to jets. Yet in Mumbai, the second thing to note is that these features seem oddly familiar, given that an extremely similar structure stands less than a mile away. That building, known as Antilia, boasts just 27 floors. But it features broadly the same cantilevered design, alongside correspondingly extravagant interior features, and belongs to billionaire industrialist Mukesh Ambani, India’s richest man.
Yet for a man with a love of speed, it is the third fact that must irk Singhania: namely that, for two long years, his new home has not been built at all. In 2012, the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (BMC) halted construction, citing planning violations. Legal wrangling followed, during which time the building’s unfinished skeleton had been covered in dark wrapping, as if shrouded for a funeral.