Look out across the skyline of south Mumbai and it is not hard to pick out the new pad being constructed by Mukesh Ambani, India’s richest man — a building said to have been inspired by the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and said to be the world’s first $2 billion (£1.2 billion) home.

The 27-storey glass tower, named Antilla after the mythical Atlantic island, is said to feature three helipads, nine elevators, a cinema, a health club, a crystal-encrusted ballroom, several “safe” rooms, a garden level halfway up and 168 car parking spaces. The structure will have about 400,000 sq ft of interior space and will require about 600 servants to run it. All that for a family of five: Mr Ambani, his wife, Nita, and their children Isha, Anant and Akash.

Designed for the industrial tycoon by Perkins and Will, the Chicago architectural firm, and occupying a one-acre site on Altamount Road, one of the sub-continent’s most sought-after addresses, the estimated $2 billion price tag makes it the world’s costliest abode by a vast margin — at least ten times more expensive than any other home on the world market.

The building will cost much more than a hotel of the same size because no two floors are alike in their layout, designers say. Moreover, Mrs Ambani is said to have decreed that if a certain material has been used on one floor, it should not be repeated on another.

The building’s shape, meanwhile, has been formulated in accordance with Vaastu, an Indian tradition much like Feng Shui that is said to move energy beneficially around the building through the strategic placing of materials, rooms and objects.

According to Forbes magazine, the “only remotely comparable high-rise property” that has been on the market in recent years was the $70 million triplex penthouse at the Pierre Hotel in New York, designed to resemble a French château. It failed to find a buyer and was withdrawn.

Last November, the magazine said that the $125 million Holmby Hills estate, sandwiched between Beverly Hills and Bel Air, was the most expensive home for sale in the world. The property, known as Fleur de Lys, has 12 bedrooms, 15 bathrooms and “Versailles-style accoutrements”. Its top ranking highlighted the parlous state of the global property market: the last time that a $125 million home was dubbed the world’s priciest was in 2005.

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