World's Most Expensive House: Ambani's Antilia in Mumbai Lies Vacant

This story is from October 2011.

The world's most expensive home was reportedly lying unused — because its billionaire owners believed moving in would bring them bad luck.

The 27-storey, billion-dollar tower in Mumbai, called Antilia, was said to have run afoul of vastu shastra, the traditional Indian architectural philosophy sometimes described as Hinduism's answer to feng shui.

Built for Mukesh Ambani — ranked by Forbes in March 2011 as the ninth wealthiest person in the world, with a fortune of $27 billion — Antilia had dominated the Mumbai skyline since its completion the previous year. Yet speculation grew over why Ambani, his wife Nita and their children had not moved into the extravagant new residence.

The tower was reported to have three helipads, six floors of parking and a series of floating gardens. Film screenings were staged in its state-of-the-art theatre and dinners held in its grand ballroom, with staff trained by the luxury Oberoi hotel chain — but at the end of each event, the owners reportedly returned to their former home, never staying the night.

The reported problem: vastu shastra emphasizes the importance of facing the rising sun, and the building's eastern side was said not to have enough windows or openings to let residents receive sufficient morning light — enough, according to the reports, to make the family fear the home would curse them with bad luck.

A Reliance Industries spokesman dismissed the speculation as idle gossip. And the previous year, as the tower neared completion, many Mumbai residents had criticized the building as an ostentatious display of wealth in a country where most people lived on less than $2 a day.

Meanwhile, half a mile away, a competing skyscraper was rising into Mumbai's skyline — built by the Singhania family, which controls the Raymond Group, in a design strikingly similar to Antilia's.

Sources: Daily Mail (Oct 26, 2011); Forbes billionaires list, March 2011