Single-family skyscrapers take Mumbai

Mumbai: Not far from Mukesh Ambani's 27-storey tower, Antilia, a competing skyscraper is making its way into Mumbai's skyline.

The building is being built by the Singhania family, which controls the Raymond Group, the ubiquitous Indian suit maker. Seen at a distance, the two buildings are strikingly similar.

They both have soaring columns, large sea-facing windows and a nearly identical jigsaw puzzle facade. They have a similar sense of scale and emphasis on grandeur. In a city where space is considered the biggest luxury, both buildings seem to be advertising their exclusivity.

Just as the status of the Ambani residence is shrouded in mystery, as Vikas Bajaj writes today, we know little about when the Singhania building will be completed and ready for the family to move in.

The Singhania building, which is named J.K. House after the founders of the Raymond Group's parent company, is located in Mumbai's tony Breach Candy neighborhood and sits on a parcel of land that was previously a retail outlet for the Raymond clothes chain.

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The mammoth structure towers over the bustling traffic on Bhulabhai Desai Road, previously Warden Road, and has been under construction for more than a year. It sits just across from the exclusive Breach Candy Club, which has a ten-year waiting list for new members, and is a stone's throw away from the U.S. Consulate. During a recent visit to the site, construction was progressing briskly. One worker informed me that 36 floors had already been built but he was not sure how tall the building would be  when it was finished.

Like Antilia, which the Ambani family has consistently refused to discuss publicly, the Singhania building seems shrouded in secrecy.  "That's something I won't be able to help you with," Sagar Joshi, a spokesman for Raymond Group told me when I called to ask him about the tower.

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"The project is something Mr. Singhania would not be willing to talk about," he added referring to Gautam Singhania, the chairman and managing director of the company. The Singhania family refused to comment on when they would be moving in to their new home or the resemblance of their building to Antilia. One news report, citing no named sources, says the building will have five stories for car-parking and a museum floor, for Mr. Singhania's jade collection.

The architecture firm that designed the project, Talati and Panthaky, also declined to discuss it. "I am afraid I will not be able to share any information on the project as it is a sensitive project," Zubin Malao, a principle associate at the firm, said.

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The Ambani house, Antilia, was designed by two American architecture firms: Perkins & Will, which did the exterior and Hirsch Bedner Associates, which was responsible for the interior. Both firms said they could not comment because of confidentiality agreements.

Mr. Ambani, who heads gas and power giant Reliance Industries, and the Singhania family are not alone in their architectural ambitions.

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Several other Mumbai industrialists are constructing high-end skyscrapers for their private use. Venugopal Dhoot, chairman of Videocon Industries, is constructing a 12-story private residential tower in the Mahalakshmi neighborhood. The Kasliwal brothers, who own the textile and clothing company S. Kumars, are building a luxury apartment complex for themselves in Lower Parel in central Mumbai.

"In the last decade, Mumbai's rich have been out in the market with a vengeance, looking out for signature buildings or exclusive addresses," said Gulam Zia, national director of research and advisory services at Knight Frank India, the real estate firm. "An apartment in a building shared with others can only be so exclusive."

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Mr. Zia said the city's exclusive apartment towers satisfied the same need for recognition among their affluent owners that sprawling bungalows have long satiated for the upper crust of New Delhi, a city which was built to be much less densely-populated than Mumbai.

"It is something which Bombay industrialists have always wanted as a show of having arrived in life," he said. "Until now the moneyed in Mumbai had to make do with the semi-heritage bungalows that they had inherited - and those are only available to those with old money."

Unlike the walled off bungalows of Delhi, Mumbai's towering mansions seem to really stand out in large part because they are often surrounded by stark poverty. While many central and south Delhi neighborhoods are gated off from the rest of India, buildings in even the most posh areas of Mumbai often abut shanties or slums.

Perhaps that is why the city's tycoons almost always refuse to talk openly about their new skyscraper mansions. Most are unwilling to divulge details about the building, even as rumors about how much they cost percolate around town. Or perhaps, the families have kept quiet because they want to preserve the mystique of their homes.

Only they can say for sure, and they are not talking.