An Indian family is building a home in downtown Mumbai that will rise 27 stories and cost about $2 billion. The specs are kind of fun to say: 400,000 square feet, a space slightly larger than the Hynes Convention Center. Nine elevators, six floors of parking, a four-story vertical garden, and three rooftop helicopter landing pads.

Oh, and a staff of 600 servants.

"Like many families with the means to do so, the Ambanis wanted to build a custom home," Forbes reports.

The Ambanis certainly have the money. Mukesh Ambani, who runs the petrochemical company Reliance Industries, is fifth on the Forbes list of the richest people in the world. The family currently live in a 22-story rehabbed building, also in Mumbai. This time, they're building from scratch.

"Reportedly inspired by the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the house will be among the tallest structures in Mumbai (formerly Bombay), at the equivalent of 60 stories -- although there will be only 27 livable floors inside, each one with an outrageously high ceiling," Portfolio said last October.

This is my favorite part, from the Forbes article, which also has a photo gallery and a video:

The Ambani home, called Antilla, differs in that no two floors are alike in either plans or materials used. At the request of Nita Ambani, say the designers, if a metal, wood or crystal is part of the ninth-floor design, it shouldn't be used on the eleventh floor, for example.

I don't know of any personal skyscrapers in America. Our wealthiest few tend to prefer vast estates (See: Bill Gates's home). But it does seem odd, now that I know about this one, that no New Yorker has erected such a monument to themselves.

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