$1 Billion House Towers over Mumbai

Nothing like being ostentatious in an era of nearly global austerity.

Mukesh Ambani, a very rich Indian man, has moved himself and his family into his new house in Mumbai. No ordinary house, this one has 37,000 square meters (nearly 400,000 square feet) of space. Now, the family (two parents, three children) isn't large enough to need all that space, so they all have plenty of room to spread out — and out and out — maybe invite a few neighborhoods full of friends over for a week at a time.

The house is so big that it requires 600 staff to keep the lights on and the floors clean. Those staff probably don't all live onsite, but they could, if they bunked in together on the bottom four floors. The available parking space could accommodate all 600, though, if they carpooled, four to a car. A total of 160 cars can fit in the underground garage. That leaves a comfortable 10 spots for the fleet of cars that the Ambani family no doubt owns.

You don't have to get there by car, though. You can fly your way in, landing at one of three helipads on top of the 173-meter-high (567-feet-high) building. From there, you can make your way down to the living space, pausing long enough to appreciate the small trees growing in the elevated garden (complete with high ceiling so the trees won't have to be cut down to size every few months).

Don't miss the onsite health club. Not just a gym, the health club has all manner of facilities resembling a full-building club, including swimming pools and a dance studio. Speaking of dance, you'll appreciate the large ballroom and 50-seat cinema as well, for dance and/or movie entertainment-filled evenings, after which you can sleep it all off in one of the many guest rooms scattered about the place.

Ambani is certainly the richest person in India, but it's bigger than that: He's the fourth richest person in the world. How did he get that way? He owns much of Reliance Industries, a mammoth conglomerate of oil, commercial, and biotech companies worth 18 billion British pounds (nearly $29 million). He had no problem paying for the new house, which cost a bit more than $1 billion.

By the way, the name of the house is Antilia, which was a legendary Atlantic Ocean island never found by Spanish or Portuguese explorers. Some traditions connect this island with the story of the Seven Cities of Gold.