New York’s Tribeca neighborhood has a new celebrity addition, Asia’s richest man Mukesh Ambani. With a fortune of about $105 billion that places him among the world’s eighteenth richest, the Indian billionaire has made a string of jaw-dropping global property buys, from the Mandarin Oriental in New York to Stoke Park in the UK and Palm Jumeirah villas in Dubai. His latest addition is a building at 11 Hubert Street in Tribeca, according to Curbed The former owner, tech billionaire Robert Pera of Ubiquiti and the Memphis Grizzlies, paid around $20 million for it in 2018. Too modest to rival an Ambani-level mansion, the former freight terminal sat largely vacant for years, with multiple unbuilt megamansion schemes on the table.
Two design visions for the property had already won Landmarks approval. Maya Lin Studios envisioned a 20,000-square-foot single-family residence with 5,000 square feet of outdoor space, while E. Cobb Architects offered another iteration. Amenities proposed in the plans included at least seven bedrooms, a half-Olympic pool, basketball and squash courts, a theater, a spa, a wine cellar, and a soaring double-height 50-foot living room.
It could serve as a stylish New York pied-à-terre or a business base, a “tiny” home away from the vastness of Antilia, the Ambanis’ 27-story Mumbai residence with a snow room, a private temple, and three helipads designed by Perkins & Will. At 400,000 square feet, Antilia is taller than many Manhattan office towers, features a snow room, three helipads, and requires a staff of 600 to operate.
Speaking of cost, the entire Tribeca building is still just a fraction of a necklace purchased by Ambani’s philanthropist wife, Nita. The businesswoman, who owns the Mumbai Indians Premier League team, once bought the world’s most expensive necklace, the $55 million L’Incomparable, reportedly as a wedding gift for her daughter-in-law Shloka.
More recently, she was seen in a regal emerald necklace totaling 863 carats, a masterpiece that took three years to craft and is valued by some media outlets up to a whopping $60 million. That is at least three New York buildings hanging around one neck. In the Ambani world, love sometimes costs far more than land.
