Kumar Mangalam Birla Bought A House For 425 Crore, The Poonawallas Do One Better And Buy A Palace For 750 Crores!

It's the season of big-ticket real estate deals

et

Just weeks after industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla bought the sprawling Jatia House on Malabar Hill for Rs 425 crore, comes the news of the Poonawallas acquiring the iconic Lincoln House at Breach Candy for Rs 750 crore. Formerly Wankaner House, a palace belonging to the Maharaja of Wankaner Pratapsinhji Jhala, after which it was dubbed Lincoln House and served as the home to the US Consulate for several decades before the American government decided to move its offices to a more secure campus at BKC in 2011.

The new estate of the Poonawallas

shopsandhomes

The two-acre Grade-III property at Breach Candy has a built-up area of roughly 50,000 sq. ft. Though Grade-III heritage properties have been opened for redevelopment under the new Development Plan for the city, Cyrus Poonawalla, chairman of the Pune-based Serum Institute of India, said Lincoln House will serve as the family's residence. Poonawalla said the negotiations with the US government were led directly by his son Adar. "I can't divulge more details due to our confidentiality agreement with the US government and the consulate. The deal was sealed on Saturday. However, the modalities regarding the transfer of the property etc. are still being worked out."

Poonawalla said the property's heritage character and history is what attracted the family to it. "We bought the property because it is an iconic heritage structure. Adar believed that the deal was attractive considering the prevailing market conditions when few individuals could make such a big offer," he said. Wankaner House was leased to the US government in 1957 so that the Maharaja could raise funds to pay off his taxes.

The legacy of this royal mansion

google maps

In an interview to a newspaper in 2011, when Lincoln House and neighbouring Washington House were put on the block by the US government, Digvijaysinh Jhala, son of Pratapsinhji Jhala, had expressed regret at having given away the property. "The huge appreciation in land prices in the last five decades has proved that we sealed one of the worst deals of selling a royal mansion," he said. Digvijay Singh, who lives in Ranjitvilas Palace in Wankaner, said he savoured his childhood memories of playing in the mansion. He was invited to Mumbai in 2008 when the consulate celebrated completing 50 years in Mumbai. Nobody from the US consulate could be reached for a comment as all their offices were shut for the weekend.

Although it was biotech major Serum Institute of India that catapulted him onto the billionaires list, Cyrus Poonawalla was born into a family passionately involved in racing and breeding thoroughbred horses. Cyrus inherited the Poona Stud, now known as the Poonawalla Stud Farm, founded by his father Soli in 1946 and along with his brother Zavaray transformed it into one of the leading stud farms in the country. Cyrus is as keen to own champion horses as he is about breeding them. He has not only bred a record number of champions but has also owned Indian classic winners, and has met with success at races in Europe recently.

He was at the helm of the Royal Western India Turf Club till recently and is currently the chairman of the organising committee of the Asian Racing Conference 2016, to be held in Mumbai later in January.

(Originally published in the Mumbai Mirror )