Vijay Mallya's mansion on top of a skyscraper in India will probably never be lived in

A mansion atop a skyscraper is the ultimate luxury and yet, this incredible build is languishing empty and may remain so.

The businessman who commissioned the $20 million replica of the US White House constructed on the roof of a 33-storey apartment complex is unlikely to ever move in.

At 120 metres feet above the streets of Bangalore, in India, the sky mansion has dramatic colonnades, two floors, a traditional porch, banks of windows, a rooftop helipad, vast gardens, a swimming pool on the edge of the sky deck and a 360-degree city view.

The owner is tycoon and former billionaire Vijay Mallya, who is fighting extradition from London to India to stand trial in connection to the demise of his company Kingfisher Airlines in 2012. He left India for the UK in 2016, while the mansion was under construction, and has sought to stay in Britain.

He was dubbed India’s “King of Good Times” and the 40,000-square-foot mansion speaks to the lifestyle he led.

The builder, Irfan Razack, chairman of Prestige Estates Projects, previously told Business Times India that the cantilevered design was a test but his team completed it as per his client’s vision.

“It was a challenge to construct the mansion on a huge cantilever at that height, but we have ensured we build it exactly the way it was conceived. It’s a complex structure and the finishing work is going on,” he said.

“We will finish the project as per contract and hand it over.”

Named the Kingfisher Tower, the apartments rise on the site of Mallya’s ancestral home.

Despite its jaw-dropping grandeur and ambitious execution, the white mansion is not the most costly or astonishing property in India. That title belongs to Antilia, a 27-storey house – a tower, for one family – in Mumbai.

Antilia is the home of the billionaire businessman Mukesh Ambani – the richest person in Asia – and his family. At a cost of $1 billion to build, with helipads, 600 staff and a 50-seat cinema, it is the most expensive residence in the world, according to the Guinness Book of World Records.

Rarely have the interiors of Antilia been photographed and published, so the dwelling is largely a mystery.