From Malabar Hill to Breach Candy, Mumbai’s property bazaar is flaring yet again with two historical deal setting all the previous considerations on fire – After Jatia House in Malabar Hills sold for Rs 425 crores, there came a quick new deal of Lincoln House in Breach Candy sealed at whopping Rs 750 crores! The land starved megapolis has seen two biggest surprise in Mumbai’s real estate market, in a succession of a week. The weekend sale of the iconic Lincoln House here to the Pune-based industrialist Cyrus Poonawalla for Rs 750 crore is nothing but mind-boggling.
The sale of the Lincoln House in the Breach Candy area of south Mumbai, which used to house the US Consulate, to the billionaire chairman of the Pune-based Serum Institute, makes it the largest ever real estate deal in the country’s financial capital.
Founded in 1966, Serum Institute of India is the largest producer of drugs for snake bite.
For Rs 425 crore, Kumar Mangalam Birla becomes Bungalow Bill
The high-profile deal comes within a week of leading industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla setting a record last week when he paid Rs 425 crore for Jatia House in the plush Malabar Hill area. Kumar Mangalam Birla recently spent at least Rs 25 crore or Rs 250 million more on his new acquisition, the sprawling Jatia House in Malabar Hill. Birla is believed to have bought the property – a 30,000 square feet plot with a built-up area of 25,000 square feet – for personal use.
The 2-acre Grade-III property at Breach Candy has a built-up area of around 50,000 sq ft. Though Grade-III heritage properties are open for redevelopment now, sources said Poonawalla wants to use the Lincoln House as a family residence.
Last year, the iconic Mehrangir, the house of the father of the nation’s atomic programme, Homi Bhabha, in the Malabar Hill area, was sold to the Godrej family for Rs 372 crore. In another high profile deal in 2011, the Maheshwari House was sold for Rs 400 crore.
The Lincoln House was formerly known as the Wankaner House, a palace belonging to the Wankaner Maharaja, Pratapsinhji Jhala Wankaner.
It was leased to the US in 1957 and was renamed as the Lincoln House and the US made its their Consulate in the city.
In 2011, the Consulate was shifted to a sprawling new building in the BKC area.
The Maharaja sold the palace to the US Consulate to pay off his taxes after the independence, following the accession of the princely states.
In 2012, the largest builder in the city, Lodha Group had bought another US Consulate property, the Washington House on the Altamount Road for Rs 341.82 crore.
The property, however, was bought to develop a luxury 30-storey residential tower.
