This supremely insane, all inclusive, Monaco's Odeon Tower penthouse is strictly for the super rich.
It’s got a cinema, a marble disco, an infinity pool with waterslide, a bedroom the size of two tennis courts and tables upholstered in stingray skin. Price tag £260m.
Launching down the penthouse's two-storey curving slide into the open-air infinity pool below is just another day in sun-kissed Monaco, the supercharged playground of the ultra-rich.
In the harbour, gigantic yachts are jostling for position, while, outside the casino, souped-up sports cars growl their way along the boulevards. But there is a new arrival to this hottest of global wealth hotspots. Rising above the orgy of oligarchs’ toys, the Odeon Tower now stands as the definitive beacon of “super prime” property. It is one of the tallest residential towers in Europe – topped with what is being marketed as the most expensive penthouse in the world.
If you think you already have it all, the Odeon Tower has a little bit more. When it is completed next year, the penthouse will have its own gym, sauna, cinema, library, whisky bar and billiard room, plus a master bedroom the size of two and a half tennis courts – all spread over five double-height floors. There will be tables upholstered with the skin of stingrays and shelves crafted from ebony. Rooftop hot tubs will bubble next to green walls trickling with waterfalls. After dinner in one of the six different salons, guests will ascend a sweeping staircase to your very own nightclub, complete with a backlit marble dance floor. From there, the next cool move is to launch themselves down a curving slide, plunging two storeys into the open-air infinity pool below.
And the price tag for this skyscraping fun palace? Around £260m.
This is for the serious oligarchs, the wealthiest of the wealthiest.
The Odeon, its first venture into “contemporary”, is the work of architect Alexandre Giraldi. The tower is curved, he says “to make it more sensual and shapey. It is blue to connect with the sea and sky”. It is certainly hard to miss: a big vertical swoosh makes it look like it’s been squeezed into a swimsuit, while an LED-embedded facade will make it even more garish by night. It is not hard to see why angry neighbours have already nicknamed it the Odious Tower.
The Odeon Tower is the kind of building Bond villains could only dream of. Clad in reflective blue glass, the stout girth of its two crescent-shaped wings rise up to sharply pointed blades, giving the top a serrated crown that lends it an air of menace.
Well, who exactly will be the occupants? 26 of the 250 apartments have already been sold to a mixture of Europeans. The buyers of the upper duplexes and penthouse are expected to come from Russia or from the resource-rich Azerbaijan or Kazakhstan.
source: The Guardian