World’s most expensive apartment costs $400 million

EXTRAVAGANCE seems to know no bounds in the tiny city-state of Monaco. And now, the notorious tax haven and playground for the ultra-wealthy will soon be home to the world’s most expensive apartment, rumored to be valued at $400 million.

   Currently under construction, the pricey “Sky Penthouse” will be located atop the Odeon Tower, the principality’s first skyscraper since the 1980s. If this stunning display of tax-sheltered wealth and its crazy rooftop slide isn’t enough to make your jaw drop, chew on this: a single parking space at the Tour Odeon costs more than the median American home!

   Slated for completion in September 2015, the 35,500-square-foot quintuplex  “Sky Penthouse” will tower over Monaco’s skyline at a height of nearly 600 feet. Expected to hit the market next year, the expensive penthouse is being developed as part of Monaco’s luxury-housing boom, fueled by the influx of millionaires and billionaires fleeing taxes and the collapse of financial-secrecy laws. According to a study by Spear’s magazine and WealthInsight, one in three of Monaco’s 38,000 residents are millionaires. 

  Luxury real estate company Groupe Marzocco is taking advantage of the growing property market with the Tour Odeon, a double-skyscraper that comprises 70 luxury apartments and was designed by architect Alexandre Giraldi. Overlooking the Monaco coastline, the five-floor Sky Penthouse will boast an incredible water slide that extends from an upper dance floor down to a circular infinity pool. The apartment will also be equipped with a health center, multiple swimming pools, a personal chauffeur and an in-house caterer.

  But in 2009 his son and successor Albert reversed that decision and greenlit the Tour Odéon project.

  While its construction has not been halted by the global recession, Europe’s economic troubles do seem to have affected the take-up of flats in the building, with just 18 having been sold so far.

  And the tower has also been controversial among residents of Beausoleil, a neighbouring town on the other side of the border with France, who complain that it has ruined their views.

  James Price from Knight Frank, which is handling the sale of flats in Tour Odéon, said: ‘These duplexes and the penthouse are set to catch the eye of those looking for the very best properties across the world’s leading markets.”