The beauty of a piece of architecture is often in the eye of the beholder, as these controversial cribs prove. Provoking fierce legal battles or proving worthy only of the wrecking ball, these much-talked-about homes are sure to leave an impression. From the one-of-a-kind house dubbed America's ugliest to Mohamed Hadid's illegal mega-mansion, these eye-catching abodes are notable and notorious in equal measure. Click or scroll on for more...
A Californian resident who certainly wasn't interested in making friends with his neighbours is multimillionaire real estate developer Mohamed Hadid. Father of supermodels Gigi and Bella, Hadid was locked in a fierce legal battle with the Los Angeles authorities due to his rather adventurous self-build project. Once teetering on a precarious hillside in Bel Air, the sprawling mansion had been under construction since 2011, when Hadid first purchased the plot. It was captured here by the Famous to the Famous People YouTube channel.
According to reports, Hadid initially planned a 14,000-square-foot mansion, but by 2014 the project had grown significantly. When the city of Los Angeles discovered that the house was 70 feet tall and six storeys high, they revoked Hadid's building permits. Despite this, the property tycoon is rumoured to have carried on regardless, adding an extra floor underneath the basement level and installing an unauthorised second swimming pool. Because of its sprawling size, the compound was nicknamed the Starship Enterprise. At one point in time, Hadid was reportedly hoping to sell the completed house for an eye-watering $100 million (£83m).
Caught here by YouTube channel Billionaire Drone, the 30,0000-square-foot mega-mansion should have been demolished as soon as the permits were revoked, and in 2017 the multimillionaire was sentenced to 200 hours of community service for illegal construction and ordered to pay a number of fines. He was also required to stabilise the house amid neighbours' fears that the hillside it stood on was on the brink of collapse. After seemingly failing to stick to his end of the bargain, Hadid's neighbours rallied together and brought a civil lawsuit against him in 2018, deeming the site unsafe.
After a six-year legal battle, Hadid finally lost his case in June 2020 when California’s Supreme Court reportedly declared the pad a “clear and present danger”. Hadid's neighbours were awarded some $3 million (£2.5m) from the lawsuit. He was ordered to tear the property down, but a few days after the court judgment in 2019, Hadid's construction company, 901 Strada LLC, filed for bankruptcy. The Hollywood Fix YouTube channel shows the half-built house, which languished for a decade after construction first began.
With no other choice, Hadid put the doomed house up for sale as a teardown, requiring the new owner to demolish the property upon purchase. Despite originally listing it for $8.5 million (£7m), the structure finally sold at auction for $5 million (£4.1m) in December 2021—quite the price cut from his earlier aspirations of $100 million (£83m). The buyer was developer Sahara Construction Co, who agreed to bulldoze the house within nine months of the sale. Demolition began on March 2022, and the infamous mansion is now no more, which was a relief to neighbouring property owners. Even Hadid's own architect is said to have feared that the house would ‘slide down the hill and kill someone’.
Fast-forward to almost a year after the home's demolition and in March 2023, Hadid was still feeling the financial repercussions of the ill-fated build. According to the Daily Mail, a judge recently ordered the real estate developer to pay his former neighbours' $2.6 million (£2.2m) legal bill, which dated back to the 2018 lawsuit. Joe Horacek, one of the plaintiffs in the case, said: “I feel vindicated... Now I just want Hadid to pay up and go away.” But Hadid is reportedly less than impressed by the judgment. He told the newspaper: “This is a joke—it’s crazy.” Hadid is now said to be threatening to countersue for “two or three hundred million dollars”. Nevertheless, his neighbours are jubilant. “We’re so happy to be able to look outside and not see that monstrosity—and not have to worry about it coming down on top of us,” Horacek said.
In May 2008, US politician Mitt Romney purchased this rather modest-looking home on the beachfront of La Jolla in the city of San Diego, California. Despite its appearance, the three-bedroom property set Romney back a whopping $12 million (£9.9m). But, dissatisfied with his new purchase, the Senator decided to demolish the house and start from scratch.
Romney set about building an enormous luxury home on the 0.42-acre lot, with five bedrooms, six bathrooms and, of course, panoramic ocean views. The politician’s proposed Mediterranean-style mansion was set to span 11,000 square feet, but the necessary building permits were pulled and Romney was forced to scale down his plans. Romney settled for an 8,153-square-foot home, but the senator’s neighbours were less than thrilled. They deemed the proposed home to be far too big for its narrow plot.
Romney's neighbours also claimed the beach house wasn't in keeping with the other properties in the area, and they worried how it might affect access to the public beach in front of the property. During his 2012 presidential campaign against Barack Obama, Romney received plenty of negative publicity about the project, after news got out that he planned to install a lavish car elevator. Obama supporters declared Romney out of touch with the common man.
This image, taken in August 2019, shows the sheer scale of the property. In July 2021, Romney decided that he no longer wanted the pad, despite all the effort he had put into it. He sold the beachfront mansion in an off-market deal, receiving a cool $23.5 million (£19.4m) and making it the fifth most expensive home ever sold in San Diego County at the time, according to The San Diego Union-Tribune.
Big, beautiful and full of bling, the Mezhyhirya Residence in Novi Petrivtsi, Ukraine, was solely funded by ill-gotten gains. In 2007, the country's then-president, Viktor Yanukovych, decided to claim Ukraine's official summer house as his own, gradually taking ownership of the 350-acre estate. The former leader, who was found guilty of high treason and sentenced in absentia in 2019, demolished the original Soviet-era building and replaced it with a 6,700-square-foot luxury mansion.
Yanukovych, who was elected president in 2010, splurged ridiculous sums of taxpayers' money on the remarkable five-storey palace, which was designed by the Finnish architectural firm, Honka. The former president reportedly ordered gilt and crystal chandeliers at $100,000 (£83k) each, doors that cost $64,000 (£53k) a pop, and marble staircase cladding for a jaw-dropping $430,000 (£355k). Yanukovych's expensive tastes can be seen in glaring detail throughout the home.
The disgraced politician not only forked out for the finest construction materials but also opted for rather unnecessary extras to be added to his newly acquired abode. Standout features include an underground shooting range, a $3 million (£2.5m) golf course, a cryogenic sauna, an artificial salt cave, a bowling alley and several tennis courts. Yanukovych also decorated his many bathrooms with the most expensive gold fixtures that (other people's) money could buy.
The opulence doesn't stop there. Yanukovych also installed a private zoo, complete with peacocks and ostriches, a private fire station, a 3D movie theatre and extravagant artworks. There's also an extensive vintage car and motorcycle collection located in a colossal garage, and a science lab where the president's meals were tested for poison before being served. The iconic property is now a state museum.
Despite being an award-winning piece of architecture, 15 Clerkenwell Close is also considered highly controversial. So much so that in 2019 it was only just saved from demolition. The property was completed in 2017 and designed by architect Amin Taha, who was hired to create a building where offices and apartments could merge together across column-free floors. The property also needed to blend into its setting, inside the boundary of an 11th-century Norman limestone abbey.
Spanning seven floors, the property was acknowledged with a RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) National Award in 2018, but that didn't stop Islington Council from ordering Taha to demolish the structure, following a years-long dispute over its finished appearance. The council argued that planning consent was only granted for a plain brick façade and that Taha had changed the design to a raw quarried limestone finish without prior approval.
Taha responded that documents were supplied that addressed the alterations, but Islington Council claimed otherwise. Finally, in August 2019, the authorities were forced to admit that the missing paperwork had been found, containing details of Taha’s proposed changes to the exterior. Their demolition notice was overthrown, and according to claims Taha made to Dezeen, the responsible enforcement officer was charged with editing the approval documents, which revealed the building's finished design.
Despite being saved from the wrecking ball, the courts did order Taha to make some amendments to the façade, including adjusting the stone to make it more uniform. The architect was also advised to shorten one of the property’s solar chimneys and complete the interior office floors that were sitting unoccupied. Despite local council objections to the design, Taha is said to have received support from over 4,000 people, praising him for the unique building.
While some works of architecture divide audiences, others are downright hated by the masses; Dolphin House, in Indiana, USA, is certainly one such abode. Dubbed "the ugliest house in America" by the New York Post, the OTT building has prominent gargoyles, endless balconies and a mismatched exterior.
The property was originally built as a modest three-bedroom ranch in 1953, but local entrepreneur Jerry Hostetler purchased it and the surrounding properties in order to expand it into one gigantic mansion. Now spanning 30,000 square feet, the unsightly house boasts 11 bedrooms, eight bathrooms, an 80,000-gallon outdoor swimming pool and one of the most eye-watering entrance halls we've ever seen.
For obvious reasons, Hostetler's neighbours were not particularly pleased with the monstrous mansion, which was constructed from five houses cobbled together. In fact, one is said to have planted three trees outside their home in order to block Dolphin House from view. The flamboyant Hostetler added life-sized mermaids, gorillas and polar bear statues to the garden, and decorated the home's interior with textured ceilings, rough rock walls, ornate columns and multicoloured glass blocks.
After Hostetler passed away in 2006, the foreclosed property was listed for sale but, understandably, no one bought it. Foreclosure owners Atkinson and Folkening began offering the abode as an Airbnb rental for anyone keen to spend the night inside America's most notorious home, though it has since been taken down. In 2018, Dolphin House was on the market for the eighth time in five years for $1.2 million (£992k), but yet again it failed to sell, making it one of the world's most unsellable homes.
The Nakagin Capsule Tower was designed in 1972 by Japanese architect Kisho Kurokawa, who wanted to create practical and compact accommodation for travelling businessmen working in Tokyo. Extremely innovative for its time, the building was the world’s first piece of capsule architecture and was one of the last remaining examples of Japanese Metabolist architecture. Built in just 30 days, the tower wasn't well-received due to its unique form, which was likened to a stack of washing machines.
Yet the controversy surrounding Nakagin Capsule Tower was not solely concerned with its appearance. Formed from 140 capsule boxes, each unit was connected to a concrete core using four high-tension bolts. Kurokawa's vision was for a sustainable, adaptable and recyclable building, where the blocks could easily be replaced as needed. Sadly, none of the pods were ever changed since they proved too costly to manufacture. Left to deteriorate, the building was considered an eyesore in more recent years.
Each capsule was manufactured in a factory in Shiga Prefecture before being transported to the site on the back of a lorry. Each interior pod was then hoisted into position by crane before being fastened to the concrete core. Spanning 14 storeys, the capsules measured just 107 square feet and were designed to accommodate one person. Each preassembled interior was furnished with the basics, including a built-in bed, storage, appliances and an aeroplane-style bathroom.
Over its almost 50-year lifespan, the tower wasn't well maintained, leading to drainage issues and damage to water pipes. The building stood vacant for some time. When Kurokawa passed away in 2007, the building's remaining residents voted to replace his life's work with a contemporary apartment block, but the 2008 stock market crash pressed pause on their plans. Nakagin Capsule Tower was finally demolished in April 2022.
Designed by William Nicholson in 1976, the Flintstone House is a unique piece of architecture that has, for obvious reasons, caused a fair amount of drama. The freeform property can be found in the upmarket Californian town of Hillsborough, a place once associated with enviable mid-century modern homes and lavish hillside mansions. With its distinctive curves and eye-watering colours, the property has become one of the world’s most iconic examples of bubble architecture.
Inspired by Fred and Wilma’s fictional Bedrock home, the 2,700-square-foot residence boasts a ‘Yabba Dabba Doo’ sign, along with 15-foot dinosaurs and Flintstones figurines decorating its yard. The experimental house was created from balloons and steel mesh sprayed with liquid concrete, making its aesthetic entirely unique. In 2017, media mogul Florence Fang purchased the property for $2.8 million (£2.3m) and opted to paint the exterior orange and purple.
Sadly for Fang, Hillsborough's residents were not quite as enthralled with the property as she was. In March 2019, the town filed a complaint, declaring the house an eyesore and a nuisance. They also claimed that Fang carried out modifications without necessary permits. Not taking the lawsuit lying down, Fang countersued the town for racial discrimination and won the right to take the matter to trial. According to the Palo Alto Daily Post, the case was settled in June 2021, with Hillsborough town reportedly agreeing to pay Fang some $125,000 (£103k) to cover her legal fees in return for Fang dropping the lawsuit. Fang reportedly agreed to file permits for the additions she has already made to the house.
As unique as its façade, the home’s interior features textured whitewashed walls, Jerusalem stone floor tiles and the odd 70s-style shag pile carpet. Splashes of orange and purple nod to the home’s iconic exterior, while curved back-lit alcoves and a spaceship-themed kitchen add to the home’s lovable quirks. Though not to everyone’s taste, we can totally see why Fang is so enthusiastic about this rare and wonderful abode.
In the 1980s, Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu imposed an austerity policy in order to pay back the enormous debts that the country had racked up. The harsh measures led to food rationing and extreme poverty for Romania’s citizens but, perhaps unsurprisingly, not for Ceaușescu himself. In fact, the communist leader lived a life of luxury in his opulent Bucharest mansion...
Known as Palatul Primaverii or Spring Palace, Ceaușescu’s home was a showcase of his excessive, ill-gotten wealth. The outrageously luxurious abode was completed in 1965, and Ceaușescu kitted the interior out with ornamental materials in a neo-Classical Renaissance style. Every room was extravagantly dressed, with gilded furniture, endless marble, rare artworks, crystal chandeliers and priceless Persian carpets.
The dictator's master bedroom was decorated with copious gold detailing and furnishings inspired by Versailles, along with a valuable Murano glass mirror that was custom-made in Italy. Ceaușescu also commissioned a striking indoor swimming pool and hired Bucharest's best artisans to adorn the space with thousands of mosaic tiles and ribbons of exquisite marble.
Ceaușescu’s most ostentatious choices can be found in this inordinately expensive bathroom. From the taps to the toilet roll holders, every fixture in this suite was made from solid gold. Unsurprisingly, the Romanian people didn’t much like Ceaușescu’s approach to rule and the dictator and his wife were executed by firing squad on Christmas Day in 1989. In 2016, the Romanian government turned his former residence into a museum.
Entertainer and former Take That star Robbie Williams is definitely no stranger to scandal. His outrageous behaviour and devil-may-care attitude have often landed him in hot water, but in 2013 the singer found himself in the middle of a celebrity property feud. Williams' neighbour, Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page took him to court over the proposed modifications the Angels singer wanted to make to his historic London home.
The pop star purchased Woodland House, a Grade II-listed property in London's glitzy Holland Park, in 2013 for a reported $20.6 million (£17m). The 46-room mansion formerly belonged to the British film director Michael Winner, and Jimmy Page has lived in the property next door since 1972. Not long after moving in, Williams hired OWAL Architects to design him a 'super basement', a subterranean space that would include a state-of-the-art gym and a 30-foot swimming pool.
When Page discovered Williams' plans, he was quick to plead with the local authorities to deny the singer planning consent on the basis that the vibrations from the construction work could cause irreparable damage to his own Gothic Revival mansion. Page's Grade I-listed residence was designed in 1875 by William Burges, one of the greatest architects of the 19th century. It's now considered one of the most important houses in London, and Page was keen to protect it.
Though it was reported that Page attempted to meet with Williams to discuss the issues, the former Take That star is said to have refused, fuelling their row by stating that Page was “obsessed” with him, comments which he later publically apologised for. After a five-year fight, Williams' colossal project was given the green light in December 2018, and he's said to have tried to make amends with his rockstar neighbour by sending a handwritten apology.
Built in the late 19th century in a Revivalist style, Pazo de Meirás once belonged to the Pardo Bazán family before it was taken over by a local Nationalist group in 1938. The supporters gifted the manor house to the government for use by the country’s future heads of state. When Franco came to rule over Spain in 1939, it became the dictator's summer retreat.
In 1941, paperwork was drawn up stating Franco's ownership of the home; however, the validity of the legal document has since been undermined. Following Franco's death in 1975, his family claimed the estate as their own. In 2018, Franco's grandchildren even attempted to sell the country pile, placing it on the market with Mikeli Real Estate.
In 2019, state officials decided it was high time they took back ownership of the palatial property. After a year in court, a judge finally ruled Franco’s property deed null and void and ordered his family out. They appealed for compensation for maintaining the property for over eight decades, but the judge ruled against this too since it was clear that the state had been covering most of the upkeep. In 2022, the state filed a lawsuit claiming ownership of 564 movable assets within the estate.
An important piece of Galician history, Pazo de Meirás is kitted out with spectacular traditional décor. Every room boasts crucifixes and religious paintings, fine crystal chandeliers and priceless treasures. A gilded ship hangs from one of the ceilings, while the estate's private chapel features an intricately carved wooden altarpiece and antique statues. Though it's likely to take years for the authorities to get their hands on the estate, Pazo de Meirás highlights the importance of perseverance.
You’d be forgiven for thinking this skyscraper was a lavish apartment building, but in fact, Antilia is the home of one extravagantly wealthy family. The colossal 27-storey mansion belongs to Mukesh Ambani, a billionaire business mogul and the managing director of Reliance Industries. Ambani began work on the house in the heart of Mumbai, India in 2006, not too far from the city's largest slum. Reputed to have cost between $1 billion (£826m) and $2 billion (£1.7bn), the house has long been shrouded in controversy.
According to a 2011 census, an estimated 42% of Mumbai residents live in slums, a statistic that only adds to the controversy surrounding this overtly opulent house. Thought to be the second-most expensive residence in the world after Buckingham Palace, Antilia soars above the skyline of Mumbai and stands proud at 567 feet tall. While the exterior features endless sheets of glass, the interior is draped in high-end materials, such as crystal, marble and mother-of-pearl.
Designed by Chicago-based architects Perkins and Will, Antilia is said to have been inspired by the lines of the lotus flower and the sun. According to Vanity Fair, it boasts 400,000 square feet of inside space and every floor is said to be the same height as an average two-storey building. As well as sporting a rather unusual façade, the property also harbours a host of lavish amenities, including a beauty salon, an ice-cream parlour and a six-floor garage capable of storing 168 cars.
Built to withstand earthquakes, Antilia boasts three helipads and its own air traffic control facilities. The pad is also home to a 50-seat theatre, a ballroom, nine high-speed elevators, a swimming pool, a spa, a dance studio and a temple with a mammoth Buddha statue. There’s even reputed to be a snow room, which spits out man-made snowflakes for the entertainment of the family. It's no wonder that this elaborate private home is considered spectacularly gratuitous.
When you lay eyes on this waterfront property, you won't be surprised to learn that it's Oregon’s most expensive home ever. But this opulent spread is also shrouded in controversy. Real estate developer Jeff Parker bought the last undeveloped plot in Lake Oswego back in 2002, paying just $800,000 (£662k) for the sought-after strip of land. He then set about building a 13,462-square-foot mansion, much to his neighbours' displeasure.
Parker’s proposed property was considered far too large for its elegant waterside lot. Residents of Lake Oswego objected to Parker's plans for a new-build home, which would be positioned on two 10-foot-high retaining walls. Locals were not only concerned about the scale of the property, but about how its overall look would fit in with the other houses in the area. Local authorities soon got involved too, after Parker decided to cut down trees in order to make way for the house.
As a result, the developer was forced to pay $3,800 (£3.1k) in fines, but that didn't stop him from completing his dream self-build project. With its unique basalt rock exterior, copper-clad windows, numerous waterfalls and on-water garage with hydraulic lifts for two boats, it's no wonder Parker's neighbours were concerned about the look of the residence. Inside, the five-bedroom house is equally as mind-blowing and offers rooms with 26-foot ceilings, granite accents and floor-to-ceiling fireplaces.
Further controversy surrounds the house since it has been on and off the market since 2011, never securing a buyer. The pad remains the most expensive home to ever be listed in the state of Oregon, but rather than lowering the asking price to attract interest, Parker instead raised it from $11.6 million (£9.6m) to $15 million (£12.4m). Who knows what the future holds for this controversial pad...
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