Tall trees shade the walkways. Birds of all varieties chirp from their branches. The roads are clean. No hawkers and pushcarts are in sight. This is a legacy of the colonial age: this was, after all, an area reserved for the British. The houses are all hidden behind high walls. But you can see a mix of modern and traditional Chettiar architecture here. The residents drive around in their Rolls-Royce, Lamborghini and BMW cars. Located on the banks of the Adayar, this is where Chennai's billionaires live. Their combined wealth is well over $5 billion. For good reason, businessmen here do not put nameplates on their gates. What better way to find out who lives here than asking the local postman? N Srinivasan of India Cements, the Maran Brothers, Murugappa family, Mammens, Hindujas, N Sankar, Shyam Kothari, R Seshasayee, he rattles off heavyweight names. Film stars like Prabhu Deva, Arjun and others have also moved in.
The pride of place here goes to the house that has now come to be called "White House". This is where our walk begins. The Marans, Dayanidhi and Kalanidhi, live here. The house is estimated to be worth around Rs 100 crore. Purchased from HSBC in an e-auction in 2001, it is surrounded by high walls and a huge gate. As the doors open for a Mercedes, we see an open expanse - a very green garden. A Delhi-based industrialist, who has a factory in Tamil Nadu and visits Boat Club Road frequently to socialise with fellow businessmen, says the Marans' residence has dwarfed all other houses in the area. "Everything else looks small in comparison," he says.
A short walk away is Coromandel House, which belongs to the Murugappa family. Though the family got into business way back in 1900 (full 93 years before the Marans), its house is smaller, boundary wall shorter and the gate less forbidding. Almost all family members, except the Executive Chairman A Vellayan, such as other senior members MV Subbiah and MM Murugappa, stay in this area. The houses are simple with courtyards. What's missing is the grand Chettinad architecture. The family owns large parcel of lands in the area, including a plot where 24 villas stand.
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Further down the road is the bungalow of TVS Motors' chairman & managing director Venu Srinivasan. (His wife is Mallika, the chairman and CEO of TAFE. Their daughter, Lakshmi, is married to Infosys Chairman NR Narayana Murthy's son, Rohan.
A resident says the house is so big that Venu's son, Sudarshan, in his younger days, would drive his BMW inside the compound. Another resident discloses that originally this land had belonged to Binny Mills. As a part of its revival plan, it was sold to Som Dutt Builders for Rs 60 lakh a ground (1 ground = Rs 2,400 square feet) in the late 1990s. Later, in early 2000, Srinivasan acquired 45 grounds for Rs 41 crore. A few years ago, he sold 31.9 grounds for Rs 150 crore to four businessmen: Kris Gopalakrishnan of Infosys, Dwarak Reddy (son-in-law of Prathap Reddy of Apollo Hospitals), Rane Group Chairman L Ganesh and Gem Granites Chairman R Veeramani. The resident informs that the property was marketed as a vaastu-shastra-compliant site.
A short distance away is the huge house of Srinivasan of India Cements. In July 2011, he had acquired this property of 10 grounds from its US-based owner. Before that, the house had been rented out to TT Varadarajan of TTK Group. Srinivasan has never disclosed the size of the deal but sources put the figure at Rs 90 crore, or Rs 9 crore per ground. The house, an amalgamation of traditional and modern architecture, is said to be filled with Tanjore paintings and traditional lamps. Come sunshine or controversy, Srinivasan steps out of his house every morning for an hour-long brisk walk. Today, he is dressed in shorts and T-shirt. As we join him, Srinivsan says one round of Boat Club Road covers around 1.2 km. When we ask him what is it about the locality that he likes, Srinivasan says it's the ample shade provided by the trees, and the three clubs located here: Madras Club, Boat Club and Alumni Club. (There's a Commando Training Centre here too, but no resident complains that it disturbs their peace.) "It is considered prestigious," says Srinivasan.
The clubs are exclusive, to say the least. The second-oldest surviving club in India after the Bengal Club of Kolkata, the Madras Club was set up in 1832 as a European men's-only club. It was only after Independence that membership was thrown open to Indians. And it was only in 1963, after it had merged with the Adayar Club, that it allowed women as members. The architecture of the clubhouse is colonial, complete with a dome. The whitewashed building is surrounded by ample greens. As of now there is no membership available. The Boat Club, which has a private access to the Adayar and is famous for hosting annual regattas, dates back to 1867. There's just one shop in the area, that too not really on Boat Club Road, and it caters to almost all the needs of Boat Club Road residents including luxury goods and imported food, of course!
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Kalpana Murthy, associate director (residential services), India, Cushman & Wakefield, which has been involved in some real estate deals in this area, says people are ready to pay a premium to inscribe Boat Club Road in their address - it is a signal that you have arrived in life. That's why, in spite of the slowdown, prices have been rising steadily here. Some residents say the price has increased from Rs 4-5 crore a ground five years ago to Rs 12 crore now. Another broker who specialises in this locality says normally people are not ready to sell, but the properties which come up for sale find buyers in less than a week. The demand is for 3,000- to 4,000-square-feet plots here. The residents know they are sitting on a pot of gold. Recently one of the families, which has roots in Andhra Pradesh, demolished its house, from which it was getting a rent of Rs 3 lakh a month, and constructed eight apartments, each of which has been rented out for Rs 3 lakh a month.
Some residents who have been living here for generations complain that the brand value of Boat Club Road has been eroded after the city's "new rich" moved in. But that may not be able to stop the rush to live here. And the rival, Poes Garden, where Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, Rajnikanth and Indira Nooyi have their houses, will take some time to catch up.