There is a small, sky-high club of addresses the whole world desires: buildings that stopped being buildings and became symbols — of wealth, of architecture and of power. It's not just about square metres: each one holds a record, the signature of a legendary architect and a story that turned it into an object of global desire. Here is the complete fact sheet and story of each of the most coveted residential addresses on the planet — with a real photo, architect, height and the record that makes it unique. And, at the end, the proof that Balneário Camboriú has entered this world map.
1. One Hyde Park — London, UK
📐 Fact sheet: Neighborhood: Knightsbridge · Architect: Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners (Richard Rogers) · Cost: ~£1.15 billion · 86 residences · Record: penthouse at £136 million
Widely reported as the most expensive apartment block in the UK — and, at launch, the most expensive residential address in the world. It holds just 86 residences in a complex that cost around £1.15 billion, and one of its penthouses sold for £136 million, a global record at the time. Security is the stuff of legend: bulletproof glass, panic rooms, staff trained by former British special forces, and a service tunnel connecting the building to the Mandarin Oriental hotel next door. Many owners bought through offshore companies, nameless. Here, the luxury product isn't the apartment — it's the absolute anonymity of billionaires.
2. 220 Central Park South — New York, USA
📐 Fact sheet: Height: 290 m · 70 floors · Architect: Robert A.M. Stern · Interiors: Thierry Despont · 118 apartments (mostly duplexes) · Limestone façade · Developer: Vornado
While New York competed on height with glass towers, this address bet on the opposite: classic limestone by Robert A.M. Stern, the architect of old money. It was here that billionaire Ken Griffin bought a penthouse for around US$ 238 million — the most expensive home ever sold in the United States. With only 118 units (mostly duplexes), a wine cellar, private dining rooms and a porte-cochère, it became the refuge of those who have everything and want, above all, total discretion facing Central Park. Here luxury doesn't shout — it whispers in stone.
3. Central Park Tower — New York, USA
📐 Fact sheet: Height: 472 m · 98 floors (top numbered 136) · Architect: Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill · Developer: Extell · Nordstrom store at the base
At 472 metres, it is the tallest residential building in the world — and the 2nd tallest in New York, behind only One World Trade Center. It was designed by Adrian Smith & Gordon Gill, the same duo behind the Burj Khalifa. At the top sits the Central Park Club, with a pool, ballroom and a terrace more than 300 metres high. Units start in the millions and reach around US$ 250 million at the penthouse. A surgical detail of engineering: the top floor is numbered 136 despite there being 98 storeys — because, at the top of the world, even the door number is marketing.
4. 111 West 57th Street (Steinway Tower) — New York, USA
📐 Fact sheet: Height: 435 m · 84 floors · Architect: SHoP Architects · Completed: 2021 · 59 residences · Style: neo-Art Deco · Record: 1:24 ratio (thinnest in the world)
It boasts the slenderest ratio ever built: 1 to 24 between base and height — literally the thinnest skyscraper on the planet. Erected by SHoP around the historic Steinway Hall (the former piano store from 1925, preserved at the base), it needed a giant tuned mass damper at the top to tame the wind sway. There are just 59 residences, with a terracotta-and-bronze gradient façade — a vertical sculpture in neo-Art Deco style. Each apartment was designed to frame Central Park. Desire here is pure reverence for engineering audacity.
5. 56 Leonard (the “Jenga Tower”) — New York, USA
📐 Fact sheet: Height: 250 m · 57 floors · Architect: Herzog & de Meuron · Completed: 2017 · Neighborhood: Tribeca · Anish Kapoor sculpture at the base
The architects themselves, Switzerland's Herzog & de Meuron, describe the work as “houses stacked in the sky” — hence the worldwide nickname Jenga Tower. The glass boxes cantilever irregularly, and no apartment is the same as another: many have terraces suspended over the void, above Tribeca, New York's most coveted neighborhood. At the base sits a mirrored bean-shaped sculpture by artist Anish Kapoor. Buying here means buying art you can live in, floor by floor.
6. Burj Khalifa – Armani Residences — Dubai, UAE
📐 Fact sheet: Height: 828 m · Architect: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) · Opened: 2010 · Reinforced-concrete structure · Armani Residences with interiors by Giorgio Armani
At 828 metres, it is the tallest structure in the world since 2009. On the lower floors sit the Armani Residences, with every interior detail signed by Giorgio Armani and served by the Armani Hotel. A surgical curiosity: part of its structural steel came from the demolished Palace of the Republic in East Berlin. The signature address of Dubai and a postcard of the planet, it's the kind of place where the building alone is a status symbol — you live inside the icon the whole world photographs.
7. One Thousand Museum — Miami, USA
📐 Fact sheet: Height: 215 m · 62 floors · Architect: Zaha Hadid · Completed: 2019 · Also known as Scorpion Tower · Private helipad
It is the only residential tower by Zaha Hadid in the Americas, completed after the death of the legendary Iraqi-British architect. Its curved exoskeleton of glass-fiber-reinforced concrete is a structural sculpture — there is nothing like it in Miami. Nicknamed the Scorpion Tower, it has its own helipad and attracts architecture collectors and celebrities. You don't buy an apartment: you buy a work of art to live in.
8. The Shard — London, UK
📐 Fact sheet: Height: 310 m · 95 floors (72 habitable) · Architect: Renzo Piano · Opened: 2012 · Mixed use: offices, Shangri-La hotel, residences and viewing gallery
Renzo Piano's glass shard is the tallest building in the United Kingdom and Western Europe. It combines offices, the Shangri-La hotel, star restaurants, the View from The Shard gallery and residences — all with 360° views over London. The pointed pyramidal form was inspired by church spires and the masts of ships on the Thames. Desire here is an iconic address with a view impossible to replicate.
9. Crown Sydney (One Barangaroo) — Sydney, Australia
📐 Fact sheet: Height: 271 m · 75 floors · Architect: WilkinsonEyre · Opened: 2020 · Developer: Crown Resorts · Hotel + residences
The 271-metre curved tower, designed by WilkinsonEyre, rises on the edge of Sydney Harbour in the redeveloped Barangaroo district. It brings together the Crown hotel and ultra-luxury residences whose penthouses are among the most expensive in Australia. The reason for the desire fits in one sentence: a direct view of the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge — the most coveted scene in the southern hemisphere, framed by your own window, every day.
10. Antilia — Mumbai, India
📐 Fact sheet: Height: 173 m · 27 floors (double-height) · Built: 2006–2010 · Cost: ~US$ 2 billion (valued at US$ 4.6 bn in 2023) · Owner: Mukesh Ambani
It's not an apartment building: it is the most expensive private home in the world, belonging to Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani, valued at around US$ 4.6 billion. It's 27 double-height floors (the height of a 60-storey building) for a single family, with a 168-car garage, a ballroom, temple, 50-seat cinema, spa and a “snow room” that produces artificial flakes on its walls. Designed to withstand a magnitude-8 earthquake and maintained by hundreds of staff, it is the absolute extreme of what money can raise on earth.
And Brazil at the top of the world: the Senna Tower
📐 Fact sheet: Projected height: ~544 m · 157 floors · 288 units · Brand: Ayrton Senna · Location: Balneário Camboriú (Brazil) · Set to be the tallest residential building in the world
The list above could end in Mumbai. But it crosses the Atlantic and descends to the coast of Santa Catarina, Brazil. Designed to reach about 544 metres and 157 floors, the Senna Tower is set to become the tallest residential building in the world — surpassing New York's own Central Park Tower. The project carries the brand and legacy of racing driver Ayrton Senna, with an investment estimated in the billions of reais (sources: CNN Brasil, Exame). It's not just another skyscraper: it's the statement that the Santa Catarina coast now plays on the same board as New York, London and Dubai — and that the next world record for residential height may have a Brazilian postcode.
The world's most desired addresses — summary
| Development | City | Height | Record / reason |
|---|---|---|---|
| One Hyde Park | London | — | Most expensive address in the world (£136M penthouse) |
| 220 Central Park South | New York | 290 m | Most expensive home sold in the US (US$238M) |
| Central Park Tower | New York | 472 m | Tallest residential building in the world |
| 111 West 57th | New York | 435 m | Thinnest skyscraper in the world (1:24) |
| 56 Leonard | New York | 250 m | Avant-garde design (Jenga Tower) |
| Burj Khalifa | Dubai | 828 m | Tallest building in the world + Armani |
| One Thousand Museum | Miami | 215 m | Only Zaha Hadid tower in the Americas |
| The Shard | London | 310 m | Tallest in the UK |
| Crown Sydney | Sydney | 271 m | View of the Opera House |
| Antilia | Mumbai | 173 m | Most expensive private home in the world |
| Senna Tower 🇧🇷 | Balneário Camboriú | ~544 m | Set to be the tallest residential building in the world |
Global luxury is no longer something to admire from afar. It is being built a few kilometres from your beach — and Balneário Camboriú and Itapema already concentrate branded residences, signature architecture and four of the five most expensive price-per-square-metre cities in Brazil (FipeZap, Jul/2026). The difference is that here the entry ticket still fits the pocket of those who get in before the next wave of appreciation.
If you want to be part of this new map of world-class luxury on the Santa Catarina coast, talk to me: I curate the most desired towers in Balneário Camboriú, Itapema, Porto Belo and Praia Brava, with real information.
Read also:
- Senna Tower: the complete guide to the tallest residential building in the world
- Branded residences: what they are and why they redefine luxury in Brazil