Beijing cracks down on apartment-top ‘villa’

A medicine mogul spent six years building his own private mountain peak and luxury villa atop a high-rise apartment block in China’s capital, earning the unofficial title of “most outrageous illegal structure”. Now, authorities are giving him 15 days to tear it down.

The craggy complex of rooms, rocks, trees, and bushes looming over the 26-story building looks like something built into a seaside cliff, and has become the latest symbol of disregard for the law among the rich as well as the rampant practice of building illegal additions.

Angry neighbours say they’ve complained for years that the unauthorised, 800sq m mansion and its attached landscaping was damaging the building’s structural integrity and its pipe system, but that local authorities failed to act. They’ve also complained about late-night parties.