Bangalore, March 12: A bust of Vittal Mallya overlooks the street named after him, where he lived and worked until his premature death in December 1983.

A street that watched the rise of the Mallya business empire and bears not just the family name but, along its entire stretch, the stamp of its financial clout.

Renamed from Grant Road in the mid-1990s, Vittal Mallya Road - lying in the central business district and just 1.5km from MG Road - has over the past decade transformed from an eyesore to a fashion high street.

It now boasts swanky pubs, a Lamborghini showroom, high-end restaurants, a JW Marriott Hotel and UB City, a shopping mall that sells everything from imported cigars to Ducati bikes.

Keenly conscious of the street's importance as a status symbol, the United Breweries Group has since 2009 been paying Bangalore's civic body to maintain and clean the road.

For, it's here that Vittal had changed the face of India's liquor business, giving it new respectability by hiring IIT graduates and chartered accountants to run his company.

Standing tall over the street, at a place where one of the group's breweries once stood, is UB Tower, the headquarters of the group that Vittal founded but whose control has passed to the UK-based Diageo.

One of Vittal's most visible legacies - the house on 4.5 acres where he lived and which he left for his son Vijay - however, is gone. It was demolished in 2011 as part of Vijay's plan to build a high-rise apartment complex for the very rich.

In place of the majestic white building with large gates, a massive courtyard and a stable where some of Vijay's swanky and vintage cars used to be parked, stands the under-construction Kingfisher Towers-Residences, due for completion by year end.

Atop the 34-storey blue-and-white skyscraper lies a penthouse, which is to be Vijay's home. He has named it White House, apparently after the colour of his old house. A globetrotter, Vijay now checks into hotels during his trips to Bangalore.

C.B. Yeshvanth Kumar, former press secretary to Vijay who quit just before the launch of Kingfisher Airlines in 2003, said the old house had a Bengali cook brought from Calcutta and two Malayali caretakers.

"Mr Mallya stayed at this house whenever he was in town and received visitors there," Kumar told The Telegraph.

"The house was old but very well maintained with a stable on one side, where his cars were parked."

"He spoke good Bengali," Kumar explained on being asked how Mallya communicated with the cook. He had picked up Bengali while studying in La Martiniere and St Xavier's College in Calcutta.

The Prestige Group, which is building Kingfisher Towers-Residences, didn't respond to calls or emails. But a senior official from another real estate firm said the three-block apartment complex was one of the costliest projects in south India.

"The whole building comes with ultra-modern fittings meant for the uber-rich," said the official, requesting anonymity.

"The current going rate (for the flats) is between Rs 30,000 and Rs 35,000 per square feet. It had started off at between Rs 16,000 and Rs 18,000 in 2011," he said.

Most of the flats are about 8,000sqft, he said, but the penthouse is believed to be considerably larger, taking up a substantial portion of the one-acre (43,560sqft) roof.

In lieu of the old house, Vijay got 10 units including the penthouse for himself as well as 30 of the 72 other apartments that are for sale, Prestige had said during the launch of the project in 2011. The car park takes up the first five floors.

"It's one of the best apartment plans I've seen," the real estate official said. "I've heard the flats have been sold out."

The flats were sold by invitation, and the list of buyers seems to have been kept secret.

The building has an exclusive entrance for Vijay from the Vittal Mallya Road. All the other residents are to enter from the adjacent Kasturba Road. Vijay has also been given an exclusive high-speed elevator.

Several workers were busy inside the building, where access is restricted, but only one of them was willing to speak.

"I've heard people say that Vijay Mallya would be living on the top floor," said Tapan Kumar Dey, a watchman in his 50s manning one of the entrances.

During the four years he has been working at the site, the unmarried man from Calcutta has, however, had no opportunity to find out how good Vijay's Bengali is.

"I've never seen him but I've heard that he is a very rich man," Dey said.