There is a particular geography to Sachin Tendulkar’s Mumbai. He grew up in the Sahitya Sahawas Cooperative Housing Society in Bandra East, took up cricket at eleven and made his Test debut at sixteen. By 2001, he had moved west, to an apartment in La Mer, Bandra. Six years later, he bought a crumbling Parsi villa on Perry Cross Road and spent the next four years painstakingly restoring it, turning a long-held dream into a family home. In 2018, the family bought another apartment in Bandra East, bringing their property story closer to where it began.

Tendulkar retired from international cricket in November 2013, but his property story has the shape of a career conducted on a short pitch: a few well-chosen shots, a great deal of patience and a deep reluctance to leave the crease. For a cricketer whose career was defined by extraordinary achievement without much appetite for spectacle, his homes offer another portrait of the man: assured, understated and deeply rooted in the city that made him.

La Mer, Bandra West

For much of his childhood, Tendulkar’s world was centred around Sahitya Sahawas in Bandra East. In 2001, he and Anjali moved into an apartment at La Mer, a residential building in Bandra West. The move marked a new chapter in his personal life, coming six years after their marriage in 1995, as his international career gathered momentum. The apartment was a three-bedroom residence allotted to Tendulkar under the sports quota. He later recalled in his autobiography, Playing It My Way, that Anjali had organised the move almost entirely herself. By the time he arrived, his belongings had been unpacked and the apartment was ready for them. It was here that the couple lived before moving into their much larger bungalow on Perry Cross Road a decade later. When Tendulkar finally vacated La Mer in September 2011, he made a point of mentioning that he had returned the sports-quota flat so that another sportsperson could live there. It was a small but telling detail in the story of a home that had accompanied him through some of the most significant years of his career.

Dorab Villa, Perry Cross Road

In 2007, Tendulkar bought Dorab Villa, a dilapidated Parsi bungalow dating to the 1920s, reportedly for ₹39 crore. The property had once belonged to the Warden family. Rather than move into the old house, he chose to reconstruct it, working with architect Prakash Sapre on a residence that would accommodate the needs of a growing family. The project took several years, and by September 2011, the Tendulkars had moved in. Spread across approximately 6,000 square feet, the new residence was designed around the family’s life as much as its owners’ passions. It rises three storeys above ground and has two basement levels. There is space for the children, Arjun and Sara, a room for Tendulkar’s mother, a temple and dedicated areas for displaying the cricketer’s trophies and memorabilia. A swimming pool occupies the terrace, while one of the basements was earmarked for his collection of cars. Privacy, too, was a consideration: the property was enclosed by high walls and fitted with surveillance cameras and sensors. When Tendulkar finally moved in, he described it as the fulfilment of a long-held dream.