He's a slightly built, soft-spoken, reclusive man of humble beginnings, who recently moved into a house of Elysium on The Bridle Path.
That's Mohamad Punjani, 75, who was born on the Pakistan-Indian border and emigrated at a young age to Uganda where he built an automotive parts empire -- until the rise of the chaotic, bloodbath rule of Idi Amin.
"I have a few Idi Amin stories to tell you," Mr. Punjani said, but he later declined to be interviewed further for this article.
But if he would speak, his tale sounds like a story of perseverance, having amassed a fortune early in his life, losing most of it to a dictator, then building a new one. Now, he has added another jewel to his collection of mansions around the world -- a $9.8-million showpiece in one of Toronto richest neighbourhoods.
Mr. Punjani lost all of his properties when the late Amin nationalized almost all private businesses a year after stealing power in Uganda in 1971. He returned home after Amin was ousted in 1979 and reacquired some of his properties.
In North America, Tanzania and other parts of the world, while Amin was in power, Mr. Punjani built an empire that included the Dollar-Rent-A-Car chain, which he sold in 1995. He has been based in Toronto for close to 10 years and has invested heavily in real estate.
(In early January, his Punjani Group joined a consortium, which purchased the 850-room Regal Constellation Hotel -- which had gone into receivership last year -- near Pearson airport. The consortium plans to construct two hotels on the site that will contain more than 350 rooms each. The construction started this year and is expected to last about a year.)
Just a few weeks ago, Mr. Punjani moved into his house at 59 The Bridle Path. He pulled out all the stops in having a two-homes-in-one mansion constructed for he and his wife Meima, their daughter Fatim; and his son Minaz, his wife and two children. One half of the house is for Mohamad, the other half for Minaz.
At $9.8-million, the Punjanis' new home is one of the most expensive residential properties built from scratch in Toronto's history.
But it's not the only dream house Mr. Punjani owns. He also owns mansions in London and Tanzania.
His new neighbour on The Bridle Path is the recording artist Prince. Across the road is a house purchased last year by Toronto Maple Leafs' forward Gary Roberts for $5.5-million.
The Punjanis' house resembles a Roman Coliseum on the outside with a beige, French Château architectural influence. Inside the 23,000-square-foot house are 18 bedrooms (nine upstairs, nine in the basement and the elder Punjanis' master bedroom is 50-by-30 feet.), 15 bathrooms, complete with steam baths in each one and eight Jacuzzis. Many of the rooms have mahogany imported from Brazil while the hardwood floors throughout the house are ultra-hard, jatoba-Brazilian-cherry. Plasma, giant-screen televisions and elaborate sound systems have been installed throughout.
What a person might spend on purchasing a condo in the Greater Toronto Area, Mr. Punjani plunked down in each of the four kitchens in the house -- $150,000 .
In the foyer inside the main entrance, you could throw a party: the area holds 200 people. Ditto for the basement.
There's a trout pond outside, in-floor heating, 12-foot cathedral ceilings, elevators, foamed insulation to cut the sounds of the various electrical motors running through the house and even a remote button that melts the snow in the two entrance driveways.
"You don't come across this kind of place very often," says Bob Dryland, a heating and air-conditioning contractor for Will Air Ltd., which fashioned a lot of work in the house on behalf of Hovan Homes, the principal building contractor.
"I've built about 220 custom homes in the last 20 years and usually each one is between 5,000 and 7,000 square feet, but this is a different animal," said Hovan Tchaglassian, owner of Hovan Homes.
"It took a lot longer than I anticipated to construct the house," Mr. Tchaglassian said. "There were a lot of decisions that went back and forth between family members. Initially, this was supposed to be a 9,000-square-foot house with a budget of $4-million."
Along the way, Mr. Punjani wanted to make it bigger and bigger. In the end, the main mansion comprised 14,000 square feet, a finished basement is 5,000 square feet and the indoor swimming pool is 4,000 square feet.
"In the York Mills, Bayview and Bridle Path areas, there are a lot of highly sophisticated businessmen," Mr. Tchaglassian explained. "These people are very prosperous and very demanding and you have to give them what they want.
"With Mohamad's background and his worldly ideas, I had to get the old fashioned tradesman of the old world. We had to get sophisticated new products. The washrooms are handpicked by my wife Graci [an interior designer] and I with Mohamad's approval."
There is one kitchen each for the main family, Minaz's family, one in the basement and as Mr. Tchaglassian said, "if you can believe it, one for the butler and maids"
There's even a waterfall in the backyard. "It's like a Disney World," Mr. Tchaglassian said of the waterfall. "It has what I would say is a very Middle Eastern look.
"The in-floor heating is very sophisticated -- $100,000 just to install it in the driveway so that the snow melts. Throughout the house, it cost another $250,000. And the heating system is all computerized."
Then there's the $40,000 spent to install a state-of-the-art air system, which features no flames in the furnaces.
Mr. Punjani purchased the previous house -- a long bungalow -- and property on his lot for $422,000.
For his part, Mr. Tchaglassian agreed on a set fee prior to the beginning of the Bridle Path project and said he didn't get any additional money when the project magnified by close to $6-million and months and months of additional work.
"This is a good advertisement for me," Mr. Tchaglassian said.