In a month when housing affordability has been a hotly-contested topic, one eminent Greek Australian may have set a new benchmark for size, price and luxuriousness.

After three years of building, property developer Harry Stamoulis is close to being handed the keys to his new home – Australia’s largest residential construction.

The St Georges Road property in Melbourne, built on the former Baillieu family estate, is understood to span some 3,200 square metres, with a grand ballroom, five bedrooms, two kitchens, and nine bathrooms, along with an indoor swimming pool and staff quarters.

Mr Stamoulis paid $24 million for the land in 2010, and the mansion’s epic build is believed to have added at least another $40 millionto the final cost. One report suggests cabinetry in the kitchen alone is said to have cost $2 million.

Greek themes reportedly run throughout the property, with Fairfax’s Domain newspaper saying the house’s Hellenic credentials including a meandros – a Greek repeated motif – with arcs around the imposing front doors, plus intricate sculptures of entwined human figures and horses.

Since 2012 an army of builders under the management of Krongold Constructions, has been working on the property, its subterannean basement and the outlying grounds.

Landscape designer to the rich and famous, Paul Bangay, is understood to have been commissioned to shape the Mediterranean-style gardens which include a rectangular pond, tennis court, and shaded pergolas.

The house’s grand colonnade facade some suggest bears a resemblance to the Greek Parliament in Athens’ Syntagma Square.

Nearby on Saint Georges Road, businessman and philanthropist Daniel Besen is building another modern mansion which is believed to have an underground art gallery.

Prestige buyers advocate David Morrell told Fairfax Media that the super wealthy in Melbourne are “land banking” adjoining blocks to create a new wave of family compounds.

Mr Morrell said multiple blocks in suburbs like Toorak cost a premium, because they are few and tightly held by establishment families through generations.

“It is an expensive business, first you have to collect the land and often people won’t want to sell, so it’s not for the faint hearted,” he said.

In 2013 Harry Stamoulis sold his luxury penthouse in the Royal Domain Tower on St Kilda Road to retail magnate Solomon Lew for $13.3 million.

BRW estimates the Stamoulis family’s wealth to be $540 million. Its origins lie in the Gold Metal Soft Drink company, established by Harry Stamoulis’ late father Spiros.