INDIAN JEWEL

Interior designer-turned-hotelier Richard Hanlon has created a masterpiece of Anglo-Indian style

- JO LEEVERS

PAVILION

Much of life happens out on the shaded pavilions. The woven muddha chairs are covered in vintage Kutch textiles. Chairs locally made; try Maharani Trading for vintage Kutch fabrics

DRAWING ROOM

Quintessentially British fabrics are mixed with an Indian dowry chest and lamps made from carved temple brackets. Ottoman and sofa fabrics, all Bennison Lamps (with pink shades), Vaughan; try Pentreath & Hall for similar shades

LIBRARY

The embroidered textile on the table was found in Jaipur. ‘It is beyond gorgeous,’ says Richard. Framed vintage textile, Ganesh Handicraft Emporium; try 1stdibs for similar. Tablecloth (beneath embroidered textile), vintage Bennison

You’ll find a myriad of amazing interiors at Bujera Fort hotel in Udaipur and they all reflect the eclectic style of its interior-designer owner Richard Hanlon – and he wouldn’t have it any other way. ‘I hate rooms that look like a hotel,’ he says. ‘This is very much our home. And, when you’re here, this is your home.’ Richard and his friend Trish McFarlane set off second-home hunting in India some 13 years ago, a plan that gradually morphed into building an entire hotel from scratch.

Completed five years ago, the hotel is on an epic scale, covering some 40,000 square feet, with fragrant gardens, shady colonnades and vast, lofty rooms. A lesser interior designer might have approached a project like this armed with mood boards, swatches and bookmarked Pinterest pages. But all that is too formulaic for Richard.