With every kilometre you drive away from Coonoor’s town centre, you get closer to what this landscape might have looked like before humans inhabited it. The markers of civilization—roads, concrete, noise—fall away, and the intense, wild green of the Nilgiris’ shola forests takes over. Were it not for the tea gardens accompanying the climbing road, it would be easy to forget that the city is a mere 10-minute drive away.
Interior designer Soumya Keshavan’s home rests within this patchwork of tufted landscapes. When I ask whether her home is really named “Dun Roamin”, Keshavan smiles. Coonoor, she explains, holds on determinedly to its British founders’ vision of the town as a facsimile of their homelands. “I had also planned to hang up my boots when the house was ready, and be totally done with roamin’!” she adds laughing.
At the entrance to the plot stands a pine tree that local, fifth-generation landscapist Zakeer Zackaria dates back to the 1960s. For about 60 years, this arboreal reminder of foreign interventions grew in a fastchanging world, alongside terraced tea gardens and the Nilgiris’ own shola forestand-grasslands.
In 2021, Keshavan, who was in Coonoor for a work meeting, spotted the plot of land on which it stood and was transfixed. “I felt my heart stop,” Keshavan recalls.
Though she had been working in the area for more than a decade, it was the first time she contemplated building a home for herself there. “I got out of the car to take it in and quite forgot my meeting!” she says sheepishly.
That tree—approximately the same age as Keshavan herself—became a marker, both material and symbolic, of the kind of home the interior designer would build for herself. Not native, perhaps—both pine and tea were brought to Coonoor by the British—but now, naturalized.
Denne historien er fra November - December 2024-utgaven av AD Architectural Digest India.
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Denne historien er fra November - December 2024-utgaven av AD Architectural Digest India.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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BANYAN TREE VEYA, IN MEXICO'S VALLE DE GUADALUPE, IS A NEW WELLNESS RESORT THAT LOOKS TO THE LAND.
A two-hour drive south from San Diego, the Mexican wine region of Valle de Guadalupe-dotted with fertile vineyards and family farms-has remained mostly under the radar, even to food-obsessed Americans.
DESIGNED IN 1988 BY RENOWNED LANDSCAPIST MADE WIJAYA, THE GROUNDS AT AMANDARI IN UBUD, BALI, FOREGO MANICURED LAWNS FOR AN ABUNDANT NATIVE PARADISE.
Coconut palms and banyan trees in sizzling jungle greens, cascades of bougainvillea and the scent of frangipani in the air—a tropical explosion of foliage that would have led Monet to abandon Giverny.
BANGALORE CLUB'S MAIN LAWNS, WITH A MAGNIFICENT RAIN TREE, GET A NEW UMBRELLA BAR AND COLONNADE BY AD100 ARCHITECTS SANDEEP KHOSLA AND AMARESH ANAND.
Time appears to come to a standstill when one enters the Bangalore Club.
FROM HER STUDIO IN LLOYD WRIGHT'S 1927 HOME, DESIGNER VICKI VON HOLZHAUSEN IS REFINING THE SCIENCE OF HIGHPERFORMANCE, PLANT-BASED MATERIALS.
It seems not only fitting but poetic that Los Angeles-based designer and eco-preneur Vicki von Holzhausen chose architect Lloyd Wright's own 1927 studio and residence as the symbolic headquarters of her namesake company, von Holzhausen, a pioneer in the development of high-performance plantbased materials.
IN THE LADAKHI HAMLET OF TURTUK, A KITCHEN GARDEN SUPPLIES FRESH PRODUCE TO THE BALTI KITCHEN OF BOUTIQUE HOTEL VIRSA.
To get to the most exquisite yet humble meal of your life, you'll have to take a six-hour drive from Leh and reach Turtuk, one of the only four Balti villages that fall on the Indian side of the border.
MAKAIBARI'S NEW EXPERIENTIAL STORE IN KOLKATA IS DESIGNED TO EVOKE A TEA PLANTER'S BUNGALOW.
Smell the tea, feel the carpets, enjoy the space”—such is the invitation from Rudra Chatterjee, chairman of Obeetee and managing director of Luxmi Tea Group, at the launch of fine tea brand Makaibari’s experiential store in October, at the Taj Bengal in Kolkata.
ARTS OF HINDOSTAN PIECES TOGETHER A SHORT HISTORY OF THE MUGHAL FLOWER-FROM ITS ORIGIN IN ATELIERS IN MEDIEVAL INDIA TO ITS UBIQUITY ACROSS TIME.
The Mughal emperor Jahangir was famously enraptured by the beauty of flowering plants that he saw on his visit to Kashmir in the spring of 1620.
A FURNITURE-ARTWORK PAIRING COMES TOGETHER AS PAOLA LENTI'S CAMPANA BROTHERSDESIGNED BENCH IS REIMAGINED TO MATCH ARTIST HUGO YOSHIKAWA'S PLAYFUL STYLE.
Vegetation has been the central subject matter of many Hugo Yoshikawa artworks for the past few years.
FROM SCULPTURES TO JEWELLERY, ARTIST LYNDA BENGLIS'S DESIGNS FOR LOEWE FEATURED IN THE BANCA MARCH GARDEN IN MADRID EARLIER THIS YEAR.
This spring, when the gates of the private Banca March Garden in Madrid's Salamanca neighbourhood opened to the public, visitors could experience four monumental fountains, emerging from the ground and soaring towards the sky.
FERNS AND FLOWERS BLOOM ON TOD'S BAGS AND SHOES, A SPECIAL LINE DESIGNED BY RAHUL MISHRA― NATURE BEING HIS CONSTANT MUSE.
India was once called “sone ki chidiya” (golden bird) for its abundance of resources, wealth and prosperity.
