VILLA PALLADIO JAIPUR

Jaipur's newest boutique property is a ruby-tinged jewel box of a space, writes Divya Mishra.

- Divya Mishra.

About 15km eastward from Jaipur, the city finally loosens its hold on you. Fluorescent lights make way for starlight, turning the sky a soft navy velvet, against which the smaller Aravalli hills loom like benevolent giants. As you get closer to Sumel village, concrete is replaced by jungle scrub; cars, by the occasional camel. Here, tucked into the nook between Sumel Doongri and the Kanota Lake is Villa Palladio Jaipur, the city’s newest boutique hotel.

The nine-room property sits on a little more than three acres of land, enclosed within a strikingly white, crenellated boundary wall that increases its sense of hushed solitude. Built-in the 1980s, it began life as a typical Rajasthani haveli. Its bones are traditional, but its rejuvenated spirit appears to have travelled all the way from Europe.

The recreation is courtesy Jaipur’s design darlings Barbara Miolini and Marie-Anne Oudejans, the duo behind the picturesque Bar Palladio. But where Bar Palladio’s central colour is blue, Villa Palladio’s is a vivid, pulsing, glamorous red. What is common to both spaces though, is this team’s light-handed layering of texture, colour, materials, methods, histories and stories.