The traditional Parsi house with European, Hindu and Islamic architectural features has an open courtyard in the centre, with interconnected rooms. Shaded by old trees with a swing and a well—two very traditional features of Parsi architecture—the courtyard houses a pantry and dining area. From here, you can get a glimpse of interiors of the property, the colonial furniture, historical photographs and heirlooms like a gramophone, vintage typewriter, clock, rosewood furniture and an old swing.
However, restoring and renovating the house into a five-room homestay was not easy and took three years to finish. The walls had to be secures and the roof was entirely reconstructed. A bigger challenge was to convince skilled masons and carpenters to work with old materials in order to keep the original Parsi aesthetics intact. The renovation did not only mean restoring the house to its old self. The couple also wanted to honour the house’s evolution over the different generations. “Our caretaker, Abu, who had worked with the family for decades, knew that some of the house’s original carved ‘panipatti’ (eaves boards) had been removed and kept in storage. We were able to reinstate them in the inner courtyard,” she smiles.
The rooms have traditional Parsi-Gujarati names. Bapaiji (grandmother), the old master bedroom has the original canopy-draped rosewood beds of the owner’s late grandparents. Nano is a small room with a double bed. Jaffri is a double-bedded room with a wooden lattice screen and the rooftop room is Agassi. The guests here are treated to authentic Parsi food—from akuri and lemongrass chai for breakfast to Parsi-style chicken farcha, sabzi par eedu, kheema, lagan nu custard for elaborate dinners.
Bhuj House offers grassroot textile and handicraft workshops, in a way that the essence of the house remains the same. But the short tourist season due to the extreme climate in Kutch, makes the hospitality business difficult to sustain. Jehan and Katie are not giving up. They intend continue to preserve a part of Bhuj’s lesser known history that could have easily slipped into oblivion.