A Holiday Homes retreat where everyday worries melt away, replaced by the serene embrace of nature and opulent comfort. Imagine unwinding in a haven of exquisite grandeur, where lush, verdant settings cocoon you in tranquility. These holiday houses, designed with impeccable taste and a flair for luxury, beckon you to escape the mundane, cancel that virtual meeting, and embark on a well-deserved break.
Here are 10 captivating luxury holiday homes in India that promise an unforgettable getaway:
Ahmedabad: Weekend Home
Words like modular, prefab, and turnkey have a proper place in the realm of design. This weekend house in Ahmedabad, however, is outside them. Every cushion in this collection is custom-made from fabric that complements the color scheme of the room. The internal courtyard’s flooring is created with six different types of locally obtained stones. The bathrooms have many layers of cut tiles, chandeliers, vintage sconces, and antique mirrors, as well as vanities made of finely sculpted marble. Attention to detail was not only necessary but nearly sacred while creating the home.
Goa Holiday Home
Baia Villas, a collection of six holiday villas in Goa built by Mumbai-based Jugal Mistri Architects to mimic Indigenous vernacular, are defined by peach-colored walls and arched entrances. The residences in Mandrem, a tiny town in the state’s north, are designed to reflect the character of the surrounding area, particularly its colorful architecture and landscapes.
Baia Villas, designed by Jugal Mistri Architects, are holiday homes in Mandrem, north Goa, featuring a U-shaped plan around an individual courtyard. Each villa has three bedrooms and a private outdoor space with a pool, jacuzzi, and small garden. The homes have a large veranda at the center, with triangular black and white tiles on the floors and dark-painted beams supporting the sloping ceiling overhead.
The Baia Villas feature a neutrally toned ground floor with an open living and dining area, a kitchen with a swimming pool view, and an ensuite bedroom with large windows. A peach-tone staircase leads to the upper level.
An ensuite bedroom branches off either side of the center circulation space, with a spacious balcony separating each room. The bedrooms have steeply pitched wooden ceilings, and the outer walls are perforated with enormous curving holes that frame views of the trees.
Colonial Bungalow, Alibaug
For a Parsi-Catholic couple who owned a few holiday houses in Maharashtra, the town of Aawas provided the ideal location for their next retreat. Hacienda, built by architect Chaitanya Karnik and spanning 3,500 square feet, is an elegantly constructed house where the outdoors mix effortlessly with the inside.
“Because the couple previously owned so many properties, they were not inexperienced and understood precisely what they wanted. They had also amassed a vast collection of artifacts over decades of travel and inherited numerous pieces of furniture. “Their brief was to design a home that was effortlessly stylish with a touch of colonial charm,” Karnik remembers.
Minimalist Pune Weekend Home
Singh and Jha wanted their weekend house in Pune to be more minimalist and airy than their Mumbai digs. They also wanted something low-maintenance, something they could keep shut for days or weeks without fear of returning to an ocean of dust. Soneji, Bhagat, and Ria Chheda, inspired by Japanese minimalism, aimed to create balance, tranquility, and harmony in their home decor.
What followed was an exercise in subtle restraint: lime wash was used to calm the walls, American ash wood was used to tame the floor and furnishings, and traditional shoji rice paper was placed on wardrobe shutters to create a feeling of transparency. Each world was created as a precursor to the next, like a series of peaceful moments.
Holiday home near Bengaluru
Sujay Reddy, a Bengaluru-based designer, painstakingly built his environmentally conscious holiday house using natural components and old wood accumulated over time.
The two-bedroom residence, which spans one level and sits on one acre of ground, opens out into its swimming pool placed within the building’s setback, allowing unobstructed views of the hill behind it.
The property features a lush natural barrier between the road and the house, with a vineyard on a seven-foot platform providing outdoor seating. The house uses an “undulated Santorini finish” for walls, reducing the time and materials required to build a room from eight stages to four. The flooring is a thin layer of high-grade cement with an acrylic coating and dye for color.
Reddy, a home builder, salvaged old, decaying wood from a demolished heritage property to create a home. The entry features double doors from Karaikudi, strengthened with metal hardware, and historic South Indian columns on Kadappa stone pedestals. The sunken-seating design in the living room minimizes the need for new sofas and reduces wood usage, visually playing with levels.
Tropical Retreat, Alibaug
When it came to designing the larger-than-life estate for a joint family of restaurateurs, Mathias and Shellugar, co-founders and principals of FADD Studio were mindful of optimizing the striving envelope, which was executed by Vandana and Ranjit Sinh of Mumbai-based Ranjit Sinh Associates, both in terms of scale and signature. They resorted to a tiered method, mining artifacts from around the country and beyond.
From the hacienda-style porch bursting with pink bougainvillea to the vestibule within, home to tribal Naga panels and antique totems, to even the living room, where arches parlay into columns and rafters ascend to a pitched roof, the home is a canvas of compelling color and tropical forms that appear to have walked off the landscape and taken up residence indoors.
Nonetheless, everything feels right, especially the floor, which is covered with Shahabad stone squares and diamonds that change shape, blurring the border between nature and the nest.
Jaipur Holiday Home
The classical form of the Jaipur home meets lavishly constructed contemporary interiors in a timeless combination. Classic and modern components coexist together, resulting in a plethora of emotions that immediately captivate the viewer. Designers Sachin and Neha reinvent their characteristic maximalist design by creating a clean, neutral backdrop for the fascinating drama they unleash in the foreground.
The main house has two levels, seven en-suite bedrooms, and a powder room. The next structure beside the pool holds the bar and library. They boldly combine materials, textures, and finishes. A complex composition is displayed, with wood tones ranging from nude to rich, distressed paint to elegant hues, brilliant crystal to gleaming brass, and an assortment of stones to dissimilar fabrics.
The double-height living area is light and airy, with a white palette. A vivid collection of artworks, furniture, and soft furnishings offers color, character, and warmth. The bedrooms are more contemporary, with bright modern artwork and classical elements. Large stone sculptures strewn over the countryside bring the design plan together in a characterful style.
Nalukettu Architecture: Chennai Weekend Home
This weekend property in Chennai spans 8,200 square feet and is set in the calm surroundings of coastal Kuvathur, Tamil Nadu. The architects focused on the spatial features, using salvaged and repurposed material palettes.
Given the mild and humid atmosphere of coastal regions, incorporating climate-friendly, locally sourced materials and reinterpreting folk architecture into a modern precinct was crucial. The clients’ key requirements were four rooms with connected bathrooms and coastal views. The linear brick-laid court serves as the focal point for all living rooms.
The majority of the walls are made up of tessellations of pre-used Mangalore tiles sandwiched in mud mortar, creating earthy volumes that contrast against the lush green backdrop. The CSEB (compressed stabilized earth blocks) obtained from Auroville were designed to fit the height and dimensions of the Mangalore tiles.
Goa’s Hidden Holiday Gem
The Moira Riviera boutique hotel in Goa, designed by Vistasp Bhagwagar of AVA Design Studio, is a stunning example of architectural elegance, combining native charm with precise design principles based on regard, significance, and local involvement.
As with any excellent, environmentally friendly architecture, the design took into account the local temperature and orientation. The blocks were placed with the solar orientation in mind, with huge apertures toward the north and extensive verandas towards the south. We intended minimum openings to the west and overhangs where essential, such as in the ADD and Jazz bars.
The property was designed to celebrate local arts and crafts, featuring rustic exposed roofs, handmade terrazzo floors, and rich timber furniture. The focus was on creating a memorable visitor experience, adhering to the existing land topography, and relating the built structure to the sloped land towards the river. The laid-back interiors evoke a past era’s glory.
Contemporary: Surat Farmhouse
A quaint little boomerang-shaped organic farm can be found 40 kilometers from Surat, Gujarat, on the banks of the Purna River. The owner works as a textile merchant and uses the farm as a weekend getaway from city life. “He wanted to build a home where he could rejuvenate—get away from the city and immerse himself in nature,” says architect Boney Keriwala, co-founder of The BAD Studio.
Because of its proximity to the river and the possibility of monsoonal floods, the home has been elevated about 6 feet above ground level, but a careful arrangement of volumes guarantees that the building appears anchored to the ground.
The construction is mostly made of brick and concrete, “basic materials that are easily available,” according to Keriwala. “Most of the public places you see in the house are clad in brick, and most of the private spaces are clad in concrete,” he continues, “And they have been interwoven through the landscape fabrics,” Avantika Shankar.
