The rooms nobody books, and everybody remembers
Six suites are where you sleep. These are where the holiday actually happens.
THE ENTRANCE FOYER
Where the villa introduces itself
You come in off the parking under a timber-beamed ceiling inlaid with a geometric marquetry panel, past a row of globe pendants and a small reception desk with a backlit Welcome to our home sign. The suite doors run off to the left, Tulip 1 and Tulip 2, each with its own carved nameplate on reclaimed timber. It is the first thing that tells you this is a home someone built, not a rental someone furnished.
THE GREAT ROOM
Lounge, dining and kitchen in one
The heart of the villa is a single open room under exposed timber beams and cove lighting. At one end, a full modular kitchen in cherry-red with a grey metro-tile splashback, gas hob, chimney, fridge, water purifier and a glass-topped carved dining table for six. In the middle, lilac velvet sofas around a carved timber coffee table that usually has a chess set on it. At the far end, a wall-mounted television with a PlayStation 5 on an antique carved console. One room, three things going on, everyone still together.
THE GAMES ROOM
Where the teenagers go and don't come back
A full-size table-tennis table with a glass wall onto the garden along one side, a foosball table behind it, and a gallery of sunflower prints on the other wall. Warm timber ceiling, good light all day.
THE ROPE-NET SITOUT
The most photographed thing in the villa
Slung over the stair void on the upper level, a black rope net with a rug thrown across it. Chess, cards, magazines, a bowl of popcorn. It is the reason children ask to come back, and one guest review calls it the trampoline.
THE POOL
Lit for night swimming
Private, with a waterfall wall spilling into the deep end and a timber bridge across it. A deck warm enough to sit out on after dark, loungers, and steps up to the barbecue counter and the fire pit.
THE LAWN AND FIRE PIT
Twenty people around a bonfire
Level, fenced and green, big enough for a long dining table or twenty people around a fire. Sunset over the valley on one side, the villa lit up behind you on the other. This is where most evenings end.
THE TERRACE DINING DECK
Dinner under the fairy lights
A long teak table under a pitched roof strung with fairy lights, open on three sides to the valley. Where most groups end up eating even when the weather says otherwise.
THE LIBRARY
Bhilar is India's Book Village
Books and a chair by a window. Every second house in Bhilar has a painted book room, and we keep our own small version of it.
THE KIDS' CORNER
Somewhere for them to disappear to
An indoor play area, PlayStation Console, an outdoor playground and a trampoline, plus the rope net upstairs. Cot and changing table available on request.
THE ROOFTOP TERRACE
Sahyadri on three sides
Chai at seven in the morning, sundowners at six in the evening, stars after that. The highest point in the villa and the quietest.
