Where old is gold In Goa, old houses are being restored to their former glory. Reena Martins checks out some of these gems.
Photos: House that! (From top) Ruben Vasco da Gama's villa in Quepem; A bedroom in the villa; Juhi Prasad sits outside her restored house in Saligao. Pix: Reena Martins reena.mart...@abp.in IT IS PAST NOON. Ruben Vasco da Gama is showing guests around Palacio do Deao, his 15-room house in Goa's far-flung Quepem taluka. His wife Celia goes about feeding her children at the dining table, undisturbed as the guests troop in. The visitors can contribute something in a drop box. Ruben, a mechanical engineer, and Celia, a microbiologist, have chosen to lead their lives in the public eye in a house that has been on Goa's tourist map for the last seven years. That was when they got it restored. Beautiful old Goan houses are being bougsht and restored -- and a few, like the da Gama villa, are open to tourists. "Old Goan houses will always be in vogue. But the trend of restoring them has gained momentum in the last five to six years," says Michael Lobo, CEO of Homes and Estates, a real estate firm in Goa which over the last eight years has restored and sold 15 "majestic" Goan houses. Some of the houses are being touted as Portuguese villas, a term freely used by websites and brochures marketing these houses. But Goa-based architect Gerard da Cunha stresses that the phrase is a misnomer. "These houses are a very beautiful mix of European and Indian features, and have wonderful proportions, but are not identical to houses in Portugal," he says. The snob value of these houses is escalating. Lobo says he recently sold a 4,000 square foot restored house, with a 15,000 square foot landscaped garden space and a swimming pool, for Rs 2.5 crore (little over half a million US dollars). Until a couple of years ago, foreigners dominated the buyer's market. But today they are only allowed to lease a house for up to 59 months, says Lobo. Not surprisingly, today most of his clients are Indians. Among the foreigners who own villas is Alessandro Baffico, who left a corporate career in Italy to retire in Goa. It cost him Rs 13 lakh in 2001 to buy his 3,000 square feet villa in Saligao, north of Panaji. He spent close to twice the amount on restoring the run down house. To restore their house, the da Gamas travelled to the northern Portuguese city of Braga, famed for its religious architecture. In the libraries there they found references to their house which the Portuguese government had commissioned for its nobleman and priest, Jose Paulo Costa e Almeida, who had it completed by 1787. It took three and a half years for the da Gamas to restore the 11,000 square feet house. The 80,000 square feet ornate garden, which had only nine big trees and a few coconut palms, was replanted with 15 varieties of fruit trees, besides ornamental and spice plantations, says Ruben. In the last decade, when the da Gamas bought and restored the Palacio do Deao, costs have risen by about 10 times, he adds. Juhi Prasad, who recently quit her banking career in Hong Kong, says she is glad she'd invested in a villa in Goa in 1998, when prices were "a lot lower". The ramshackle house in Saligao, which Juhi had initially dreamed of converting into a second hand bookshop cum café, was transformed by Juhi's architect sister, Ritu Prasad. The recent spurt in restoration projects in Goa has raised the demand for a new breed of conservation architects. Poonam Verma Mascarenhas, who specialises in conservation, has helped restore seven houses over the last three years. Another five are on the anvil. Architect Hyacinth Pinto has also restored seven houses over the last four years. "You can never tell the actual condition or cost of a house before actually starting work," she says. "The roof which looks perfect from below is often found to be termite ridden when seen from the top." Not all restored houses are aesthetically pleasing. To avoid interference from buyers -- "they want to incorporate things they've seen in China or Thailand or Europe" -- Lobo says he shows them the house only when the restoration is nearly completed. There is, however, a visible effort to mix and match the contemporary with the antique, discarded from demolished homes. Da Cunha, too, buys floor tiles, doors and windows from contractors who demolish 100-150 year-old Goan houses, to be fitted in the new houses he designs. Owners are also lending their individual touches to their houses. An interest in feng shui prompted Kornelia Santoro, a German writer who lives in a restored house in Sangolda, north Goa, to paint her house a deep red. "Since the house is in the middle of a forest, I had to balance the elements through colour," she says. The Santoros' rooftop was covered with white china mosaic to prevent leakage and "reflect the sun". Inside, to avoid "termites, squirrels and bats" from falling off the high roof, they fitted in a false ceiling with gypsum plates. The old houses were planned and positioned to allow just the right amount of sun, as per the seasons, says Ruben. Clay tiles on the roof and floor kept the house cool in the day and warm at night. Architect Prasad used very little glass in Juhi's house to keep it cool. Her walls stand separated from the ceiling by a wooden trellis, covered with a steel mesh to keep out the mosquitoes. Prasad, who got a small portion of the original roof removed to form a courtyard, has got the towering walls painted in lime. Soon, the insides of the bathrooms -- painted blue and green -- will also see lime. Baffico's building contractor, on the other hand, combined red oxide with egg whites to give the stone benches in the verandah a glossy finish. Elsewhere, new is the mantra. In Goa, old, indeed, is gold. FULL ARTICLE (with images): http://www.telegraphindia.com/1091025/jsp/7days/story_11655703.jsp Also by Reena Martins: All at sea: With yet another ship with Indian sailors having been taken hostage by Somali pirates, the families of Indian seamen can only pray that their loved ones will return. Reena Martins looks at their plight http://www.telegraphindia.com/1091101/jsp/7days/story_11685459.jsp