Project Overview
Vacation homes are often imagined as escapes from the noise of everyday life. At Soulful Luxury, a 5,000 sq.ft. villa nestled within the lush landscape of Prestige Golfshire, retreat takes the form of stillness, continuity, and deep personal resonance. Designed as a long-term family getaway, the home is an intimate dialogue between nature and nostalgia - where heirlooms, art, and handcrafted elements coexist with contemporary forms. Rather than chasing trends, the design embraces a warm, timeless sensibility rooted in emotional connection.
Client Profile
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Client brief : A weekend vacation home for a family that values art, legacy pieces, and quiet living
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Design intent : Calm, continuity, and a strong emotional connection with nature
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Project duration : 4 months
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Scope : Interior design, styling, and complete project management
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Budget : 35 - 40 Lakhs
The Beginning of the Story: A Fig Tree
On the very first site visit, the design team encountered what would become the soul of the home -
a majestic fig tree, perfectly framed by floor-to-ceiling windows in the living room.
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Its calm, meditative presence became the foundation of the design direction. With this as an anchor, the interiors were imagined as an extension of the landscape: architecture and furnishings designed to allow nature’s grounding energy to flow freely through every space.
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Indoor and outdoor boundaries were softened, ensuring the tree remained a quiet yet powerful presence throughout the villa.
Key Challenge
The project commenced immediately after handover, with the clients seeking a faster-than-usual turnaround. At the same time, the home needed to thoughtfully accommodate a collection of heirloom furniture and artworks within a contemporary architectural shell. 1 The challenge lay in balancing speed with sensitivity—integrating memory-rich pieces without compromising clarity, functionality, or the calm, refined aesthetic the family envisioned.
Designing with Memory: Heirlooms as Anchors
The clients arrived with a thoughtfully curated collection of heirlooms—objects shaped by family, time, and touch. These pieces were not treated as decorative accents, but as narrative anchors.
Each heirloom informed spatial decisions, material choices, and detailing. The design became a careful composition where memory guided form, and every new intervention was made in conversation with what already existed.
​The result is a layered home where the past and present sit comfortably together—neither overshadowing the other.
Entry Sequence: A Quiet Sense of Grandeur
The arrival experience sets the tone for the home. Rising through the double-height entry is a 100‑year‑old fresco painting, integrated into an existing wall partition. Its restored textures and earthy palette introduce the idea of living heritage.
A solid wood bench and warm hanging lights complete the vignette, offering a moment of pause before the home unfolds—an intentional, understated welcome.
Living the Language of Quiet Luxury
Moving through the villa, the design language remains restrained yet deeply expressive.
A transitional passageway—once purely functional—was transformed into a warm, welcoming nook. A vintage mirror, custom shoe cabinet, and soft table lamps lend domestic intimacy. An area dense with switchboards and a video intercom was visually softened using striped wallpaper. Initially met with hesitation, the intervention was ultimately embraced for its subtle elegance and ability to humanise a utilitarian zone.
Dining: Designed for Everyday Rituals
The dining space unfolds in a sunlit, grounded palette. Custom-designed furniture—including the dining table, chairs, and crockery unit—was created to reflect the family’s daily rhythms rather than formal entertaining.
Anchoring the room is an original J.S. Mani oil painting from the Badami series, part of the client’s personal art collection. Its earthy tones bring cultural depth and visual richness, seamlessly woven into the home’s larger narrative of heritage and calm.
The Living Room: A Conversation with Nature
Wrapped on three sides by floor-to-ceiling windows, the living room is a sanctuary of light and stillness. The fig tree outside becomes an ever-changing backdrop, shifting with time and season.
A carefully composed seating arrangement supports both conversation and contemplation: a low custom daybed oriented inward or outward; a relaxed lounging seat; an existing one-seater reupholstered in dusky blue velvet drawn from the tones of the J.S. Mani painting; and a jute chair that restores balance through texture.
A bespoke square coffee table introduces a playful element, with a movable corner that transforms into a standalone perch—functional yet light in spirit.
Private Spaces: Personal Stories, Softly Told
The calm of the communal spaces carries into the private rooms. Sustainability was approached quietly and intuitively across the villa—through the reuse of existing furniture, restoration and reimagining of heirloom pieces, and considered material choices that prioritise longevity over excess. The master bedroom is conceived as a serene retreat where vintage and contemporary elements coexist effortlessly.
​A restored vintage desk forms a quiet study nook, paired with artwork from the family’s collection. Soft textiles define the mood: striped blinds filter daylight, while olive-green curtains layered with white linen sheers add depth without visual weight.
​Existing wooden furniture was retained and elevated through thoughtful lighting, art curation, and proportion—proof that meaningful transformation often lies in refinement rather than replacement.
Sustainability Through Thoughtful Continuity
Rather than introducing excess, sustainability was embedded through conscious decisions: finding new purpose for existing furniture, restoring heirloom pieces, working extensively with natural materials, and collaborating with local artisans and craftsmen.
These choices allowed the home to age gracefully, both materially and emotionally, while aligning seamlessly with its ethos of calm and quiet luxury.
A Home That Holds Emotion
Throughout the villa, authenticity guides every decision. Heirlooms lend soul, handcrafted pieces anchor the design in tactility, and the surrounding landscape offers a constant sense of calm.
Soulful Luxury is not simply a vacation home. It is a place where memory, nature, and modern comfort come together quietly—creating spaces that feel deeply personal, enduring, and lived in.
A home where moments pause, and the everyday is allowed to become quietly extraordinary.
