A couple of decades ago, where Casa Capitol stands today on Wood Street, was an old rambling bungalow which belonged to Dr Edward Pereira who hailed from Cannanore. Dr Pereira was in the Army and lived with his family of one boy and four girls in this house named Chisel Hurst.
“Today my aunts have married into old Bangalore families so we are related to the Lopes from Richmond Road, Chicos from Chico Square, the Muthannas and the Peters who are in Australia. In fact, I am into the genealogy of the family now, tracing all our ancestors from old church records,” reveals Natalie Pereira, the daughter of the only son, Loftus Pereira.
Unfortunately, Loftus died when Natalie and her brother Dale were very young, barely 10 and 9 years old. “It was our mother Merlyn Pereira who shouldered the burden of the family, working in Bishop Cotton School as a secretary and then a teacher and later retiring from Baldwin Girls’ School. She was also a committee member in the Bowring Institute, taking charge of the library for years,” said Natalie.
The out-house
When Edward Pereira died, his estate was divided among his children. Loftus preferred to keep the ‘out-house’ and reared his family there. Today the old main house has made way for Casa Capitol, while the section which Loftus inherited remains, making a comfortable home for his family and grand daughter. The house opens onto Tate Lane and instead of a garden in front there is one behind.
And Dale, the son of the house and a lawyer by profession, has his chambers to one side.
The floors of the house are still black Cuddapah slabs and the roof with double tiles, is typical of old Bangalore. Externally there is terracotta Mangalore tile and inside, a decorative tile that Natalie got painted laboriously by hand.
Typical thick Burma teak beams hold up the roof. The monkey tops over the windows and the front door are all intact. Even the trellis wood work is in perfect condition. The two windows have large ornate window sills of granite, which are very unusual.
“Since the house opens out directly on the road, we have had to put safety grills on the windows to keep out hands, that come in from the road to steal. I have also put potted plants to keep away students and passers-by who look for places to hang out, making our front area vulnerable to vandalism. Tate Lane just a decade ago was quiet and easy to reside in. Now the volume of traffic and parking problems have made living here difficult,” says Natalie.
Lovely garden
We walk out into a lovely garden at the back of the house. This is Natalie’s baby one can see, with a tall Travellers Palm on which a pepper vine has wound its way to the top. Potted red anthuriums bloom abundantly and a cocoa sapling grows alongside the All Spice plant.
All the doors and windows of the house are original solid old teak, but the toilets have been redone to keep with the times. Old world rosewood furniture still graces the sitting room. There’s even a strange open, hand-wound clock! And typically, in the old colonial style, there is an octagonal window, high up above the front door, which has a little hole through which their Christmas tree wire passes!
I leave with the happy sounds of the family members sharing some time with each other.