Stylish and contemporary, the Basavanagar villa of Lakshmi and T V G Krishnamurthy has been home to the family for the past three years.
A picture of subdued elegance, the home reflects a harmonious blend of the modern and traditional. Modern — because it is aesthetically accessorised with exquisite art objects from around the world, brought home by the widely-travelled family members. Moreover, the home is minimalist and understated, in keeping with current trends. Thus, nothing is overdone or overwhelming, either in structural or décor elements. It’s also traditional because the Krishnamurthys’ are at heart, very tradition-abiding and respectful of ancient customs. So the home is largely vaastu-compliant; has a small but specially designed puja room; vermillion and turmeric-streaked thresholds; and so on.
Centre of attraction
The home’s salient feature is the courtyard, a rectangular paved area with an enormous jackfruit tree in the centre, flanked by a series of planters in natural stone, and wall-mounted creepers. The wall on one side is elegantly accessorised with a Ganesha mural, wall-mounted flowers, and a Halloween bird. This tree was part of the site when it was purchased, and the family was given a choice by the architect of either cutting it down and building over, or retaining it. They settled for the latter, deciding to build the house around it in a U-shape. It paid off and how! Serene, spacious, and totally natural-looking, this space gives the home an ‘away-from-the-bustle’ look, and a kind of farmhouse-feel. On moonlit nights, it takes on a dreamy, tranquil ambience.
The entire home is designed to take advantage of courtyard-view, virtually every room on both levels has windows overlooking it. The drawing and dining rooms have large floor-to-ceiling glass windows minus grills, on their courtyard-facing wall. Rolling shutters take care of the security aspect.
Natural wonder
A remarkable aspect of the home is the way it stays awash in light from dawn till late evening. This was achieved by the use of high ceilings, expansive windows in all rooms, four skylights, pristine-white ceramic flooring, and a conscious decision to use only blinds in neutral colours and sheers eschewing heavy drapes/curtains. All of which means the home is bathed in natural light and fresh breeze, most of the time, giving it a wonderfully bright and sunny look, and a warm feel.
The skylights do more than invite natural light into the home. They are an imaginative design element too. The jackfruit tree’s leaves overhang the drawing-room skylight — creating surreal patterns on the floor at dusk and night. On full-moon nights, moonlight bathes the room and sometimes even the moon is reflected on the floor.
The puja room on the ground floor rises tall through two levels and ends in a skylight on the home’s roof. It was so designed to enable an “auspicious” free flow of natural light from top to bottom and secondly, the absence of a room above the puja room means no one is “walking ‘above’ or ‘over’ the gods and goddesses installed in that sanctified area,” says Lakshmi with a laugh.
Worldly wonders
Offsetting the minimalist palette of the home are eye-catching interior accessories — pure-crystal vases and bowls sourced from USA; striking desktop objects from Australia; wooden African masks; intriguingly beautiful pieces of tribal jewellery; an antique painting of Krishna with gopikas; rare Balinese carvings; quaint Chinese dolls…all defined by their very unusual look. “We look only for offbeat objects of art at any place we visit, not usual tourist souvenirs. Also, something truly classy. We choose the piece after much thought as we don’t want our home to end up looking like a handicraft emporium or wayside souvenir shop,” reveal the family members who are evidently discriminating shoppers.
Muted orange and green are the defining tones of the home — visible in the floating-wall’s niches, the coffee-corner, bedrooms, and the shelves housing Krishnamurthy’s book-collection — mostly management wisdom. Even daughter Sandhya’s room is a symphony in orange with copper artifacts to match. Son Siddharth’s bedroom has shades of green but as the Harvard-educated. beSiddharth is now settled in USA, this now functions as a guest room.
Every family has their favourite spot in a home. Here it’s the living room on the upper floor — a spacious, invitingly comfortable space opening onto an east-facing balcony, offering views of the sunrise over a nearby lake. The family plans to equip this balcony with a pergola and stone benches to make it a regular sitout like their other bamboo-pergola-covered balcony.
Almost perfect
As any homeowner will tell you, even a dream home falls short of being totally perfect. Whether it is the dictates of vaastu or the unique needs of each family member, something does remain undone, unfulfilled. The kitchen, for eg, is not in the vaastu-specified direction — practical considerations prevented that. Also, the residents wish they had a bigger garden, something which the fixed size of the plot and the decision to have a large courtyard precluded. Currently, the home is surrounded by a well-manicured lawn; its outer walls bordered by rows of plants, including exotic varieties. But the family misses a sprawling garden.
Also, they feel they missed out on the opportunity to create luxury designer bathrooms when they went with the choice of the architects of the villa-complex to have standard bathrooms. They hope to redo the bathrooms some time in the future. We may still change things around, say the residents, with a smile. “Our home is much a work in progress as a labour of love!”
