“Restoration is not easy because you have a ready shell and you have to make everything in it look good.” — Sonal Chordia

FACT FILE

Nestled in the heart of Pondicherry, La Serenite is a beautiful house that stands tall and proud, showcasing a perfect blend of French and Indian architectural styles. After years of enduring the weathering effects of time, designer Sonal Chordia took the guest house up to offer it a new lease on life — giving it a complete renovation. With a team of locally-sourced skilled craftsmen, the house has undergone a metamorphosis, while preserving its unique charm and character and emerged as a breath-taking weekend getaway home.

Situated on one of the most pristine and popular beaches of Pondicherry, a mud road leads up to the 13,000 sq ft plot where this east-facing house sits snugly. Lush groves of palm trees, the sounds of the beach in the vicinity and the white sand blanketing this house were all aspects that Chordia was glad to have working in the house’s favour right from the start.

A FEEL PER ROOM

La Serenity was a dull and dingy guesthouse that needed to be revived to give it character. Chordia went about giving every room a unique vibe.

The entrance of the villa had a veranda running all around the house that was retained and given bright athangudi tiles for the flooring to synchronise with the traditionally designed pillars holding up the roof.

The foyer that the entrance led to was given the addition of a sliding door partition to separate a nook — this nook then morphed into the Children’s Bedroom. A micro cement bed was added in, flanked by cement layers acting as stairs created for the kids.

The living area received a black and white tile treatment for the flooring and a simple tasteful American Sal wood grid for the ceiling. A wooden partition, which was initially planned to create a visual segregation between the TV and the seating area was later replaced by a quirky wooden swing whose backrest could switch sides. Further accents to this space include a warm banana fibre rug, a 100-year-old Tanjore painting bedecking a wall and a diwan for TV viewing.

The powder area is where the room is imbibed with a French vibe with the theme being blue and white seen in the wallpaper and a black-rimmed mirror that completes the look.

The stairs to the first floor open into a lobby area. This area previously had aluminium partitions that Chordia immediately decided didn’t go with the aesthetic of the house and hence, they had to go. Now, the area sports warm, panelled partitions with two Zardosi paintings custom-made by Chordia’s mother, who is an artist too. The doors of this lobby are repurposed from the doors that lined the pool hut outside. They were refurbished with blue stained glass and polished for reuse.

The master bedroom on the first floor has a natural and traditional look finishing it. A small nook that is a step-down is used as a tea area. This space has a direct view of the beach that becomes the focal point when one sits down to sip tea here.

Another room of the rundown guest house, which initially had no utility on the first floor adjacent to the terrace, was picked to be turned into a dry area. This area now has a lavish his-and-hers basin area, a wardrobe and an open-to-sky shower area closed off for privacy from the external terrace using a bamboo-fenced panel. The whole space has humble, natural broken-stone flooring.

The guest bedroom is also on the first floor. It gets its own sense of beachy vibe from the pool that it overlooks. A swing bed acts as an ode to the feeling of waking on a hammock. The flooring for this room is cement tiles in the colour mustard yellow and grey. The bathroom is themed in stone — stone mirrors, stone basins, and walls tiled in laterite. The light fixtures of this bath were custom-made using twig sconces.  

OUT BY THE POOL

The guest house had an indoor badminton court as an ancillary structure within the compound next to the pool. This was transformed into a pool house. The walls were retained but the doors were eliminated and repurposed throughout the main house. The now-pool house was given vertically-sliding blinds instead. The space holds an exquisite chess table, pool beds and a micro cement dining table. This space has a Mediterranean feel with distressed doors in turquoise and walls in white.

Chordia cast her attention to the swimming pool deciding to give it an uplift as well. In restoring it, a set of steps were added which didn’t exist formerly, along with a small bar table in the corner to enjoy drinks in the evening. Additionally, plenty of water features were incorporated that add the symphonies of rippling water to the whole atmosphere created in and around the house.

Not wanting to spare any detail unattended, Chordia redid the terrace as well, adding a hammock and a WPC pergola making this yet another inviting nook of the house that can be enjoyed anytime throughout the day.

Local artistry and craftsmanship have been pivotal in shaping La Serenite to the form it has taken today. About ninety per cent of the decor pieces, accessories and materials were locally sourced or sourced from areas around Tamil Nadu. Restoration is a tricky business where you have to work with what you have. Every addition that you make needs to feel like it belongs and yet you cannot let go of what you began with. However, despite these thoughts, Chordia believes the fruit of manoeuvring the challenges is the satisfaction of delivering a product that is unconditionally loved.