Jaipur Haveli

This is a house before it is a hotel, and the family will tell you its story if you ask.

Two brothers left the village of Patna for Jaipur after plague took most of their family. They became the most prominent diamond traders in northern India, with buyers coming from as far as Iran and Turkey. In 1921 they bought this haveli, then in poor condition and already 170 years old, which puts the building at roughly the age of Jaipur itself. Forty people worked on it for twelve months before the brothers moved in. They added the second and third floors on the first courtyard, which is where the guest rooms are today.

From 1922 the family were court jewellers, personal jeweller to His Highness Sawai Man Singh Ji, Maharaja of Jaipur, and to the royal family of Jaisalmer. The suite was the family’s Chandni room, named for the moonlight that came through the open roof in its middle, covered over in 1972 when it became a bedroom. Until 1988 water reached the second floor by bucket and rope.

The bed and breakfast began by accident. When Vikram and Shubhi married in 2006, forty-five guests slept in the house, and rooms that had been storage turned out to be rooms. Vikram had stayed in family guest houses on his hiking trips and liked what they did: you learn more about a place when you are part of the household.

The restoration kept the building honest. Damaged stone was replaced with the same material carved the same way, undamaged stone refitted where it had always been, traditional methods throughout. What you get is eight rooms of hand-painted fresco, block-printed cotton and hand-woven Jaipur rugs, and courtyards, hallways and rooftops worth exploring for the detail alone.

The bazaars start at the end of the alley. Hawa Mahal and the City Palace are a 400-metre walk.