Taradale

Seclude publishes no build date and names no builder for the house. What it does record is the hamlet: Ramgarh is called the fruit bowl of Kumaon for its apple, peach, plum and apricot orchards, and the quiet of it is said to have moved Rabindranath Tagore to write part of the Gitanjali here. The villa holds six bedrooms and sleeps nineteen.

Every room is named for a bird. Rosefinch is on the ground floor and opens onto the common courtyard verandah, with high ceilings, roshandaans and an indoor fireplace. Magpie has an old four poster and a bay window under wooden rafters. Cuckoo is a duplex where children sleep in the attic and a wood burning fireplace stands by the bed. Parakeet takes the most light in the house, its windows each looking at a different view. Sunbird is the attic room, Myna the twin.

Meals are home cooked and served in the heritage dining room, three a day, with no a la carte. There is a pool table, a badminton court, and a gazebo in the garden where evening tea is close to a ritual. Kathgodam railhead is 46km down the hill.