Inside a 150-year-old Dalhousie resort once favoured by Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose

The Bawa sisters aren’t ones to pick favourites, “but if we had to, it would be the triple-height lobby,” they say. Inclined Studio

Heritage Beauty

When the Design Legends team first arrived at the property that would later be christened Terrah Hills, they found a building that wore its age openly. Nearly 150 years old, the heritage bungalow bore the marks of time, yet much of its original character remained remarkably intact. Beneath the wear and tear was a distinctly colonial hill-station dwelling, shaped by local materials, skilled craftsmanship and a way of building that has largely disappeared. As work progressed, the restoration took on a life of its own. “We quickly realised that the house had more stories to tell than we had anticipated,” says Madhur Gupta, co-founder and lead architect of the Pathankot-based studio. The process might have seemed straightforward on paper, but it was anything but. Layers of plaster gave way to original stone walls, while sections of deodar timber emerged in astonishing condition despite decades of exposure to the mountain climate. For Gupta and fellow co-founder Nitika Mahajan, also the firm’s lead interior designer, these finds gradually shifted the project's priorities. Rather than focusing on what needed to be replaced, the team became increasingly interested in what could be retained. “Every time we looked a little deeper, we found another reason to preserve what was already there,” says Mahajan, admitting it was both an opportunity and a challenge. “The building kept reminding us that its greatest design asset was its own history.”