The interiors, however, seemingly belie this structural rigour and, by Akali’s own admission, take on a more playful character. “With the interiors of this project, I wanted to have fun, driven by a sentiment of ‘why not?’” she says. “I wanted this house to be whimsical, imaginative and driven by sudden unpredictable impulses.” This spirit of flamboyance is perhaps best personified in the living room, a capacious double-height space with dark timber trusses and a sloping roof pitched to accommodate Goa’s monsoon rains.
Vikas Soni and his team spent around 1,200 man-hours manually hand-painting the wall murals using water-based colours.
Pankaj Anand
Pankaj Anand
Pankaj Anand
Against terracotta and beige lime-plaster walls, a series of fantastical wildlife murals come to life. If you’ve visited Jaipur’s popular haunts Bar Palladio and Villa Palladio, or picked up our September 2024 issue with Sonam Kapoor’s maximalist home on its cover, you’ve likely encountered the work of artist Vikas Soni, who has garnered something of a reputation for his inimitable murals. Here, monkeys play amid pink lilies and banana palms, while peacocks appear against pinstriped walls. “The idea was to turn this villa into a sanctuary rooted in creative expression and the calm of nature,” Akali says. During construction, a baby monkey became a regular visitor to the hacienda, so much so that Akali would sometimes time her site visits around the prospect of watching him play. The murals, which took approximately 1,200 man-hours to complete, draw on these chance encounters with the local wildlife.