The house and its forest
A room kept for
quiet, and reflection
Long before the hill stations, these forests were where people came to sit. The old idea of the forest hermitage — a grove set apart for meditation, breath, and stillness — belongs to country exactly like this. Our cottage, colonial-era stone and timber restored with a light hand, keeps that spirit: a house arranged around calm rather than display.
It was made by hand, in the way of its time — stone coursed and set by masons, rafters hewn from local timber, and walls packed with a mix of lime and grass for warmth, a craft only a few still keep. The rafters overhead are the originals. We've kept these things rather than cover them over.
Among those the forest drew was Jim Corbett — hunter turned naturalist, who gave the Kumaon its most famous books and, later, its national park. He was once a guest under this roof. We've resisted turning that into a plaque; the better memorial is the forest itself — the same ridgelines, the same birdsong at first light, still keeping their own counsel.
This is the country Corbett wrote of — a Kumaon of tiger and leopard, bear and sambar and more than a hundred kinds of birds, where on a clear morning the snows stand from Trisul to Nanda Devi. Those same creatures watch from the walls indoors, in wildlife photographs by Aekam. It is devout country, too: there are hills here where custom forbids the killing of any bird or beast — and in that spirit, the kitchen is wholly vegetarian.
We take one party at a time — guests who understand what it is: a retreat, not a hotel, and quiet on purpose.
Hand-hewn local timber, still carrying the roof a century on.
Packed for warmth in the old way — a craft only a few still keep.
Set by masons, mossed by a hundred hill seasons since.
