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This Mumbai bungalow brings the outdoors into the home in the best ways possible

  • bungalow
Jun 07, 2023
Living room design with decor pieces - Beautiful Homes

In our series, The Way We Live, featuring homes, people and the way private residences are created, this week we visit a bungalow in Juhu, Mumbai. With some smart restructuring, this closed-up family home is now a contemporary, open space where the residents get to live with nature as a backdrop

Juhu is one of the poshest addresses in Mumbai but in the great leveller that is the monsoon, this low-lying suburb drowns like every other. We reschedule the tour of Thakkar family’s Juhu home three times because of the heavy downpour. Finally, on that one almost-dry day in between, we make it to this old dignified home that was renovated for Prembhari's family. Photographers, designers and homeowners all prefer sunlit environments for shoots, but the mood set by cloudy skies and the soft drizzle on the courtyard plants is very suited to the personality of this space.

With some smart restructuring this old closed-up family building is now a contemporary, open space where the residents get to live with nature as a backdrop.

And that greenery in the courtyard is the first thing you notice as soon you enter through the main entrance. Where many in Mumbai high-rises make do with paintings of flora and fauna to bring a sense of outdoors into their homes and offices, framed by picture windows the garden here makes for the most beautiful backdrop for their living room. But having lived in the house for 34 years, Prembhari was able to experience this luxury only after the recent renovation of the space by Mumbai-based architect Rubel Dhuna. The ground floor living space of the 4000 sq ft property had no connection to the outside. The courtyard was being used as a service corridor. The windows were small, the indoors didn’t have much ventilation, the dining space was cut off from the living room and the seating was all looking away from each other.

Jhula design in Mumbai home - Beautiful Homes

The jhula already belonged to the family but the traditional piece was made contemporary with a new curved seat.

Breaking Down and Opening Up

“I had been looking for someone to redo the living room downstairs, mainly just change the upholstery and help me place the art. But when Rubel came in, she brought a whole vision of her own. She could obviously see something that I couldn’t,” says the 38-year-old lawyer about the home she shares with her parents, husband and two-year-old daughter.

Living and dining room design with glass and wooden shutters - Beautiful Homes

The architect Rubel Dhuna brought down the wall between the living and dining rooms and replaced it with bi-folding art deco glass and wood shutters to connect both rooms.

The architect brought down the wall between the living and dining rooms and replaced it with bi-folding art deco glass and wood shutters to connect both rooms. She then introduced large doors and wooden windows in both spaces to enable the inside-outside connect, which has given the home a new burst of energy paying off massively for the family. Colour and patterns were added with new Persian and Kashmiri carpets and some old art – works by Pratibha Wagh, Vaikuntham, Prashant Prabhu, Urmila Devi, collected through the years by Prembhari’s mother. “The one thing I was really clear about was having a live edge table, which now sits in the centre of our living room,” Prembhari adds.

Keeping it Green

With a mother who has always been a keen gardener, living with plants isn’t new to Prembhari. “If we had an empty corner, she would liven it up with plants. This is such a large space and it always felt empty, the living room particularly because of the high ceilings,” she says. At the moment, the family has 10 different kinds of indoor plants including Ferns, Brassia, Bromeliads and Philodendrons that do well in low or medium light and can thrive in smaller pots. The champa that they loved couldn’t be contained in a pot, so they had to get it rid of it recently.

 

“The family loves plants. They will tell you its scientific names, benefits and everything else about it,” smiles Rubel. For example, the mistletoe cactus, which Prembhari tells us is actually Rhipsalis Baccifera that she likes for the structural element it adds to the décor. On the second floor of the house too, which the couple shares with their little daughter, the master bedroom was attached to a room flooded with natural light and surrounded by dense foliage. The picture windows added by Rubel make this the brightest room in the house, a space Prembhari now calls the sunroom. “We feel like we are living in the treetops and can even see the squirrels running about. This has now become the space where we spend most our time as a family.”

The client of the Juhu Bungalow - Beautiful Homes

Prembhari Thakkar is a lawyer and shares this bungalow in Juhu with her parents, husband and two-year-old daughter Meera.

Living room design with décor pieces - Beautiful Homes

The couple decided against any tech in the living room, just one projector which can be pulled down when required.

Colourful sunroom design - Beautiful Homes

The sunroom next to the couple’s bedroom on the second floor. Having the perfect rugs and carpets in the house were very important to Prembhari, and all of them have been personally handpicked by her.

Sunroom design with traditional rocking chair - Beautiful Homes

The sunroom is the couple’s favourite place to unwind and spend time with their daughter Meera, who has her own room next to it.

Living room opens to the courtyard - Beautiful Homes

The greenery in the courtyard framing the living room is the first thing you notice as soon you enter through the main entrance.

Courtyard design idea engulfed with nature - Beautiful Homes

The courtyard was being used as a service corridor for many years before the renovation.

Indoor plants placed around the Mumbai house - Beautiful Homes

“If we had an empty corner, my mother would liven it up with plants,” says Prembhari.

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