Design enough holiday homes and you will notice a pattern of how people like to relax. At least this was with Amey Dahhanukar, the main architect of ARA Designs, which had previously designed almost 80 luxury properties. “When it comes to second houses, we have now mastered what people like and don't like, we know what works and what doesn't, what will take and what will not take,” he says. When the Neelkanth group commissioned him with the development of an extensive holiday home in an unusually painterly painterly package Alibag -Landes, embedded on the shores of a genetic beam with green hills on one side and a rock face on the other side, he was ready for the challenge.
“A second home is more about the outside than the interior,” says Dahanukar. The scale of this special house, baptized Villa Iksa, is, to say the least, stunning 6,500 square foot over half a hectare country, with a pickleball area at the front and a swimming pool in the back, six bedrooms, separate lifestyle and dining rooms and a cave. In order to include both types of connections-to nature and other people-hat, the team came up with a C-shaped plan in which every room always looks at another. “The public spaces were designed in such a way that when I am on the Padel Court, I can take a look at the courtyard and a little pool without taking away a feeling of privacy,” expresses the architect. “Even if you are in the house, you don't feel lost – you have the feeling that someone is always there.” This feeling of “layered transparency”, as Dahanukar calls it, is obvious in which a minute goes to the entrance foyer – while the room itself is lively equipped with design objects and works of art, the eye is put on by the view. The first layer of this is a closed courtyard with a Lily pond that acts as a kind of half-outdoor between the living and dining rooms. In addition, this is an indication of this garden created, which was designed by Enviroscape and that runs around the entire property. “Although they are technically on the edge of the house, this view gives you a feeling for the three layers of the house when you enter,” says Dahhanukar.
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