Built by a Sanskrit Scholar for his Polish Wife, This Uttarakhand Eco Stay is a Sustainable Paradise

Chestnut. Ringol. Oak.

At Jilling Terraces, the cottages — and the trees they’re named after — have long echoed a single message: sustainability.

It’s not just a theme; it’s a way of life here. It fills the air, shapes the architecture, nourishes the soil, seasons every meal, and colours every conversation between Sheela Venkatraman Lunkad and her husband, Rajeev.

Today, we join in the fun.

Straight out of a postcard, this eco stay in the heart of Uttarakhand’s forests — 100 acres of kaleidoscopically diverse flora — has a backstory as beautiful as its appearance.

Love has always been in the air at Jilling Terraces; its history proves. Sheela’s tale of one of the bungalows, Chestnut House — which was built in 1933 by a Sanskrit scholar for his Polish doctor wife — is a case in point.

“It seems she was recommended the place for its cool climate, and so her husband, Subramanium Iyer, built her this cottage,” she shares. Sheela and her family stumbled upon some tincture bottles one day during a spring cleaning session. This happened after they bought the land from Subramanium’s son, Anant Ram Iyer, in 2004.

The discovery of the bottles supported their guess about Subramanium’s mother’s condition. They also believed that the change of scenery — with pockets of sunshine filtering through forests of tall Deodars and whispering pines — might have been a possible antidote.

The land was meant to make her feel better. And it could do the same for you.

‘How we found Jilling Terraces’

A penchant for culture and local collaborations is at the heart of Sheela’s work as an architect. The ethnocentric mindset, she explains, dates back to her college days in Kolhapur, which were coloured with visits to different artisanal-heavy clusters around the country.

Sit-downs with the craftspeople taught her more than a textbook could. It introduced her to the leitmotif of an artisan’s work. She recognised the importance of fair wages and got a front row seat to how mass production often meant us sacrificing our cultural ethos.

But the event that really shaped her was the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in 2002 at Washington D C. Produced by the Smithsonian Centre for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, the festival saw the conglomeration of around 400 craftsmen from different geographies. It was a revelry of photography, painting, song, dance, art, craft and pottery. Being a part of the organising committee had given her a front row seat to how culture could be a bridge for stories.  

Charged with this appreciation for the arts, in 2004, Sheela stepped into her role of architect at retail brand Fabindia and rose to head of design. In 2007, she was made CEO of Fabindia’s subsidiary company Desert Artisans Handicrafts, which focused on turning artisans into shareholders.

Starting a homestay wasn’t ever on the cards.

Explaining how that part of her life shaped up, she shares, “My sister, a filmmaker and potter, often visited this piece of land; she would convince me to take a look at it. Her descriptions made me curious — ‘Rhododendrons bloom here in summer; the air is so crisp’ — I finally agreed to go check out the place.”

Independence Day 2004 saw Sheela and Rajeev standing on the land, which is now christened as Jilling Terraces. The silence was magical; broken only by birds. They couldn’t seem to look away; they knew they’d found ‘home’.

“We stayed around the area for a week. Every morning, we’d wake up thinking, ‘This is literally the most beautiful place’. We were gripped by the dream,” Sheela says.

But who was most excited about the plausibility of turning this land into ‘home’ was the architect in her. “Architects are perpetually dreaming; they would build in the clouds if they could. The challenge is that in cities, we rarely get the freedom to really go all out and create what we’d like to.”

To her, the land was like a blank slate waiting to be filled with possibility.

That excitement — combined with the relief of their Delhi-weary lungs finally breathing cleaner air — led Sheela and Rajeev to embrace the idea of a homestay. Nestled in a cocoon of green, Jilling Terraces is a charming time-warp with echoes of the colonial era. “It’s literally at the top of the clouds. You have to see to believe,” Sheela says.

Bringing a utopian vision to life

“You’ll sleep like a baby here,” is Sheela’s promise.

Being at Jilling Terraces is almost like being back in the womb of nature. It’s quite a humdinger of a spot. And while it will take you a 1-hour 20-minute walk from the village of Matial — there is also a horseback option; the absence of roads means you can’t drive right up to the homestay — the views at the top compensate for the long travel time.

“Even while we were building the cottages, everything had to be taken up by horseback. There were days, we just slept out in the open,” Sheela mentions.

The absence of proper roads, coupled with their intent to adhere to only sustainable materials, added to the challenge. Rajeev adds, "When we began work, the property had no road access, no water supply, and the main house was severely damaged by major earthquakes in Uttarakhand. Every material had to be transported via the mountain trail on horseback, a journey that could take 45 minutes to two hours, depending on the load."

Sheela recalls an anecdote of a tile supplier “chasing” her up 7,000 feet trying to sell her his fare.

“I took him to the beautiful stone granite that had been carved by one of the locals here and asked him, ‘Why would I choose a vitrified tile over this?’ Surprisingly, he agreed. He shared that being an Uttarakhandi, he takes pride in the local stone carving, but modern choices have caused them to shift materials,” she shares.

The commitment to sustainability is evident not just in the architecture but also in the decor of the rooms.

Explaining the layout, Sheela says, “The main house is Chestnut House. Made of stone and lime plaster, it has four rooms: Kafal — named after a purplish-black berry tree that stood outside the cottage until it was struck by lightning last year — features sheesham (Indian rosewood) flooring, white plaster walls, and handloom curtains. Padam, named after a golden-brown Himalayan tree, has wooden flooring and stone walls. Buransh, named after the rhododendron, features mud-jointed stone walls, wooden rafters, and white curtains sourced from local weavers. And Utish, named after the local alder tree, uses its wood ingeniously — as towel stands, toilet paper holders, and wedges for mirrors tucked into the nooks of the house.”

Next to Chestnut House is Ringol Cottage (named after the dwarf bamboo harvested from oak forests), which features the wood in the ceiling under the tin roofs. Besides that is Oak Cottage, which features wood from ballis (fallen tree trunks).

Live the farm life at Jilling Terraces

While at this Himalayan eco-stay, you don’t need to adhere to a regimen. Simply bound into the open arms of the forest by way of treks to the nearby spots. There’s also a farm house experience that comes highly recommended.

The traditional Kumaoni house — built using local architectural techniques with stone, wood, and mud — features a bedroom, a living room, kitchen, and a bath arranged around a central courtyard. Its mud walls are finished with slaked lime and cow dung, while the mud-plastered floors use chiselled granite and ballis (beams salvaged from the old house). The cottage stands as a striking example of how repurposed materials can be transformed into something truly beautiful.

“The mud plaster and cow dung in the walls and floor keep the place cool in summers and warm in winters, and also keep insects at bay. There is a fireplace in each room and a 360-degree view of mountains and forests from all sides,” Sheela shares.

Calling it a ‘conservation’ effort rather than a ‘restoration’, Rajeev reasons that it’s because they tried preserving everything they could of the old house, while only making functional modifications where needed.

“We just polished the wooden oak roofs, changed some doors and windows at the back of Chestnut House, added four bathrooms to it and built five water tanks on the land. I got the curtains made from leftover wool and silk from Avani in Tripura (a community-based organisation that has been creating livelihood opportunities in the Kumaon region of the Indian Himalayas through the revival of traditional crafts),” Sheela adds.

In fact, during the journey of creating Jilling Terraces, the bonds that Sheela fostered with artisans and communities across India led her to start Direct Create — a digital creative platform connecting local makers to a global network of designers and buyers to collaborate and co-create handcrafted products. With a community of over 15,000 handpicked makers and designers, they foster organic connections between makers and buyers.

These artisanal imprints are visible in the decor at the stay.

In fact, nature’s handiwork is evident in every corner of Jilling Terraces. Ever so often, you’ll hear a whisper of sustainability carried by the wind; but every now and then, the land lapses back into silence — a silence so profound, you’ll be able to hear your heart beat.

And that’s the whole point of everything, right?

Book your stay here.

All pictures courtesy Sheela Venkatraman Lunkad