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Some homes are built to impress. Coromandel Court was built to be inherited.
It is a 12,000 sq ft residence in Bengaluru, made for a couple at the very top of global business: he is the Chief Marketing Officer of a billion-dollar global company, and she is a Vice President at a billion-dollar organisation. Two young children, a lifetime of travel, and careers that move at extraordinary speed. What they wanted at home was the opposite of that speed: somewhere slow, rooted and unmistakably South Indian, that would give their children a cultural foundation from their earliest years.
They did not want a sterile contemporary box. Nor did they want a museum. They wanted both halves of their lives in one house. That brief is where Temple Town first gave its design language a name.
The tension in the brief was the whole design. On one side, the heirloom: antique timber, indigenous craft, classical Indian art, pieces that carry a story. On the other, the modern: an open-plan layout, acoustic technology, a kitchen built for a family always on the move.
We took the soul of the past and applied it to a strictly contemporary plan, and treated the house not only as a place to live but as a future antique in its own right. We called it Heirloom Modernism — and every project since has been measured against it.
The home was completed in nine months, carried by a shared passion for authenticity, design history, and the idea of making something for the next generation.
The foundation of Coromandel Court is South Indian. But the family's own collection — Kalighat paintings, miniatures, Pichwais, artefacts gathered from across India — and the European influence absorbed through years of international travel make it deeply personal rather than regional. These are clients who have seen the finest homes in the world, and who chose Indian craft because they recognise it as the equal of anything they have seen. The house reads as a portrait of modern India: rooted, worldly and at ease with both.
East and West meet room by room. The formal dining room is anchored by a gate-legged teak table, a European form, with dining chairs upholstered in Ritu Kumar textiles.
A guest bedroom is dressed in Chennai-inspired embroidery — hospitality wrapped in tradition. The kitchen is a bold, contemporary sea of navy blue; the home office is a calm, focused green.
The home opens with a foyer inlaid with semi-precious stone — a statement, from the first step, about craftsmanship. Beyond it, 20-foot ceilings give way to the heart of the house: a three-foot-deep sunken conversation pit, carved exactly as the client had imagined it.
It is framed in rich wood and lined with built-in sofas in soft neutral upholstery, warmed by cushions in deeper tones. Low handcrafted tables sit at its centre. A deep green panelled wall anchors the room, a carved wooden balcony detail adds architectural depth overhead, and a classic writing desk gives it character. Gatherings here spill naturally out to the outdoor bar and gazebo, so the grandest room in the house is also the most relaxed.
The principal suite is the home's crown jewel. A pitched ceiling lined in warm timber, with exposed beams, draws the eye up. At its centre stands a custom princely four-poster bed in rich wood, softened by flowing white drapes.
But the defining moment is the wardrobe. A Raja Ravi Varma painting, Radha in the Moonlight, has been integrated into the wardrobe panels — an intimate gallery for the couple that turns storage into art. It is the clearest single expression of the philosophy in the house: the most everyday object in the room, made worthy of being handed down.
The rest of the room stays quiet. Neutral bedding, a vivid silk throw for traditional colour, a vintage pendant beside the bed, a wooden bedside table and an upholstered reading chair in the corner. Calm, comfortable, and built for real rest — which, for two people with careers like these, is the rarest luxury of all.
At the heart of the home is a pooja room that echoes temple architecture through a contemporary lens. A coffered ceiling in deep red, painted with ornate golden florals, lends it grandeur. A raised marble altar holds framed deity artworks, lit by traditional brass lamps, and carved wooden pillars frame the sanctum.
This was our favourite room to design. Deep blue walls and ceiling make it snug and cocoon-like, with a playful wallpaper overhead. There are trundle beds, a cosy mezzanine loft, and upholstered panels behind the beds for softness.
The loft is screened by a handcrafted divider of brass pipes threaded with Channapatna toys — the turned wooden toys many of us grew up with. The idea was to keep a traditional craft alive by making it part of a child's everyday world rather than something behind glass. Layered bedding in muted greens and warm tones keeps the room lively but calm, and it is designed to grow with the children.
Outside, a suspended wooden swing on thick rope supports hangs beside a hand-drawn monochrome mural of a street-side tea stall — everyday Indian life turned into a living canvas — above patterned vintage-style tiles.
The house is shaped by angular walls, which rarely suit freestanding furniture. Rather than chase every angle, we combined custom-built pieces that follow the wall geometry where needed with key furniture — sofas and beds — aligned to an internal visual grid. Circulation paths were kept to straight axes and sharp internal corners softened, so the house feels intuitive to move through. Soft furnishings, neutral finishes and clean-lined pieces then let the architecture remain the star while the rooms stay warm and liveable.
Coromandel Court is typical of the people Temple Town designs for. Most of our clients are C-suite leaders of billion-dollar companies and business owners who have truly made it — people who have access to anything, and who have learned to recognise the difference between expensive and genuinely fine. They come to us because they appreciate design, culture and craft, and want a home that carries all three.
This is what real Indian luxury looks like when it stops apologising: craft that has survived centuries, held to the standard of the finest homes anywhere, and made comfortable enough for two small children to grow up in. It was built for this family. It will be handed down by them.
Coromandel Court was designed and furnished by Temple Town, the interior design studio and furniture maker founded by Meera Pyarelal in Thrissur, Kerala, in 1999. Photography: Atul Pratap Chauhan. Styling: Meera Pyarelal.
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