Ancestral Home To Heritage Hotel

- Brinda Gill

The House of MG – short for The House of Mangaldas Girdhardas – a ground plus two levels structure, with a decorative façade, was built in the heart of Ahmedabad, in 1924 by Mangaldas Girdhardas, a textile mill owner. Located just across Sidi Saiyyed Mosque, the city’s most famous monument, the sprawling mansion was home to two generations of the Mangaldas family. With its bevy of rooms, courts, passages and staircases, the spacious residence had ample space for everyone from the elderly to small children!

From the late 1930s members of the family started moving out to independent residences and by 1950 all the family members had shifted out. A large section of the house was subsequently rented out, and it gradually became a shadow of its former self. In the mid-1990s, when the family assets were being divided, Abhay Mangaldas, the great grandson of Mangaldas Girdhardas, bought the residence from other family members through a company. Abhay was keen to restore the ancestral home to its former glory. ‘When I started I had no idea that it would turn out as a hotel. It just happened organically over the years as slowly the tenants started shifting out and the vacated spaces got converted into rooms, a conference space and so on’.

Meshing Expressions