DRAWING FROM A DIAGRAM

How can the life of a home influence your own? Surrounded by arcadian verdure - patience, experimentation and adventure await at George Seemon's reclusive farmhouse in Tamil Nadu

- NAMRATA DEWANJEE

How can it possibly rain in January? I asked, hoping the downpour would not follow me as we drove from the familiar city of Bengaluru to the unknown. Turns out, clouds have a mind of their own. On a farm right at the state border, I reached a home off the beaten path in Tamil Nadu’s Bagalur. Its walls are as stoic as they are human.

“The house is exactly like the initial sketch,” says George Seemon, the CEO and design director of Stapati Architects, “Two boxes fitting into each other. Like a matchbox.” The decision to build the 2,690 sq ft farmhouse where it stands today for him and his family was almost instinctual for George — it was the only spot without trees, the one spot that offered itself up, a blank canvas. Everywhere else, mango trees — a dozen or perhaps more, stand quiet, biding their time with early blooms.