Shanti & Morada

Restored from a decrepit house, Shanti Morada boutique hotel in Saligao that embodies peace and happiness retains a quaint and uptown Goan-Portuguese style of architecture.

- AR Sacheen Pai Raikar

Writing from the project architect’s point of view is usually difficult, on two counts, especially when one of your more challenging projects laps up hospitality industry awards within its first year of operations.

Any attempt to evoke the passion and perseverance of our clients, Rajat and Sanjana Verma in setting up this project, would be difficult with these few written words.

Their efforts were rewarded when Shanti Morada Goa received an award for Best Upcoming Boutique Hotel in Goa from NDTV and Brands Academy in early January 2014, as well as reaching the No 1 spot on Trip Advisor out of 435 hotels in Goa.

Secondly, to try and compress eight years of planning, along with surmounting near impossible odds to see this project reach fruition, in this article would again be as difficult.

Rajat and Sanjana of Shanti Group, Delhi had fallen in love with Goa on their first visit together in 1995, and bought the Saligao property with the house, Casa de Morada – The House of Happiness, in 2005.

My first visit to the site in 2006, along with the promoters was a memorable one.

It became so when they conveyed that economics of scale did not bother them and their vision for the project was mainly a small 20-room boutique resort – a comfortable human scale, in keeping with the context of the existing house

They run a hugely successful and multiple award-winning boutique hotel in the heart of Delhi, Shanti Home, as well as a villa hotel, Shanti Villa in Calangute. A resort in Madikeri, Coorg, is in the pipeline.

Challenges