The house was renovated in parts, rebuilt in parts and even built in parts but the bottomline is that the recreation was true to the original. Touches can be seen in pictures on the walls which also tell you the story of how these siblings, fourth generation British-Indians, were born and brought up in Kolkatta, Chennai, even Ooty (where their grandfather's bungalow still stands), and made Goa their home. "India is in my blood," says Charlotte, who along with Simon, is a PIO.
July 29-August 4, 2013
Pushpa Iyengar
“The house was in good nick,” says Charlotte Hayward, as she hands a carefully-preserved photo album, about how Vivenda dos Palhaços (House of Clowns), now a boutique hotel, then a Portuguese house, in Costa Vaddo, on a quiet lane in Majorda, looked like back when Goa was one big sleepy village and not the trendy destination it has become today. Neither Charlotte nor sibling, Simon, a high-flying advertising executive who worked in Hong Kong, New Zealand and Mumbai and is now the hotel’s owner, who bought this nearly 100-year-old home, and threw it open to guests in December 2006, complain about how much work went into restoring it into a colonial mansion, built in 1929.
Simon decided to buy property at the time of the Goa boom and everyone and his aunt were buying a piece of real estate here. "Houses kept disappearing," remembers Charlotte about their search, adding, that they finally decided they "should put the money where the mouth is" before everything they liked was gobbled up by some other buyer. It's been worth it evidently because five years ago, Vivenda dos Palhacos was listed by Tatler's as one of the 101 best hotels in the world and also Vanity Fair's 2008 Best List 'The details that make travel divine'.
There's a lovely story behind how Simon became the owner of this hotel, which has no neon signs leading you to it because Simon and Charlotte find it crass to advertise and prefer word of mouth publicity that sees the eight rooms full during the season. Simon, half-kiwi, was working in New Zealand when he met the relative of the original owner and discovered it was on the market. The rest, as they say is history.
The house that they built
The house was renovated in parts, rebuilt in parts and even built in parts (we added a new wing, says Charlotte) but the bottomline is that the recreation was true to the original and some. Touches can be seen in pictures on the walls which also tell you the story of how these siblings, fourth generation British-Indians, were born and brought up in India Kolkatta, Chennai, even Ooty (where their grandfather's bungalow still stands), and made Goa their home. "India is in my blood," says Charlotte, who along with Simon, is a PIO.
Vivenda dos Palhacos actually comprises a Portuguese mansion with a hall, two large bedrooms with ensuite bathrooms, a sitting room leading out to a veranda and a large dining room to seat twenty, an older 'Hindoo' house, behind, made from thick rammed earth walls with three double bedrooms all with ensuite bathrooms and at the back a self-contained cottage. The modern touch comes in the form of an ozone pool and also, Chanpura, which is a huge tent, with twin beds, rugs and old camping furniture, including a Thunder Box (chamber pot!) and an early version of a mini-bar.
The website tells you that the rooms are named after the places they 'lived in and loved'. So you have Konnagar, Alipore, Madras, Ballygunge and Ooty, while the cottage is named Chummery. The latest addition is Darjeeling, the old garage where Simon lived for five years. It has a Mezzanine floor for extra beds and its own private garden. If you are a group of 16, fear not, because Vivenda can accommodate you in comfort. And if it's the whole house you want, you can rent that too.
"We were looking for words to name our place when Simon found these brass buttons that belonged to my father. And embossed on the buttons was a jester," remembers Charlotte. Brazillian friends came up with Palahcos which means jester in Portuguese. "But many of our guests and friends think it was a palace. So, it's a pun really," says Charlotte narrating how Vivenda dos Palhacos got its name.
Charlotte shows us around the house which is mostly empty of guests because of the rains (but Vivenda is not closed for the season) and nudges us towards a passage where her pride and joy, the Vivenda Shop, 'still in its infancy, has taken root.' Plans are to add a variety of products 'beautifully made in India'.
Food, wine, books and thou
While breakfast is complimentary, dinner is not and should be booked so that the chef can source the meat, vegetables. Charlotte describes the food as 'eclectic' and can be eaten in company at the large dining table with other guests or at the courtyard near the pool, if guests prefer to be alone.
Guests come from all over the world, including India, and are an eclectic bunch of people who appreciate the books all over the mansion and all of the idiosyncratic touches including the matrimonial ads plastered on the walls in a bathroom and the back of the lorry that divides the bar from the well-stocked kitchen. It includes bottles upon bottles of Haywards 5000, the signature drink of Indian truckers, and raises a 'salaam' to Charlotte and Simon's grandfather who started Bengal Distilleries Co around 1905 in Calcutta and which manufactured the heady brew. In fact, Charlotte's father, Sir Anthony Hayward, worked for Shaw Wallace, which bought the distillery, for many years.
"It's another world in Goa," says Charlotte, who manages to get Toby, the resident basset hound, not to curl up on the sofa, in the large sitting room that looks onto a verandah that has a barber's chair for you to have your siesta in, but finds Totty, another basset hound, not so quick to obey. She gives up the battle to discipline the dog and tells you of the guests who have passed through Vivenda's doors. About the lady who had a long agenda: clothes for the tailor, a visit to the jeweler, glasses that needed fixing, and even a stop at the dentist. There's a long list of things, apart from the mandatory visits to the beach, Basilica of Bom Jesus that she recommends and many of the guests who come back, come armed with a to-do list. "A visit to the tailor is such a Goan thing, she says. And guests are warned: Please note that we are in a village, so we do not have a view, unless you count blue skies and coconuts. Also, being in a village in Goa means cocks, crow; chickens, cluck; pigs, grunt; children, play; parents, grumble; dogs, bark; Christians, sing and Church bells ring amid all the other signs of life you would expect in a south Goa Village.
Her different avatars
Charlotte has worn many hats - for several years she taught children with special needs in London, she worked in an advertising company in Japan, now she handles guest relations at the Vivenda and she has even acted in two Bengali films, one in which, she laughingly says, was as a "vomiting missionary" (the late Rituparno Ghosh's Chokher Bali in May 2003). In 2009, a demand 'for a pale face' via Raima Sen (whose mother Moon Moon Sen is a friend) had Charlotte donning grease paint for the role of Dorothy, an executive producer of a British television channel, in Arekti Premer Galpo, the gay love story that marked Rituparno Ghosh's debut as an actor.
So is Goa where she will hang her hat? "I want to do more stuff. We have a couple of ideas," says Charlotte referring to the recent news that Paris gets 83 million (830,00,000) visitors annually as compared to India's measly five million (50,00,000). "Why are more people not coming here, there's so much to see and experience," she says. Maybe that's a hint about her future plans. All she says, however, is: "Watch this Space."
